CARLSON: “So at the bottom of all of this — and by the way, everything we just said is public, you can find it on Google, everyone in charge knows it, but the schools are still shut in a lot of places. And there’s only one reason for that, and that’s because the teachers unions have inordinate political power. We want to talk now to Brit Hume, he is Fox’s senior analyst who spent decades watching these unions exercise power. Britt, thank you for joining us. The first and most obvious question is, are you surprised by the power that they have, the teachers unions?”
HUME: “I must say, as powerful as I thought they were, I did not realize they were powerful enough to do what they have succeeded in doing. And we saw the most recent manifestation of that when the Director of the CDC came out and said that the science shows that it’s safe to reopen schools without everyone being vaccinated, and in a matter of hours, really, the Biden administration had come out and said, ‘Well, she was speaking for herself,’ which gave you a sense of how afraid the Biden administration, newly in power, is of what the teachers unions say and want. It is really quite striking. And I would think, Tucker, that, you know, in the elections ahead, that this public policy decision to close down the economy for much of the year and close down schools will come back to haunt the party in power, but who knows? The teachers unions are quite a force.”
CARLSON: “But so are parents, and particularly moms. If you prevent young school aged children from attending school, and we see all the intended consequences and tragedies as a result of that, I don’t think anything infuriates people more than that, I don’t think anything mobilizes them more quickly, doesn’t matter who you voted for. I mean, they’re taking a big risk, aren’t they?”
HUME: “I think they are. I think it’ll come back, as I suggest, to haunt them. But let’s make one thing clear. The effect of the media coverage in particular — and a lot of the pronouncements of public health officials as well — on the nation’s attitude on this was very powerful, and the sense of fear that it engendered in the American body politic has been the strongest thing we’ve seen really in terms of people’s unwillingness to face the data as it became clearer and clearer. The scientists have said almost from the beginning that this is a disease that way disproportionately affects the elderly and those with certain comorbidities and that everyone else was if not completely safe from the disease, largely so. To the point where we did something very peculiar, Tucker. Not only did we quarantine the sick, we quarantined the healthy. That’s a bizarre decision that was made. But it tells you the fact that it’s enjoyed such wide acceptance for so long, how frightened people have been made by this, and many people are still to this day afraid. It was striking to me that Texas today, the governor there has tossed out the mask mandate and opened up everything. Of course, an immediate reaction from other quarters, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said this was insane, that this was reckless. My own view of this is what was reckless is keeping the schools and much of the economy of California closed for this long. But that gives you the sense of how strong the fear is and has been throughout much of this year.”
CARLSON: “It’d be interesting, maybe we’ll do it tomorrow night, ti put a graph on the screen of the number of people who are moving from Texas to California versus the people that are going from California to Texas.”
(Laughter)
HUME: “Well, we all know what the trend has been up till now. The trend has been away from California, which has been losing residents for sure.”
CARLSON: “Amazing. Brit Hume, thank you so much for that.”
HUME: “You bet.”