♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." sometime in the next two months, a group of democratic donors and politicall consultants will call each other on the phone and decide who their party's vice presidential candidate is going to be. this happens every four years, but for the first time in memory this is a genuinely meaningful decision. in normal elections, candidates choose running mates whose signature qualities are blandness and obedience. a good vice president is a lot like a good waiter. he appears, takes orders, and leaves.

he does not talk too much, he does not express interesting opinions. when vice presidents say they serve the president, they're not being polite. they're being literal. it's a service job. but not this year. this year, democrats have chosen a man who can't manage the country even if he does win. his aides know that, the candidate himself seems to know that. the whole country knows, we just don't seem to talk about it. joe biden's decline is so e embarrassing to watch that the rest of us try to ignore it and pretend everything's fine. most of us know that we will be where joe biden is today so it feels like bad karma to dwell on it, but the vice presidential pick forces this issue. whomever is chosen will run the government if biden wins. once his advisors make that decision, they will call biden in the rec room and let him know who his running mate is. biden will practice the name to make sure he can pronounce it, he will fiddle with the camera on his ipad, and then he will tell the world. who will it be? it will be a woman, we know that much. bidenhe has said that. you can take half the country off the table right away. no man, no matter how clean, bright, articulate, is going to share a ticket with joe biden. so that leaves 100 million american women to choose from.

when joe biden says "women" he wants you to know he means no offense to the gender fluid and the indigenous, two-spirit communities, all of whom built this country and have joe biden's gratitude. but in this case, biden would very much prefer a lady. so who's it going to be? "the washington post" has already cast its vote over the weekend. jeff bezos' newspaper all but endorsed the single least distinguished person to ever emerge from the georgia state senate, georgia politics in general. a frequent cable news guest called stacy abrams. she lost a government race, then she wrote some softcore porn thrillers that one amazon reviewer wrote "have a nice amount of heat." she has no distinguishing achievements.ng she does understand joe biden pretty well, though. and that is her main advantage.e abrams know that biden doesn't really believe anything.

he just wants to be liked. and more than anything, he just does not want to be called a racist. that is his kryptonite. this turns out to be good news for stacey abrams. if it helps her get the job she is more than happy to call joe biden a racist. >> do you think that not choosing a woman of color, a black woman, actually, is a slap in the face to the black female voters? >> w i would share your concern about not picking a woman of color because women of color, particularly black women, are the strongest part of the democratic party. >> tucker: stacey abrams shares your concerns about not picking a woman of color, especially if thatde woman is her. she's very concerned about that. it turns out kamala harris has the same concerns. kamala harris also lost an election the media predicted she would win but unlike abrams, harris isn't just threatening to call joe biden a racist. she already has. >> i'm now going to direct this advice to vice president biden. i cannot believe you are a racist, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.

there was a little girl in who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. and that little girl was me. >> tucker: in the long and ignoble history of the "give me what i want or i will call you a racist" politics, that has to be one of the great moments. kamala harris is so completely out of touch with american life that she imagines that somehow forced busing was wildly popular with african-americans. it was not popular. it is not popular now. why? because busing was patronizing and destructive. it hurt everyone involved except for maybe the self-satisfied white liberals who designed it. their kids went to private school but somehow, kamala harris didn't know that. say what you will about stacy abrams, she's clearly a lot smarter than kamala harris is.s. we would like to see kamala harris write a porn thriller. we doubt it would have any heat at all.

even joe biden has seem to figure this out. joe biden has been talking to a new candidate and it is gretchen whitmer of michigan. she confirmed that yesterday on nbc. >> how was the vetting process going so far? are you being vetted by atmr. biden? >> you know, i had a conversation with some folks. >> how would you characterize the conversation? >> just an open conversation and it's not something i would call a professional, you know, formalized vetting. >> tucker: a professional, you know, formalized vetting. oh, okay, as opposed to an amateur vetting, the kind you don't get paid for. what is gretchen whitmer talking about? no one knows. ask anyone who lives in the state of michigan. they are still trying to figure out why gretchen whitmer banned the sale of paint and carpet in response to a pandemic. whitmer never explained why she did that. in fact she has no idea herself. paint and carpet just seem scary to her so she made them illegal. then when citizenst complained about this, whitmer denounced them as racist.

do you sense a theme here? no wonder the biden campaign called gretchen whitmer. they are looking for someone experience playing the race card. there are other possibilities people you may not have heard of for the vice presidential pick. governor gresham of new mexico, she spent her first year in office trying to increase the number of abortions in new mexico. because america's birthright is not falling fast enough for her. did she call her opponents racist too? probably. we haven't checked, but you have to guess. then there is congressman val demings, she represents what is tenth congressional district. she is not well-known but her appearance is what biden says he's looking for. she was one of the impeachment managers during the russian insanity. remember w back when we were pretendingrs ukraine was somehow vital in some way? remember that? whatever. if nothing else, the job put her on television a lot. >> our president put his personal interests above the interests of the nation, corrupting and cheating our democracy, and he shall be held

accountable. because you know what? nobody is above the law. >> tucker: cheating our democracy, whatever that means. she is a former police chief, good for her. that doesn't mean she believes in enforcing the law. she thinks immigration laws should be ignored. who knows what other laws she thinks should be ignored. she lets police confiscate firearms from citizens who haven't even been accused of a crime. and then finally, lingering in the background like a shy teenager is senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. in a normal political moment, which this is not, she might be the front runner for the job he or she did surprisingly well in the primaries, both in swing states.gh she's relatively popular, serving in the states that hillary clinton only narrowly carried four years ago so she could help. she's also older, calmer, more experienced.

at times she even seems like she might not be a total extremist. all of which means amy klobuchar probably has no chance at all. weirdly, joe biden over his 50 years in washington was often described as a moderate. if joe biden were still with us maybe he would still be moderate today. but he's not. joe biden's handlers are in charge now and they are not moderate. they moved the poor guy so far to the fringes biden is now disavowing the obama administration for being too far right. barack obama, movement conservative. b pretty amazing, really. also a little scary and in the end, it probably means stacey abrams will get the job. we'll see. jason nichols is watching carefully, professor of african-american studies at the university of maryland. always happy to have him, thank you for coming on. >> thank you, tucker. >> tucker: i do admire her pluck and moxie. she's not easily intimidated and i mean that sincerely, i do admire that. but i'm a little confused. what has stacey abrams done? can you name anything that she has -- apart from the porno thrillers, but that she has done

in her life. >> first of all, she has a couple of nationwide organizations on voter suppression, something republicans know pretty well, about suppressing the votes, particularly for african-americans. she also in georgia was somebody who protected pre-k, something that's a major issue in education, the access to pre-k for young students. and she was somebody who protected that for georgia when it was getting attacked, particularly for low income students, byng republicans. she stood up and was one of the people who protected that. she also worked across the aisle and in the south, she is pro-gun, which i think will play much better than some of the other candidates who come along -- >> tucker: maybe. somehow i doubt she meets my standard of the second amendment fealty, but let's back up. i don't think we can point to a single piece of legislature that she passed in georgia that led

to anything. is it too much to say that stacey abrams says, choose people based on my appearance? i thought we weren't supposed to choose people based on the way they look? >> i don't think that. i think the argument for stacey abrams is strategic. number one, she came within a stone's throw of winning georgia and could possibly win it again or could possibly win it this time without the voter suppression.at she is somebody who gives you the possibility of winning a swing state and the key demographic in this election is grgoing to be african-americans, working-class african-americans, and in particular, working class african-american men who are more malleable than african-american women, who are going to come out for democrats in a large number. if you look at working-class african-americants men, they may stay at home. in particular, ones who are new voters. so you have to have somebody who is going to inspire them. right now, biden is not somebody who inspires great feelings in

anyone, he doesn't -- >> tucker: but do you think -- >> he doesn't make people hate on the right. he's just kind of in the middle. >> tucker: well, he's not there. he's vacant. let me ask you, i've got to get to whitmer in here because she has now confirmed that she speaking to the man who at one point was joe biden, about being his running mate. she banned paint and carpet in response to the coronavirus. does that make you worry a little bit about her judgment? that seems not rooted in science, that seems a little strange, no? >> well, you know, i'm not going to judge her movements on the coronavirus and on covid-19. i think what she has done is try to keep a lot of people safe. i don't think she is the best choice for running mate. i think the action she's taken have been for public safety. another name people are not talking about is tammy duckworth, who is

military, a war veteran, someone who was wounded in action and as a mother of a young child and as a daughter of the revolution, and a woman of color. and from the midwest. so o i think she somebody who could also be a strong candidate -- >> tucker: i think that's probably a smart point. quickly, kamala harris is a sitting united states senator. why not her? >> i think, again, when we talk about that demographic that we need to reach, kamala harris doesn't necessarily reach that demographic. she's not particularly popular with working-class african-americans and in particular with working-class african-american men. she was coming in, pulling around fourth. she didn't run her campaign very well, so i don't think that she is the best choice. and, you know, the biden campaign, allegedly there are people who leaked the facts that they think she is a clunky communicator and if there's anything that biden doesn't need, it's a clunky communicator to be his running mate.

so stacy abrams is a good communicator. stacey abrams is a very strong communicator. >> tucker: she's got that going for her! she's aggressive, i will say. i wouldn't want to play her in ping-pong. i think she would win. professor, great to see you. >> thanks a lot. thanks, tucker. >> tucker: dana perino hosts "the daily briefing with dana perino" and thinks deeply erabout these subjects. leaving aside my views about how you should approach a decision the significant, you should do it in a serious way, and on the basis of people's dna, which is irrelevant. i'm leaving that aside. what do you think biden will do? how are his handlers thinking about this decision? >> maybe those are two different things, what you just said. what does biden want to do and what do his handlers want to do? those two things might t not be the same although may be that's not giving them enough credit.

he's in his basement so you don't see him out there a lot in effect there was a report out last week that even the people who are on his team, like senior advisors haven't seen him, they don't talk to him so i'm not exactly sure. on the vice presidential pick i think the first rule is do no harm. find somebody that can advance the ticket, hopefully defend against attacks and lob a fewewf their own, get to the debates just fine, and also be someone that you think is the president of the united states that you could turn to for advice, for thinking, for help, for support, for encouragement, it also may be contrary thinking. that is what i think you should look for in a vice president rather than checking the boxes. i do think that the democrats are overthinking this too much. if you think there are 78,000 votes that they have to figure out how to get in wisconsin,

michigan and pennsylvania, they are just thinking too much about, how are they going to get the pipe dreams of georgia and texas. probably not happening in 2020, so how can they put this together? i think everybody that you mentioned is a possibility except for, and her name isth escaping me, the senator from nevada, the person who was the mentee of harry reid. s hispanic woman, pretty well thought of. again, if you are checking boxes and you're thinking about who are the possibilities, i think i would throw her in the mix as well. sorry, i can't think of her pname. >> tucker: interesting. masto, probably the person you're thinking of. >> yes. >> tucker: i feel required to ask this, hillary clinton we were told for two full years was actually the president. she won, it was stolen from her. she clearly wants it. why is she considered totally out of the race? >> well, i think, you know, jason nichols, who was such a wonderful person that we get to have on air and learn from. t he kept talking about african-american male, working-class, african-american males, and how they might not

just turn out. one of the things that turned out in hillary clinton and a key battleground state like michigan is that african-americans did not turn out to vote for her. he was being polite, but he wasn't really telling us, frankly, what actually happened. and i think every day that we cover this 2020 presidential election it reminds us of just how poor a candidate hillary clinton was for the democrats in 2016. >> tucker: yeah. if you are on television every day, people can smell what you're about. it doesn't matter what you say. it's like "the far side" cartoon, the one about talking to your dog every day and what the dog hears. >> i love that one. >> tucker: yes. blah, blah, blah, ginger. dana, great to see you. >> thank you. >> tucker: well, we've been talking about a vaccine for months for this novel coronavirus. apparently one is in the works, may be rushed out quickly. when it's finished, many are

arguing that it should be mandatory for all americans. alan dershowitz has made that case. we will ask him why he believes that. but first, while you could be arrested for going outside or reading a book on the beach, criminals are getting out of prison in huge numbers and many are reoffending, some violently. we have details. ♪ staying connected your way is easier than ever.

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♪ >> tucker: over the past few months, county jail populations around the country have fallen by nearly a third. that means that tens of thousands of criminals are back on the street, the same streets that you could be arrested for by walking on without a permit. now the justification for this, we are told by politicians, is the coronavirus. that justification is thrown out even though criminals are mostly young and at almost no risk of dying from the disease, but of course the coronavirus is just an excuse. merely a pretext. the real goal is emptying prisons permanently. in a recent piece in the new yorker, black lives matter

cofounder said this "much of what we've been calling for precovid-19, we are seeing it transpire at the local, state, and national level. this is a moment when we can collectively transform how our country relates to the most vulnerable." in other words, this is our chance. he is right, our relationship to the most vulnerable is transforming. criminals are nott the most vulnerable, the rest of us are. until early april, for example, timothy alvarado was in jail under burglary charges. when the coronavirus game and the fears of it ramped up, he was released back into the population, swiftly returned to the life of crime. we know that conclusively because we have the record. in may 2nd, he stole a minivan and led police on a high-speed chase. officers caught him. instead of jailing him, they issueded a citation and they releasedin him. two days later, alvarado stole another car, was caught again, and once again was simply issued

,a citation and release. six days later, he was caught with another stolen car, and in possession of methamphetamine. he was given a citation and released. alvarado promptly stole the exact same car a few days later. same outcome again. citation, release. finally on saturday what you knew what was going to happen, happened. alvarado was arrested after stabbing a man nearly to death. that is the allegation.. the same time alvarado was embarking on his state sanctioned crime spree, california gym owner was arrested for trying to open his gym to patrons. he didn't steal a car, he didn't stab anybody, he didn't have crystal meth in his pocket, he tried to work. that is the priority of the authoritarians now in charge. criminals go free, you step out of line and you're punished. their priorities have never been clearer. on april 12, a new jersey resident was criminally charged

for the crime of, brace yourself, reading a book in a lifeguard stand on a beach with no one else on it. meanwhile, state authorities were ordering the release of criminals for crimes like failing to register as a sex offender, child endangerment, assaulting police officers. almost immediately at least one of those released re-offended and he won't be the last. in new york, bill de blasio was warning citizens that police will pull them out of the water if they dare to go swimming. meanwhile, in the month of april alone, more than 1,500 inmates were released under emergency measure. within weeks more than 50 had already been re-arrested. keep in mind, over the past two months they were at virtually no risk from the coronavirus. so were most of the citizens who've been locked down for the past two months but they were absolutely at risk from the criminals being unleashed upon them.t as of yesterday, in denver, colorado, if you are under 30,

you are precisely as likely to be murdered by a free prisoner as you are to die of the coronavirus. we are not exaggerating. only one person as of yesterday under 30 had died of the coronavirus in denver. and last week, police arrested a detainee for the murder of a 21-year-old murder. he was 40 years old and was convicted of robbery but he wasn't released to protect him from coronavirus. if only authorities cared anywhere near as much about protecting you and me. heather macdonald has spent a lot of time writing about the topic. she is the author of "the war on cops." we are happy to have her on tonight. as you are so good at doing, give us the overview. what isme this about? it's not some random response happening around the country, it's part of some larger issue. what is the issue? >> it's a very bizarre moment. this is not a good look for government. it's the biggest policy mistake

in history, probably setting us on a depression that is going te take us a generation to recover from, and rather than reverse course, as it becomes apparent how unnecessary this shutdown is, it's arresting the law-abiding and letting the criminals go free. this is a way to undermine all remaining legitimacy of sgovernment. the left is seizing this opportunity to achieve a host of long-standing policy goals, whether it's de-politicization and de-incarceration, but the point is, this is completely unnecessary. not only were the lockdowns unnecessary. we know that, we knew that going into them, really. they affect the elderly, infirm, not the rest of us. you don't need to release criminals from prison. you can segregate them, segregate the elderly.th if there is a terrible, terrible outbreak, provide stand up e hospitals, shifts, but what this

really is about is trying to reverse the traditional order of who government protects and criminalize lawful commercial activity. >> tucker: why? why would you want to do that? that is so perverse. is this -- clearly, this is an effort, if you take three steps back, to destroy society because society is defined by order, that is why we have society, to maintain order -- why would people want to do that? >> i think there is such a deep hatred of american freedom, of prosperity, of capitalism, of law-abiding, bourgeois values, and the left is seizing this moment. pelosi has a federal jailbreak provision in the recent stimulus bill that the democrats have put out. it is truly based on hatred, i

think, and the longer we can go on, the more dependency you create. >> tucker: that is exactly right, so you have a nation of people waiting on a government check. and that increases their power. heather mac donald, thank you so much for that smart information, as always. >> thank you. >> tucker: if we do, in the end, get a vaccine for the coronavirus, some americans will be happy to take it voluntarily. others might not want to. but some are saying, professor alan dershowitz is among them, that others can be made to take it by force. that is an interesting question. >> tucker: scientists arean

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any package any time right from your computer all the amazing services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again! okay, showtime! ♪ turn it up tubi has you covered. ♪ we're gonna celebrate ♪ yes! ♪ tubi. watch now. >> tucker: scientists are scrambling to create a working vaccine for the coronavirus. if they succeed in doing that it will be one of the fastest rollouts of vaccine in human history.e

in this country of 330 million people, some will not want to take it. some will have religious objections, some will be nervous about the effects of it. so what happens then? retiredom law professor alan dershowitz, a civil libertarian, says these objections won't matter. if the government wants to, the government has the right to seize youse and inject the vacce by force. >> let me put it clearly, you w have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spreadyo nathe disease even if you disagree. dou have no right not to be vaccinated. you have no right not to wear a mask. you have no right not to open up yourig business. >> tucker: he is the author of the book "guilt by association" among many other books. f thanks so much for coming on. >> thank you, the name is "guilt oby accusation." >> tucker: i changed the title because i liked that one better. i'm just kidding, i made a mistake. ilthank you.

you are probably one of the most famous civil libertarians in america and i understand the argument you're making, which is you don't have the right to endanger other people, your right to punch me in the face ends at the tip of my nose. i understand the argument, but there is an issue with vaccine, they're good for populations but in some rare cases, sometimes not that rare, they can hurt people. that is factually true. does the government still have a right to endanger you by forcing you to take it?? >> if the supreme court said yes and if it came to the supreme court today, they would say yes. thit would either be 9-0 or 8-1. it is not as debatable constitutionally. they have a right to draft you and put your life in danger to help the country. the police power of the state is very considerable. but let's distinguish between the constitutional issue on the one hand, which is settled, and the moral issue on the otherwe hand. i think one can make the plausible argument that nobody should be required to bebe subjt

to a dangerous vaccination to help other people. that is a plausible argument. and i think we should continue to debate that. i would not require people to take the vaccine unless proven very, very safe. whether it's injected at the site into could still cause problems but in general, if the vaccine s is extremely safe, thn the state does have the right -- to tell you to take it. vaccines work on a theory of mass inoculation. you're not taking it to help yourself. if it were vaccine developed foa cancer or heart condition, obviously you and i would have a right to say no, we have the right to die. i believe you have the right to die, but i don't believe you have the right to be typhoid mary and spread it. if you don't want to take the vaccine, you have an option. you can stay int quarantine.

but what you don't have the right to do is circulate in society without being vaccinated if the vaccine is proven to be very safe. and that could be a matter -- >> tucker: proved to be. there is so much lying about vaccines, probably on all sides, but there certainly is lying about vaccines because public health authorities don't wantt people -- they want people to take them and i get it. people are nervous. let me ask you, by the same reasoning since we have an effect socialized medicine we are all affected by the health choices are neighbors make, why should we allow people to eat little debbie snack cakes when we are all paying for diabetes treatment? >> well i've just written another book about that. it will be out in a monthea cald "case for liberalism in the age of extremism" in which i have a chapter on that. i say that argument doesn't work. you have to just say, you can never make n somebody do somethg only for their own good. even if it has collateral

impacts on all of us. no man is an island, we know that. in the world in which we live if you get fat and get sick, we pay for that. but the spread of this highly contagious illness is enough for a civil libertarian, but i want to have a rule of reason. i don't believe in shutting down the whole society or putting people in jail for not wearing masks. you have to have a rule of reason. if the vaccine is very effective and very safe, i would start, by the way, with having people volunteer first. i wouldn't compel them first but you might get to a point where healthy people, without any risk, considerable risk to themselves, say no, and then if the state decides, they would win in the supreme court of the united states. that is my expert prediction of the constitutional lawyer. would i take the vaccine myself? of course i would. would i require my 10-year-old great grandson to take it? that might be a different issue

because there, the risk may exceed of taking the vaccine, maybe arguably exceed the benefit to the child. because covid is not particularly dangerous to children. these are issues that should be debated, we should continue to gehave the debate. free speech, let's make sure the anti-vaxers get to say their thing, but at the end of the month, you vote and i think that if we have a safe vaccine, we all hope we have a vaccine, warp speed is the president's term. it's a good term. as long as we make sure we don't compromise safety in the proce process. >> tucker: free debate as a prerequisite for all of this. and it's happening now, people with views that are considered apostasy are not allowed to speak. it makes everybody nervous, including me. >> they must, they are allowed to protest, and they are allowed to protest in a vigorous way. not in a violent way, but in a vigorous way. >> tucker: not pulling people

off the internet because they disagree with them and that makes me trust nobody. professor, thank you so much. >> you have to have right. >> e tucker: especially, amen. thanks. well, in the end we learned that general michael flynn never leaked secret information. the fbi leaked secret information repeatedly and then used those leaks to destroy lives. there is a lot of corruption, or was, in any case, under jim comey's fbi. is it still there? that's all next. ♪ every financial plan needs a cfp® professional --

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♪ >> tucker: want to bring you an update tonight in the michael flynn story. an amazingly informative story that tells you a lot about the people who run the country. yesterday we told you about susan rice's newly declassified email to herself. the one where she took care say three separate times that the flynn investigation was going by

the book. now today, rice tried to defend herself by saying the white house counsel office told her to write that email, just a routine email. clarifying for anyone who might be interested, that susan rice definitely didn't break any laws while spying on someone not suspected of any crimes. no need to investigate anything, everything was by the book. thenv white house counsel just wanted to make sure they got that on paper appeared in the meanwhile, we are also running a lot more about how the fbi does business, how it achieves political agenda. repeatedly during the russia investigation the fbi used strategic leaks to the press to justify opening new investigations. when the steele dossier was handed over to cnn, jim comey use that as an excuse to brief theie president. that was used by proof by cnn as evidence that the dossier was true without any evidence being produced the dossier was treated

as valid for years on end. pretty clever. so what happens next? bret baier hosts "special report" every night at 6:00 p.m. you knew that. he joins us tonight to make sense of all this and where it might be going. hey, bret. >> bret: hey, tucker. i don't know if we can make sense of it yet. i think we are going to make a lot of sense of these puzzle pieces and we are learning more as time goes on. this email from susan rice that -- movie she is saying that the white house counsel at the time told her to write it. it details this january 5th meeting. contacts, remember, january 4th, 2017, the fbi decides, you know what, there is no there there in this cross fire rager, which is a counterintelligence investigation where they think michael flynn is a russian asset or a russian agent, and they say, you know what, it's not there.no they're going to wrap it up.

but jim comey, the fbi director says hold on. he learns about this call with the russian ambassador to the united states between flynn. flynn is in the dominican republic december 29th on vacation. he calls him back and they have this call, and they know that flynn and kislyak are talking. everyone in that meeting knows that flynn and kislyak are talking. and he wants to look at what exactly the conversation is about. this suggests that one week later, this leaked to "the washington post," and that the crime. >> tucker: i'm a bit confused by what we learned yesterday. the susan rice email to herself minutes before inaugurationn in january 2017, we've seen that for a while but we didn't see that one redacted paragraph in which she quotes jim comey saying he may withhold information from the incoming administration. why did we not see that until yesterday, do we know? >> because it suggests and tells

you basically that they were listening in on that call and let michael flynn was on the other side of it, and that they were concerned about passing secret information to the incoming national security advisor. >> tucker: it's unbelievable. >> it's pretty unprecedented. i think we have more to learn, tucker, and i think we are going to learn more in the coming weeks as we get more of these little bits and pieces but in the meantime, michael flynn and his case is in limbo as this judge is essentially trying to prosecute it on its own. and it looks like it's going to go into july. the next shoe to drop in that. >> tucker: you hated think of the damage to a once proud institution. bret baier, thank you for the context. it's great to see you. >> bret: all right, tucker. >> tucker: lockdowns save lives. you've heard that everywhere, nonstop like a mantra for two months. but was it factually true?

did they save lives? is it possible they endangeredd lives? we will discuss it with dr. marc siegel after the break. ♪ when bugs move in we stress out and spray. well, we used to. new ortho home defense max indoor insect barrier kills and prevents bugs for up to a year without odors, stains or fuss. new ortho home defense max. bugs gone. stress gone.

the xfinity voice remote will find exactly that.for, happy stuff. the group's happy, i'm happy. you can even say a famous movie quote and it will know the right movie. circle of trust, greg. relax, the needles are jumping. you can learn something new any time. education. and if you're not sure what you're looking for, say... surprise me. just ask "what can i say" to find more of what you love with the xinity voice remote.

♪ >> tucker: we can argue about whether or not the lockdowns are

worth gutting our constitutional rights but everybody assumes that at least the mass quarantine saved a lot of lives. that was assumed even though nothing like this has ever been tried before and now it turns out that may be wrong, that assumption. fox medical contributor dr. marc siegel has more on that. hey, doctor. >> tucker, lockdowns don't't wok if there is already a lot of virus in the area, in the community, in the area, the state, thes country. jpmorgan came out with a study, studies have shown that the european countries that were locked down have not done as well as those that weren't. and that applies to the united states too. where over 22 states that have come out of lockdown have seen increased numbers of cases. south dakota, which was never lockdown, has had almost no cases over thelm last several days. why would this be happening? in hong kong, this is very interesting, 7 million people in hong kong and they are on the border with mainland china and

2.5 million visitors a month come across. they have a very ineffective government. you know why they have been able to do so well with only four deaths of covid-19? because the people behave, they knew from sars, they knew from hong kong flu, they knew how to do social distancing. it wasn't locking down. locking down definitely doesn't make the problem better in terms of if there is already a lot of virus. you know what locking down does? locking down destroys our health care system to the point where we have more heart attacks that are not going to the hospital now. more strokes that are not goings to the hospital now. more cancer that is now being screened. cancer screening is down. people sayre they are afraid too to the emergency room right now. that is despair. finally deaths of despair. estimating the deaths of despair will be up 75,000 because of

covid-19 and people not having jobs. >> tucker: that is so crushing. i hope that will be headlining ti"the new york times" tomorrow. thank you for that. >> suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism. it's going to be more debts from despair than from the virus itself, tucker. that is our virus. >> tucker: unbelievable. thanker you. we've done a couple of interviews with the gym owner in new jersey called ian smith who has been harassed by the governor, a former goldman sachs partner for attempting to work. we have another update on what has happened to him. that's next. ♪im

>> tucker: we hav >> tucker: we have an update on ian smith, the new jersey gym owner that we introduced you. trace gallagher has allayed us on that. >> the owner of the gym vowed to open every dayeg regardless of e consequences but monday they

were given a citation, they were cited and a gym member arrested for violating the order. ytoday the owners were charged with making a public nuisance and he gets worse. a police camera is now taking pictures of members as they leave the gym. our south jersey fox affiliate says police followed the members and issued citations. governor phil murphy was asked about the gym. watch. >> inside, no ventilation, close contact, is a hard nut to crack. not there yet. we want to be there? please, god, yes. >> the owners released as statement claiming 45 minutes after the governor spoke, the toilets in the gym started back flowing sewage and the gym had to shut down for the day. tucker? >> tucker: amazing.

what a saga. trace gallagher, thank you so much for that. meanwhile, abortion clinics in the state remain open. they have good ventilation.ci a special birthday to acknowledge on this program. cher turning 74 today. >> sean: that's the worst part of the show, like i give a flying flip about her birthday. she's nuts. >> tucker: there is a reason we said that! there is a cher fan in our midst. i'm not a cher fan. i did that for a very special person in my life. >> sean: that makes a difference. tucker being nice. headlines. i'm so happy i have that. i've got a show to do. welcome to "hannity."nn breaking tonight, the u.s. senate investigation into joe biden's -- yep, quid pro q quid pro quo, zero experience hunter, now heating up.ha the very first subpoena has been now issued wh