"special report" buried merry christmas to all of you who are celebrate them. i'm mike emanuel in washington. "the story" is next with a special "unknown valor." goodbye. as a ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to a g special edition f "tucker carlson tonight." merry christmas. if you're spending the final days of 2020 with the ones you love, congratulations. that wasn't easy. a lot of powerful people try to force you to remainof cut off fm your family, on able to worship, sad and solitary and dependent on the state. they told you you had to be alone because of the coronavir coronavirus. but of course it's more than that. there is something of a christmas that drives a certain sort of bureaucrat completely nuts. maybe it's all the unregulated joy. maybe it's the idea of small, independent families following their own cheerful customs away

from centralized control. knows? but whatever it is, the impulse has been around for a long time. 100 years ago, america faced down another global pandemic, the spanish flu. then, as now, there was never any evidence the christian holidays played a significant factor in the transmission of the virus. in 1918 it was the first world war that did it, troop movements around the world, but the authorities attacked christmas anyway. beware the mistletoe, wrote the director of the ohio state health department back in december of 1918. you will show your love for dad and mother, brother and sister and the rest of them best this year by sticking to your own home instead of paying annual christmas visits, holding hip family reunions and parties generally. no celebrating, they said. science has spoken. but people celebrated anyway. if the human spirit persisted him a sustained by the very human need for fellowship and warmth in the familiar touch of otherar human beings.

stores in 1918 remained packed with christmas shoppers. as one newspaper reported at the time, "the churches were especially well attended this year by worshipers thankful for the safety of loved ones." public officials at the time hated all of this. they wanted lockdowns but the public wanted to live, and so they did. 100 years later, not much has changed. the one thing that is very different is democracy itself. our leaders no longer pander to the public. they no longer feel the obligation to convince the rest of us of much of anything. they ignore their own rules andn when they are caught, they feel no shame. they tell half-hearted lies they don't even expect you to believe. they just don't care. the summer, the federal government even produced a video bragging about how much they have lied to you. remember all those ventilators that we urgently needed here in this country? the ones that people would die without? the ventilators! you are member those. whatever happened to them? well here's where they went. ♪

>> tucker: when a crisis arises, america acts! cue the guitar riffs. but not acts in our own interest. the big cargo plane you just saw was flying a thousand ventilators to indonesia. that's a faraway country. average cost per ventilator, $20,000. but to our elected leaders that was a bargain because the indonesians weren't simply taking those ventilators off our hands, they were erasing evidence of our leaders 's incompetence. into leaders? what ventilators? they are inil indonesia. this kind of thing is so, now that nobody notices. in fact, the video you just saw was uploaded j to youtube back n september by the u.s. air force and in the meantime has a grand total of 75 views. two of them are from our producers. the rest are probably from

indonesians wondering what this big cargo plane was doing unloading medical equipment they didn't need. no one thought it wast remarka remarkable. but it was remarkable. a few months ago our political leaders were united on one point and it turned out to be wrong. the point was we don't have enough ventilators and tens of thousands of people are going to die unless we pay for more ventilators right now. >> fema says we are sending 4000 ventilators. really? what am i going to -- what am i going to do with 400 ventilators? when i need 30,000. you pick the 26,000 people who are going to! >> tucker: well, thousands of people did die in new york. they died in nursing homese because of the man you just saw, governor andrew cuomo. but not a single person died because we didn't have enough ventilators. not in new york, not anywhere. a but forget that. it's not important, they will tell you with a straight face. think of all the indonesians we are saving despite thehe fact ty

don't need the ventilators either. why did they tell us things like this? well, because, if they never tell the truth, it's hard to tell when they are lying. do remember when we learned about the medical shift so makeshift that pulled into new york city back in march? the comfort. wasn't exactly a subtle arrival. we were told we needed it desperately, we needed every member of the 1200 member crew and every one of those thousand hospital beds. this was a crisis, the experts told us. we had to bring out the big gu guns. >> they are expecting up to 50 patients a day to be admitted on board the comfort. we are talking about some 1,000 hospital beds, but their greatest asset are the 1200 medical personnel. nurses, surgeons, doctors from up and down theur east coast. >> tucker: okay, so that was march. we knew much less than than we know now. it's infuriating is that no one ever goes back and compares the estimates to the reality, so you just are the estimates. 50 patients aa day. e

by the time that ship left a full month later, the comfort had treated a total of just 182 patients. 182 in a month. not 50 day period of just down the street from the comfort, the army corps of engineers converted new york's convention center into a hospital. thousands of those c hospital bs went unused. so how much did all of that cost you? has anyone ever bothered to ask the question? no. no one's ever asked because nobody cares. for the last half of this year, our government did more to help indonesians than to help small business owners in this country, the ones actually paying their taxes. at a certain point the question becomes why are they still paying their taxes? t is there a reason why any small business owner, any restaurant owner would voluntarily send a single dime to the internal revenue service? these people are paying property taxes on buildings they can't use, paying for police who aren't allowed to do their jobs, and are doing it all for the benefit of politicians who explicitly hate them.

they are getting nothing in return. so why are they paying their taxes? people like [indiscernible] are beginning to ask that question. she's a single mother, owns a bar and restaurant called havens garden. it's in minnesota, a small town, total population 448. at times she also opens a restaurant for nondenominational church services. those are two mortal sins in minnesota. allowing people to eat and allowing people to worship. for doing those things, the state of minnesota is finding her hundreds of dollars a day. they've suspended her liquor license. meanwhile, indian casinos, which are not paying the taxes that she is, are allowed to operate like there is no pandemic at all. how is this happening? and what's the scene inside havens garden, this dangerous, restaurant? wire officials in minnesota so determined to destroy it and

her? we took a look around. if there no violence inside. no one was throwing rocks or spray painting buildings or chanting blm slogans. maybe if they were the place could stay open. this is what minnesota officials consider a clear and present danger to the safety of their state. ♪ >> tucker: that case is not unusual. we've talked to many business owners all over the country and they told us the same story. dave morris in the upper midwest for example has tried for months to keep his business open. it's called dnr's daily grind cafe. he's got no help from the government. instead, government officials have worked overtime to destroy him. and he's had it. watch. >> several months of frustration and i think i'm speaking for a whole lot of -- millions and millions of americans i'm speaking for here.

our so-called leaders that are using our tax money to pay themselves while they are instilling a policy upon us to ruin our businesses andd our lives does not make much sense to me and after months and months of watching this, they put me in a position where, you know, you can only be backed into a corner so far, we've got to come out fighting her little bit. >> tucker: that man was calmer than he probably is inside and he put it crisply. you can only be backed into the corner so far. in some cases, that's literally true. it was true in september when a school resource officer tasered a woman into ohio for the crime of watching her son's middle school football game in the stands. the woman is called alicia and she wasn't wearing a mask. she wasn't sitting near anyone, she wasn't hurting anyone, but authorities decided the safest course of action was to assaultd her violently in front of her child. >> get off of me! i will not put my hands behind

my back! get off of me! what the [bleep] is wrong with you! get off of me! they are not arresting me for nothing!ot i ain't doing nothing wrong! >> tased somebody over a mask. chasing this lady over and over. >> tucker: noticed none of the other men in the stands did anything to stop that. we tried to suspend judgment in moments like that. people make mistakes under pressure. we always try to give theef benefit of the doubt, particularly to law enforcement but there's no way to look at that videow and not be appalled because it's disgusting. and yet here's the amazing thing. authorities and elected leaders in the state of ohio were not embarrassed when that video came to light. in fact, they went ahead and pressed charges against her for the crime of watching a footbalb game sitting alone without wearing a mask. in fact she had a pretrial hearing last month.

to her great credit, she refused a plea deal. if she knows she did nothing wrong. she didn't topple a statue. l she didn't loot a store, she didn't torch wendy's. she believes in this country want to be allowed to watch your kid play football and be free from attack for doing so. her trial is in january, we hope she will come on the show. we are certain prosecutors in ohio will enjoy every minute of pain and suffering they afflict upon her, although continuing to collect the salary that she pays for. it's infuriating.nf it's not sustainable over time. tonight we're going to devote most of this hour to highlighting the stories of people like alisha andin dave morris, people who wouldn't go along with this, who stood up fors. their freedom even in the face of profound personal and financial cost. these people wouldn't have been lawbreakers six months ago. we forced them to become that. but before we get to their stories, we want to take you back to christmas 1918.

in many ways, 1918 was a very different time, it was a harsher world then. there was no internet to ba us, note -- to bring us food. modern medicine was a long way off. people died of minor infractions. most had no indoor plumbing. yet at the same time, millions of americans were confronting the veryer same things we endure today. a global pandemic, government imposed lockdowns, financial ruin ander sometimes death. here's what a british newspaper said to its audience of the time. "for life on this old planet will always be a struggle intoe most of us a bitter, if triumphant, struggle and so to all our readers, happy christmas and a bright andch hopeful new year. well put. we send those same wishes to you tonight. adam corollani is the author of "i'm your emotional support animal:navigating all our woke, no joke culture." he thought a lot about the

effect of these lockdowns. we've been talking to you, adam corolla, since the first day these went into effect. we are now at the end of the year, nine months later. what's your assessment? >> well, it's sad that small business owners have to become essentially the french underground, because big businessgr and big tech and big government are all sort of colluding to squash small businesses, so i think our last chance our small businesses and small businesses standing up. >> tucker: the french underground. that is -- how long did it take you to connect those dots? so many things happened at once. we had the arrival of coronavirus, we have the lockdowns,iv the blm riots. how long did it take you to kind of figure out thisu was the big against the small, the powerful against thet week? >> i didn't think of it until last night when i was watching

an episode of hogan's heroes and then it all came together for me. >> tucker: [laughs] i'm glad i asked to that question. what a great show. how do you think we are going to come out of s this? >> well, people are going to have to stop apologizing and people are going to t have to sp apologizing in this country for everything. so somebody figure it out on the left that if you accuse people of endangering other people by being selfish, by opening your business forbe outdoor dining, r if we call everyone a racist or xenophobic or a homophobe, we can get everyone to shut up and it worked for a long time but at some point the people who are getting a finger wag to them constantly, and i'm talking with the taxpayers, i'm talking withh the parents, i'm talking by the business owners. these people got to stand up and go find, call me a racist, call me xenophobic. sam endangering people. i'm no longer apologizing. i don't care with twitter mob

says anymore. you are the boy who called wolf who called racism, who called everything. at some point we are going to hit a saturation point the people, the honest people, hardworking people, the business owners, or just going to have to rise up and go i don't care what you call me. >> tucker: that's right. it's making me emotional listening to say that because you're right. adam corolla, thank you so much for that, that was inspiring and i hope you have a merry christmas. >> thanks, tucker, merry christmas. >> tucker: back in april, we did an unexpectedly remarkable interview. we talked to a man called rick savage. he's the owner of the sunday river brewing company in western maine. at that time, state officials had told rick savage that he needed to close his business for health and safety reasons. of course walmart and home depot and other big-box stores were allowed to remain open because they are the ones who send the money to politicians. that's just how it works, but rick savage almost alone among

business owners did not go along with that. he came on the show and announced he plans to defy the order. >> so we've had enough of it. we are encouraging all businesses in maine to open up. we should have never been shut down the first place. p we need to open back up, get the summer tourist business going or we're going to lose a third of our restaurants, who knows how many motels and other businesses, so we are advocating for everybody, not just for my restaurant. it's time to go back to work. >> tucker: so for the crime of saying that in public, for complaining, maine's incompetent moron governor shannon mills made it her mission to destroy rick savage's life. she took away his liquor license, reopen the courts just so they could find rick savage. eventually she had thed restaurant of the sunday river brewing company, shut downnt completely. rick savage still lives in maine, he is still standing, he joins us tonight with an update on whereni his life is now. rick savage, thanks so much for coming on. so where is your life now?

you really, really took a lot of abuse for that episode on the show. where are you tonight? >> well, right now, we don't have any licenses, we got shut down for two weeks for the food license and a month for a liquor license, so a day before we were going to open back up and serve food, the department of health and human services sent us an email say stating that they were never going to give us our license back again, which expired december 19th, so we've over that and then right after that, the health -- the liquor license that they are not going to give us a liquor license again and stated that it was because of our character. we were in court and the judge asked the assistant district attorney what the merit was behind not giving us our license back on the health side and she said because they think we are going to violate it in the future. >> tucker: your character. so if they don't like you, you can't operate a business in the state of maine. so looking back on this, looking back to april, if you had taken the course so many others took, which is just sort of ate the ball and go along with it and takeor the orders and sort of nd

respectively to be authoritarian in charge of the state. you would probably have your restaurant open right now. do you regret telling the truth in public? >> not at all and we are still standing strong we're going to open back up and we actually are opening up and going to run back is g normal. we're going to not serve alcohol until after the 20th of december, because that's what the court order was and then after that we are going full force businessn as usual and actually going to put this pandemic behind us and try to do business as normal. >> tucker: it seems like they had to crush you. if they had to try to wreck your life because if they allowed you to complain b in public, maybe others would do the same thing. out?u feel singled >> no doubt we are being singled out. we fed 35, 40 inspections, undercover agents. we had them recently because now there's a 9:00 curfew so they've been outside of my restaurant to see if we are going to close at 9:00. i haven't:0 even been there but there watching my staff come out of the kitchen, make sure they have masks on, it's just out ofa

control and i know everybody in the state of maine is ready to go back to work and have them move on in the future and get covid behind us and honestly, this lockdown is just killing the state off maine. >> tucker: man, if you can survive this, it will be anan inspiration i think not just to your state, but to the t rest of the country. we are rooting for you. rick savage, merrick most, thank you. >> thank you,hr tucker. >> tucker: it's all most like earlier this year the people in charge decided to nullify every part of the bill of rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, the right to defend yourself, so if course it was just a matter of time before religious liberty wasou eliminated. and it has been. one priest threatened with arrest if he had mass at his church but he did not obey, heas fought back. we will tell you how he did, next. ♪ every year, we set out to do one thing

help the world believe in holiday magic.

and this year was harder than ever. and yet, somehow, you all found a way to pull it off. it's not about the toys or the ornaments but about coming together. santa, santa, you're on mute! just wanted to say thanks. thanks for believing.

♪ >> tucker: welcome back to a special edition of "tucker carlson tonight." again, it's hard to believe thid could happen in this country, but itca has. earlier this year officials in new jersey threatened a priest with jail if he held mass in his church. that priest was kevin robinson. he is a catholic priest at the st. anthony church buried robinson responded by filing a f lawsuit against the governor of new jersey, phil murphy. robinson joins us tonight with an update on where things stand. father, thanks so much for coming on. you're a priest, part of your job is to help people worship their god. you tried to do that, the state threatened to arrest you, you f filed suit. where are you now with this? >> well, thanks for having me back on. i appreciate everything you said and so we did shut down for two months on sundays but i went on saturdays to the communion and confession counseling with no harassment from any local authorities.

we reopened at pentecost, the end of may and if you sundays outdoor services and then we moved back into the church with distancing and people started coming. we have now more than doubled the congregation so we are still keeping some sanitary and some distancing. we've been really blessed in your program was phenomenal.er it was a big help. you may remember within a week of your program, the president called for the reopening of the churches and the governor has been modifying his executive orders, the latest one is number 192 and he even admitted that the first amendment should be taken into account in freedom of religion respected. been some real good news since then. >> tucker: i'm amazed by what you t just said, the size of yor congregation has doubled. if we are seeing churches across the country really teeter on the edge of going out of business, going under, but yours has doubled? why do you think that is?

>> people are looking for the truth, holiness and some courage, conviction and other churches are very restricted if not closed altogether and the people were coming to us areos very grateful.y you may have heard the supreme court backed us up just last week. >> tucker: what -- so many churches haven't done what you did, which is gently resist and stand on principle and their rights as americans. what does your superior say? >> well, he was very happy that the lawsuit went through that we shouldws open. others of our own churches had to close longer than we did but we were able to get back on board. the local police donated many gallons of hand sanitizer and they've been good to us. we have lawyers and police in the parish. and some really good people and then the thomas more society,

god bless them emma took this all the way to the supreme court and you know what happened just last week. >> tucker: yes. >> the supreme court, they said simply that you must treat churches at least as favorably as secular businesses in the effort to contain the virus. the end of november, there was a brooklyn decision against the governor and the supreme court sent -- vacated the local district court's refusal toio grant us an injunction which provided the unfair limitation of churches 25% capacity while secular businesses and schools could beci 100% or 50%. so the supreme court now requires the district court too reconsider its clearly false decision. and that's where we are at now. >> tucker: thank you for doing that. not just for your congregation, but for the country. father robinson, i appreciate your coming on tonight. thank you. >> thank you for promoting it.

it's a wonderful blessing thanks to your promotion of the truth. >> tucker: well, it's heartfelt, i can promise you that. father robinson, thank you. earlier in the show we told you about a particularly brave business owner whose defying state orders to shut down, being harassed in a huge way for that. joins us after the break to tell us more. ♪ story. ♪

♪ piano playing ♪ "what the world needs now" ♪ ♪ is love, sweet love ♪ it's the only thing that there's just too little of ♪ ♪ what the world needs now is love, sweet love, ♪ ♪ no not just for some but for everyone.♪

♪ >> lie from america's news headquarters, i'm ashley strohmier. the coronavirus pandemic is overwhelming homeless shelters, social distancing as force shelters to cut capacity and blooming winter weather is only increasing demand making matters worse, the federal eviction moratorium is set to expire on december 31st. housing advocates are predicting this could cause up to 23 million americans to lose their housing. in many americans are still trapped for the holidays -- traveling for the holidays despite advice from health officials. more than 1 million travelers pass through airport security checkpoints in the u.s. and according to travel agency aaa, nearly 85 million people are expected to travel over the next week and a half. holiday travel is coming at a time when covid-19 debts are topping 3,000 a day. i'm ashley strohmier, now back to "tucker carlson tonight" special. for all your headlines log onto foxnews.com.

hiss musical >> tucker: sometimes the hypocrisy of the people in charge is so glaring, so completely over the top and flamboyant it makes your head spin. it doesn't even seem real. we felt that way earlier this month when a california restaurant owner recorded this video. >> everything i own is being taken awayhi from me and they st up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio. tell me that this is dangerous but right next to me as a slap in my face -- that's safe. >> tucker: that's the story of so many small business owners across the country. struggling to survive lactone orders. one of them, she owns havens garden restaurant in a small town in minnesota. she is defying the state's shutdown order and she joins us tonight. thanks so much for joining us.

so you're in this little town in minnesota, you have a restaurant, to open it from tim to time to nondenominational church services. i don't think anyone has gotten the coronavirus in your establishment but the state of minnesota is trying to shut yous down. why are they trying to do that toin you? >> the truth is, i have no idea, because the reservations -- you know, they are open, the casinos are open and they have t full dining and you know, the governor has the authority to close them down under usc code 25231. my lawyer ce is arguing, nathan hansen, equal protection, 14th amendment and so the truth is i have no idea why they are trying to shut small businesses down, i also have a dance studio and gymnastics gym and neither of my businesses are able to be open. >> tucker: it's just heartbreaking. but it's also infuriating because the taxes you pay are

the lifeblood of the people trying to destroy you. you are funding them to wreck your life and apply the law unequally. why are you still paying your taxes? since here question. >> good question. we pay it because that's what americans do, you know? we try to pay her taxes on time but as of right now, we can't because we have no income coming in and i'm so glad you brought that up, because as you know i had a court date hearing last wednesday and the state was arguing the reason the reservations could stay open is because they have to pay light taxes, but they don't call her taxes. the income they make, they have to feed their families and then judge even said, isn't that the same thing larvita is arguing for? that's why i was so confused when she rolled against me. we are in the same boat. we are all fighting to survive and i just don't understand why our governor is picking winners and losers. you know, he called us nonessential into me, everyone is essential, every lifee isev essential and so i don't

understand it. you can seei n' the blatant disrespect that he has for small businesses. because even airports -- i don't know if you notice, the airports, they are open. the restaurants in the airport, you can sit and eat and there's no difference. i wish i can answer thesen questions, like i wish i could why, butis the reason when there's no rhyme or reason for it, i don't know how to answer that. >> tucker: well, you answer the big question, which is his every life essential? and yes, it is, that's exactly right and if you go into something with that in mind it's hard to go too far wrong and i don't want to sort of make you paranoid or anything, but has it occurred d that maybe the people who own the airport restaurants or run the casinos on the reservationsur may be bigger donors to these politicians than you are? >> exactly. we all know -- we like to talk about it, not in public. but we know that's what's going on, these big corporations, walmart, they get to stay open while the small mom-and-pop businesses are struggling and

you know, i get calls from other businesses every day, you know, they're telling me they are losing everything, we are out or losing everything and we are calling on our governor to do something about it and he just puts more and more restrictions on. i don't know if you arereri the latest. as a restaurant, we are allowed to open up outside in the cold of minnesota winter.f so i don't really understand what our governor's thinking unless of course he's noter from minnesota or he doesn't understand our weather patterns, soea yeah, i'm sorry i don't get it. >> tucker: man, i hope you do as much media as you can, because you're -- you have a powerful voice on this topic and it's affecting me, i think it will affect others. so thank you for coming on tonight, i appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. thank you. >> tucker: so no one ever says it out loud but on some deep level, all of us knows it, this all ends. death is coming for all of us, so with that in mind, how should we live? mike rowe of all people is one of the few public figures whose thought about it and will talk

about it, and he will, straight ahead. ♪ it's soulful and stirring. and tom hanks is magnificent. it's hard finding your way home.

♪ >> tucker: welcome back to a special edition of "tucker carlson tonight." government officials across this country if embraced the chinese model in responding to theas wun virus and in doing that they put millions of fellow americans out ofli work. earlier this month we talked to a man whose thought a lot about work, mike rowe, and he explains another approach not sinful to work but to life, he calls it safety third. it turns out to be one of the more interesting conversations we've had this year and so we've asked them to come back and expand a little bit. mike rowe is a host of one of the biggest shows in digital

media, it's called "returning the favor" and airs on facebook. also the author of "the way i heard it." he joins us now. great to see you. so safety third, those words have been kind of reverberating in my head like a baby in a bowl ever since you were on and i'm wondering as people go in to new year's and think about how they want to approach 2021. translate that idea into a sort of the posture they should bring with them as they go into a new year. >> sure. we have a tendency in our culture to overreach with every single thing we try and correct. we always go too far. and the safety first bromide, the platitude, the trope, has been with us for a long, long time and it relies primarily -- it came out of an attempt to improve occupational safety and the emphasis, whenever you see a safety first banner and sit through a safety first presentation, what you're going to see is a lot of emphasis on

rules, regulation, and compliance. but of course,li just because you're in compliance doesn't mean you're out of danger. that was one of the great lessons from dirty jobs and something most people don't disagree with who have been out there in the world. saying safety third is not to suggest that we should engage in risky behavior that's not necessary. it's just an attempt to inject a little bit of personal responsibility into the equation because the unintended consequence of saying safety first to a worker over and over and over again and again and again, the unintended consequence of telling your customers, for instance, that their safety is your top priority is to create a level of complacency that ultimately negates the role of personal responsibility when it comes to coming home in one piece. so that's the basis of the conversation. i put it on masks because i love

the irony of a cloth mask that says safety third that allows to be in compliance, but in fact will probably not keep a microscopic germ from getting into your system or out. >> tucker: [laughs] that's the most subversive thing i've heard in a long time. so safety third -- >> it gets better. >> tucker: go-ahead!ka >> it's not just subversive, it's actually diabolically opportunistic and capitalistic because we've sold thousands to raise money for our work ethic scholarship program. we have over $300,000 come in as a result of selling safety third masks to people who understand that they need to be in compliance even if, in fact, they are not entirely out of danger. it's "a mind-boggling conversation online and yeah, thanks for starting it. it's kept the conversation lively.

>> tucker: it also suggests that there is another pointr: to life distinct from just preserving it.ou like you have to live it at some point too. >> the funny thing that happened -- when you and i talked about this last, i mentioned in passing an essay by c.s. lewis called how to live in the atomic age. he answered -- he answered this similar question back in i think it was 1948. h forcing how are we supposed to even function no one but bomb is out there and that people have the bomb? and of course the answer is the same way you function when you don't know if the vikings are going to show up on your shore with swords and pillage and do all of that ---- this thing, ths thing we've dealt with this year is a very serious thing, but it's one more thing. it's not a new thing even though we called it novel. it's another thing that can frighten us and terrify us and put us in a place where for a brief period we will treat our

safety like it is the most important thing. but fundamentally, tucker, we are not a safety first nation. we are a safety third nation and we might take steps that we do things along the way to focus on our long-term preservation and that's smart, but it's not sustainable. you can't live your whole life as if the entire purpose of your existence is to merely stay alive. >> tucker: i don't know how it felt to you to become one of america's most important philosophers, but i'm glad it has. i really am. mike rowe, great to see you. >> kind of a big deal, thank you. >> tucker: merry christmas. >> you too. >> tucker: so the question is, you can't have a lockdown order without enforcement. many of these orders are completely illegal. how much longer will police officers enforce them? that has become a real concern for some of our elected officials.ia we will talk to one sheriff who has already refused to enforce blatantly illegal orders.

plus, live to a restaurant that has a very important message for the people in charge. that's next. ♪

>> tucker: welcome back to a special edition of "tucker carlson tonight." we learned earlier that deborah birx broke her own rules, ones she was to abide by, in order to spend time with family at the vacation properties. need another example of ruling class telling you what to do and then doing the opposite? there youbi go.

the hypocrisy raises a question. how much longer are we going to control rate this? not much longer. when andrew cuomo restricted gatherings to ten people, several sheriffs said they wouldn't enforce it because it was illegal. one was the richard giordino, and he joins us with an update on how it's going for him. sheriff, thank you for coming on. when you were last on you explained in your view this was an illegal order and you are bound by the law and conscience not to enforce illegal orders. what happened next? where are you now onnd this? >> well, where i am now -- it's interesting. within a week the supreme court ruled as the father said you can't restrict the religious organizations to ten people and have the strip clubs and bars with 50 people. >> right. >> same s thing i was saying.

you can't take an executive order and pretend it's a law to police people's homes. as you saw across the country, many law. enforcement officers, sheriffs, chiefs, stood up and said look, it's unconstitutional, it's illegal. part of it is they spent six months telling us that law enforcement is bad.co law enforcement needs to be reformed. law enforcement gets up in the morning and they want to hurt people. now we are sending them to your house to how many people you have at thanksgiving. that makeses no sense. >> so, basically you are telling the same story we keep hearing again and again. you were one of the raree people to stand on principal and law to say i'm not goingar along with the program. you were vindicated in the end. why didn't more people do this in your position? >> i think some people are afraid to stand up. i got some criticism from some corners.af it's interesting, we are experiencing the post-thanksgiving surge that we were going to have across

the country. the same people who believe dr. birx, dr. fauci and the c.d.c. about the surge and the doubling of the deaths, theywe are saying you told people to gather and have big parties. i did not. i said we are not going tond use law enforcement to overreach by governors and government people across the country. what is interesting the common theme they want you to submit. when we were kids and they wanted you to say "uncle."ti it's do as i say, not as i do. if you don't, we'll come after you. yeah. if you don't, they will come after you. good luck to you. i hope you are okay. they don't like it when you disobey. and we're grateful you did. be careful. >> can i say one thing? >> of course. >> i want to acknowledge and i want to wish merry christmas and happy holidays to all the law enforcement officers the 800,000 plus in this country every day go out and do their job. m we do it after people spit on us and ambush us in the police cars, try to kill us.

say that we are racist and want to shoot people. the next day we get a 911 call and the law enforcement goes.ndc they don't care what your race is, what your religion is, or your politics or gender. merry christmas to you, tucker. congratulations on being the third most influential member of the media in this country. keep doing good work. thank you, sir. >> ior appreciate, sheriff. thanks a million. merry christmas. >> thank you. merry christmas.he >> well, officials in new york still staying up late to figure out how to destroy the pesky businesses called "restaurants." they banned indoor dining and sent out cops to chase down bar owners in a staten island. but a few are unbowed and one in particular. tyler hollinger opened his restaurant festival in the middle of the lockdown. act of boldness in itself. he joins us from the outdoor dining cabana with a message to the people trying to destroy his livelihood. great to see you. ihe your cabana looks great. merry christmas. tell us your message.

>> merry christmas to you, tucker. all i got to say is that, you know, the new yorkers are resilients and they are ryrong. just like the individuals you listed in the intro. we are not going to stop. we aren't going to stand up or lay down. we will do what we need to do to survive. we have pivoted here. to offer not only probably the safest experience. but also one of the warmest in new york city. right now. right now i'm standing live in the warmest table setup in all of new york city. this here is the personal heated holiday chalet. it's delightful and a merry christmas. [laughter] >> i never use the word "pluck" or "moxie" but you have them both in spades. how is it paying off? are you going to be able to stay open? are you going to survive this? >> you know, only time is going to tell whether or not. but we're booked. o we are very fortunate to be

booked. because we have created a great community. this neighborhood, this area of the upper east side where we are in is filled with the caring, loving, warm individuals who come and they support us. t whether they support us on the gofundme page or they buy gift cards for people who come later on to redeem them for cocktails. tucker, we have a cocktail f here called "the vaccine" and it's flying off the shelves. we are distributing morere vaccines than pfizer and it's amazing to see the response. >> no one is afraid of your vaccine. tyler hollinger, merry christmas! congratulations. >> no, no. tucker, with any good vaccine, a lot of testing is required. [laughter] >> i love that. you are doing it longitudinally. good job. great to see you. l >> merry christmas, tucker. >> merry christmas. and to you.

and a happy new year. we'll be back soon. in the meantime, keep the ones you love close. hr. ♪ >> sean: welcome to the special edition of "hannity." merry christmas to you and your family. "tonight for the hour we'll bring you some of the biggestt moments, the most important monologues from the past few months. first up, my message to america on institutional correction.mo the media mob's blatant double standard. take a look. m we start with an important message about the powerful institutions that are and have been actively hurting the country we love. the united states. we have long reported over the past two decades the democratic party, weak establishment republicans, deep state bureaucrats, never knew they had this much power and were this corrupt but they are. big tech, the media mob. always knew about bias. never at this level. m they have all been waging