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Note: What follows is the text of Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue for his show on April 24th, 2023. He was fired, and his show was canceled, over concerns by Fox News executives about the content of this monologue — which was never aired. Sections placed in parentheses here are, generally, directions for where producers should place video clips.

(Here’s the lead I’m envisioning. Sandy Cortes just did an interview with Jen Psaki in which she demands that authorities pull our show off the air. )

Members of Congress aren’t allowed to talk like this. The Constitution of the United States prohibits it. American citizens have an inalienable right to critique and criticize their political leaders. Our politicians are not gods. They’re instruments of the public’s will. They serve the rest of us, not the other way around. For that obvious reason, politicians can never censor our speech or try to control what we think. That unchanging fact is the basis of our founding documents, of our political system and our personal freedoms. As a former government official who claims now to be a journalist, Jen Psaki should know this, and defend America’s foundational principle. She refuses. Instead, Psaki nods along like a fan as Sandy Cortez calls for law enforcement to shut down news programming. The White House Correspondents Association and various other self-described advocates of press freedom stay silent too. Apparently they agree with Ocasio-Cortes, or they’re too afraid to say otherwise.

It’s distressing to watch this. The last thing America needs is more public figures saying radical things. What if we came on the air five nights a week and called for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes to be handcuffed and carted away because we don’t like her political views? We could certainly do that. We never would, because it would be terrible for our country. Extremism is self-perpetuating — the more you encourage, the more you get, exponentially. We don’t want that. We want to live in the United States we had a few years ago, where people who disagreed with one another were willing to debate directly, using facts and reason, and didn’t call for their opponents’ imprisonment. We’ll do whatever we can to return to that standard, including giving Sandy Cortez airtime. She is welcome on this show any time. We’ll travel to meet her anywhere, and give her the full hour. We’ll be civil and rational, and let those watching decide who’s got a more appealing vision for America’s future. We’ve asked her to come on this show many times. We’ll continue to do that.

But in the meantime, because the words of our leaders matter, let’s consider the substance of what Sandy Cortes is saying. She’s demanding that our show be canceled because the things we’re saying are quote, “very clearly an incitement to violence.” Is this true? Even accounting for the fact that people tend to hear what they want to hear, it is not true. It’s a lie, as anyone who watches this show knows. We are opposed to violence, not just philosophically but in practical terms. We’re against violent crime — the strong oppressing the weak. We’re against the horrors of late-term abortion and state-encouraged euthanasia. And above all we’re passionately opposed to the violent and pointless cruelty of the war in Ukraine, which the Biden Administration could end at any moment, thus saving the lives of innocents, but is instead prolonging purely for ideological reasons. Those are the things we dislike the most — the acts of violence our leaders endorse. Ocasio-Cortes is one of those leaders. She supports every one of those indefensible things, from abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy to extending the carnage in Ukraine. Who, honestly, is on the side of violence?

And where, we wonder, is Ocasio-Cortes on the question of Ray Epps? January 6th was a violent insurrection they tell us — and on the basis of that claim, they’ve turned the war on terror against America’s own citizens. We believe that is a false characterization. As we’ve said many times January 6th was not an insurrection, which is why no one has been charged for that crime. No guns were brought into the Capitol. No plans to overthrow the government have ever been found. It was not an insurrection. But there was violence. A Capitol police officer called Michael Byrd executed Ashli Babbit, an unarmed protestor, and was praised for doing it by politicians in both parties. Outside the building, a riot broke out. Windows were smashed; cops were assaulted. We were offended by this on the day it happened, and we said so. We still are. We’re against violence, whether it’s in Chicago, Ferguson, downtown Kenosha or on the west steps of the Capitol building in Washington. The main question from January 6th is, how did the violence start? Nearly two and a half years later, we still can’t say with certainty, but there are clues in the contemporaneous video tape. The night before the riot, for example, a man called Ray Epps was caught on camera encouraging protestors to breach the capitol.

The next day, as the violence began, Epps was filmed again doing the same.

Was that legal? We can’t say. We do know that any fair person would define what Ray Epps said to the crowd on January 6th as inciting violence. Epps encouraged those around him to break through a cordon of armed police officers and breach a federal building. What Epps told the crowd to do could only lead to physical conflict. By Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes’ standard, Ray Epps should be punished for inciting violence. But Epps hasn’t been punished. Unlike more than a 1,000 other Americans who were not caught on camera encouraging crimes, Ray Epps has never even been arrested. In fact he’s been rewarded generously by the Left. Epps is currently being defended with great ferocity by neoliberal Democrats. His lawyer is a liberal activist, who once worked for the Democratic Party, as well as its primary law firm, Perkins Coie. He now works with Hillary Clinton confidant David Brock. Epps was even defended by the January 6th committee, despite the fact he’s the only person we’ve seen on video encouraging a breach of the Capitol.

(DETAILS OF KINZINGER AND EPPS HERE)

Last night, Epps appeared on the Democratic Party’s biggest television show, 60 Minutes on CBS, to attack this show for asking questions about who he is and why he’s never been arrested for what he did on January 6th.

(60 MINUTES CLIP HERE)

As we have so often with his new ally Ocasio-Cortes, we’ve asked Ray Epps on this show many times. We’ll continue to do that. But given its historical and present political significance, we wanted as many perspectives on January 6th as possible, so we’ve spoken for more than an hour to the man who was in charge of security that day, the former head of Capitol police, Steven Sund.

(CLIPS HERE OF SUND SHOWING THAT PELOSI AND THE PENTAGON AND FBI KNEW VIOLENCE WAS COMING, BUT DID NOTHING TO STOP IT. KEPT HIS GUYS FROM PROTECTING THEMSELVES, HID INTEL, KEPT THE NATIONAL GUARD FROM ASSISTING. IN OTHER WORDS, THEY ENCOURAGED VIOLENCE.)

We also spoke to Sund about intel and FBI officers in the crowd.

(CLIP HERE: MORE UNDERCOVER FEDS THAN HE’S EVER SEEN AT A DEMONSTRATION.)

And we spoke about Ray Epps.

(CLIP HERE. ALSO INCLUDE THE CLIP WHERE HE SAYS THAT HALF OF THE INTEL COMMUNITY IS RUN BY THE PENTAGON.)

I’m thinking it’s better if we don’t have a guest with this. That way we can stay precise in what we say.