'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host reacts to the fatal shooting of a woman after pro-Trump demonstrators stormed U.S. Capitol
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Here and police at the ready to
finish a job ready to hold the
line for as long as we need to
MIKE Tobin, live in
Washington thanks so much.
We are still waiting to hear if
the leader of the United States
Senate Mitch Mcconnell is
close to getting to the floor
and, of course we will have more
in what is happening bombarded
with images. What took place in
Washington, too little has been
spent on why
anyone trying to understand
significance ought to watch the
video of the woman who was shot
inside the? U dot s capitol this
afternoon,
in the footage which you can
find on the internet. The woman
is standing in a hallway off the
house floor.
She appears to be in her 20s
shes got an american flag tied
around her neck. The scene
around her is chaotic. People
are bumping into each other
trying to get into the Senate
Chamber
with no warning. There is
gunfire, you hear a shot and the
woman falls.
Shes been hit with a bullet. It
seems like the neck could be.
The chest apparently was fired
by someone in law enforcement.
If people in the hallway
screamed
the camera closes in on the
Womans face, she looks stunned.
She is staring straight ahead,
unblinking
in her eyes. You can see she
knows she is about to die which,
in the end she did,
she died a couple hours ago at a
local hospital.
What can we learn from this?
Its not enough to call it a
tragedy?
Imagine for a second getting a
call and learning that was your
daughter.
The last time she spoke to her,
she was heading to Washington
for a political rally. Now shes
dead,
Phil never talked to her again.
Imagine that
if you have children, it will put
you in the right frame of mind.
We will be watching a lot more
of it in the coming days.
Political violence begets
political violence. That is
always true. It is an iron law
and never changes. We have to be
against that, no matter who
commits the violence or under
what pretext,
no matter how many self
interested demagogues assure us
violence is justified as they
have been assuring us lying to
us for the past six months.
We have a duty to oppose all of
this, not simply because
political violence kills other
peoples, children which it does,
but in the end it doesnt work.
No good person will live a
happier life because that girl
was killed in the hallway of the
capital. Today,
our only option as a practical
matter is to fix what is causing
this. In the first place, we
dont have a choice.
You may have nothing in common
with the people on the other
side of the country, increasing
we probably dont, but youre
stuck with them.
The idea that groups of
Americans will break off into
separate peaceful nations of
like minded citizens thats a
fantasy. That will not happen.
There is no such thing as a
peaceful separation. There never
has been, and there wont be.
The two hemispheres of this
country are separately
intertwined cojoined. The twins
neither can leave without
killing the other
thats. The first thing to know
as horrifying as this moment is:
we have no option but to make it
better got it out.
The second thing to consider and
its related to the first is why
the woman who was killed today
went to the rally in the first
place.
We dont know about her, but she
didnt look radical. She bore no
resemblance to the angry
children, weve seen again and
again, wrecking our cities,
setting fire and scraping
slogans on statues. She didnt
look like that.
The woman in the capital hallway
looked like everyone else, so
why was she there on a
Wednesday?
Why were any of them there?
Today?
We ought to think about that.
If you want to fix it, you have
to think about that.
The only reason this country is
rich and successful is for
hundreds of years weve enjoyed
a stable political system and
the only reason that system is
stable is because its a
democracy. Democracy is our
pressure release valve as long
as people sincerely believe she
can change things by voting.
They stay calm, they dont storm
the Bastille, they dont burst
into the house chamber, they
talk and they organize and they
vote.
The opposite is also true. If
people begin to believe that
there democracy is fraudulent
if they concluded that voting is
a charade, the system is rigged
and its run in secret by a
small group of powerful
dishonest people. Then God knows
what could happen?
Actually, we do know what could
happen its happening right now
now
its happening in countless
other countries over centuries
and the cycle is the same
because human nature, doesnt
change,
listen to us shut up and do
what youre told reply. The
leaders,
the first instinct of
illegitimate leadership, is to
crack down on the population.
Crackdowns, never make it better.
Instead, they always make the
country more volatile and more
dangerous. The people in charge
dont care to learn or listen,
because all of this conversation
is a referendum on them and
their leadership, so they clamp
down harder
obey. I tell you obey.
It ends badly every single time
that doesnt mean they wont, try
it again. Of course they will
because its their nature its
how we got here in the first
place,
millions of American sincerely
believe the last election was
fake.
You can dismiss them as crazy
call them conspiracy, theorists,
kick them off twitter that
wont change their minds
rather than try to change their
minds to convince them and
reassure them. The system is real.
Democracy works, as he would do.
If you cared about the country,
our new leaders will try to
silence them.
What happened today will be used
by people taking power to
justify stripping you with the
rights were born with as
Un American,
your right to speak without
being censored your right to
assemble, to not be spied upon
to make a living to defend your
family most critically.
These are the most basic and
ancient freedoms we have. They
are why we live here in the
first place, why we are proud to
be Americans. They are what make
us different and they are all
now in peril.
When thousands of your
countrymen storm the capitol
building you dont have to like
it, we dont
you can be horrified by the
violence and, as we said, and we
will say it again- we are
horrified.
Transcript generated on 2021-01-07.