This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” May 7, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Good evening, and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON
TONIGHT. Happy Friday.
So what would happen if you gave a group of angry ignorant ideologues, the
same people who tell you that all lives don’t matter? What would happen if
you gave them the keys to the U.S. economy? We don’t need to guess about
that, we are finding out now because all around us, there are signs that
under this White House, things are getting dangerously flaky in our
economy.
Here’s one example.
The official government jobs numbers came out today. Unemployment is up,
far higher than expected. Close to 14 million Americans say they want to
work but cannot find a job. That’s an old story. Here’s the new twist.
At the very moment that unemployment is rising, fewer people are working,
American businesses say they can’t find employees and it is obvious they
can’t, go to the nearest strip mall and count the “Help Wanted” signs on
the doors. They’re everywhere.
Restaurants are closing because they can’t find anyone to hire or
manufacturing plants. That means American now has far too many workers, but
simultaneously, far too few workers. How can that be?
Another question: what happened to all the consumer products? Many of the
things that you buy and need to buy are more expensive than they’ve ever
been. Inflation is real, it’s galloping. Yet at the same time, a lot of
products seem to have gone missing completely.
The United States is currently experiencing shortages of chicken,
generators, roofing materials, lumber, ketchup, bicycles, diapers,
ammunition, automobiles, plastics, appliances, chlorine, pork, propane
tanks, among many other things.
Keep in mind, this is peacetime. We haven’t mobilized for a foreign war.
Yet, we’re now getting reports that we should brace for a gas shortage this
summer. Why is this all happening? Well, because things are so great in the
economy. That’s what they’re telling us on television.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This week, there were more signs that the U.S. economy
is roaring back to life and they come as President Biden is proposing
trillions of dollars in new government spending.
JILL SCHLESINGER, CBS NEWS BUSINESS ANALYST: It’s really good news, this
week, we found out that in the first quarter of this year, the economy
expanded at a 6.4 percent annualized rate. That is huge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could we see a great economy and a lousy return for
the stock market?
KATIE KOCH, GOLDMAN SACHS ASSET MANAGEMENT: I think the good news for
everybody is that we’re actually probably going to see both, that we’re
going to continue to see a strong economy and we also are set up actually
for some great equity market returns here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: There’s an awful lot of lying in financial journalism. No one ever
says that, but it is self-evident.
But they are telling us things are great. Why are they telling us that?
Well, because the stock market is way, way up. Could it be overvalued? I
don’t know. Take a look at those price to earnings ratios. Can they
continue? Is that reality based? Should we be worried?
Oh, just relax, but be sure to stock up on gasoline and diapers if you can.
We could be looking at Soviet grocery shelves soon.
And whatever you do, keep ignoring the inflation right in front of you. Oil
prices, for example, they’ve risen 12 percent in a single month. Steel
prices have tripled since last year, chicken breast prices have doubled
just since Biden became President.
The price of eggs has increased by almost five percent. Major appliances up
almost 15. Ground beef and fresh fruits both up almost six percent. The
median sales price of existing home sales shot up by 16 percent.
And then there’s lumber. Have you noticed lumber? Since last year, the
price of dimensional lumber has gone up by almost 300 percent. Want a
thousand board feet? That’ll cost you $1,359.00. That price has never been
higher.
According to the National Association of Homebuilders, the cost of building
materials adds more than $35,000.00 to the price of an average new home.
Why is this happening? Well, there’s too much cash in the system. That’s a
big reason for it.
When you print too much fake money, the value of that money declines.
People start to figure out that it’s not real and you get inflation. That’s
always true. No one disputes it.
The White House just doesn’t care. Here’s the new Treasury Secretary
telling you not to worry about inflation because it’s not a concern.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANET YELLEN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: And I think the economy is going to
get back on track. I don’t anticipate that inflation is going to be a
problem. But it is something that we’re watching very carefully.
I don’t think there’s going to be an inflationary problem.
You know, President Biden has also proposed further substantial spending
packages we would love to see enacted into law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, so just keep spending trillions of made up dollars to pay off
your political constituencies because there won’t be an inflationary
problem. Right. Thanks, genius. How’d you get the job anyway?
They’re hoping you won’t notice you can’t afford anything anymore. You’ll
be too distracted by the fact that you don’t have electricity.
“The Sacramento Bee” reported a few days ago that California energy
officials quote, ” … can’t promise they’ll be able to keep the lights on
this summer.” Oh, no lights in your home. Big deal. Just use candles and
dig a pit latrine.
Meanwhile, in Texas, which is supposed to be saying that, they always say
they are, “The Dallas Morning News” is telling us that, quote, “inefficient
homes” are to blame for the state’s massive power outages this winter. So,
it was your fault the power went out. You have the wrong kind of house.
It definitely was not the fault of stupid and corrupt renewable energy
schemes, the ones that were forced the entire state to roll in and
windmills which froze when it got cold. No, it wasn’t their fault, it was
your fault. Your house did it, so get a better house. Too bad lumber is so
expensive.
But the question is, even if you can afford the lumber, who’s going to do
the construction? As we said, in the middle of rising unemployment, somehow
we don’t have enough workers.
There is, they keep telling us in Washington, a labor shortage and that
presumably is why we need to open the borders and let in millions of new
foreign workers immediately.
So what is going on here? Probably a lot of things; it is a huge country
and a pretty complicated country, but here’s one reason behind what we’re
seeing. The government is paying people to stay home. Thanks to Joe Biden’s
$2 trillion Coronavirus Relief Bill everything, by the way, done on the
justification of the pandemic, some people in this country are getting
checks for up to $700.00 a month not to work.
This is true across the country, even in Louisiana, and that’s the state
with the lowest weekly unemployment benefits, you can still make almost 500
bucks a week for not working. For a 40-hour workweek that works out to
about 12 bucks an hour, a little more actually. That’s above the minimum
wage.
In the states with the highest unemployment assistance, you can be making
close to $20.00 an hour for not working. And we’re not attacking anyone or
calling anyone lazy, it is pretty easy to see why people aren’t working.
They’re not nuts. They’re rational.
So no wonder the economy is sputtering in bizarre ways. America created
just 266,000 jobs last month, that’s in a nation of 350 million people.
Economists, the people who predict these things very often incorrectly were
expecting four times that number. The result, the unemployment numbers were
so shockingly bad that even CNBC didn’t believe them at first, they had to
double check those numbers on the air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like 266,000. It looks like it was a big
disappointment at 266, but maybe I have that wrong. Let me double check the
bureau website here. One second. Yes, 266 is correct. Unemployment change,
a little change, it is 6.1 percent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So there’s not, to restate, an actual shortage of American
workers, citizens who could fill jobs. They’re just telling you that so
they can justify opening the borders and changing the electorate, so they
never lose another election, and no one ever takes their power away.
But that’s not true. What is true once again, is that the government is
paying people more not to work than to work, and so why would they work?
Would you?
The question is, what do you do if you’re an employer and at some point
when we devalue the currency so completely that printing more dollars won’t
help, we are going to need actual employers in this country, and what do
they do?
Well, a reporter called Nate Doughty, at “The Pittsburgh Business Times”
looked into this question. He talked to businesses around Pittsburgh that
had managed to hire people. How do they do it? What was their secret? Well,
they just had to double the wages.
A place called Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor had been around since 1923, hiked
it starting wage from $7.25 to 15 bucks an hour. They more than doubled it;
a nearby Sports Bar now guarantees waiters and bartenders 20 bucks an hour.
That’s happening in a ton of places around the country.
And big companies, needless to say, could compete more effectively because
they have more money.
A Burger King in Washington, Pennsylvania is offering a $1,500.00 bonus to
new workers. A McDonald’s in Florida is giving people 50 bucks just for
showing up to a job interview. A company called Sisu Energy in Texas is
offering new truck drivers $14,000.00 a week.
Walmart, the largest private employer in the United States has raised wages
for nearly half a million employees in February. The company’s average
wages now over 15 bucks an hour.
In some ways, that is good news. You want to see people make more. Of
course, you want dollars to be worth more and now they’re worth less.
But there are effects of this that we could be living with for a long time.
There are millions of small businesses that cannot afford to compete,
they’re not Walmart, and many of them will go under, because of the
pressure applied by the U.S. government on the labor market.
And when those small businesses do go under, what will be left? Amazon.
Andrew Gruel has thought a lot about this. He is a chef. He is the owner of
Slappish Restaurant, there are several locations of it in Southern
California. He is now paying for some reference here, dishwashers, 21 bucks
an hour to start. He joins us now.
Andrew, thanks so much for coming on tonight. You know, I think all good
people look at rising wages and applaud for the people making those wages,
but there are also some very strange incentives being forced on our economy
by policymakers. Tell us what the effect has been on your business.
ANDREW GRUEL, CHEF AND OWNER, SLAPPISH RESTAURANTS: Well, yes, thank you
very much for having me. And I wish we were talking more about ketchup and
not necessarily about labor. But in any case, look, there’s multiple
factors that are leading towards this, and this is what I see with boots on
the ground, right?
You know, I’m not throwing out economic platitudes here. What I see is,
first and foremost, in states like California, where schools are still
closed is that it’s forcing people not to work because they stay home and
watch their children or they have to hire somebody to watch their kids,
right?
I would watch my own kid.
CARLSON: Good point. Well, of course.
GRUEL: So there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, and laziness is not
the factor here. That’s the most important thing.
CARLSON: Right.
GRUEL: And number two is that people are weary about coming back to work if
they are only going to be shut down again. In California, as I mentioned,
again, you know, people came back to work, they were fired, came back, they
were fired, came back, they were fired. And then in the last time in
December, they couldn’t even get unemployment benefits because of the
misappropriation of so many dollars in California, the whole system was on
gridlock.
That’s when we started a fund, we raised over $400,000.00 to give
struggling out of work restaurant workers money because the state couldn’t
do it. And now those same people are telling me, look, Oregon and
Washington just shut down again, how do I know I’m not going to come back
to work and then bam, I’m shut down?
And look, the third reason is, is that a lot of people in the restaurant
industry specifically, they don’t want to come back and work in an
environment where perhaps it’s been vilified as this kind of epicenter of
spread and they’ve got to wear, you know, triple masks and work behind all
this Plexiglas and, and it’s just not the environment in which they want to
work.
So they’re either going to sit on the sidelines and see this thing through,
or they’re going to enter another area of retail.
CARLSON: And the fourth factor would be, if you make more by not working,
why would you work? And I agree with your assessment. That’s not laziness.
That seems like a rational decision. I mean, these are not people making
these policies, they are people responding to the policies in place.
My concern is what happens when you kill these businesses? What are you
left with at the end?
GRUEL: Well, look at what we saw through the pandemic, right? Corporate
America merged with the government, and they got all of this corporate
welfare, and then all of us small business owners who are paying on average
22 to 23 percent taxes when Amazon is paying one or one percent taxes, we
are the villains, we are the bad guys. We lose our businesses, and then
what happens? It gets swallowed up by you know, Walmart.
CARLSON: Right. I mean, are you seeing that? I mean, the businesses that
are still open, particularly in a state like California have weathered a
lot. I mean, they’ve done a lot to persist to this point.
How much more can they take before they just give up?
GRUEL: Yes, well, it’s already happening. People are giving up left and
right. And, you know, one of the situations here is, is that we’re now not
just competing with, you know, a government institution, but a lot of these
large multi-unit corporations that have a ton of cash in the balance sheet.
They’re offering excessive amounts of money to draw people in, and most
likely, not even treat their employees well, like a small business owner