Tuesday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson observed the trend led by members of the Democratic Party in power around the country who were curbing individual freedoms and liberties in the name of mitigating the effects of the pandemic.
In addition to suspending property rights under a so-called eviction moratorium, Democrats were using the COVID-19 pandemic to eliminate medical autonomy by requiring proof of vaccination in public settings.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: It was just the other day it feels like, in fact, it was two weeks ago exactly that the Biden administration announced the suspension of private property rights in America. Building owners are prohibited from forcing their tenants to pay rent, so other people now have the right to live in your house for free.
America’s housing stock has been nationalized. From here on out, it is controlled by the Biden administration. But wait a second you ask, this is America. Can that be legal? No, it’s not legal. In fact, it’s unconstitutional and we know that because the Supreme Court said so clearly.
But as Maxine Waters put it, who cares? What are those old judges going to do about it? What army do they control? They’re not doing anything.
So, the Biden administration just ignored the Highest Court and did it. Thanks to COVID, the media have decided they can do whatever they want and so, they are. Where does that leave the rest of us, you might ask? The people who aren’t in the Biden administration. Well, in a word that leaves us exposed.
Without property rights protected by a functioning legal system, American citizens have nothing at all. Everything that you thought you owned, very much including your own body now belongs to the Democratic Party. Where you travel, who you speak to, where you live, what you say and write and think, all of this is now controlled by the party. And everything means everything, even your medical autonomy.
This is funny because for decades, they have told us they have shrieked at us that medical decisions can only be made between you and your personal physician. That is a sacred pact. Politicians have no right to tell doctors what to do. Hey, politicians, get your hands off my body.
That would be “The Handmaid’s Tale,” remember?
It turns out they didn’t mean it, and just to show you how much they didn’t mean it, we take you now to New York City whose mayor is not only famously incompetent, but also physically unclean.
Of the 340 million Americans now living in this country, Bill de Blasio is the single last person you would ever go to for medical advice. His diet consists almost exclusively of bong hits and Pringles. There is no chance he brushes his teeth every day. Your 17-year-old stoner nephew has much better personal hygiene than he does, and yet, somehow because Bill De Blasio still has political power due to the fact that a tiny group of people once voted for him four years ago, he has decided to overrule practicing physicians and forces subjects to take medicine they may or may not need, and in some cases that might hurt them whether or not they want to take it. That’s the rule.
In New York City, you are no longer allowed indoors even on private property unless you’ve taken the COVID shot and carry the documents to prove that you have. That’s now the law, and it’s a law by the way that not a single person voted for. Voting being part of that outmoded racist system we used to call democracy. No more.
According to New York’s new order, indoor spaces are off-limits to the unvaccinated. How are we defining indoor spaces? Quote, “Indoor spaces or those that have a roof or overhang and three or more walls. In order to enter venues covered by the rule, you will have to show ID along with proof of vaccination,” end quote. That’s the law.
At a press conference yesterday, Bill de Blasio displayed this graphic showing all the places you are no longer allowed to go without identification and proof of vaccination. Your papers, please. That would include restaurants, bars, cafeterias, grocery stores, bakeries, fast food places, and aquariums. I hope you’re not hungry or looking to see fish because you can’t go.
Businesses in New York meanwhile are forced to hang posters explaining this mandate and they have to do it near their entrances. They don’t own their own walls anymore either. Watch Bill de Blasio explain all of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: It’s easy. All you have to do is show proof of vaccination. That could be a CDC paper card, that could be an Excelsior Pass, an NYC COVID Safe App, whatever works. All you’ve got to do is show that proof and have ID as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, it’s totally easy. Just show your medical papers, and this applies only to COVID by the way. No one is checking your hepatitis or HIV status. That would be terrible. But COVID, yes, it’s absolutely required or you’re not allowed to eat and all you need is proof of vaccination and an ID, a government ID.
But wait a second, you may be asking if you’ve lived in this country longer than let’s say 10 days, weren’t we told that it’s racist to require ID? Certainly, it is for voting. But now, it’s not racist to require ID for people to go inside buildings in our largest city. So, what does this mean for these 72% of young African-Americans who are not vaccinated? They’re not going to be able to go anywhere.
So, this policy by the principles of equity has disparate impact. That’s the phrase they use to describe racism in action. It affects some groups more profoundly than others, and the group most affected by this is young African-Americans.
So, how can it stand? Where’s the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department? Aren’t they jumping on this? This is worse than a standardized test.
Bill de Blasio didn’t explain any of that. People with power no longer need to explain anymore. If you don’t comply, you’re going to jail. Not for looting, that’s totally fine in New York, it is reparations. But failing to follow a law that no one has voted for and show your papers in a restaurant, that’s something that Bill de Blasio will not accept.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DE BLASIO: And we’re going to remind people that we really want people to take this seriously. Don’t fool around with fake vaccination cards, by the way, it’s against the law and there are serious penalties for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, there are serious penalties. What are you going to do to us? The same thing you did to the people who looted Macy’s? Buzz off, Dumbo.
So, what exactly does this law say? Well, we checked the fine print because we believe in the law and this rule does not allow for exemptions. Period. Not for religious reasons because religion is stupid, worshiping Bill de Blasio as our new state religion, and certainly not for medical reasons because Bill de Blasio is now your doctor and he’ll decide what’s medically necessary.
So, we called City Hall in New York and asked maybe we’re missing something here. They told us they couldn’t answer the question, but anyone who had concerns could contact the city’s small business hotline for more information, so like morons we actually did that, we followed instructions. So, we talked to an operator at the hotline and the operator told us not surprisingly they’ve been inundated with hundreds of calls from people asking the very same question.
What was the answer? They didn’t have an answer. Sorry, it was a mystery.
Finally, this afternoon, purely because we’re a news organization and they suspected maybe we’d report some of this, City Hall did get back to us and sent us some guidance. Here is the guidance.
They said that businesses cannot allow unvaccinated customers indoors — period — for anything quote “beyond a quick and limited purpose.” So, there are no exceptions to this rule and that would include people who’ve already had COVID and have high levels of protective antibodies in their system. It doesn’t matter. They have to get the shot anyway, Bill de Blasio demands it.
Was that safe? Is it safe to do that? I’ve had COVID. I’ve recovered. I’ve got high levels of antibodies, I am not going to get COVID, unlike a lot of people who have just been vaccinated, probably not going to get it. But you can get the vaccine anyway. Is that a good idea?
Not a ton of research on this, that’s frowned on now, but researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital have looked into it and here’s what they found, it may not be safe.
It turns out that serious whole-body reactions, chills, fever, joint problems are far more common in people who’ve recovered from COVID and got the vaccine anyway. Is that surprising? It shouldn’t be. This is exactly why we don’t vaccinate people against diseases they’ve already recovered from, except now. Now, they must get the vaccine even though it doesn’t seem to offer a lot of protection from COVID infection, weirdly.
Ask Texas Governor Greg Abbott. He is vaccinated, he is also sick with COVID right now. How did that happen? What’s going on here exactly? What is this about?
We’d love to know. Unfortunately, we are long past the time when the people in power feel they have to answer even simple questions. The emphasis is on us and our total obedience.
Here is the disgraced Governor of New York, maybe the second to last person you’d call for medical advice telling more than 600,000 doctors and nurses in the state that regardless of what they think about medicine, he has decided they must get the shot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I think we need dramatic action to get control of this situation, so in New York, in our state hospitals, all patient-facing healthcare workers must get vaccinated. There will be no testing option for patient-facing healthcare workers. That is a point of contact that could be a serious spreading event and we want to make sure that those healthcare workers are vaccinated. Period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Nobody has a sense of humor anymore. Getting a COVID lecture from Andrew Cuomo? The person single-handedly responsible for the highest death rate from COVID in America. It really — let’s go ahead and put Idi Amin at the head of the Human Rights Commission next time, shall we? And then not allow anyone to laugh about it.
So here you have Andrew Cuomo who may or may not be a made member of the mafia, La Cosa Nostra, telling you that he suddenly knows more about COVID than practicing nurses and physicians. He is telling them what to do. He is giving them a medical mandate.
What’s interesting is that he feels he has to. What’s interesting is how many of New York’s healthcare workers remain unvaccinated. They don’t have the information necessary to make that decision? They don’t know enough about COVID? They treat COVID, and yet as of today, more than 75% of New York’s 450,000 hospital workers, as well as 74% of the adult care facility workers and 67% of the 150,000 nursing home workers have not taken the COVID vaccine.
What? Why is that?
Maybe before we mandate anything, we should answer that question. Why would people in the medical profession be willing to risk losing their jobs over this shot? That’s a sincere question. What is the answer?
Hey, Business Insider, hey, Atlantic Magazine, hey, New York Times, why don’t you do a story on that? And just answer the simple question, and then answer this. Why are bureaucrats with no medical expertise whatsoever — Bill de Blasio, the pothead who doesn’t wash his socks; Andrew Cuomo telling nurses and physicians what drugs they must take — this is totally nuts.
In June, these nurses in Houston explained their reasoning for not getting the shot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Houston Methodist Hospital requiring all staff members to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or be fired.
JENNIFER BRIDGES, NURSE: Right off the bat, I pretty much decided like I’m — I was not going to do it. Everybody in America should have the right to decide what they put into their body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Jennifer Bridges has worked at Houston Methodist in Baytown more than six years.
BRIDGES: I planned on staying with Methodist for the rest of my life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): She spent the last year and a half treating coronavirus patients and even got sick herself.
BRIDGES: I just had an antibody test like a week ago, I still have antibodies in my system, but it doesn’t count for them, it doesn’t work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): More than a hundred co-workers have joined Jennifer with this lawsuit against the hospital. It claims Methodist is forcing its employees to be human guinea pigs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, it’s kind of hard to argue with their reasoning and if you want to argue with it, what’s the argument against it? Speak slowly so we can understand, but no one wants to argue anything anymore. It’s purely about obedience, it’s hardly about medicine. More than 150 healthcare workers in that Houston Hospital System were fired.
So remember that the next time they tell you there’s a healthcare shortage in this country.
This is lunacy, we should not go along with it. It has nothing to do with medicine. It is a terrifying precedent that if we let solidify, we will deeply, deeply regret. This is not about COVID. This is about the existence of rational decision-making in this country and personal autonomy.
Most people are going along with this because they’re afraid.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor