i've literally told you a thousand times. ♪ oh, danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling ♪ i'm just gonna... ♪ from glen to glen we'll see you back here on tuesday night. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: welcome. good evening. this is a special edition of "tucker carlson tonight." happy labor day, it's the lastnd weekend of summer. this is not a normal labor day, it hasn't been a normal summer. in many places tonight, politicians still monitor andol control the most intimate details of your life, where you eat, who you spend time with and where, how many relatives you can invite to your wedding, whether or not you can hold her parent's hand on their deathbed. the pretext for these social controls is the coronavirus epidemic. we never thought it would go ons this long. the spring, you'll remember, we were told we had 15 days to slow the spread. we thought that meant 15 days, very literal.

but 15 days became 170 days andg it's still going. people like anthony fouts who showed up. he seemed reasonable enough at first. in january he said that lockdowns of the kind that china imposed would never happen in this country. he also said you don't need to wear a mask. he also insisted the virus wasn't a major threat here. he said all of that, watch. speak about a month, we don't have to worry about this one, right? >> well, obviously you need to take it seriously and do the kinds of things that the cdc and the department of homeland security are doing, but this is not a major threat for the people in the united states and this is not something that the citizens of the united states right now should be worriedul about. >> tucker: don't worry about it. it's totally fine. if that's what anthony faucher told us in january. we didn't take that out of context. that's not an isolated quote. we are not proof texting here. as late as this march standing at a white house coronavirus briefing, he did not oppose the

idea of gathering indoors or an indoor campaign rally. if but then more people started dying, federal officials panicked and elevated anthony faucher from an advisor, a physician, to a policymaker. and that was a pivot point in american history. the hippocratic oath says do no harm and it works in the context of doctor-patient relationship. but it does not work when you're trying to run the government. particularly not a country as big as this one. every speed limit on every road is a trade-off. everything in life is a trade-off between the fish in the sea and the value of human life. if we cut all speed limits to 1f lives would be saved, but we don't do that, sad as it is. we keep the speed limit higher because we understand that some risks, even real risks, potentially fatal risks are necessary if you're going to have a functioning society. that's true, but tony fauci couldn't see that. so by april he was warning even shaking hands could be too dangerous to continue.

>> i don't think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest withh you. not only would itit be good to prevent coronavirus disease, it probably would decrease the incidence of influenza dramatically in this country. >> tucker: okay, so that's extremism. it's not balancing the cost and the benefit of a recommendation or a mandate. but fauci was totally figuring this out as he went along just like the rest of us were. that's not a sin by the way, everybody does it.er this was new. but he was a useful foil for the democratic party using the media to attack the president, so you weren't allowed to point out some of his recommendations were inconsistent. some were just silly, not all, but some. the so-called progressives whos often confused science for religious dogma wanted to protect him at all costs. jeff bezos' personal newspaper claims that trump and his minions are trying to destroy fauci. destroy fauci. asking questions about the mandates from the policymaker is now destroying him.

it's absurd. butt dozens of media outlets repeated that talking point. by the time tony fauci described as lockdown, the one that hobbled the u.s. economy as "inconvenient," nobody seemed to notice. the washington press corps -- they weren't unemployed. a an arms race to implement their own inconvenient regulations. chicago mayor lori lightfoot promised that people went to parties would suffer sterner consequences than people who looted target. watch. >> and this is how it's going tl be. we will shut you down. we will cite you. and if we need to, we will arrest you and we will take you to jail. >> tucker: if only she was not angry at people shooting each other on the south side or people mugging pedestrians in the loop, but she's not. in los angeles, eric garcetti went even farther than that. he took his cues from the chinese government. hosting a gathering in los angeles will cost you your

water enter power service, the mayor decreed. >> these large parties are unsafe and can cost people their lives. that's why tonight i'm authorizing the city to shut off los angeles department of water and power service in the egregious cases in which houses, businesses, and other venues are hosting unpermitted large gatherings. >> tucker: no science behind that. hard to believe this is happening in america, but of course it is. once you give politicians power, they don't relinquish it, why would they? for mediocre people like that, people who could never find a job outside of corporate hr at apartment, where the standards are very low, this is profoundly empowering. they loved it. the problem was it crushed the country, people, america, measurably. divorce rates for example soared by 34%. at one point, newlywed separations doubled. domestic violence and fatal overdoses increased dramatically. it may be a long time before we know how dramatically, but it's clear many people died as a

result of this. and if any more thought about killing themselves. according to cdc numbers, a quarter of all young adults complicated suicide during the pandemic. ultimately the only group that found the perrone coronavirus to be empowering more people who we trying to win a presidential campaign and trying to regain control of the senate and the white house. they haven't tried to hide the flick of benefits, they have leveraged the fear. to gain political power. back in may, house democrat's past what they called the heroes act. there were parts of the bille that were good and parts that hawere transparently political. one part was sent out approximately 160 million ballots to any jurisdiction in the state of emergency, a vast majority of the united states. the bill would also legalize the practice of allowing paid politicalof operatives to collet an unlimited number of ballots and return them en masse to polling stations. that's called ballot harvesting. it's illegal in many places because obviously, obviously an

invitation to voters fraud. it provides opportunities for criminals to intercept and manipulate ballots. it's happened. the "l.a. times" concluded that california's ballot harvesting law "does open the door to coercion and fraud." understatement of the week. that happened in north carolina. the state invalidated the congressional election last year in a ballot harvesting fraud heandal. for the people pushing it, that's not a cautionary tale, it's a blueprint. it's why they are doing it. another coronavirus emergency bill known as the dismantle mass incarceration for public health act would allow for the release of more than 100,000 prisoners, including violent offenders. of course, the usual group rushed to support it, sandy cortez, rashida tlaib, ilhan omar. the chair of the house homeland security committee, they all support it. released on home confinement, but their status would not be revoked unless they are literally caught hurtingme someone. that's in the bill. we are not making this up.

it allows incarcerated felons to leave prison and stay free unless they "cause bodily injury or use violent force against other individuals." so murderers get to go free, but you have to stay inside. indefinitely. no one has told the rioters that they are on mandatory home confinement. they have to destroy their own stuff. if they are out to destroy the street. these commands have been in place sincen april. we've known that this was basically a political power grab since then. the day a member of -- dr. zeke emanuel told us on television. watch. >> realistically, covid-19 will be here for the next 18 months or more. we will not be able to return to normalcy until we find a vaccine or effective medications. all that economic pain worth trying to stop covid-19? the truth is, we have no choice. >> tucker: the truth is, we have no choice, meaning the

truth is you have no choice, we are doing this whether you like it or not. no one asked the public what they think, nobody cares. last month joe biden says he will locked on the country if the experts tell him to. what experts is he referring to? well, partisan operators like zeke emanuel. this isn't science, it's dystopia. how long can it continue? alex berenson has been charting the course of this in a way that's very unpopular to the authorities. he's the author of unreported truths about covid-19 and the lockdowns, and he joins us tonight. thanks so much for coming on. this has happened under a republican administration. we could get a democratic administration next, we don't know. if what does that mean for the lockdowns, for social suitno controls now in place? how long will we live with this? do you have any idea? >> i don't know -- i'd like to throw in one thing about zeke emanuel. which is zeke is doing good by doing well and doing well by doing good. he has his own consulting firm where he consults with people

for profit to make money from giving them recommendations about how to get around and get past the lockdown advice that he's pushing, the lockdown that he's pushing. >> tucker: to get around? >> you know, too -- yes. the company is -- it's basically consulting, if you reopen, here's how to reopen safely. he's encouraging lockdowns to be in place and to be sort of moved back phase by phase and then if you have a business where you p actually want to have customers, he's going to tell you -- he and others are going to tell you how you can do that. and i think it's easy to sort of underestimate how big a business covid has become. lockdown -- forget rock down. testing alone, we are spending almost a billion dollars a week on testing, nothing else. a >> tucker: and i'm embarrassed, as you said, i didn't know that about zeke emanuel. and second that we haven't spent ghenough time in the show lookig

at the economic incentives to continue. spending a billion dollars a week.in so what you're saying is there are a lot of reasons people would want this to continue for a long time. >> beyond the [indiscernible]. one of the few good stories they've had in the last couple months, they really look at this thing we are doing with pcr testing where the tests are talmost manipulated to come bak positive a lot of the time and if you look at how much virus is really in the original sample, it's a tiny tiny amount. then the test, then we have thousands and thousands of tests coming back positive that might not actually mean anything and guess what?an people like zeke emanuel, people in the public health establishment say we have to continue testing. i believe that joseph heller called that a catch-22. t so that's a problem -- i mean, he literally did, right? we have to have more tests because the tests that we have with manipulated so they come back positive. so politically, obviously the democrats have sort of staked

their future on lockdowns continuing on strong public health measures and saying that this virus is incredibly dangerous toou a lot of people d we can't go back to normal and i think people in the united states don't really understand how far outside the sort of international norm united states is becoming. it all over europe they have taken lockdowns off the tablele right now, even though cases are continuing to rise in a lot of european countries. nte curve that was supposedly crushed has come right back in places like france and spain, but those countries are not saying we are going to lockdown again. and i also think that people really should look at what happened in the sun belt, where there were very few hard restrictions in those southern states and the crisis came and went in july and august. and the people who on the left said we need to lockdown again, and there are people who simply ignored what happened there. because of masks and because we

closed bars. so this is gone for those people from we need to shut down society to if we closed on bars and everybody wears a mask, a mask that may or may not do anythingt for you, than a virus is going to go away. so which is it? i think the white house really should push people to speak publicly about is this the end of the world or is this something for closing bars and wearing a mask will make it go away, because now we heard both of those things from the public health establishment. >> tucker: i think the bigger its here is the country and leaders losing the ability to think rational. do you feel sunday's -- are committed to the scientific method, empiricism, do you feel relike you're going insane or te country is going insane? do you feel like you're one of the only people trying to rigorously think this through in a logical way? >> i think there are more and more people trying to do that. i think it's hard because much

of the media spent a lot of time on outlier cases trying to scare people. all the stuff that we have talked about is still true, the difference is that right now, because of the sun belt, because of some of the stuff that the cdc i is now saying, there is no evidence on the other side. for a long time the people pushing the lockdown side if you don't lockdown, the world is going to come to an end and it's hard for people like me or you to say itay doesn't look like that's true. and by the way. before march, you were not in favor of lockdown. they have this apocalyptic case. guess what? now there's real-world evidence to back up the idea that lockdowns aren't just harmful for all the reasons you said in your t opening, but they just don't even work to slow -- they may slow the spread of the virus, but ultimately they don't really change the course of the virus. there's a lot of evidence on the ground about that now. >> tucker: i can't resist asking you, really quickly, do you ever worried that you'll be vindicated on the evidence, your predictions will come true, but that your obituary sometime in

the far future will describe you as a dangerous antiscience denier anyway? >> i don't care what they say about me. don't. and i know you don't either. the truth is what it is. what's happened in places like sweden -- and again now in theth sun belt, tells the tale. so people can choose to believe it or not, but the facts are tthat both hospitals in houston were never overrun despite the fact that propublica wrote a story saying there were no met -- it's not true now. it will never be true. you and i know it. >> tucker: great man, i appreciate it, thank you. >> thanks. >> tucker: the irony is, this was one of the rare shows to warn about the dangers of this virus coming from china very early on. we will show you what the warning signs were next on this special edition of the show. ♪ warning

signs were on the special edition of the show. musical music of

♪ >> tucker: welcome back to asp special edition of "tucker carlson tonight." back in february of this year we traveled to the front lines of

the rule one coronavirus court fight, at the university of nebraska, one of the few shows to point out the potential dangers of this virus. china at the time was walling off entire communities, locking people inside buildings to die, but you wouldn't have known that if you would watched for example cnn at the time. our media on public health experts, the elected officials in charge were convinced that the coronavirus was not a problem. at the time, tony fauci, as we showed you, said it was no big deal. nancy pelosi was touring chinatown in san francisco telling of her body they were racist if they were afraid of some virus from china. our elected leaders were convinced this virus would not affect this country. but we sent our medical contributor, dr. marc siegel and our producer charlie to nebraska to find out what was actually going on, here's what they fou found. >> how do you assess what the president said and put this news, if you what, from california into context for us. >> tucker, i think we are

concerned about entering another phase of community spread in ths united states emma as you said. and we have some concern about it but i also -- it's a growing worry in the country they also want to offer some comfort tonight because i'm standing outside the global center forta health security at the university of nebraska medical center. we've been here for two days, as you said, and the doctors here, the nurses here, even the patients here are playing a role of investigating this virus. we found out it's more computers than the flu we think, found out how it's spreading, found out they are responding to treatments, there's new antiviral drug appears to have some benefit to it. these doctors and nurses are leaders around the country, you know what they are doing? adthey are getting on the phone, getting on conference calls and teaching the medical centers around the country how to deal with an upcoming quarantine situation. take a look. >> i was not frightened until yesterday. >> this footage is from inside the coronavirus quarantine unit at the nebraska medical center

in omaha. >> so this is my room and the quarantine -- >> this hospitals at the very nucleus of the american effort to defeat the disease. they just started clinical trials for remdesivir, and antiviral medication. we spoke to dr. andre kalil, who was running the trials, and he's optimistic. >> i think that the data we have available suggests that it's promising. >> late last night, the 15th patient arrived to the quarantine unit. we saw the patient coming in from sacramento. coronavirus. some of the best positions in the country are right inside here are figuring out what the coronavirus is and how to treat it. >> if the coronavirus spreads around the country, are you going to be able to teach other medical centers around the country? >> we are, and we have been for many years. h >> dr. jeffrey gold is chancellor of the university of nebraska medical center. >> watch what's going on in singapore and western europe, et cetera, and if they can't contain a virus, i would say we

are next. >> dr. gold walked us to the building of the quarantine center where doctors seemed toin have things almost under control. >> these are the elevators that bring you down into the quarantine unit where the patients are being kept. >> in another part of the medical center, we went to the entrance of the bio containment unit were coronavirus patients go if they are in serious condition. >> so this is the main entrance toe the bio containment unit. >> nurses comanager of the bio containment unit. >> if this door is open the doors on the inside cannot open. >> the drug trial is happening inside but most of the action or inaction is back in the quarantine unit where patients wait in solitude to see what their future holds. >> you know, i'm isolated, and i have three people a day that come in at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and that's the only contact we have. >> tucker, tonight you saw on the piece, jerry goldman, who i interviewed, the patient broke a

tooth and she couldn't get a dentist into helper fix it because of the quarantine. they had to send in [indiscernible]. back to you. >> tucker: five months after that report, we sent dr. marc siegel to the white house. he asked the president directly about new coronavirus therapies and vaccines. some of his interview in july. >> mr. president, great news today on vaccines, pfizer bio intact vaccine, 100 million doses being purchased by the federal government for $2 billion. it seems like therapeutics and vaccines are really proceeding at a major speed. >> they are, they are going well. i w watch all the time, it's lie my guide to this because frankly, you really have a good take on it, you know how important it is. the vaccine should do really well and therapeutics. you tell me, but it almost would prefer the therapeutics first. you go into the hospital, make people better, but we are doing very well with remdesivir and other things.

plasma is turning out to be really good. we made tremendous progress and i think that's when you see the death numbers, it's a horrible thing to say but that's why you see the death numbers really looking much better. >> more on vaccines. i'm concerned about vaccine compliance in ourrn country. 30% of people have said theyt wouldn't even take this vaccine. as commander in chief and leader of the free world, would you consider being one of the first to take this vaccine to send a message to the american public? >> if i'm the first one they will say he's so selfish he wanted to get the vaccine first and then other people would say that's a very brave thing to do. i would absolutely -- if they wanted me to, i would take a first or i would take it last. if i take it first i will be -- either way i lose on that. if i take it first and if i take it -- if i don't take it they will say he doesn't believe in the program. whatever i think is best, whatever we all agree as best i would certainly do that. >> i'll make you a deal, i'll take it. >> will take it together. >> talk to me about lockdowns.

i'm very disturbed -- you probably more than me, disturbed about the economic, mental, physical, medical costs of lockdowns and democratic governors are again talking about lockdowns. what's your view? >> i've watched some of these guys. i won't say it because it's not some i have a lot of like or respect for, a certain comedian that's been locked in his house for a long period of time, and he's like withered away. he's lost the whole deal. he's lost the wit, he's lost so much. i almost would like to use them as an example, but you can use more than justas him. it's hurting people. these lockdowns are hurting people. we did the right thing. i don't know if you agree, but i think you do. we closed it down, understood the disease, we didn't knowbo anything about this. this is new. we understood the disease, we banned china from coming in, which was a big move. dr. fauci actually said that i saved tens of thousands of lives and if you remember, i was the only one that wanted to do it. we had an office of 21 people, everyone said no but i said you

got to do it, because you could see the infection in china. then we band europe from coming in, which was good, in italy and all the problems. but we did it right, we closed it up and now we are opening and we learned -- for instance, we've learned that the elderly especially -- obviously you cani say this better than anybody, the elderly who have diabetes or have heart problems, have a problem. they are reallyar susceptible. and you know, when people like to compare it to the flu, it's interesting because i see the flu numbers and they are very bad, but when i look at flow numbers -- i never lost anybody to the flu. if over my life i've heard many people had the flu, they had the flu, how are you doing? i had the flu. nobody died.r i never remember anybody saying he had the flu, he died. i've lost five people, probably six, actually, as of this moment, i think, pretty soon. but i've lost five friends that went in -- one of them tested -o great guy, stanley, one of the

top real estate peoplehe in new york, very successful man. good man too. never into politics until i ran, he became like a political wild man. he loved it. but a great guy with great spirit, he says i tested positive and i said that's too bad, but you'll be okay -- i'll be okay. he went to the hospital, two days later he's in the coma.e i say how was stanley doing, he's in a coma and two days later he died. and you know, that's happened on numerous occasions. probably happened to you with people too. i never remember anything like that. i don't ever remember this happening with the flu. so this is a very serious thing, but we've learned, people -- stanley was an older guy. he perhaps could have lost a couple of pounds. actually i always thought of him as healthy, but other people that are healthy, the age is such a big factor. when you look in new jersey,se he's liberal, but i get along with him very well, your governor of new jersey. governor murphy. with the thousands of deaths,

they had one death under the age of 18. and i believe that young person had diabetes. but one death out of thousands of people. one death and that's an amazing statistic, so we wouldn't have known that at the beginning. in all fairness, you didn't know the elderly would be so badly hurt, so we are really taking care of the elderly population right now. at a level l that has never happened before.re >> are we going to beat this virus? >> we are going to beat it and with time you're going to beat it. time. ii say it's going to disappear. they say that's terrible and i say it's true, it's going to disappear. before it disappears i think we can knock it out before it disappears. that's what i want. if i had my choice of vaccines or therapeutics, give me therapeutics every time because i love to walk into a hospital and give everybody something and they start walking out into days. that's what i like. vaccine is still very good longer-term but give me therapeutics and we are doing really good work therapeutical

therapeutically. >> tucker: it wasn't simply our media and our elected officials who ignore the risk of the coronavirus. no organization was more incompetent or killed more people than the world health. organization. until the white house cut funding for w.h.o. this year, america was the single biggest contributor. here's the director of w.h.o. carrying water for the chinese communist party back in february, well after officials were aware that the virus was dangerous. >> i was so impressed in my meeting with president xi. his detailed knowledge of the outbreak. there was no reason for [indiscernible] interfered with international travel and trade. >> tucker: so in march, as the virus was spreading from wuhan around the world, he declared wuhan was a success story. it's a shining city on a hill. he didn't question the data coming from the chinese government, because the w.h.o. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the chinese government.

watch this incredible take. >> wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started. wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world, that even the most severe situation can be turned around. >> tucker: at what a lie that turned out too be. we said that at the time, very few so-called journalists did. ♪

this caused an international incident. i can't give up on him. on september 18th, one man, one mission, one movie event that can't be missed. infidel. rated r. today's discussion will be around sliced meat. moms want healthy... and affordable. land o' frost premium!!! no added hormones either. it's the only protein i've really melted with. land o' frost premium. fresh look. same great taste. ♪ >> live from america's news headquarters, i'm jackie ibanez in new york. no public reaction from the pentagon following president trump's verbal attack against his own military leaders. speaking to reporters monday, the president accused top on it on people of wanting to do nothing but wage wars just to

keep defense contractors happy. his comes as president trump faces allegations that he made offensive comments about following u.s. service members. the president claims those stories are a hoax. meanwhile, no holiday for firefighters across california while dozens of wildfires burn out of control there. fire conditions are expected to worsen this week with the arrival of hot, dry wind. it's forcing u.s. forest service is to close national forests in southern california. more than 2 million acres have burned so far this year, setting a state record with the most dangerous part of 2020 still ahead. i'm jackie ibanez, now back to "tucker carlson tonight." >> tucker: welcome back to a special edition of "tucker carlson tonight." during the most critical stages of the outbreak of coronavirus, the world health organization did very little to protect the world. instead, they parroted the lies from the chinese government. they ignored obvious signs the virus could be a threat to the rest of them. that led the white house to ask some tough questions like why are we paying for this?

the u.s. was the single biggest funder of w.h.o. that's a lot of money to pay for an organization that isn't doing its job. so the sum of the president announced that we are pulling funding from the world health organization. at that outraged democrats. nancy pelosi said it was illegal to cut off the money. back before the funding fight we covered the w.h.o.'s malicious incompetence, in closing, including its shameful handling of the nation of taiwan. here's what we said then. >> tucker: will right now the united states is by far the world's top funder of the world health organization. it would give the organization about $58 million a year, double what any other country donates for some reason. but for the organization's leaders, there's only one country that matters, and it's not us. it's china. right now, taiwan is battling coronavirus, but they are denied membership in the world health organization. they can't even have observer status. why is that?

people are dying, but the world health organization refuses to protect them. ry do you think that is? because china objects to anyone acknowledging that taiwan is a nation. from the beginning, world health torganization officials have praised china's response to coronavirus. they have a repeat of the country's lies as facts to the rest of the world. initially china claimed the coronavirus could not be transmitted from person to person even though doctors and wuhan knew otherwise and it was beastly untrue. the world health organization though told that lie to the world and that hindered global preparation to contain the virus. they made it worse, not better. and then the world health organization praised china for its transparency. a cruel joke. as those lies have been exposed, the world health organization's subservience to their masters in beijing has only become more obvious, more naked. on saturday, a hong kong television station aired an interview with the world health world health organization's assistant director called bruce, he's a canadian. we want to show you this whole thing. we hope you will watch carefully, because it tells you everything about where this world is going and why you

should be really nervous about the government of china. watch this. >> will the w.h.o. consider taiwan's membership? hello? >> i couldn't hear your questi question. >> let me repeat the question. >> that's okay, let's move to another one then.ua >> i'm actually curious talking about taiwan as well on taiwan's case. >> we decided to give the doctor another call to follow-up. >> and i just want to see if you can comment a bit on how taiwan has done so far in terms of containing the virus. >> well, we've already talked about china and when you look across all the different areas of china, they've actually allua

done quite a good job. so with that i'd like to thank you very much for inviting us to participate, and good luck as you go forward with the battle in hong kong. >> tucker: in the middle of a global pandemic, they are refusing to help the country because china told them not to. and then the world healthd organization which represent all of us, which we pay for more than any other country, is boldly, without shame, repeating chinese government propaganda. the man you just saw, wasn't just caught in a bad moment over skype. here's another clip of him sucking up to the government of china. >> to the people of wuhan, it is recognized that the world is in your debt and when this disease finishes, hopefully we will have a chance to thank the people of wuhan for the role that they've played in it. >> tucker: it's beyond disgusting. it's scary. gordon chang is the author of the coming collapse of china and he joins us tonight. gordon, you've been on this topic for such a long time.

does it surprise you that the world health organization, which normales people, me, look at and think, you know, they arehe keeping the world safe from pandemics. they are actually acting as and spokesman for the government of china. does that surprise you? >> well, this has been going on for some time, tucker. and there have been a number ofr other things that we've got to be concerned about. so it's not just bruce, who by the way said that he had absolutely no reason to question china's numbers. it's also dr. ted rose, the director general, the number one guide. in late january, tedros gave an interview to china state media saying that beijing's response was admirable, should be emulated by the rest of the e world and then he said it all show the superiority of china's socialist system. china has a totalitarian system and really what he was doing was attacking democracy on behalf of beijing. so this is really despicable across the board. >> tucker: i mean, this really

matters. this isn't like nba players kowtowing to the chinese a government. we are in the i middle of a pandemic, where is bill gates, who is the single largest individual funder?s why isn't he saying anything? why isn't google saying anything? why aren'too our leaders saying anything about this? >> you're absolutely right, this is dangerous, because for the last ten days of january, for the first ten, 15 days in february, the world health organization was parroting beijing's line that no country should enact travel restrictions on china. that's because -- because there were no sat on my travel restrictions, or very few of them, what happened was this virus spread even farther behind around china's borders. so what the w.h.o. has done, it actually helped spread the coronavirus around the world and it did it on behalf of beijing.

>> tucker: it's just beyond belief. it's hard to believe those words are true, but they are true. gordon jane, thank you for that. >> thank you. >> tucker: we've been talking to bar barstool sports founder,e got the coronavirus. he joins us next on the special edition to tell us what that was like. ♪ that is like. ♪

♪ >> tucker: welcome back to the special edition of "tucker kcarlson tonight." throughout the length of this pandemic, we checked in regularly with barstool sports ceo dave portnoy about how he's holding up during the lockdowns. recently he had his own scare with the coronavirus. he joins us now to discuss his time in lockdown and what he has learned. if thank you for joining us tonight. first i have to ask you about the extended period you spend in bed sick. did you have the virus? >> yeah, so i did. tested positive. as we are filming this right now, i just ended my quarantine about two days ago, so i was inside for two straight weeks, 14 days. when i made the original video

saying i felt sick, i didn't know i had it but then i got tested and i did indeed have it. i think i've had it like a few times. >> tucker: whereht did you get it? do youou know? >> no. well, i was in the hamptons and i was actually with a group -- six or seven of us all tested o positive who were staying together, so i don't know. i'd love to know who gave it to me but i have no idea how i got. it. >> tucker: you were staying with six or seven people at once in the hamptons? i don't feel like i should ask q follow-up question there, but i'm glad you're okay. >> it was a five bedroom apartment, so it wasn't like wee were all cramped together. overlooking the atlantic, it was beautiful. >> tucker: well, what have you learned from the whole experience? we've been talking about this virus for months and you actually got it. what did you learn? >> well, i mean, i didn't learn anything differently than what i thought. you know, i was very tired, exhausted for two days. within the group of us that were staying together, everyone was affected a little bit differently.

but you know, it was they flew, it was a cold, kind of what i expected. i was the oldest of the group, i'm in my young 40s and we had everyone from mid 20s to my age and for that demo, some people got sick, some people felt bad for aot day. i was sick for two days and exhausted for really a week and a half. but the bottom line i think is really what i thought it was. if you don't have underlying symptoms, if you're not already ill or susceptible, and you're relatively young, you're going to get sick and you're going to get over it. it's highly contagious, clearly, but it did exactly what i thought it would do. it's a real thing. if you are elderly or you are health impaired, i think it's a real concern, but for 99% of the country, it acts like the flu. that's kind of what i think of it. >> tucker: yeah, you experienced it firsthand. one of the reasons i admire your response to the lockdown, even though you were shut up in an apartment, you used your time wisely.

you were already a mogul, now you are a medical mogul to online trading. how much richer did you get duringr the coronavirus lockdow? >> i don't like to talk about money, but my net worth is probably like almost doubled. the stock market, it just goes up, tucker. i've turned into -- i was never a stockmarket guy, never traded. i looked at financial guys like they were pulling a fast on me me and i think they were because all you have to do is buy make anything with letters and it seems to go up. [indiscernible] today trading. it literally today, it's beautiful. i don't know why anyone has a job, all you have to do is buy stocks and watch them go up. so it's been a very profitable quarantine for me. i didn't know that would be the case, but it has been. i>> tucker: doesn't it make you a little nervous? you're sitting in your apartment, you make 600 grand in one day by investingr in companies withh letters and the names, aren't you kind of tempted to just cash out and buy a bigger place?

>> you know, i'm always tempted, but the nature of my personality, i'm an entrepreneur, i like pushing things. you know, if i wasn't somebody who always wanted to build more, probably wouldn't have started barstool. i want a megayacht. you don't get mega yachts with 600 grand, you need like $6 million days. >> tucker: you really have taught -- i asked you what you've learned, you taught the w rest of us how we should have spent the last four months. >> listen, people are afraid and nowadays, making money, we are a capitalist society, i don't think we should be ashamed or embarrassed and hopefully one day i can get back to everybody from my megayacht. >> tucker: call me from your eestate room if you don't mind. dave portnoy, thank you. >> thanks for having me. ♪ family's freedom with the off-road's best... like the only built-in gps

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show that is the sworn enemy of groupthink. have a great evening. we'll see you tomorrow. ♪ >> mark: hello, america. i am mark levin. this is "life liberty, & levin". i have a great guest, you mayle have heard of him before, hiss name is sean hannity, one of my best, closest, longtime friends. >> sean: it is mutual. there is a reason that i call you the great one. >> mark: this is a very important program. i've known you a long time. we talk a lotra about what is going on in this country.