Guest: Scott Ritter, Rachel Maddow, Charles Gasparino, Max Kellerman
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST (voice-over): A grieving husband's final tribute. But have the politicians had their last say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is simply an unanswered question.
CARLSON: And rules that have some people fuming. Should lawmakers lighten up?
Plus, one city's unusual campaign to terminate the trick trade. Tick and flea repellent? That'll be aisle nine.
And the Taser vs. pepper spray debate. One man's shocking choice.
CARLSON: Yes, I've got a problem with authority. I'll admit that, in a cheery way. Not everyone likes the bow tie, I'll be honest. But I like the bow tie. I respect people who believe something, even if I don't agree with them. It's my opinion, wrong as it may be.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARLSON: Welcome to another dose of THE SITUATION. I'm Tucker Carlson.
Plenty to get to tonight, including Terri Schiavo's tombstone controversy and how the city of Chicago is busting prostitutes and embarrassing the men who love them.
Joining me now, “Newsweek” business writer and cultural savant Charlie Gasparino, and, from Air America Radio, the esteemed Rachel Maddow.
Welcome, both.
RACHEL MADDOW, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Thanks, Tucker.
CHARLES GASPARINO, “NEWSWEEK”: Thanks.
CARLSON: First up, some good news for a change; 11-year-old Cub Scout Brennan Hawkins was found alive and quite well today after he'd gone missing four days ago from a Scout camp in the mountains of Utah.
More than 3,000 people helped search for Brennan, who turned up near Lily Lake, 80 miles east of Salt Lake City and five miles from where the search had centered. Like any person of any age in this situation, Brennan Hawkins was hungry, thirsty and wanted to see his mom.
JODY HAWKINS, MOTHER: People say that the heavens are closed and God no longer answers prayers. We are here to unequivocally tell you that the heavens are not closed, prayers are answered and children come home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, great story.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: It is.
MADDOW: This is.
CARLSON: This really is.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Are you kidding?
GASPARINO: It's such a downer.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: ... hearing the mom. You don't hear the little...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Totally. It's real.
GASPARINO: I loved it.
CARLSON: This is the payoff...
MADDOW: Oh, yes.
CARLSON: ... for all the missing children's stories that, you know, depress you all year long and then one is found, and a tough little kid. No food or water, and he made it.
MADDOW: For four days. I know.
You know the thing that was also tear-jerking for me on this, among the rescuers was a guy whose son went missing in the same county nearby last year and was never found. His 12-year-old son who was lost and never found in this area, he was among the people who was searching for this little boy. And this little boy was found. It's just a heartbreaking story.
GASPARINO: I agree.
And, as a journalist, this is what you pray for, this type of story when you are covering it.
MADDOW: Right.
GASPARINO: Unfortunately, it really doesn't come out that much. Usually, the worst happens. And that's what makes this probably a TV movie.
CARLSON: Well, thanks for pointing out that not all journalists are evil.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Some actually do root for good things to happen.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Once in a while, I do.
CARLSON: Next situation, Michael Schiavo laid Terri Schiavo's ashes to rest in Clearwater, Florida, Monday, not in Pennsylvania, as her parents had wished. He further angered Bob and Mary's Schiavo with a headstone that listed February 25, 1990 -- that's when his wife collapsed into a coma -- as the date she departed this Earth. And, on March 31, 2005, the day she died, is the day Terri Schiavo was—quote—“at peace.”
Also graveside is a plaque reading—quote—“I kept my promise.”
I guess what bothers me about this—there are so many things—but the idea that she died in 1990 implies or really does suggest that she was somehow less than human for the past 15 years. And she wasn't. She was a human being. I mean, she was out of it in this comatose state. But she was a person.
MADDOW: But he didn't say that she died on that day. He said he used the kind of language that you use on a tombstone, had left this Earth.
CARLSON: Oh, come on. He said she died.
MADDOW: But then why put the other date, too? I mean, he did make a distinction between it.
GASPARINO: This is a really disgusting story, in a sense. I mean, I don't know why we keep covering this, because, essentially, what you have is a catfight between two grieved people. And, in a sense, it's getting ridiculous at this point.
MADDOW: I have to say that I think this is a little bit uncivil of—of Michael Schiavo to have done it this way, and the fact that...
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Oh, they're both—they're both taking shots at each other.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: They're both taking shots at each other, that she was buried in Florida after he had previously said she would be buried in Pennsylvania.
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: But I cut him slack on being uncivil at this point. I mean, Jeb Bush is having a prosecutor...
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: ... go after him, as of Friday, for what happened...
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: ... in 1990.
GASPARINO: And they did more than imply that he might have abused her along the way.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: They're still going after him.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I don't think there's any question the guy has reason to be mad.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: But to make a political statement on your wife's tombstone seems taking it a bit far. I think that's disgusting.
MADDOW: I don't think it's political. I think it's a snarky interfamily comment.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: OK. Well, keep the snarkiness for, you know, I don't know, a tattoo or something. But a tombstone...
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Or TV.
CARLSON: Or TV.
MADDOW: There you go.
GASPARINO: Bring him on the show.
CARLSON: Next situation comes from Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Former Ku Klux Klan Edgar Ray Killen was convicted today on all three counts of manslaughter for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers. The conviction comes 41 years to the day of the incident. The 80-year-old Killen now faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years per count of manslaughter.
It's hard not to be happy about justice being done...
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: ... after all these years, 41 years. It's murder. So, I'm glad.
GASPARINO: And probably the appropriate sentence, manslaughter.
CARLSON: Well, look, I mean, you know...
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: ... it's kind of hard after all this time. You can understand why the jury was hesitant to nail him with anything beyond that, though I think it's good news.
I guess what bothers me is the notion that, you know, the civil rights movement, while it was this great period in American history, never ended. All great things come to an end. The greatest problem in American life today is not white racism. There are other huge problems. And I think it is time other move on emotionally. And, hopefully, this is the time.
GASPARINO: Do you really think this was kind of focused in the civil rights movement? I think this was—this was justice.
MADDOW: Yes.
GASPARINO: And I...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Yes. I think it was justice. But I do think, you know, if you read what the prosecutor said, it was all about, you know, that era still existing.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: And it doesn't exist anymore.
MADDOW: Well, two things I think are interesting.
I mean, for me, it is hard, as somebody who wanted Edgar Ray Killen to be convicted, it's hard to see an 80-year-old man sent to prison, honestly, even though he's Edgar Ray Killen.
CARLSON: Yes.
MADDOW: But, at the same time, he's the guy who rounded up people, rounded up the Klansmen that night to go kill them.
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: Told them to buy gloves to cover their hands.
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: Got the bulldozer to bury the bodies. And then he spent 41 years walking for this. So, it is a justice. Sure.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Right.
And one thing the prosecutor wanted to say is, like, listen, Mississippi is a different place now. And if you go down to the South, you really know it is.
MADDOW: But...
GASPARINO: I mean, it not the place of cross burnings and lynchings. There's something called the new South. And I think you have got to give them credit for that.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: But, you know, James Chaney, his brother Ben, who was part of this trial, who has been speaking about his brother's legacy for a very long time, said, you know what? There's not a single black business downtown in the place where my brother was killed, still after all this time.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: And so, if you want to talk about the legacy of the civil rights movement, this is a part of it, but we've still got a way to go.
CARLSON: Well, that's a complicated conversation.
GASPARINO: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But I just—again, I think white racism, while it still exists, isn't the force it once was. And it's probably time for all of us to admit that.
But, next situation, there's fresh new extra incentive, as if you needed it, not to pick up hookers in Chicago. Starting today, the Chicago Police Department Web site will post the names, addresses and pictures of men arrested for soliciting. Mayor Richard Daley says that public humiliation is a deterrent and it starts from the premise that prostitution is not a victimless crime.
Just last year, Chicago Police nabbed 3,200 prostitutes and 950 of their customers. They were going to put the prostitutes on the Web site, too, but it turned out they were already on the Web.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: No reason to do that.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: I don't know.
GASPARINO: Anything I say about this, I can get in trouble. You know that.
CARLSON: Well, go crazy anyway.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But don't you think—I mean, obviously, it works. This will be a deterrent.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: But aren't there other crimes that—I don't know. They could go after littering, for one?
GASPARINO: Prostitution is such a ridiculous crime, unless, you know
· I mean, listen, Las Vegas does it very well. I don't know this by—for personal reasons. But, I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: I've heard tell, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: I mean, listen, they—they—they monitor it. They—you know, the women get checked out. So, I think there's a rationale for not making this such a big thing on the law enforcement agenda.
CARLSON: Well, actually, Vegas—it's illegal in Vegas.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: And I think they handle it...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: ... outside Vegas.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: ... Nevada.
CARLSON: But, in Las Vegas, it's tolerated, but as long as they keep it under wraps and aren't too flamboyant about it, which seems to me a good arrangement.
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: The thing that is interesting to me about this is that it may not work, I mean, in the sense that, what have we become in terms of our—our celebrity and the whole bad boy culture and all of this stuff? I can imagine the situation...
GASPARINO: You can be a bad boy and not pick up hookers.
MADDOW: Well, but people will be proud to have their names up there.
I can just see like, oh, check me out on the johns page at the Chicago P.D.
I can actually imagine this becoming some sort of creepy badge of honor.
CARLSON: Really?
MADDOW: Yes.
CARLSON: I don't think we're there yet.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Judging from—judging from people I know. But, you know, I may not be cutting edge enough.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Next, a double situation in children's television.
Nickelodeon and PBS want to tell your kids what to eat. Both networks are kicking off campaigns to teach children about healthy foods and exercise. Meanwhile, the Republican plan to slash the budget for the Corporation For Public Broadcasting by 25 percent brought about this dog-and-pony show in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Keep your hands off of PBS.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Senator Hillary Clinton and Congressman Ed Markey, alongside some of the characters who will be teaching health tips at a news conference supporting PBS today.
GASPARINO: It takes a village.
CARLSON: I love this.
GASPARINO: It takes a village.
CARLSON: So, PBS is trying to convince people they're not liberal. So, they're telling your kids to eat only, I don't know, organic, free-range, cruelty-free vegan products raised in Seattle?
MADDOW: Oh, come on.
CARLSON: I'm serious.
MADDOW: Come on.
GASPARINO: This is why liberals are so boring.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Are you going to blame Nickelodeon for this, too, that they're trying to convince people they're liberal? I mean, children's TV has always had do-gooder stuff in it.
CARLSON: But it's a stereotype of—of lifestyle liberalism. Don't eat this. Do eat that. Stop propagandizing my kids. They'll eat what I ask them to eat or tell them to eat.
MADDOW: What does this have to do with liberals? Children's TV always had do-gooder stuff. You grew up in California.
GASPARINO: Why is this do-gooder?
MADDOW: You probably learned Spanish from “Villa Alegre.”
CARLSON: I did.
MADDOW: You did.
CARLSON: And I resented every moment of it.
(LAUGHTER)
GASPARINO: Why is this do-gooder stuff? I mean, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Go to the dentist, floss your teeth.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: No. They're asking—they're asking people to—you know, they're trying to teach—indoctrinate people into a certain lifestyle.
MADDOW: Indoctrinate kids into going outside and playing and flossing their teeth.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: They have parents for that. They have parents for that.
MADDOW: That's fine. But, come on. You guys are going to rail and make this some sort of liberal problem.
CARLSON: No.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Hillary saving the world.
MADDOW: Oh, come on. This is ridiculous. You guys are totally off base.
CARLSON: But I do think food neurosis starts really young.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: And you make—when I was little, I remember my teacher telling me...
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: ... that white bread was immoral. And to this day, I cannot eat white bread. I just—oh, I feel bad about white bread. I'm serious.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Well, OK.
CARLSON: That was Southern California in 1976. It was immoral to eat white bread.
MADDOW: If you're worried about what is on TV, the chair of the Corporation For Public Broadcasting hired a guy from the American Conservative Union to monitor the political bias in one PBS show.
CARLSON: Can you imagine? A conservative in public broadcasting?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: That's just wrong.
MADDOW: But, but that's who they hired to monitor the political objectivity of the show. That's more offensive than don't eat white bread. Come on.
CARLSON: Well, that show needed it.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Well, coming up, a ban on smoking in—in bars pleases an op-ed writer in one of the beer-drinkingest towns in America. But how do people in the bars feel? You can guess.
Plus, is the U.S. already at war with Iran? A former American weapons inspector says so. And he joins me next to explain. A must-see interview after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Next on THE SITUATION, former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter tells Al-Jazeera we're already at war with Iran. He'll explain himself in our “Free Speak” segment next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT RITTER, FORMER CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR IN IRAQ: I've gone to war for my country. I know what it means to take men's lives and put it on the line. When you go to war, it should be for the legitimate national defense, defending your country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Welcome back. That was former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter, who proclaimed before the war that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
This week, he published an op-ed on the Al-Jazeera Web site claiming the U.S. has already begun another war, this time with Iran.
Scott Ritter joins me now.
Scott Ritter, thanks. Thanks for coming on.
RITTER: It's a pleasure.
CARLSON: It seems to me that headline of your piece and maybe the thesis of your piece is wrong. We're not at war with Iran. Or I misreading it?
RITTER: Well, let's start off with the precedent that has already been established by the Bush administration when we talk about Iraq.
If you recall, the president loudly proclaimed in September and October of 2002 that he had no intention of waging war with Iraq, that he was seeking a diplomatic solution. And he maintained that premise all the way up until his presentation to the American people in the middle of March, when he publicly proclaimed that American troops were going into Iraq.
We now know that the president signed a covert finding in spring 2002 authorizing the CIA and the United States military special operations forces to engage in direct action and strategic reconnaissance operations in Iraq. That's a warlike...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Right. It's warlike. It's also—it could be read—and I think it accurately is read—as a preparation for war. And the things you cite in this piece are also preparations for war.
RITTER: No. No.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: How are we at war with Iraq?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: With Iran?
RITTER: No.
Tucker, when you violate the sovereignty, when you violate the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation, that's a warlike action. When the commander in chief authorizes the—either the paramilitary arm of the clandestine services of the intelligence community of the United States or special operations forces to engage in activities that'll lead to the removal of a regime, that's war. It's not a declared war, but it is war.
CARLSON: Well...
RITTER: And this is what happened with Iraq. And this is what is happening today with Iran.
CARLSON: Well, but it's—it's also, Scott, what happened with the Soviet Union. For 40 years, we prepared for war with the Soviet Union.
In—we mobilized the entire U.S. government to prepare for war with the Soviet Union and never had a war with the Soviet Union. You don't mention in your piece, though, reasons why we might fear Iraq, its nuclear program, acts of terror it has sponsored. I mean, you will concede that we have something to fear from Iran, don't we?
RITTER: Well, no, nothing that's threatening to the national survival of the United States.
Let's take the nuclear—the alleged nuclear weapons program. I don't think the Bush administration has sustained any allegation it has made pertaining to Iraq—or Iran possessing a nuclear weapons program with fact. They've used defector information. And I think every American should have alarm bells sounding loud when we talk—when we have the Bush administration putting forward defectors to make their case.
There's no facts. The Bush administration cites an Iranian nuclear energy program that dates back to the 1970s, when the Ford administration...
CARLSON: Right.
RITTER: ... with Dick Cheney serving as the White House chief of staff and Donald Rumsfeld serving as secretary of defense, saying that this is a legitimate program.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I know that. But, Scott, with all...
(CROSSTALK)
RITTER: It's the same program today.
CARLSON: That's right. I mean, Iran has conceded, has admitted that it has a nuclear program. It claims it's for nuclear energy.
Why would a country awash in oil have a nuclear energy program? It wouldn't. This obviously...
RITTER: Well, I'll go back to the reasons that—I'll go back to the reasons that the shah of Iran used in 1976 in getting the Ford administration, again, with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld agreeing that Iran cannot allow itself to be prisoner to a single source of energy, given the fact that it had the then Soviet Union on one flank and it had Iraq on another. Iran had to have an alternate energy supply. And, you know, the United States government...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: That's a very generous reading of Iran's motives, I think.
RITTER: ... said it was—said it was a good thing.
So, now we have Iran, with United States forces in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan, and you don't think that the same strategic impetus that applied in 1976 applies today?
CARLSON: Well, I think—I think the idea that a country just swimming in petroleum needs a nuclear weapons program, going a bit far.
But let me ask you about your piece, though. Pretty intemperate, pretty over the...
GASPARINO: No, no, nuclear energy program. I never said anything about a nuclear weapons program.
CARLSON: I said nuclear—I meant nuclear energy program.
RITTER: Yes. OK.
CARLSON: Pretty over-the-top piece. You accuse the White House a—what you describe as a neoconservative cabal of committing crimes against Iran and essentially waging this war that no one has noticed somehow.
You wrote this on the Al-Jazeera Web site. This is fanning the flames of paranoia in the Middle East, don't you think, among people who already think that our government is run by Israel and that we're planning on colonizing the Middle East. This can't be good for America, can it? Why'd you run it on the Al-Jazeera Web site?
RITTER: Well, because “The New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream media outlets in the United States won't run a piece like that.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I'll tell you exactly why, Scott Ritter, because, in here, you accuse the CIA of setting off bombs against civilians in Iran this month, for which you have no evidence.
RITTER: Well, excuse me, Tucker Carlson, if we're going to go with first and last name, the CIA today is working—its paramilitary operatives are working in MEK, Mujahedin-e Khalq, bases in Iraq.
Now, remember, the MEK is still listed by the State Department of the United States of America as a terrorist organization. The CIA is working with the MEK to send MEK operatives into Iran to carry out reconnaissance...
CARLSON: All right.
RITTER: ... intelligence and direct action.
Now, you tell me why we as Americans should feel that this is a good thing.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: That's an extremely heavy claim.
RITTER: Why should we feel this is a good thing?
CARLSON: To claim that the U.S. government is killing civilians indiscriminately with bombs in Iran, when you offer not a single shred of evidence, is an outrage...
RITTER: I gave you the evidence. The Iranian government...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: ... that you put that in any op-ed anywhere, much less on Al-Jazeera.
Unfortunately, we're out of time. Scott Ritter, thanks for joining us.
RITTER: Oh, you—you...
CARLSON: Coming up, a Washington columnist thinks Dick Cheney and his cohorts lied about Iraq to themselves. That would be alarming. We'll discuss it with “Op-ed Op-ed” next.
Plus, it's easy to bad-mouth the French. And it's fun. But is it right to fire them just for having that (SPEAKING FRENCH) actually (SPEAKING FRENCH)? And I'll tell the outsider all about it, so stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Time now for “Op-ed Op-ed.”
We have read almost every editorial page in America, just because we care. And we've chosen three of the best, to which Charlie, Rachel and I will offer our 20-second retorts.
All right, first up, E.J. Dionne writes in today's “Washington Post,” the administration didn't prepare the public for the realities of the Iraq war because they really believe their own propaganda over at the White House—quote—“The notion that the president led the country into war through indirection or dishonesty is not the most damaging criticism of the administration. The worst possibility is that the president and his advisers believed their own propaganda.”
I think it's also the most likely. I mean, the idea that they lied...
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: ... when it was certain they would be found out is absurd.
But politicians always believe their own propaganda.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: That's why, during election years, there's always a health crisis, right?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: And they really believe that.
GASPARINO: That's what true believers are all about. That's why they always them in the White House.
I mean, listen, I agree with this. It's hard to stomach it, but I think he's absolutely right. They believed their own B.S.
MADDOW: I think that the Bush administration—I think it's an open question—you and I disagree on this—about whether or not it was on purpose that they gave us false intelligence.
GASPARINO: Come on.
MADDOW: It's an open question. I think that the Downing Street memos actually do matter.
GASPARINO: Are these guys evil? Do you think they're evil?
MADDOW: The...
GASPARINO: That's—that's...
MADDOW: I think the fixing facts and policy around—fixing facts and intelligence to fit the policy is a really damning criticism. So, that to me is an open question.
But the fact remains, they told us things that weren't true to get us into war. They still haven't told us why we're there. They still have no plan to get us out. And it's an epic, epic failure.
CARLSON: You're talking about Hillary Clinton, who told us that there were weapons of mass destruction and that we ought to go to war.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: I believed Hillary. That was my mistake.
(LAUGHTER)
MADDOW: I didn't believe that there were weapons.
CARLSON: All right.
MADDOW: I don't think we should have gone. And now we're all right, because now we all think they should come home.
GASPARINO: Oh, boy.
CARLSON: Well, “The Boston Globe” thinks it's in America's interests
for the Bush administration to hold direct talks with North Korea—quote
· “The deal—the deal Kim is putting on the table requires only that Bush muster a show of respect for the boss of North Korea's Stalinist state as the price for shutting down the nuclear bazaar where al Qaeda would be most likely to purchase the ultimate terror weapon.”
This is so “Boston Globe,” it's hard to know where to begin. It's our fault...
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: ... that they're crazy because we didn't show the proper respect.
MADDOW: Well...
CARLSON: This is like the playground analysis of diplomacy.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: You're going to threaten me with a nuclear weapon because you're mad at me, because I was mean to you.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Listen, I'm not going to defend an editorial.
But let's face it.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: ... absurd.
GASPARINO: But let's face it. Detente worked, right? It worked—it worked under Nixon. It could work now. If we have some open engagement with these folks...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: But don't you think countries act out of their own national interests? It's not about feelings. It's about what is good for them.
GASPARINO: But if we give them some money, maybe they'll get rid of their nukes.
CARLSON: Well, that's right. That has nothing to do with being nice.
MADDOW: I think countries do act out of their national interests.
GASPARINO: That's what they want.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: If you look at—what is the alternative? The Bolton plan at the State Department was to say to North Korea, we want you to go down on your knees before us, completely dismantle your nuclear weapons program and any...
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: ... nuclear energy program, and then maybe we'll consider talking to you.
GASPARINO: Crazy people generally don't do that.
MADDOW: What country—yes, what country—even a sane country wouldn't do that?
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Nobody was ever going to do that.
Now that Bolton is out of the State Department, we're talking to them one-on-one through the New York channel and we might actually make some progress.
CARLSON: But you're leaving out the second half of the Bolton pitch, which is the threat. Or else, right?
MADDOW: Right.
CARLSON: That actually works too. It's not just the carrot. It is the stick.
MADDOW: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: And that's effective as well.
MADDOW: Unless we're on the precipice of invading them, you have got to have the carrot, too.
CARLSON: Well, I don't know. I mean, you could say to them...
GASPARINO: You really want to invade them.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: No, no, you don't want to—of course...
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: They're like four minutes from downtown Seoul. Of course we don't want to invade them.
MADDOW: Right.
CARLSON: But, I mean, you could say, look, your biggest trading partner, China. We'll lean on China about this. We have—you know, we have some authority, right, in our talks with China? We can—we can hurt you economically.
GASPARINO: We have some minor stroke.
CARLSON: Yes.
GASPARINO: We don't have authority.
CARLSON: Yes. Minor stroke.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: We have to give them a reason to do it for themselves. And then they'll do it.
CARLSON: But I'm just saying, it's diplomacy, not all about niceness.
Meanness works, too.
MADDOW: Well, thank God we're all in favor of being mean.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Yes, well.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Paul McIntyre in the Madison, Wisconsin “Capital Times” says all bar owners should ban smoking—quote—“With hundreds of cities covered by 100 percent smoke-free restaurant and bar laws, the inevitability of smoke-free legislation everywhere is a foregone conclusion. Bar owners should stand up together and be accountable for protecting workers from tobacco smoke.”
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: In other words, all the other kids are doing it. Hurry up and do it.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: Get in line, buddy, or we're going to send to you jail.
Look, the fact is, some people smoke.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: They like it. They're adults. They get to do that.
GASPARINO: Right.
CARLSON: If you don't want to be in a bar with other people who smoke, then go to a non-smoking bar. There are plenty, even in Wisconsin. The idea that you need to require bar owners to make them nonsmoking, it is just nannyism run amok.
GASPARINO: Yes. And this definitely hurt the New York economy when they imposed it, when they imposed the smoke ban.
CARLSON: Yes.
GASPARINO: And, by the way, I don't smoke. And it's nice coming home without your clothes smelling like smoke. But it did hurt business.
CARLSON: But not just the economy, the style. I mean, it was nice to see New Yorkers sitting at the bar, grizzled old alcoholic New Yorkers—there are some still—smoking. I don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: My best friends.
CARLSON: Yes.
MADDOW: I think I like going to a smoky bar. I'm not a smoker. I like going to a smoky bar.
I like seeing the band through the haze of all the smoke and everything.
GASPARINO: Do you like smoking cigars?
MADDOW: Yes. You know me.
GASPARINO: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
MADDOW: As a liberal, you know how we are.
But the issue is—for me is that I like the Corvair. I don't necessarily think the Corvair should still be sold. The fact is that a smoking ban levels the playing field and doesn't make bartenders choose between bars where they're going to be exposed to smoke and bars where they won't.
GASPARINO: I never met—I know so many bartenders. And, by the way, I'm not an alcoholic, but I know a lot of bartenders.
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: And they have never complained about that.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Well, if we're going to protect bartenders, I hope someone is going to protect airport baggage handlers, because the fumes from jet fuel, I think, are probably a lot worse for you than a Marlboro, a lot worse. So, do you know what I mean?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: There are a lot of environmental hazards in this country.
GASPARINO: Occupational hazard.
CARLSON: And smoking at least is kind of cool, unlike jet fuel.
MADDOW: Jet fuel is pretty cool, Tucker. I don't know where you've been.
CARLSON: Coming up, were you born to vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry or anyone else? The genetics of politics rears its unlikely head when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back. It's time once again to meet “The Outsider,” a man from outside the news of cable—world of cable news who's agreed to become a permanent devil's advocate.
Joining us again, ESPN radio show host and professional contrarian Max Kellerman.
MAX KELLERMAN, ESPN RADIO HOST: Ready for you, Tucker.
CARLSON: All right, Max. We've got some good stories.
Well, the news landscape has been dotted recently with stories of pharmacists who refuse to dispense so-called morning-after contraceptive pills because of their opposition to abortion. On Monday, the American Medical Association passed a resolution recommending that Congress require pharmacists to fill any legal prescription or to send customers to another pharmacy that will.
This is so authoritarian and coercive, I don't even know what to say, Max, except this: If people have a religious objection to doing something, and it's their business—they're not working for the government, they're working for a private enterprise—you shouldn't be allowed to force them. You shouldn't force kosher butchers to sell pork or force, I don't know, Christian Science convenience store owners to sell Advil. It's wrong.
KELLERMAN: OK. First of all, doctors take a Hippocratic oath, right?
And if you own a pharmacy, you're really an arm of the medical profession.
I know it doesn't apply to you directly, but in a broader way, it does.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLERMAN: Now, you're right, it is religious. It has to be religious opposition, because the right did a good job of making people sensitive on the left, like me, about abortion. You know, the third trimester, it's a kid. Just because it's not out of the womb, you can't just kill that thing.
But when it's a zygote, when it's two or three cells, where they've just first divided, the only possible argument is that it's invested with a soul. So actually, what's going on is the pharmacists are imposing their religious beliefs, necessarily, on people seeking medical attention.
CARLSON: No, actually, they're not. They're simply refusing to violate their own religious beliefs. There are plenty of pharmacies in this country that do dispense the morning-after pill.
But I think you undermined your own argument at the very beginning by conceding that there is a profound and legitimate split between those who think abortion is a medical procedure and those who believe it's murder.
It's legitimate. It's OK to have a varying view on the subject, which means you have to allow people to object, in the same way that we allow people time off for their own religious holidays. We don't make them work on days that are holy to them. We shouldn't make them violate the tenets of their own religions.
KELLERMAN: But then they're in the wrong profession, you know? If you're a Christian Scientist, you probably wouldn't own a convenience store, because convenience stores, people are expecting to find Advil, right?
CARLSON: But that's the beauty of America. You can. And if people don't like it, you'll go out of business. But if they continue to support you, you'll thrive. It's up to the people.
KELLERMAN: Oh, well, actually, it's up to the AMA, isn't it?
CARLSON: No, it's not.
KELLERMAN: I wish it were.
CARLSON: Authoritarian group.
Next up, there are currently more than 88,000 Americans awaiting organ donations. The Department of Health and Human Services convened a panel of doctors, lawyers, ethicists—ooh—and health care experts to devise ways to meet the unprecedented demands.
Among the panels many suggestions money, allowing hospitals to pay people cash to become organ donors. Now, if you ever woke up outside a bar in Amsterdam missing a kidney, you'll know that there is a thriving organ-for-cash trade going on.
My fear, and the reason I think this is a bad idea, is that poor people will be preyed upon. Poor and desperate people make bad decisions. They play the lottery. They max out their credit cards. They might even sell their organs. They do in India. They need to be protected from this. It's wrong, should not be legal.
KELLERMAN: I just want to clarify something. We're talking about after they are dead, yes?
CARLSON: No, after they're dead...
(CROSSTALK)
KELLERMAN: Well, you need your organs while you're living, right, like...
CARLSON: Well, not all of them. You could sell a cornea. You only need one eye. No, but it's true. You can sell a kidney. It happens.
KELLERMAN: Well, basically, we're talking about people who have died.
Their families, essentially, selling their organs to people who need them. Now, I'm not sure if you understand what organs do, but they support life function.
And once you are no longer alive, you no longer need them. But you know what? Other people who are alive really do. Meanwhile, their families, or the families of the dead people, really might need the money. It seems like a perfect match.
CARLSON: Well, then you ought to give them away. Don't you think there's something wrong with taking a body and selling it for parts? There's a desecration involved in that.
KELLERMAN: Well, if you need the cash, if the family needs the cash. If it were me and my family needed the money, and I don't need my liver anymore, take it.
CARLSON: OK. I will concede, Max, that you are, in fact, making a rationale argument.
KELLERMAN: Thank you very much.
CARLSON: But let me just counter with a very irrational but still true point.
KELLERMAN: Yes?
CARLSON: It's creepy. It gives me the willies. There's something about it I don't like. It's just wrong. You know how I know it's wrong? Because it feels wrong.
KELLERMAN: That's right. It does not pass the smell test.
CARLSON: It doesn't pass the smell test.
KELLERMAN: I agree. Most cadavers don't.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: You win.
KELLERMAN: Thank you very much.
CARLSON: Three waiters fired from the New York restaurant 21 have filed a $5 million lawsuit claiming they were canned because they're old and they're French. Their lawyer told the “New York Daily News,” quote, “There is anti-French sentiment at 21 that appears to be in keeping with the times.”
Two of the former garcons say they were falsely accused of drinking wine on the job. According to the court papers, the other got the axe for making an obscene gesture at a chef in a depute over a hamburger.
OK, let's just start at the beginning here. Two French waiters are accused of drinking wine and making an obscene gesture.
KELLERMAN: Sounds like the beginning of a joke.
CARLSON: Let's just stipulate—right. There's a rabbi involved. Let me just stipulate from the beginning, it's all true, OK? It's 100 percent true. But it's the restaurant's fault. You hire French waiters—and you should—you know you're going to get people who drink on the job and who make obscene gestures habitually. That's what you're getting.
KELLERMAN: Well, first, let me give the restaurateur some advice, OK?
So wait them out about a week. They'll surrender. They're French.
No, really, let's assume for a second that—well, why do they make good waiters, the French, if they're old, and they drink, and they're lazy, and all these things. Why are you saying that makes a good waiter?
CARLSON: Because eating at a French restaurant is a little bit like Russian roulette. You never know what's going to happen. They never bring you what you order.
KELLERMAN: That's part of the whole experience?
CARLSON: They bring you what they think you ought to be eating. That's exactly right. They know better. In matters of food, wine, and possibly sex, the French know a ton. We ought to listen to them. I'm a French defender in this round.
KELLERMAN: Look, put it this way: If you're a midget, you might not get hired to play in the NBA right?
CARLSON: Yes.
KELLERMAN: Or the skills that you're—or you're physical, it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit in the NBA. If you're a lazy old drunk, maybe you're not going to make the best waiter.
CARLSON: Yes, that's possibly true, but that is another argument for why this is the restaurant's fault. They should have known. The idea that you hire French waiters with the expectation that they will stay sober, be polite, and work hard is silly from the very beginning.
KELLERMAN: Well, I can't argue about that. I'm not going to sit here and defend the French. You're right.
CARLSON: And also I just want to make one other point. This is a guy
· can you imagine the pain it will cause a French waiter day after day to serve hamburgers?
KELLERMAN: Yes, right, to Americans, by the way.
CARLSON: It's offensive to the French.
KELLERMAN: But they were fired for insubordination and being drunk on the job. I mean, what do they have to do to get fired? What is this, the post office?
CARLSON: It's par for the course in France.
Max Kellerman, thank you.
KELLERMAN: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Still to come, no, this is not Max Kellerman's crazy uncle Leo, though the resemblance is uncanny. We'll tell you why this poor guy subjected himself to a taser zap and a face-full of pepper spray. The answer, on our “Cutting Room Floor.”
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back to the SITUATION. I hope you're enjoying the longest day of the year.
More stories we have. A lot happened today. Longest day of the year, no surprise. Charlie Gasparino, Rachel Maddow joining us again.
Thank you.
MADDOW: Sure.
CARLSON: Well, once again, we start with the developing situation in Congress. A week after he compared American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to the Nazis and other infamous figures, Illinois Democrat and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin took time out to apologize on the Senate floor. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings. Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration, and total support.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: He went on to say, “I never intended any disrespect for them.” I meant Nazis, really, in the best way, when I compared them to the Nazis, and Pol Pot, and the Soviets. I mean, look...
GASPARINO: What took him so long?
CARLSON: It took a week. He had many opportunities to apologize. He didn't. He didn't misspeak. He meant what he said. He should just stick by it. You know, three years from now, when you wonder why Democrats get none of the military vote, even though the war is going south, and they probably deserves the military vote, it's things like this.
MADDOW: Oh, come on. Dick Durbin should not have apologized, I don't think, even though I disagree with the use of his analogies. I think that he misspoke, but when he came up first and said, “Listen, you know, I don't want to apologize”...
GASPARINO: He compared them to the Nazis.
MADDOW: Right, OK, but listen, but then what you had...
GASPARINO: I mean, there are problems there.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: ... the right and you had Republicans piling on and saying, “You never should make those analogies.”
GASPARINO: You shouldn't.
MADDOW: You've got Dick Cheney saying that's the most egregious thing I've ever heard on the floor of the Senate. Dick Cheney, who told Senator Leahy to go himself on the floor of the Senate.
CARLSON: But that's a fair comment. I mean, this is different. I mean, that was aimed at senators...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: ... one man. That's not a slur on an entire group of American soldiers.
MADDOW: Wait a minute. What about when Bob Novak came out and said that Democrats were Nazi prison camp doctors...
CARLSON: Wait a second. Bob Novak works for CNN. I mean, we're talking about the minority whip of the United States Senate.
MADDOW: OK. How about when Senator James Inhofe came out and said that Kyoto is Nazism? How about when we had Phil Gramm come out and say that the Democrats' 2002 tax plan was Nazism?
GASPARINO: How about that—he barely was criticized by a single Democrat. I mean, that to me, I think, was...
MADDOW: So was it right?
GASPARINO: It's just—comparing Guantanamo Bay to Nazi prison camps is right?
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: I don't think that it's right.
GASPARINO: You don't really think that.
MADDOW: I think that the criticism is disingenuous.
GASPARINO: What's so disingenuous about criticizing him?
MADDOW: Rick Santorum just said the Democrats were Nazis for trying to preserve the filibuster. He didn't apologize for that. Nobody asked him to apologize for that.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Well, I'll say right now—I'll say exactly what you said last week, which is Nazi analogies are always and everywhere overblown and wrong.
MADDOW: That's right.
CARLSON: I will say, though, we found out yesterday that Saddam Hussein's has been eating Raisin Bran Crunch, OK? It doesn't sound like much of a gulag to me. So maybe we should get a little perspective on how we treat our prisoners.
GASPARINO: Doritos, I think.
CARLSON: Yes, and Cheetos.
MADDOW: You're right. The Doritos just slays that whole argument about having rights.
CARLSON: It does. Actually, you know, honestly, it does.
Next situation, North Carolina judges will be asked this week to decide if witnesses in state courtrooms can be sworn in on the Koran rather than a Bible. The Council on American Islamic Relations says the current exclusive use of the Bible in North Carolina could be an inappropriate state endorsement of religion.
Meanwhile, a prominent superior court judge in that state claims that, quote, “An oath on the Koran is not a lawful oath under our law.” And in fact, that's right. I wonder, is the lesson of 9/11 really we need to swear in people on the Koran? I mean, let's be totally real here.
MADDOW: It has nothing to do with 9/11.
CARLSON: It absolutely does. There is some—I mean, you know, it's not just a question of, you know, the Bible, or the Koran, or “Dianetics,” or, you know, Mary Baker Eddy's books. I mean, it's a question of the Koran specifically. And is it an appropriate book, seriously, to take the place of the Bible?
GASPARINO: Well, no. But you know, maybe we don't need any of this. I mean, there comes a point where you just tell the person, “Listen, you're going give the testimony. If you're not truthful, you're going to jail.” Ask Martha Stewart.
CARLSON: Well, actually, that's an option in North Carolina. In many states, you would take an affirmation.
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: And the rule in North Carolina is that you can take an affirmation with doesn't involve a holy book or you can swear on holy scripture. But we only accept one thing as holy scripture.
If the point of swearing on anything is to ensure that you tell the truth, and we need that for our court system, why would you want people to be swearing on something that means nothing to them?
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: Yes, they tried to, and the judges said, “No, we don't want them.”
GASPARINO: Right.
MADDOW: You're asking Muslims to swear in on the Bible, which doesn't functionally make sense. If the point of it is to make you feel like you have to tell the truth.
CARLSON: Well, that's why you can swear an affirmation.
GASPARINO: I really don't have a problem with this. I just can't believe we're actually talking about this.
MADDOW: if they can swear an affirmation, then there shouldn't be Bibles, either.
CARLSON: Next situation, mental patients forced by law to take their meds. The state legislature of the state of Maine passed a bill requiring some mental patients to follow court-ordered treatment or be hospitalized against their will. It will affect mostly patients with severe cases of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia who need care safely to function in society.
GASPARINO: I can't wait for your opposition to this.
CARLSON: I'm totally for this. And I'm against this stuff in...
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: All you have to do is remember back in the early-'90s, there was a guy on 92nd street. They called him the wild man of 92nd street, Larry Hoch (ph).
CARLSON: I remember really well.
GASPARINO: When he wasn't on his medications, he harassed people. Not only did he harass, he threatened to kill them. I mean, if there's ever a law that cries out to be implemented, it's this.
MADDOW: I think that having less severe alternatives to prison or to forced hospitalization is a good thing. And I think that, also, whenever you come up with less severe alternatives to various functions, it just means that more people get punished...
GASPARINO: So you're for this?
MADDOW: Well, what it comes down to—I mean, I think this is a complicated situation. This isn't like a left-right war, I guess.
CARLSON: Right. I agree.
MADDOW: I think this is a practical situation.
CARLSON: Well, maybe we can all now admit that homelessness is not primarily about a lack of housing. We pretended for many years we just didn't have enough houses. It's turned out we emptied the mental hospitals. One-quarter of all homeless people—probably higher—are mental patients. And it's inhumane to let people who don't know where they are to live in their own filth in the street. There's nothing good about that.
GASPARINO: Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, wrote the Cuomo Report back in the early 1990s which said exactly that. Most of these guys, let's face it, they're on drugs. They have mental problems.
CARLSON: All right.
Men, listen up, because you might be very interested in our next situation. Researchers in Kansas working on a weekly or monthly birth control pill men could take as a form of contraceptive. Don't throw out the Trojans or cancel your vasectomy plans just yet. It'll be at least five years before clinical trials can be conducted.
Now, there are not a lot of great options now if you're a man and want to be infertile. I mean, you can go under the knife. You can wear super-tight underwear. But really, I mean, this is a great leap forward, if it comes to pass.
MADDOW: But here's my question: Will men take the pill?
CARLSON: Of course they will.
GASPARINO: Will men actually, you know, be part of the test? I mean, what man is actually going to subject themselves to this test?
MADDOW: We were talked about this before. And you were saying, “I can't even imagine anybody who would volunteer to be tested on this.”
GASPARINO: No one's messing with my chemistry.
MADDOW: That's the thing. Do men freak out about the possibility of not being able to have kids? Or do you just freak out about the possibility of pain down there?
GASPARINO: We never freak out about that part of our body. Never.
Never.
MADDOW: Why wouldn't to participate in the test? Because you're afraid about not being able to have kids?
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Do I really have to answer this question?
MADDOW: Yes, I want to know.
GASPARINO: No.
MADDOW: I'm a girl. Tell me.
GASPARINO: You want to know why I wouldn't participate?
MADDOW: Why you wouldn't participate in a test like this. You wouldn't have to wear a condom anymore. You wouldn't have to get a vasectomy.
GASPARINO: The Gasparino family legacy will live on.
MADDOW: Because you want to have more kids, not because you're...
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: Yes, I want to...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: I think it's a legitimate concern. It's not just something to—you know what I mean—to mock. I mean, I think men have concerns...
MADDOW: No, I'm not mocking it.
CARLSON: ... about their reproductive ability. But I do think—you know, you always hear women say, “Well, you know, men would never deal with it,” right? And I think they would, actually. I think men would take responsibility, as long it was proved not to, you know...
GASPARINO: Kill you.
CARLSON: ... make you unable to function, sure.
MADDOW: Make you unable to function? You guys are so euphemistic about this stuff. You're so nervous.
GASPARINO: We're on TV. You know, wait until we get off the air.
MADDOW: No, you're like the...
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: We're going to go deeper into science now. Now, if you hate me for my politics, which I hope you don't, it may be that you can't blame me or anyone else. According to a report in the latest “American Political Science Review,” people gut reactions on issues like the death penalty, taxes, and abortion—all of which I oppose, by the way—may be influenced by genetics.
The basic idea is that people's emotional response to political issues might be part of their chemical makeup. So interesting. It turns out that school prayer, property taxes, and the draft, those three issues are very influenced by your genes, whereas modern art and divorce, two potentially contentious issues, are almost entirely environmental.
GASPARINO: Who paid for this nonsense? That's what I would say.
CARLSON: It's interesting, though.
GASPARINO: I mean...
CARLSON: Let me tell you what's interesting. Because people of like political views tend to marry each other and have children. So you have...
GASPARINO: Not necessarily.
MADDOW: No, I think ideologically, yes, but not politically. I think people who have knee-jerk reactions to things like each other.
CARLSON: That's right.
MADDOW: But people who—but you can be a knee-jerk liberal or a knee-jerk conservative. I think that's not just necessarily a party of whether or not...
GASPARINO: Opposites attract. Yes, they do.
MADDOW: ... it's how you evaluate stuff.
CARLSON: But people end up having children with those same reactions. It re-enforces those reactions, so the country becomes more polarized. A race of super-liberals.
MADDOW: I was going to say, the eugenics approach.
CARLSON: No, but it's true.
MADDOW: It's blaming what's wrong with our polity.
CARLSON: It's interesting, though.
MADDOW: It's interesting. I think it's...
(CROSSTALK)
GASPARINO: But you don't believe in this garbage, right?
CARLSON: I believe, having covered a lot of political campaigns, I believe it's all—takes place on a visceral level.
GASPARINO: All right.
CARLSON: There's almost nothing, you know, in the higher mind that can explain the behavior...
MADDOW: What are we doing with our lives?
CARLSON: ... political enthusiasts.
Thank you both very much, Charlie Gasparino, Rachel Maddow.
MADDOW: Thanks, Tucker.
CARLSON: Coming up, Bambi stops off for some beef jerky and a six-pack. Gratuitous surveillance video has a home, and it's the “Cutting Room Floor,” next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back. Time now for the “Cutting Room Floor.” Our producer, Willie Geist, has swept up all the stories that didn't make the cut tonight, and he's brought them.
WILLIE GEIST, PRODUCER: Tucker, I have a confession. I haven't seen a single second of the show tonight. I was watching “I Want to be a Hilton” over on the parent station, NBC.
CARLSON: I've TiVo'd it.
GEIST: The sad truth is, I want to be a Hilton. And I want to bunk with Paris. And I don't think it's going to turn out that way for me.
CARLSON: Which Paris?
GEIST: Not the (INAUDIBLE) Hilton. I want to be a Hilton.
CARLSON: Just checking.
GEIST: First up, they say if you want something done right, you better do it yourself. So when officials in Salt Lake City wanted to test the safety of their taser guns, they went to do it themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police, drop your weapon! Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Ty McCartney, an assistant to the Salt Lake City mayor, was the lucky volunteer. He took a five-second zap yesterday as part of a research project to help determine the police department taser policy. Once he recovered, McCartney took some pepper spray to the face. His job, to determine which is more painful.
GEIST: That's a tough, tough gig he got. I am actually picturing that cabinet meeting.
“Ty, you working on anything today? We're going to have you run over and take a couple of shots from a taser gun. And when you're done with that, you get pepper sprayed in the face. How's that sound?” Somebody's bucking for promotion in the Salt Lake mayor's office.
CARLSON: So which was more painful?
GEIST: He said the pepper spray was by far more painful, and they're going to stick with the taser gun.
CARLSON: Well, politicians have been railing against marijuana since invention of the bong, maybe even longer. Now it appears they're going after anything that even resembles pot. Anti-drug advocates are furious about the marijuana-flavored lollypops that are becoming popular in convenience stores and novelty shops. One Georgia state senator saying, quote, “It's nothing but dope candy. And that's nothing we need to be training our children to do.”
GEIST: Dope candy, eh? That's a surefire way to show you're in touch with the kids.
CARLSON: Marijuana-flavored candy doesn't sound good.
GEIST: Well, I think the same argument I have always made against nonalcoholic beer. It's not really the taste I'm after, you know what I mean?
CARLSON: Yes.
GEIST: I'm not in it for beer, and otherwise for the taste. So you can keep your plant-flavored lollypops to yourself.
CARLSON: I don't think you're going to sell a lot.
Time once again for some gratuitous surveillance video. We specialize in it. This deer mysteriously found its way into a Boston convenience store last week. The doe wandered downtown, before prancing into the store's open front door, and perusing the aisles. He was eventually tranquilized by police and taken back to the woods.
GEIST: You know, whenever I see these animal stories, I always feel a little bit like Ron Burgundy. “That squirrel can water ski.” Like what are you supposed to say, you know what I mean? The deer was running around the convenience store. It speaks for itself.
CARLSON: It's so cool. I love it.
Well, the Hamptons on New York's Long Island have always been on the cutting edge of subtlety. And in that great tradition, an East Hampton home has broken the U.S. residential property record selling for $90 million, $90 million. The 40-acre spread was purchased by a Swedish industrialist.
GEIST: You know, Tucker, the main house on this property—I don't know if you could see it—is a three-bedroom, three-bathroom farm house. This is true. Now, if I am spending the equivalent of the GNP of Lichtenstein on a home, I think I want a little more square footage, maybe a guest room or something.
CARLSON: Notice it sold to a foreigner, Willie.
GEIST: Swedes.
CARLSON: They'll buy anything. I love that. The Swedes.
Well, there's nothing cooler than a man in a bowtie, or so I'm told by my staff of yes men. The latest example is Donald Tsang (ph), the man who wears colorful bow ties and was therefore named the leader of Hong Kong today. Already a British knight, Mr. Tsang (ph) was hand-picked by China's communist leadership to run its richest city, partly, indeed mostly, for his looks.
GEIST: Is that right?
CARLSON: I think so. Look at the guy.
GEIST: I guess this is as good a time as any to have the bowtie talk, Tucker. We haven't really confronted that issue yet.
CARLSON: No, we haven't, Willie.
GEIST: I'll grant your people Winston Churchill...
CARLSON: Yes?
GEIST: ... but beyond that, I don't get it.
CARLSON: What about Mr. Tsang, the leader of Hong Kong?
GEIST: Well, he's a wonderful guy. Best of luck to him and his people, but that's about—that's where I draw the line, Churchill and Donald Tsang.
CARLSON: Louis Farrakhan?
GEIST: I'm not giving you Farrakhan.
CARLSON: That's a different show.
Willie Geist, thank you.
GEIST: All right, Tucker.
CARLSON: That's THE SITUATION. I'm Tucker Carlson. Thanks for watching. “SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY” is next.
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