Carlson: Freedom Convoy the ‘Single Most Successful Human Rights Protest in a Generation’

Thursday, Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson heralded the so-called Freedom Convoy trucker protests as “the single most successful human right protest in a generation.”

According to the FNC host, the movement within Canada has been able to overcome the anti-trucker protest campaign being waged against it in the media. He credited the citizen journalists on the ground.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: When Democratic politicians across this country all of a sudden start to pull back their mask mandates, they did it virtually overnight, and of course, they did it in unison, we naturally assumed that new polling had to be behind it. Some of the D.N.C. must have seen terrifying public opinion numbers and decided to abandon Project Quarantine before the midterm elections. That made sense to us. We explained that theory in the show last night, but we still think it’s probably pretty true.

But it’s also clear as of tonight that there is another explanation for this. Democrats in this country are looking north to their friends in the ruling party of Canada, and what they see there scares them.

Canada’s working class has finally rebelled after years of relentless abuse. Truck drivers are threatening to topple Justin Trudeau’s creepy little government with their big rigs, and they may succeed actually.

The protests against Justin Trudeau’s vaccine mandates had been far more effective than anyone in charge imagined. For Democrats in the United States, that’s a pretty obvious lesson.

Over the past 48 hours, Canadian truckers have blocked the major trade routes between their country and ours. Last night, farmers driving heavy agricultural equipment shut down the highways at the Manitoba border with the United States. You’re seeing footage now from the town of Emerson, Manitoba.

Eleven hundred miles away, a similar scene on the border of Ontario in the United States, green tractors with Canadian flags lining the highway in protest. But the most meaningful blockade of all is taking place right now on the Ambassador Bridge. That’s the privately owned span that connects Detroit to Windsor, Ontario.

If you live in the Upper Midwest, you know it well, a quarter of all the trade between the United States and Canada, one another’s biggest trading partners, that’s billions of dollars comes across that bridge.

And as FOX’s Molly Line is reporting from Ottawa, that bridge is now completely shut down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We’re Canadian, and we want to be free Canadians.

MOLLY LINE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Increasing concerns spreading through Canada and now the U.S. as the Freedom Convoy threatens trade along the border.

Truckers blocking traffic at the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit and Ontario, a second crossing linking Alberta and Montana also shut down by protesters calling for an end to all COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want freedom. Freedom of all mandates, and that’s what we’re fighting for.

LINE (voice-over): The Ambassador Bridge is the busiest international crossing in North America carrying 25 percent of all trade between Canada and the U.S.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “We want freedom,” the truckers are saying, freedom from mandates. It’s a very straightforward ask, but so far the truckers don’t have that freedom, and so their blockade continues.

So far, that blockade has forced the Ford Motor Company to shut down one of its manufacturing plants and to operate another plant with a skeleton crew. Toyota says they won’t be able to manufacture vehicles in Ontario for the rest of the week. General Motors has cancelled multiple shifts at its plant in Lansing, Michigan due to parts shortages.

So this protest is less than a week old and already is causing deep pain to at least one global industry. It’s hard to overstate the historical significance of what we’re watching right here.

The Canadian trucker convoy is the single most successful human rights protest in a generation. If nothing else, it has been a very useful reminder to our entitled ruling class that working-class men can be pushed, but only so far. When they push back, it hurts.

It turns out the truck drivers are more important to a country’s future than say diversity consultants or even MSNBC contributors. Who knew?

The White House has no interest in knowing. According to the Associated Press tonight, the Biden administration is quote “urging” the Trudeau Government to quote “use its Federal powers” to stop this protest, to end the truckers’ protest. In other words, crush them by force.

POLITICO is reporting that Biden officials are coordinating with Canadian authorities to quote, “establish alternate traffic routes around the protesters.” That’s Scranton Joe, the pro-union guy shutting down a labor action.

Pete Buttigieg is the completely incompetent Transportation Secretary in this country. Apparently, he is in charge of this effort. What Mayor Pete does not realize is, it’s not so easy. Truck drivers know a lot more about roads than McKinsey consultants do.

An alternative border crossing in Alberta, for example, has already been totally shut down. They thought of that already, Mayor Pete. The Blue Water Bridge which connects Ontario to Port Huron, Michigan has been reporting delays tonight of nearly five hours.

Now, there is an obvious way to fix this problem. Matty Moroun who is the owner of the Ambassador Bridge into Michigan just spelled it out for Justin Trudeau who is not terribly bright, end the vaccine mandates and the bridge reopens. It’s not hard. But Justin Trudeau won’t, and he’s decided he doesn’t have to, because the truckers as he’s explained, have no legitimate complaint.

They’re racists, so we’re not required to listen to them. Here was Trudeau in the Canadian Parliament on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: The people of Ottawa don’t deserve to be harassed in their own neighborhoods. They don’t deserve to be confronted with the inherent violence of a swastika flying on a street corner, or a Confederate flag, or the insults and jeers just because they are wearing a mask.

That’s not who Canadians are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, so they’re not even really Canadians. They’re Nazis. So you don’t have to hear anything they say, they don’t even belong here. Maybe we’ll intern them or expel them.

Trudeau state broadcasters had been repeating these lies over and over and over again for maximum effect, Pravda parroting Brezhnev. That’s what they do. What is striking however, is that the media in our country claim to be independent, but they’ve been doing the very same thing. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of the organizers of this protest, which as I mentioned, started more than a week ago. They do want to overthrow the government.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Canadian officials calling this situation a quote, “nationwide insurrection.”

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The police chief says COVID protests are a quote, “nationwide insurrection” driven by madness.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: A nationwide insurrection driven by madness.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just think of the language, I know it sounds familiar to you, right, a threat to democracy. An, insurrection, sedition.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The police say that they are under-resourced and they are overwhelmed. They have said that this city is under siege.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It’s not just truckers, there’s a lot of — I’ve heard there’s QAnon supporters in the crowd.

NEWTON: Residents that I have spoken to who say they feel terrorized, intimidated.

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: It’s a cult.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: There are QAnon supporters in the crowd. It’s a cult. They’re Nazis and they are crazy. Insurrectionists on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Imagine. Now they’re using these smears because typically they work, just dismiss these people, don’t listen to them. They didn’t go to college.

But what Justin Trudeau apparently didn’t count on is that a handful of independent journalists are committing journalism inside Canada, and a free press works. That’s why we have it — or did.

So instead of repeating state-mandated talking points like their journalists do and the morons in our press corps do, these independent reporters have been broadcasting hours’ long interviews with the truckers themselves, in their cabs, totally unfiltered, so you can decide what you think. You can actually make your own judgment about reality.

So you watch these streams for just a few minutes and you realize that these truckers, whatever their faults may be, are far less odious and much harder working than the journalists and the politicians who call them Nazis.

Here is one 24-year-old protester who saved up and bought his own truck. He’s an owner/operator now. He is losing hundreds of dollars every day because he is no longer working, but he says, it is worth it because he is more concerned about human rights than about his own paycheck. You decide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree with the freedom of choice. So if you want to wear a diaper over your face, so go ahead. You know, you can wear a face diaper if you want. Why should I — because of your fear, I’ve got to wear that garbage on my face, you know.

We’ve been doing that for two years. They said two weeks, but it is turning to two years, so enough is enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, the voice of the working man there. And how do we know he is a Nazi? Because he used the word freedom.

Now that footage, of course, was not shot by the CBC, which is Canadian state media, the most dishonest of all; it was from a live stream on the YouTube channel, ZOT. It was filmed just after midnight this morning.

ZOT is run by a man you’ve never heard of called Matt Garcia. Garcia is one of a handful of independent YouTube channel operators who are doing what legacy media refuses to do anywhere ever anymore.

Garcia actually talks to people he reports. He is not paid to do this. He is doing this because nobody else will do it. You should watch it. It’s compelling because you can hear people speak and you can decide what you think about what they have to say.

Here is another protester that Garcia spoke to in the streets of Ottawa. This man says that Justin Trudeau’s authoritarian behavior reminds him of the Ayatollah is in the country he left, which is Iran. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m from Iran, and I’m proud to be between the freedom-loving Canadian patriots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you live in Ottawa?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I came here from Toronto. I did a speech on the stage and I lost my freedom once in Iran by the Ayatollahs, by the mullahs, I don’t want to lose my freedom again in Canada.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So what is the answer to him? Is he in QAnon? Is he a Nazi? Is he a White supremacist?

Canada’s leaders have no response whatsoever. They just accuse all these people of bigotry and then they turn away. The protesters are so immoral, we have no obligation to listen to them, because democracy.

We all lose when they do that because actually, the truckers do have something to say and some of them are pretty articulate. Some of them are even eloquent about what they want.

So, as a public service, we thought you might like to hear it. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is nothing extreme about wanting people to be able to make their own decisions in their home that is the best decision for their families. There is nothing extreme about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: No, that’s not extreme. If you want to see extremists, take a close look at how Canada’s ruling class is responding to these decidedly non-extreme protests.

Authorities in Canada are now stealing firewood from protesters in subzero temperatures, you’re seeing that theft on your screen right now. We’re not making it up.

Now, wood is not being used in a crime. They’re not using it to rob liquor stores. The protesters are using the wood to keep from freezing to death in February. But Trudeau’s enforcers just took it from him — them. They also seized fuel, which the truckers were using to keep from dying in their cabs overnight. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You take those cans off of that truck. Is that your property?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is now? So you have the right to take gas cans off of a trucker’s truck, is that correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is correct. According to what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aiding and abetting a criminal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aiding and abetting criminal?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A criminal offense of mischief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A criminal offense. So know when you have gas cans on your truck, it is a criminal offense.

This guy’s name is Trudeau.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So let’s say you are an American television or you work at the Brookings Institution or the Atlantic Council or you were Liz Cheney or any one of the many people who lecture you every day about democracy. What would you make of that exchange?

Now, you may not like the guy’s beard or you may not like who he voted for, but what’s your answer to him? If police are breaking the law by enforcing an order from the guy who runs the country, is that a democracy? No. It’s not. It’s not a free country. It’s a very scary place.

And that’s exactly what Canada has become under Justin Trudeau. We’ll play just one more clip. There are a lot of these, but we’re not going to drag it out. You see the point? Watch this one.

These are police acting under Justin Trudeau’s orders dragging an elderly man to jail and hurting him along the way. Why? Because he dared to honk his horn in support of the truckers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What’s your name and badge number?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, they are hurting an old man. A Canadian citizen. Communism. This is communism. He is scared [bleep]. Communist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You stand with the communist [bleep] government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call your Police Chief, he will back you up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call the police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call your Police Chief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: [Bleep].

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Arresting an old man. Shame on you. Shame on you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: They hurt him, too. Look at his bruises on the internet.

So in the end, Canadians are nice people. The cliche is true. And they’re seeing some of this. It’s being hidden from them on their state media, but it’s all on the internet. So Justin Trudeau is attacking human rights and attacking humans, and that ultimately is bound to provoke a backlash — and it is.

The province of Alberta just announced is lifting its COVID restrictions and scrapping its vaccine passport system completely. Saskatchewan, Quebec, Prince Edward Island have done the same. They’re getting rid of most of their COVID restrictions in the face of this, in response to this.

When you go too far as Ceausescu learned, people turn against you.

It was a few days ago that a guy called Jagmeet Singh, he is the leader of Canada’s supposedly pro-worker NDP Party, smearing the truckers as racist, of course, quote: “Those that claim the superiority of the White blood line,” what a pig. It’s always the same lie.

But yesterday, even Jagmeet Singh finally realized the same old slander doesn’t work anymore. So he went to Plan B. He went for a Federal plan to quote “exit the pandemic.” In other words, he caved in the face of principled human rights protest. That’s how that works.

Several members of Justin Trudeau’s own Liberal Party are now rebuking Justin Trudeau. One of those lawmakers, a Member of Parliament called Joel Lightbound, described Justin Trudeau’s vaccine mandates as quote, “… an attempt to wedge, to divide, and to stigmatize. I fear that this politicization of the pandemic risks undermining the public’s trust in our public health institutions.”

Oh, you think? Yes, we, in America know a little bit about that. Who will trust a doctor when the smoke settles from corona? Seriously. But on a political level, anyone watching this understands just how profound the betrayal is — the betrayal, both in Canada and in the United States.

Self-described liberals, the ones who’ve lectured you for decades about the nobility of organized labor are now taking the side of management, of strikebreakers over striking workers. They are applauding like Mr. Burns on “The Simpsons” as cops harass and abuse strikers and their families.

Pretty soon they’ll be demanding scabs. Literally, if they aren’t already. It’s so deeply revealing. Scratch a liberal and you’ll find a fascist.

Today on Twitter, an Obama D.H.S. official called Juliette Khayyem called for violence against the truckers, “Slash their tires” she demanded. But don’t stop there, quote, “Cancel their insurance, suspend their driver’s licenses, prohibit any future regulatory certification for truckers, et cetera. Have we learned nothing?” Fellow members of the ruling class, “These things fester when there are no consequences.” Crush them before they get big ideas.

Now, Juliette Khayyem is a nasty little fascist and of course, she’s a CNN contributor, too. Of course, she is. But we will concede, Juliette Khayyem is right about one thing. These things do fester. When you ignore the population’s legitimate concerns for long enough, when you dismiss your own citizens as racists and conspiracy nuts and try and shut them down for long enough, at some point, they are apt to revolt.

Once people realize they are citizens, not serfs, you can’t really know where things go from there. And in that vein, tonight, a group of American truckers announced they will begin a nationwide truck convoy in this country starting next month in protest against Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates.

That rally will begin in Southern California on March 5th, and then will progress eastward by truck to Washington, D.C. as see they still perhaps naively assume is the capital of their country. How does the supposedly pro union White House feel about this? They’re completely panicked. Working-class people expressing their opinions, that’s not allowed.

So Joe Biden taking a page from Justin Trudeau, his friend to the North, has already set the Department of Homeland Security to work to shut them down.

We’ll be covering that in some detail. There is some drama ahead.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor