Monday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson opened his program from Budapest with a dire warning about the direction the response to the pandemic was taking the United States and several of its key allies around the globe.
According to Carlson, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain were “allowing COVID to defeat them.”
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: If you care about western civilization and democracy and families and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what is happening here right now. But more on that to come, a lot more.
First tonight though, we’re continuing to follow the bizarre and very fast changing guidance on COVID from the White House. Remember when they told you the last administration was incompetent? We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s beyond belief.
It was just a week ago that Rochelle Walensky of the CDC did her best to terrify all of us over the new Indian strain of COVID. Walensky described the so-called delta variant as quote, “one of the most infectious respiratory diseases we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.” An internal CDC document summed it up in marshal terms, quote, “The war has changed,” wrote the CDC
In response to those horrifying developments, the administration immediately re-implemented indoor mask mandates, even for people who’ve been fully vaccinated, and that was enough to get even the deeply and curious American news media asking questions. Wait a second, if the vaccines work, why the masks? So, they started digging and they didn’t have to dig much.
On Friday morning, The Washington Post ran this headline, quote: “Vaccinated people made up three-quarters of those infected in a massive Massachusetts COVID-19 outbreak, pivotal CDC study finds.” End quote. The New York Times ran a similar piece, again, it was based on numbers from the CDC and yet just minutes after those articles appeared, the White House panicked.
A senior member of its COVID-19 response team, a man who is not a doctor, but instead a career flak called Ben Wanaka jumped on social media to attack the media, and in fact attacked the administration’s own scientists.
Here was Wanaka’s message to The New York Times on Twitter over the weekend. He wrote it in all caps as if he was shouting quote, “Vaccinated people do not transmit the virus at the same rate as unvaccinated people and if you fail to include that context you’re doing it wrong.” He barked.
He went on to call The Washington Post’s coverage of it irresponsible, and he added this quote: “Let’s be clear, if 10 vaccinated people walk into a room full of COVID about nine of them would walk out of the room with no COVID. Nine of them.” But is that true? Ben Wanaka, the one who is not a doctor, but instead a flak did not provide a citation for that statistic.
In fact, judging by the CDC’s own numbers, it appears to be wrong. In other words it is classic misinformation, possibly Russian in origin; and yet strangely, Ben Wanaka who knows much less about science than say Alex Jones was not banned from the internet. He just kept tweeting.
And then a few hours later, he got back up support from Rochelle Walensky herself. “The vaccine works,” Walensky shouted. In fact, it works so well, you may soon be forced to get it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: Now, are you for mandating a vaccine on a Federal level?
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: You know, that is something that I think the administration is looking into. It is something that I think we are looking to see approval from the vaccine.
Overall, I think in general, I am all for more vaccination, but you know, I have nothing further to say on that except that we are looking into those policies and quite honestly, as people are doing that locally, those are individual local decisions as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So, we’re looking into a Federal vaccine mandate, but then just minutes after she said that, Rochelle Walensky went on Twitter to take it back, quote: “To clarify, there will be no nationwide mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the Federal government.” End quote.
But of course that’s not at all what she said. She said, we are looking into a Federal mandate nationwide.
Then on Sunday, the head of the NIH, the highly political Francis Collins explained that those, quote, “mandates” by private institutions might look like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think as a public health measure, it would be good for more businesses to require vaccine credentials in order to have vaccinated customers?
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: As a public health person who wants to see this pandemic end, yes, I think anything we can do to encourage reluctant folks to get vaccinated because they’ll want to be part of these public events, that’s a good thing. I’m delighted to see employers like Disney and Walmart coming out and asking their staff now to be vaccinated.
I’m glad to see the President has said all Federal employees. I oversee NIH with 45,000 people I need to also get vaccinated or if they’re not, to get regular testing, which is inconvenient. All of those steps I think are in the right direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Who is this old fool? The employers asking their employees to get vaccinated? They’re not asking, they’re requiring them as a condition of employment. They are forcing them. Oh, but that’s not a mandate. Just get vaccinated or you can’t live in the United States anymore. That’s the message from the head of the NIH who still has not explained to what extent his agency funded the development of this virus in the first place. Okay.
But Francis Collins at the same time also wants you to know that even if you have been vaccinated, you can’t go back to your normal life. The vaccine is perfect, but you still have to wear a mask and can’t go outside. Large gatherings, for example, are out of the question. Why? Because the possibility a handful of people who aren’t vaccinated may be hurt, quote: “If there are a hundred people,” Collins said recently, “How are you really going to be sure about people’s vaccination status?”
On the other hand, why would you need to be sure if vaccination is a choice? Collins did not explain by the way how unvaccinated people could possibly pose a threat to vaccinated people because remember, the vaccines work so well we have to mandate them for public health reasons. But at the same time, people who have been vaccinated are threatened by those who don’t.
You following this? Does it make any sense to you at all? Do you need a medical degree to know it is complete nonsense? No, you don’t. Here’s one thing you should know, these restrictions do not apply to everyone.
Prominent Democrats have been exempted from them. Barack Obama for example, just announced that he is inviting 500 people to his 60th birthday party at his $12 million spread on Martha’s Vineyard, the house which despite climate change by the way is right on the ocean.
Pearl Jam will perform, Steven Spielberg has been invited. There will be 200 staff. Why 200? Because when you’re as oppressed as Michelle Obama is, you really can’t have too many servants, and she doesn’t. Two hundred is not too many.
So it turns out Martha’s Vineyard is exempt from the new COVID rules. Aspen will be, too, for sure. Parts of Washington, D.C. have already been given a pass. We know that because Mayor Muriel Bowser delayed the implementation of her masked mandate long enough to celebrate her own birthday party. Dave Chappelle came, dozens of others did, too.
And then after the mask mandate went into effect on Saturday, Muriel Bowser who is the mayor and can do whatever she wants, officiated a wedding at a high price hotel in a very pale neighborhood, not a diverse place.
Now, you’d think all of this, the lack of equity and diversity and the hypocrisy would bother CNN. They’re on the lookout for those things, but they weren’t. Muriel Bowser is part of the ruling class and their job is to defend her no matter what she does, so they did.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Here’s the thing, right, she wasn’t actually as far as we know violating the new rules, correct?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I think that that is fair to say. I mean, I look at the photo and I see, it seems like it could be during the toast, right? Everyone’s heads are pointed in a certain direction it seems like maybe they are listening to someone is what it appears to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Can you imagine? You’re a news network and you’re taking your air time to defend the hypocrisy of politicians because why? Are they paying you or do you feel a moral duty to do that? You’re more loyal to them than you are to your viewers, to the country.
So where does this lead? What does Civil Rights mean when they’re not enforced across the board? When your rights are given to you based on who you vote for, they’re not really Civil Rights, are they? They are privileges and that’s exactly what’s happening. In fact, it is happening around the world. Rights that we took for granted, that we believe we were born with in the English-speaking world have disappeared.
Australia is a former prison colony, increasingly, it is looking like it once was. The Australian military is now enforcing martial law. People are not allowed to leave their homes, that’s because of a COVID outbreak this summer that led to a grand total — get your pencils — of nine deaths. Nine people died of the virus and they are shutting down Australia and they’re using the military to do it.
Police helicopters are clearing people off the beach. Is there scientific justification for this? No, but they’re doing it anyway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TEXT: Will everyone congregating Gordon’s Bay move on.
The local police have been notified and will be attending shortly.
Anyone breaching the public health order will be issued a fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: The Anglo-sphere committing suicide collectively. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain — what do they have in common? They speak the same language, they have the same culture and all of them are allowing COVID to defeat them.
In Australia, people not allowed on the beach and not allowed to ask why either. We know that because Sky News Australia, which has the same owners as this channel, has just been banned on YouTube in Australia. Why is that?
Well, Sky News Australia reported that outdoor mask mandates and universal lockdowns may not be necessary to defeat COVID or very effective in defeating COVID. They reported that the science is far from settled on those questions, and they are right. It is far from settled.
It is obvious to anyone who has watched the Biden administration berate its own scientists on social media this weekend. The science is not settled. Science rarely is settled, in fact, it’s a process of seeking the truth. It is not the same as a political directive, just because the person in power tells you something doesn’t mean, it is quote “science” just because CNN defends that person exempting himself from his own rules does not make that science.
But rather than admit this obvious truth, the truth that almost all Americans understand intuitively, the people running our government, including the public health establishment, which they employ panic.
How long until they’re kicking us off beaches and locking us in our homes? Will we be allowed to complain about it when they do?
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor