Wednesday, FNC host Tucker Carlson opened his show alleging President Joe Biden’s aim was for a one-party state, citing the Department of Justice’s actions against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and categorizing alternate electors as “fake electors” as evidence.
Carlson questioned the double standard, as Democrats challenged then-President Donald Trump’s 2016 election win in a similar way that Republicans had done with Biden’s in 2020.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: Man, things are moving fast. So much is going on, as we often say, that it’s very easy to lose track of the big things, the things that matter, the things that will define history and the lives of our children and grandchildren, but Joe Biden’s now famous blood red speech of September 1st certainly qualifies as one of the big things.
In that speech, Biden announced that not only is his program the best for this country (That’s conventional. Presidents always say that.) Biden told us that going forward, his program is the only program allowed in this country. Competing programs are not allowed anymore. They’re illegitimate. In fact, they’re dangerous, Biden said. They’re a threat to the Republic itself.
With an election just months away, Joe Biden declared that his political opponents are enemies of the state. They are terrorists in fact. Comparable, as his Vice President later explained to NBC News, to al-Qaeda on 9/11.
Now, Biden and Harris said this. They didn’t say it in private, grousing bitterly to aides in the Oval Office looking at their declining poll numbers. They said it in public on television and they didn’t even flinch as they did.
So, you have to think about the implications of this. The United States has a two-party political system, has for our whole lifetimes. If the leader of one party who happens to be the President redefines the other party not as a political party, but as a criminal organization, what is he doing? Well, of course, he is demanding a one-party state, and that’s what Biden is doing and he is using Federal law enforcement to make it happen.
So, the question is, how is he getting away with it? And he is getting away with it by changing the terms. You can’t just say openly, “I want a one-party state with me at the head.” No, you have to make the other side unacceptable.
So, when Biden talks about Trump voters, he doesn’t talk about voters or Americans. He describes an insurgency. He implies an armed rebellion, not unlike the Confederate Army.
Trump voters, Biden tells us, aren’t just wrong, they tried to overthrow the US government and you can’t debate people like that. You have to crush them.
Democratic leaders across the board appear to believe this. Tim Ryan, who is running for the Senate as a Democrat from Ohio, just yesterday told “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, “We’ve got to kill and confront that movement.” Not defeat it, kill it. That’s how dangerous populist Republicans are, according to the Biden White House.
This is the language of totalitarianism. It’s very obvious and in a functioning system that wanted to remain democratic, people in power would push back against it. The media, business, any responsible person would say, “No, you can’t do that. That’s too much power. We can’t vest all the power in one political party. That’s the road to something awful.”
But no one is pushing back. In fact, daily, the media reinforce the message. Daily, the media remind us that anyone who has questions about the outcome of the last election isn’t a disgruntled voter. That person is a criminal. That person has embraced the big lie. You see it in every news story “the big lie.” People like that are irrational and dangerous and they will be punished and rightly so and now they are being punished.
Yesterday afternoon, FBI agents apprehended a man called Mike Lindell at a Hardee’s drive-thru in Minnesota and they seized his personal cell phone, the one he does business on.
Mike Lindell is not a wanted criminal. He’s not even a public official. Mike Lindell, as you likely know, sells pillows, especially on this channel. So why would the FBI, armed FBI agents be apprehending Mike Lindell? Because he questioned the outcome of the last election. He participated in the big lie. He’s a threat to the system. That is the consensus view in Washington now.
This is a very big change. In a free society, by definition, all questions are allowed. You can’t have a democracy unless you are allowed to discuss its mechanics. Free speech is a prerequisite for a democratic system, obviously and until very recently, everyone in America unquestioningly understood that. Dissent was not a crime. It was a patriotic act and people committed it at scale, especially Democrats.
For years after the 2000 election, Democrats claimed that George W. Bush was not the legitimate President. Some still say it. They may believe it, and then in 2016, the entire Democratic Party rejected the outcome of the presidential election.
A foreign power got Donald Trump elected. Democrats said that and they continued to say it every single day of Donald Trump’s term. They impeached him over it. They hamstrung the executive branch of the US government with an investigation into Russian influence that in the end turned up nothing.
What would you call that? You would call that election denial. You call that the big lie, but no one was punished for it. No Judge removed Adam Schiff from office for doubting the election results. The FBI didn’t raid CNN’s biggest advertisers. Everyone just moved on.
You may have hated the Russia hoax, and we certainly did, but there was never any question that all American citizens have an absolute, constitutionally protected right to question election outcomes, and by the way, you are even allowed, maybe even encouraged to question the mechanics of voting. Why wouldn’t you question them? Voting is the means by which huge amounts of money and power are transferred from one party to another.
There is an awful lot at stake at the richest, most powerful country in the world. So, of course, Americans have an absolute right to see proof, not suggestions, but proof that the system is on the level and when they are denied that right, maybe it’s a sign the system isn’t on the level. Once again, that used to be obvious. Well, it is certainly obvious to Democrats.
Here’s a clip you may not have seen before. This is the current Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, speaking not so long ago, June 2018, about the integrity of electronic voting machines. Kamala Harris was a senator then. Watch this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, THEN US SENATOR: We recently also, I actually held a demonstration for my colleagues here at the Capitol where we brought in folks who, before our eyes, hacked election machines, those that are not — those that are being used in many States, but are not state of the art from our perspective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh. Kamala Harris publicly raising questions about the integrity of voting machines. Well, you know what didn’t happen next. The FBI did not trap Kamala Harris at a Hardee’s to seize her cell phone. No one in the media called her an insurrectionist.
And honestly, whatever you think of Kamala Harris, why would they? If you actually cared about democracy and the trust in the system that is a prerequisite for democracy, you would encourage all questions from US citizens about how your democracy was administered. You would never censor those questions. You would never punish the people who ask those questions, ever. Even news organizations once understood this not so long ago.
During the Trump years, CNN published a video entitled “We Watched Hackers Break into Voting Machines.” Oh, that was allowed then. CBS ran a report entitled “How Electronic Voting Machines Could Hack Your Vote.” Oh, really? Did the FBI come after you at Hardee’s? No, they didn’t. That’s what news organizations used to do: Ask obvious questions, make sure everything works. If there’s corruption, we’ll sniff it out.
We’re going to reassure you that your vote counts. You have to be reassured or else the system collapses. You can’t just tell people to shut up, ban them from Twitter and arrest them. And once again, even Democrats understood that.
In 2019, a couple of them, Elizabeth Warren, Mark Warner of Virginia, wrote to the makers of election systems complaining about potential security vulnerabilities. “There has been a lack of meaningful innovation in the election vendor industry, and our democracy is paying the price.” Is that true? Honestly, we have no idea.
We’re not endorsing that view then or now. We’re merely saying it is not a crime to ask. In fact, it is a prerequisite if you want to have a healthy system that people are allowed to ask and the people who are asked are required to show proof, to reassure them. Of course.
But now Democrats and the media who serve them are pretending that no one ever asks questions like this until 2020, ever. It never happened before. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it. This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, the rule of law. So, the rule of law, the new law is “shut up.” Right.
They were telling you it was a “free and fair election” about which no debate was allowed the day Joe Biden was certified the winner, the day. Right. Before they could know, in other words.
So that’s Joe Biden’s new position. Here’s the same and we checked it, this is the same Joe Biden, a little dimmer, but still the same guy today back in 2019.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is an illegitimate President in my mind. That’s it. He is illegitimate and my biggest fear is that he’s going to do it again with the help of Vlad, his best pal, and we’re going to be stuck for six more years of this guy and that is terrifying. It’s terrifying.
BIDEN: Would you be my vice-presidential candidate? Folks, look, I absolutely agree.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, faced with an election denier who violates the rule of law and our sacred norms in public, (on camera), Joe Biden doesn’t scold her. He doesn’t call for the FBI to trap her at Hardee’s and seize her personal communications device. He jokingly offers to reward her.
We’re so on the same page we could run together. But he didn’t run with that election denier. He ran with this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, THEN US SENATOR: Elections matter. When you win an election, you get to set the rules.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, PODCAST HOST: How can you win with Russian interference, though?
HARRIS: That’s a real thing.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: That’s what I’m scared about in 2020.
HARRIS: But rightly.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Because I think he’s an illegitimate President that didn’t really win, so how do you, you know, fight against that in 2020?
HARRIS: You are absolutely right. So, again, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I will tell you that we should believe exactly what the Intelligence Community has told us, which is Russia did interfere in the election of the President of the United States in 2016.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So, that clip is from three years ago. This is how insane the conversation we’re having is right now. No one seems to remember that. It was just Sunday. It’s Wednesday. This Sunday, like three days ago that that same person, Kamala Harris did a taped interview with NBC News and Chuck Todd, the comb over guy, to explain that Republicans who have the same questions about the last election that she had about the election before that should not be allowed to hold office. It’s a threat to the Republic that they are running for office.
In other words, democracy is a threat to democracy. This is the currency of the Democratic Party and has been for years. Lose the election, immediately question the election. Stacey Abrams anyone?
We can show you dozens and dozens and dozens of clips like this, not from small time people, from Kamala Harris, from Hillary Clinton, from Karine Jean-Pierre. You get the point.
This is crazy, but under Joe Biden, the Department of Justice appears to be doing everything it can to criminalize questions about the last election.
Complain about election fraud, the FBI might show up. The DOJ’s much broader effort, is not simply about a contested election in Mesa County, Arizona. Their effort is based on what they claim was a scheme to install alternate electors who would vote for Donald Trump in 2020 instead of Joe Biden.
This is the core of their case. This is DOJ’s apparent justification for crushing citizens and crushing dissent, seizing the cell phones of dozens of Trump allies, including his personal attorney, which was never allowed, but they just did it.
As CNN recently reported, the DOJ is investigating Donald Trump’s “fraudulent electors plot.” That’s the new name for it. The fraudulent electors plot. Well, that sounds bad. That sounds like a threat to democracy. What exactly is a fraudulent elector?
Well, it turns out that what CNN is telling you is a fraudulent elector is actually called an alternate elector and that is not a new phenomenon. They’ve been around for generations.
On election night in 1960, for example, Richard Nixon was running against Jack Kennedy. The State of Hawaii appeared to be going narrowly for Nixon, and that’s when the state sent several slates of alternate electors to Congress.
Nixon’s electors cast three votes in an official ceremony. At the same time, Kennedy’s three electors met in secret. They signed their own unofficial electoral certificates and sent those to Washington.
Then, after a recount determined that Kennedy had won the State, Kennedy’s electors sent a third set of certificates. That’s the set that the Governor of Hawaii ultimately certified and John Kennedy became President.
So, the question is, were Kennedy’s alternate electors raided by the Feds at Hardee’s for signing their first set of certificates, even though their candidate was losing? Were their communications subpoenaed? Were their lives destroyed? Were they bankrupted with legal fees? No.
In fact, a State Judge called Ronald Jamieson endorsed what the Kennedy electors had done. He said that by sending an alternative elevation certificate, even when they were losing in the vote count, Kennedy’s electors, all of them Democrats, had taken an important step, one that preserved their win after the recount. That’s how the system works. That’s how the system works.
So, after the 2020 election, Trump electors in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Nevada used virtually the same language as Kennedy’s Hawaii’s electors had used in 1960, but this time, these were not alternate electors. They were criminals. This is part of a criminal plot to overthrow the US government. They were insurrectionists.
They were trying to interfere with the work of the real electors and that too is a novel crime because as of five years ago, interfering with the work of real electors was not just fine. In fact, it was your patriotic duty.
Remember this? No one remembers anything, but we have Google on this show. So, we recall that as POLITICO reported at the time, after Donald Trump’s win in 2016, Democratic electors were, “Lobbying their Republican counterparts in other States to reject their oaths and in some cases, State law to vote against Trump.”
Democrats embraced this effort at the time. They even voted, and again, this wasn’t in the 1860s. This was like 20 minutes ago. They voted to reject Trump’s electors. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): I have an objection because 10 of the 29 electoral votes cast by Florida were cast by electors not lawfully certified because they violated Florida’s prohibition against dual office holders —
BIDEN, THE US SENATOR: The debate is out of order.
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Mr. President, I object to the certificate from the State of Georgia on the grounds that the electoral votes were not .
BIDEN: There is no debate. There is no debate.
REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): Mr. President, I object on the massive voter suppression.
BIDEN: Debate not in order. Debate is not in order. The gentlewoman will suspend.
REP. BARBARA LEE (D-CA): Mr. President, I object because people are horrified by the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election.
BIDEN: The United States Code prohibits debate in the joint session.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Now, to be clear, we’re not endorsing that. We weren’t for it at the time. We probably mocked it as it happened. You can pull the tape. It’s on the internet, but that was not an insurrection. That was not an insurrection. Period.
That was not an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government and neither was January 6, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar with motives that that person doesn’t care to describe out loud because they’re dark motives.
If you’re going to have a functioning country, a free society, a democracy, you have to have equal justice under the law and in that case, no Democrat had his or her home raided by the FBI for doing this. None of them were removed from elected office by Judges.
It’s too much and they’re so aggressive about it and the threat of Federal law enforcement is so omnipresent that they’ve effectively silenced all opposition and the few who are speaking out about it are a real threat to the people in charge, not simply because they are trying to relitigate the last election — that’s over. But because they’re brave enough to say what they really think. That’s the point.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor