Original subtitles

Welcome to the show. Still, unfortunately, taking place in this

blank void. Tomorrow is actually the void's birthday, so happy one year,

void. I've never said this to a one-year-old before, but I sincerely

hope that you stop existing soon.

It's been a very busy week. We marked the anniversary of Chet Hanks telling us

that his parents were not tripping over their coronavirus diagnoses.

A bidder spent nearly 70 million on a JPEG created by an artist called Beeple,

a string of words that apparently makes sense.

And last Sunday, Meghan Markle and her unemployed husband... opened up about

racism in the royal family. It was an interview so shocking, it merited not

one, not two, but three dramatic Oprah what's. And of all the idiotic responses

from Megyn Kelly calling Markle defenders paternalistic wokesters to

Piers Morgan walking off set in a huff, this was perhaps the boldest.

I would put it to you.

Nobody in the world in history has done more for people of color than the

British royal family. Wow.

The word...

Four there is the absolute worst preposition. Almost any other would be

better. Nobody in the world has done more to people of color than the British

royal family. Sure, nobody in the world has done more through people of color

than the British royal family.

Absolutely. Even nobody in the world has done more above people of color than the

British royal family would make more sense.

And to illustrate that, I'm simply going to present this picture with no further

commentary, and you can tell me whether that sentence stands up or not.

I would say that that was the most ridiculous claim made this week, but

here in New York, Governor Cuomo responded to the growing number of women

accusing him of harassment, including a new incident that's been referred to

police by calling a press conference to deny those claims and speculating about

why many in his party have called for his resignation.

Part of this is that I am not part of the political club.

And you know what?

I'm proud of it.

Yeah. That is the former HUD secretary, former New York Attorney General,

current chair of the National Governors Association, and son of a three-term

governor claiming he's not part of the political club.

It's like hearing David Miscavige say he's not part of the Scientology Club.

Yes, you are.

That's obviously false. We all know where his heart is, which is a lot more

than we can say about his wife.

Where's Shelley, David?

Where's Shelley?

Yeah, I'm sure she's fine. But the biggest news this week was the passage

of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. The passing of it is a very big

deal, as it involves, among other things, direct payments of $1,400 to

many Americans.

Which is why it is so strange that the communications chair of the DNC decided

to celebrate it by tweeting this.

Oh, hi.

No.

There is simply no thematic or conceptual reason to use that scene.

Start with the fact that the video was posted on March 10th, and depending on

which direction you're going, that's either 290 days before or 75 days after

Christmas. Also, why would either of these people care about the stimulus

bill? They live in London, and who are they even meant to represent in regards

to it? Are we supposed to be Keira Knightley? Is this guy Nancy Pelosi? And

if so, who is the husband in the other room we're supposed to be hiding this

interaction from? I mean, yeah, I am... I'm pretty confident that the elected

official hounding a staffer is Andrew Cuomo, but other than that, nothing

makes sense here. And the thing is, the content of this bill is really worth

knowing about because while it doesn't contain a $15 minimum wage and the

stimulus payments are only $1,400 instead of $2,000, there is still some

good stuff in here. There's money for schools and cities to handle the

pandemic, extended unemployment benefits, and for most parents, there is

this. Maybe most critical in here is the child tax credit. It's a guaranteed

income for the year for low-income families, regular direct deposits from

the government instead of a lump sum at tax time. Yeah, it's up to $3,600 per

child, which is really significant.

Now, it's currently just for the year, but it really should be permanent,

because experts say if that happens, it could actually cut child poverty by more

than half.

It's potentially one of the most significant gains in the bill, and it's

going to be a huge boost for parents who frankly deserve it after spending the

past year stuck in the same place with their kids 24 hours a day. I'm just

saying, you try being body shamed by a five-year-old who keeps asking you why

your arm hair grows all funky. It just does.

I don't know, it just... It grows that way. You're making me self-conscious

about it now.

And while the passing of this bill might now seem inevitable because it passed

and had 70% support from the American people, it only happened because the

Democrats won Georgia and now control the Senate. And even then, they had to

get parts of it past Diet Republicans Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema because

Republicans themselves were heavily against this.

This isn't a rescue bill.

It isn't a relief bill.

It's a laundry list of left-wing priorities.

It is a Trojan horse for socialism.

It is everything Democrats have wanted wrapped and branded in coronavirus so

that people are scared into voting for it. This is a waste of money and a

complete waste of time. I think this is actually one of the worst pieces of

legislation I've seen pass here in the time I've been in the Senate.

What? I know that you've been in the Senate for 600 years, but giving

struggling Americans barely enough rent money after a year of a fucking pandemic

is one of the worst pieces of legislation that you have ever seen.

Are you absolutely sure about that, Mitch? Not the knee-jerk post-911 panic

passing of the Patriot Act, or the 1986 drug bill that made a 100 to 1

sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, or even the joint

resolution in 1987 designating a national catfish day. That was a total

dis- It's a disgrace.

Fuck you, catfish. Which are you, cat or fish?

Pick a lane, you whiskery assholes.

And look, it is not news that Republicans would oppose this bill. What

is slightly more surprising though, is that some have had the gall to go out

and do things like this.

Shortly after the bill's passage, Republican Senator Roger Wicker of

Mississippi tweeted, independent restaurant operators have won $28.6

billion worth of targeted relief.

Yet Wicker was one of 49 Republican senators who voted no on Saturday.

Yeah, he did that. And you don't get credit for something that everyone knows

you didn't want to happen.

It's the exact same reason that Prince Charles doesn't get to tweet, great

interview, Oprah. You tell him, Meghan. Hashtag Marklehive.

The fact is, this bill is gonna help millions of Americans, and it is worth

remembering that every single Republican opposed it. And if any of them ever come

back around trying to take credit, to put this in the form that I guess

political messages are delivered now, the response has to be simply this.

Christmas music, please.

And now, local news bothers 100-year-old women on their birthdays.

Do you have any advice?

Advice?

Don't take any bologna.

You're 100 today.

I don't eat vegetables.

You don't eat vegetables?

I don't eat much candy. Well, I used to eat a lot of candy. No more now.

Eating correctly and behaving yourself.

And a little bit of bourbon on the side, right? Oh, yes.

Just be yourself.

That's all.

I've always been just me.

They want to laugh at you, laugh back at them. Is there anything that you're

looking forward to in this next century of life?

Breathing. You say you're a little tired this morning, is that right?

I am tired.

Are you excited for your party?

Not one bit.

Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns, I'm sorry to say, Tucker

Carlson, a man who gives tuckers an even worse name than they already have.

This week, as he now seems to every week, Tucker set off a bit of a

firestorm. So we've got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits.

Pregnant women are gonna fight our wars.

It's a mockery of the U.S. military.

While China's military becomes more masculine as it's assembled the world's

largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more

feminine. Whatever feminine means anymore, since men and women no longer

exist. What are you talking about, you performatively outraged wedge salad?

Now, he's packed a lot in there, from transphobia to weirdly extolling the

masculinity of China's navy, to his completely misplaced outrage at Joe

Biden over those flight suits, which were part of an initiative that started

when Trump was president, and also included ensuring that body armor

actually fits women service members, which is obviously a good idea.

Those comments sparked an all too familiar cycle of condemnation,

defensiveness, and hype. And it seems like every week now, Tucker has another

one of these mini controversies. Last week, it was the Dr. Seuss bullshit. And

look, I would like nothing more than to not play into his wildly offensive

shtick. You might even be thinking right now, why give him the attention that

he's so clearly trolling for? But the fact is, we're not giving Tucker any

attention he's not already getting a lot of. The night he made those flight suit

remarks, he was the most watched show on cable.

He averages over three million views a night and does well in the key 25 to 54

demo, meaning that young people are watching him as well as the normal Fox

audience of retirees and their sad, imprisoned pets.

He is so important to the network that they are expanding Tucker's presence,

launching a new video podcast and long-form documentary series. And if

that wasn't enough, Tucker's also been floated as a potential future

presidential candidate, which should be seriously alarming because of all the

things that Tucker is, a conspiracy theorist, a misogynist... an extremist,

Islamophobe, a troll. One of the most dangerous is that he is the most

prominent vessel in America for white supremacist talking points. And I

already know what Tucker will say about this, because whenever this topic comes

up, he has the exact same reaction, what does that even mean?

White nationalism.

Let's be literal for a minute.

What is that, exactly?

I don't even know what white nationalism means, and I'm not gonna get in that

rabbit hole with you now.

Why doesn't anyone ever define white suprem... What is white supremacy? Can

somebody tell us in very clear language what a white supremacist is?

Okay. First, very clear language seems like a high bar to clear for a man who

spends 85% of his time making the befuddled face of a 13th-century farmer

learning about Bitcoin.

And I promise that we're actually gonna give Tucker a pretty clear definition of

white supremacy later in this piece, and he does seem to need one.

because whenever he tries to define it himself, it tends to be self-servingly

narrow. This show was not on the air for six months before there was an organized

and highly aggressive campaign by prominent Democrats to denounce us as

white supremacists.

The first time it happened, the people who work on this show, many of them

kids, were shocked and horrified by that. White supremacists?

What's worse than that?

The phrase evokes images of burning crosses and lynchings. It's awful.

Okay, first, I'm so sorry, Tucker.

I honestly didn't realize that your show was staffed entirely by children.

I certainly never intended for them to get caught up in all of this, so my

sincere apologies, you tiny little rascals. But, I don't burn crosses or

lynch people so I can't be a white supremacist is a pretty weak argument.

It's like saying I can't be an anti-Semite because I didn't do the

Holocaust, or I can't be a sexual predator because I didn't produce Good

Will Hunting.

There is more than one way to be a terrible person.

And Tucker, conveniently for him, doesn't fit neatly into a lot of

people's perception of white supremacists, especially if they share

his definition that it must require burning crosses, Klan hoods, and a name

tag that says, hello, my name is a racist.

You might even have friends who think, Tucker can't be racist. I've never heard

him say the N-word as if that is the fucking bar.

But for the record... white supremacists themselves seem to be big fans of what

Tucker's been doing. Just listen to Derek Black, a former white supremacist

whose father started Stormfront, the largest, oldest white supremacist site

on the Internet, talk about just how much his family likes Tucker's show.

My family watches Tucker Carlson's show.

and then watches it on the replay because they feel that he is making the

white nationalist talking points better than they have.

And they're trying to get some tips on how to advance it. Yeah.

They watch it once to enjoy it and a second time to learn from it. They watch

Tucker the same way I watch the Drew Barrymore show. First time for fun,

second to figure out how she can possibly successfully pull off a segment

in which a child makes a Shirley Temple while Stanley Tucci quietly drinks an

entire glass of wine on a screen in the background.

I don't know how you work your magic, Drew, but I want to learn. You're

advancing this form.

So given that Tucker has the admiration of white supremacists and the ear of

millions of your relatives, co-workers, and elected officials...

We thought tonight it would be worth talking about him, where he came from,

what his tactics are, and why what he represents is so dangerous. And let's

start with some backstory.

Tucker grew up in La Jolla, California, where his dad married an heiress to the

Swanson TV dinner fortune, which is already interesting because if Tucker's

got sad 70s single-man frozen food money, that means he's been doing

groundbreaking shows like Cuck Holding Is When a Humiliated Man Watches His

Wife Have an Affair for the love of the game.

Now, to hear Tucker tell it, he grew up in a simpler... better time. He once

wistfully claimed, Which

is a pretty weird thing to say. If

your full name is Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, and your ethnic identity can

best be described as, The only way he could get any more ethnically

white is if he jizzed mayonnaise.

Now, as a child, Tucker was sent to boarding school where he promptly did

two things. fail to impress any number of prestigious universities, and start

dating the headmaster's daughter, a headmaster who, in return, arranged to

get him into Trinity College.

He then became a print journalist, reportedly after his father told him

that journalism will take anybody, which, to his dad's credit, did kind of

turn out to be true.

Tucker's link to TV, though, came as an accident.

Supposedly... Back in the 90s, Dan Rather's show called the magazine where

Tucker was working, looking for somebody to talk about the OJ trial. And the

receptionist there told him, everyone else is still at lunch, can you do it?

Which might be the single whitest origin story I have ever heard. Hey, you! Yeah,

you with the skin and face. We've got an extra career lying around. Are you

interested?

But despite his total lack of preparation, Tucker was almost

immediately hitting on themes that he'd be echoing for the next 25 years.

Because here is one of his very first TV appearances in the aftermath of the O.J.

verdict. Let me ask you, Mr. Carlson, do you think we're honest with each other

race to race?

Oh, no, of course not. I mean, you know, everybody is terrified of, uh... of one

thing. You know, whites are, of course, terrified of being called a racist.

Blacks are...

terrified of being belittled, of course. I-I think we need, actually, probably

less conversation about race. I think it might do us good were we to ignore the

subject a little bit and treat each other as if there were no color boundary

separating us. I think that might be helpful. I think we talk about it, in

some ways, too much.

Okay.

First... I'm pretty sure that black people are less terrified of being

belittled than of being killed, jailed, economically exploited, or indeed,

denied access to healthcare after their heads literally explode from hearing

someone in a bow tie and plaid blazer suggest being called racist is as bad as

actually experiencing racism.

Although, I do want to quickly come back to that specific bow tie, because

look... I'm not knocking bow ties in general. They're perfectly fine for a

child attending his first communion or a Hanna-Barbera animator who can't draw

necks. But that bow tie is too small.

Either commit to it or don't, Tucker. Don't just put on a tiny bow tie and

hope that no one notices.

Now, from there, Tucker bounced around a bit with canceled shows on both CNN and

MSNBC. Although, in his time at CNN, he did manage to produce, and I don't say

this lightly, the most 2003 clip of all time.

You work with Pepsi for a long time.

Candidly, just between you and me, how much Pepsi do you think you drink on an

average day?

I really do like Pepsi. Really? What's your favorite kind? I really do.

My favorite kind of Pepsi? Pepsi's Pepsi.

Well, you don't drink Diet Pepsi or... No, just regular Pepsi.

Look, I cannot stress this enough.

Leave Britney alone.

Don't do gotcha journalism about her Pepsi consumption.

Not only has she been through a lot, she's a stone-cold legend.

She's the definitional diva of the 2000s, and I guarantee you there is not

a human being on Earth who doesn't perk up when that violin hook from Toxic

comes on.

Exactly. Put some motherfucking respect on her name, Tucker, and of course,

hashtag free Britney.

And while Tucker eventually failed upwards into a primetime Fox show in

2016, the fascinating thing is, if you go back and watch his earlier clips, you

can see him learning the tricks of his trade right in front of you. Watch him

talk about Pat Buchanan, the Republican firebrand and noted anti-immigrant

crusader, and break down one of Buchanan's go-to moves with the

precision of a dedicated student.

Pat does raise issues that I think are important.

Unfortunately, Pat Buchanan raises them in a way that I think is discredited.

When attacked, he can always fall back on the line, well, the tiny cabal that

controls American politics doesn't like me because I speak truth to power. This

is actually, incidentally, almost verbatim what he said the other day,

that I offend the plutocracy, that I'm a wanted man by the inside the beltway

people, and in every sense cast himself as a victim who is sort of a Karen

Silkwood of politics, someone who's so truthful that he's being... being hunted

down by the conspiracy that runs Washington. I mean, it's all a bit much.

Yeah. You're right, Tucker.

It is. And that is actually a pretty salient point there. It's just

incredibly hard to take, given who's making it. In the same way, it'd be hard

to listen to a lecture on gun safety and overall life choices from Tekashi69.

I don't care how good your advice is, I'm not taking it from you.

Because the tiny cabal that controls American politics doesn't like me

because I speak truth to power is now Tucker's signature move. He does it all

the time, whenever he's criticized.

A few years ago, he lost advertisers after saying, and I quote, that

immigrants make our country poorer and dirtier and more divided.

And this is how he fired back.

Those who won't shut up get silenced.

You've seen it a million times. It happens all the time. The enforcers

scream, -"Racist!" on Twitter until everybody gets intimidated.

It's a tactic, a well-worn one. Nobody thinks it's real.

And it won't work with this show. We're not intimidated.

We plan to try to say what's true until the last day. And the truth is,

unregulated mass immigration has badly hurt this country's natural landscape.

Oh, fuck off, Tucker, you relentlessly indignant picket fence.

How did you go from criticizing Pat Buchanan for that precise tactic to

basically imitating him? It's all, to borrow a phrase, a bit much.

But that technique gets to the absolute heart of Tucker's show. So often, he

positions himself as someone just asking the hard questions, the ones that they

don't want you asking. Questions like, is affirmative action racist? And should

America be selective with immigrants?

And has the Democratic Party become anti-white and anti-male? Just asking

questions while heavily implying that the answer to those questions is yes.

But when, in turn, anyone questions him... they are not just censoring free

speech, they are launching an attack on the foundations of our democracy and the

vast working class who this humble TV dinner princeling somehow represents.

And the most telling thing about Tucker's framing of himself as the

scourge of the elites and the hero of the common man is that for Tucker, who

constitutes the common man, is very selective.

Take Ilhan Omar.

Just watch him lose his shit over a clip that he's about to play of something she

said. If anyone should love America, it's Ilhan Omar.

This country rescued her from a squalid Kenyan refugee camp and made her a

national figure, quite an ascent.

But Ilhan Omar is not grateful. She hates us for it.

Watch Omar tell us it is time to dismantle our country.

As long as our economy and political systems prioritize profit without

considering who is profiting, who is being shut out.

we will perpetuate this inequality.

So we cannot stop at criminal justice system.

We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever

we find it.

Dismantle the American economy and the American system of government,

institutions that generations of Americans built over hundreds of years.

All right, there is already enough there in these sneering condescension.

that Ilhan Omar should be quietly grateful her entire life because she was

granted asylum when she was a child. But let's just consider the vast distance

between what you just heard her say and what he seemed to hear. Because

according to Tucker, dismantling the system of oppression... means

dismantling the entire American economy and system of government. Now, did he

inadvertently make a nuanced point about how systemic oppression is

definitionally baked into every level and facet of that very same system?

Yeah. Yes, he did. Am I gonna give him credit for doing that?

Fuck no, especially not when this is what he said next.

The problem is, there are many of us here who do like this country. We live

here. We don't want to destroy it.

we have every right to fight to preserve our nation and our heritage and our

culture. Wow.

Preserve our heritage and culture.

That is direct.

In fact, his pre-written caption there, we have to fight to preserve our nation

and heritage, drew a lot of comparisons to the 14 words, the famous white

supremacy slogan that says, we must secure the existence of our people and a

future for white children.

And when you put the two together, there is, you know, a slight similarity there.

I'm just saying, if you typed Tucker's quote into a blank word document, nine

times out of ten, Clippy's going to ask, are you trying to recite the 14 words?

Now, of course, Clippy has been asking that a lot more ever since he started

spending so much time on YouTube.

Careful how much time you spend on there, Clippy. It's turning you into an

asshole. And if you think, well, come on, that seems like a bit of a stretch.

You can't know what Tucker means by our heritage and culture. You should know

that he hasn't always been that disciplined about his messaging.

In the late 2000s, he used to call into a radio show hosted by shock jock Bubba

the Love Sponge.

And in those calls, the thin veil covering his racism would occasionally

get thrown off in moments like this.

A rock is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semi-literate

primitive monkeys. But I just have zero sympathy for them or their culture, a

culture where people just don't use toilet paper or forks. Okay.

That isn't just... incredibly offensive, it's also the kind of fact-free cultural

hot take that is the essential Tucker Carlson experience. Because while it is

clearly by no means the most important thing there, for the record...

Table forks were apparently first used in the Middle East and Byzantine Empire,

and were still conspicuously absent in Europe until centuries later. In fact,

when the niece of a Byzantine emperor brought a case of forks to Venice for

her wedding feast in the 11th century, she was roundly condemned by the local

clergy for her decadence, with one saying... Which

is absolutely fascinating,

because it's not just a full refutation of Tucker's... about lazy racism, it's

also a very fun fork fact.

Fork fact!

Fork facts are fun!

The point is, when you know how Tucker speaks when he speaks freely... the

filter through which he processes the world for his audience becomes painfully

apparent because he is smart enough not to openly say into a camera that certain

races are more deserving of scorn or less worthy of respect.

He will just heavily imply that depending on who he's talking about.

Take the Capitol riots.

Tucker said that he deplored the violence, but repeatedly compelled his

viewers to try and understand where the demonstrators were coming from.

On January 6th, we had a riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Why did that happen?

It happened because millions of American voters were convinced that the last

election was not fair.

Where did they get that idea?

Well, it wasn't simply because the last president told them so. You're hearing

that now as if they're animals who take commands and do what they're told, but

they're not animals.

They're people. They're American citizens who can see what's happening

and come to their own conclusions about it.

They saw the radical increase in mail-in voting...

millions did, and it corroded their faith and the public's faith in our

systems of election.

Okay, hold on.

People didn't think the election was rigged because they saw an increase in

mail-in voting. They thought that because people like you repeatedly told

them the election was rigged. And that plea for understanding there is

especially hard to take when you contrast it with how he reacted to last

summer's Black Lives Matter protests.

People like this don't bother to work. They don't volunteer.

or pay taxes to help other people.

They live for themselves.

They do exactly what they feel like doing. They say exactly what they feel

like saying. They spray-paint their opinions on buildings.

On television, hour by hour, we watch these people, criminal mobs, destroy

what the rest of us have built.

They have no right to do that. They don't contribute to the common good.

They never have.

Yet suddenly, they seem to have all the power.

Well, that's quite a different tone.

And it is interesting to see who gets to be American citizens who came to their

own conclusions and who gets to be criminal mobs who destroy what the rest

of us have built.

And it does seem like the dividing line for Tucker on that question is, how

easily can you sunburn?

And look, my point here isn't that Tucker is inconsistent in addressing two

violent protests in vastly different ways. It's that he's actually incredibly

consistent. Because in both instances, his clear takeaway is that white people

should be terrified of the idea of any situation where they aren't in power.

The main narrative of Tucker's show is that power is being taken away from you,

his viewer.

and that this needs to be resisted. He's run segments just asking questions,

remember? Like, how exactly is diversity our strength?

And has argued not just that it isn't, but that it's a threat to our existence

as a cohesive country.

In fact, he'll often call to resist that threat with an interesting choice of

phrase. Western civilization is our birthright. It makes all good things

possible. Undefended, it collapses, and so we've got to fight to preserve it.

It's a war with one side trying to erase all remnants of its opponent, in this

case, Western civilization.

Is the culture into which they're coming, the Western civilization we're

talking about, superior to the culture...

that these immigrants are bringing. Do you think it's possible to move a large

Muslim population into the West and successfully integrate them into Western

culture? Have you seen that anywhere?

Yeah. For Tucker, it seems Western civilization is somehow both the mighty

and essential bedrock upon which all modern human existence is built, and

also a delicate house of cards that will collapse if you so much as look at it

wrong. And again, he will be careful not to verbally link race and civilization,

like he's calling into a Love Sponge's radio show in 2006, but he will

occasionally dance incredibly close to it.

Let me just stipulate, I'm for getting along, I'm for colorblindness, I'm for

tolerance, 100%. But I also think that if things radically change in your

country, it's okay for you to say, what is this? And maybe I don't want to live

in a country that looks nothing like the country I grew up in. Is that bigoted?

Uh, yeah.

Yeah, it is.

That's like saying, I've got ten fingers and toes, a pointy face with a little

pink rosebud mouth, a cat-sized body, a long, weird tail, and I eat garbage.

Does that make me a possum? Yes.

Yes, it does.

That's the literal definition of the thing you just described.

And that is the whole thing with Tucker. He might not say black or white. He'll

insist that he's for colorblindness. He'll build in deniability by phrasing

things as a question like, what does racism look like? While kind of

embodying the answer.

But when you put all of this together, the pattern is clear.

He is scared of a country that looks nothing like the one he grew up in

because diversity isn't our strength.

Immigrants make our country poorer, dirtier, and more divided.

And any attempt to change that culture is an attack on Western civilization.

all of which is really just a long way of saying that when Tucker asks, what is

white supremacy, the answer is basically that.

It's a belief that in a country where white people are dominant, that's all

down to their natural and innate abilities, and any effort to change that

is an affront to the natural order of things.

So, it's frankly no wonder.

that that guy's family watches Tucker twice a night. Of course Tucker has been

endorsed by white supremacists. James Alsop, a far-right activist who marched

in Charlottesville, once said this to a conference room full of fellow white

supremacists. An example of someone engaging in very effective rhetoric is,

of course, Tucker Carlson.

Tucker is helping mainstream conservatives change the way they think

about politics and causing a massive swath of Trump voters to look deeper

into many of the issues that we already talk about.

The left is aware of what he's doing, and he's aware of what he's doing. So it

works phenomenally.

Oh, that might be the single worst laugh I have ever heard. And I say that as

someone who has almost forgotten what human laughter sounds like. I've been

stuck inside Casper's asshole for 12 long months now. I'm so desperate to

hear the response of a live audience. But if it is a neo-Nazi chuckle ping

-ponging off the walls of a hotel ballroom, I think I might be out.

And look, if everything I've shown you tonight somehow still isn't enough,

let's hear from a literal former grand wizard of white supremacists, David

Duke. He's not only tweeted approvingly about Tucker in the past saying, Tucker

is right and can't cuck the tuck, which as all Tucker viewers know, refers to

when a humiliated man watches his wife have an affair.

Duke even has a podcast where he sometimes just recaps Tucker's segments

from the night before.

Last year, when endorsing Trump for president, Duke even suggested that

Tucker Carlson should be his VP, explaining Tucker's value to the white

supremacist cause like this.

He doesn't use the word white very often, but that's the underlying message

that he's showing, and he shows that there is massive racism in America

against white people, while at the same time saying there's no systematic

racism. But people get the message.

Yeah. People do get the message.

Although, to be fair, it's not like it's written in a complex code. It's a

walking yacht club scrunching his face up for an hour every night and saying to

a conservative audience, they are coming for you in modulating tones. We're not

exactly in Riddle of the Sphinx territory here. And all of this is why,

as tempting as it is to dismiss the controversy that follows Tucker every

week as one more artifact of our outrage culture, it's important to remember that

what Tucker is saying is fucking outrageous.

Because no one in their right mind would sit down, pop in their headphones, fire

up David Duke's podcast, and think, hey, I'm not a white supremacist. But

millions of people watch Tucker on TV every night spouting well-laundered

versions of pretty much the same talking points. And there is real harm in that.

Because while white supremacy is clearly dangerous when promoted by self-avowed

white supremacists, it can actually be even more dangerous when it isn't.

And what Tucker Carlson's show sells, in addition to...

of these utterly terrible pillows is very seductive. It's the idea that this

country is fundamentally colorblind, that anyone who mentions race is just

trying to start trouble, that historic oppression is no longer relevant, and

that, in fact, you, his viewers, are the ones currently being oppressed.

And if he can sell his audience on his white identity politics, if he can

persuade them that the big existential threat to America right now is

diversity, it sort of doesn't matter.

if he says aloud what his preferred solutions to that might be.

And while it's bad enough to hear that white supremacist families gather around

to watch Tucker twice, the fact is, millions of viewers a night watch him

once, and once is already more than enough.

And now this.

And now, a look back at one year of TV news with pandemic precautions.

You may have noticed something a little different about tonight's newscast. Like

many of you, everyone at CBS 17 is practicing social distancing.

We are standing six feet apart here on the set.

Yeah, it's social distancing.

So this is six feet right here.

It feels like I have to shout at you now.

I know.

But we have microphones and we don't. I'm coming to you live this morning from

my own home in Boardman. You look great sitting there all set up at a studio at

home.

What's happening? Olivia is calling.

Somebody answer Olivia.

I mean, we can say hi. Someone answer that, please.

At I-65, going to go ahead and apologize. My Alexa is going off. Alexa,

off. A downstream effect that's playing out across the system. I'm sorry you're

hearing my dog bark at the mailman there. So it's been a week since I've

seen her. Hi, this is my cat. That is the perks of working from home. The maps

aren't going to move because he just whacked the computer with his head. So

let me just verbalize.

The forecast.

62 in Pasadena. We'll talk about this storm. He walks now, guys, so I've lost

all control. Hold on one second.

Sorry. Yes,

you can have tea biscuits.

Sorry about that.

And run to the Supreme Court, as they've indicated.

Clearly that's failed. They've refused to intervene.

And ultimately now those ballots are going to be counted.

That's our show. Thanks so much for watching. See you next week. Good night.