CLAY: We are joined now by Tyrus, who is on an incredible string of successes. He’s got the number one overall book in America on Amazon for much of the past couple of weeks and also, he’s on the biggest late-night show in America, Gutfeld. Would you have ever believed, Tyrus, that Gutfeld’s show would have the success that it has, such that you guys are regularly beating Kimmel and Colbert and Fallon and all the other late-night hosts?

TYRUS: You know what? I thought we had a shot because once comedy became an endangered species —

CLAY: Yeah.

TYRUS: I thought that maybe people would rather hear jokes than have to do homework after a late-night TV show. You’re supposed to go to bed with a smile on your face, not, like, looking up facts and fake news and stuff. So I thought we had a shot… And the ratings, like I say we were just doing Saturday night, got to be so good to where, you know, Greg had the foresight — we talked about going five days a week.

But when he finally said, “I’m gonna roll the dice,” ‘cause you can be good once a week, you can even be great once a week but being great five nights a week is a a tall task and he pulled the trigger and it just worked out and now our following is growing, continues to grow. So, yeah, it’s too bad because you would like to be battling back and forth. I think it’s better for everyone when you have shows that are just trying to be the best show and not just be the loudest messenger.

BUCK: Hey, Tyrus, this is Buck. Thanks for joining us, and Clay and I always appreciate when you are on the very fun set that is Gutfeld. It’s actually one of those shows that’s fun to do not only to watch so we always have a good time on Greg’s show with you and Kat. I just wonder if you think that the pendulum is starting to maybe move in the other direction on something…

You’re a guy who was in WWE professional wrestling, have operated in the entertainment world, now obviously entertainment/political commentary. Do you think, though, it’s moving back toward a place where we can actually have comedy, where jokes will be more allowable? Essentially, has wokeness jumped the shark, has wokeness pushed itself off the cliff, because you see even some of the jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; everyone is so uptight on the left.

TYRUS: You made a great analogy when you said “push.” The pendulum has been pushed. They pushed the pendulum, because it used to be guys like Bill Maher would be considered super liberal, you know? And the pendulum has pushed past them to where they’re going, “Wait a minute,” and they’ve pushed so far — and another thing they did was, I described the woke progressive movement.

It’s like the Wizard of Oz. There’s all these… They use Twitter for all the smoke screens and firecrackers and there’s this giant nation of this giant voice that’s gonna take away your life and your career. But when you pull that curtain back, it does not represent the pulse of this country, not even a little bit. And my book is a testament to that because, according to them, I am the worst.

I’m a “breeder,” I’m a man, and I’m a Republican. So you can’t get any worse than that. And so the fact that the numbers are what they are show that there is way more of us than there are of them. And every time they go to do a march or protest, it’s never the numbers. It’s never millions of people. It’s the same kind of group of extremists. And America’s kind of getting hip to that now.

I think we’re starting to see, and Elon Musk helped with a little that, I think, with purchasing or going after Twitter. Even the very idea and their reaction accuse showed everyone is like, “Okay, the screen’s down now and we’re starting to see it for what it is,” and I think more people are going, “You know what? I have nothing to be afraid of for being myself.”

BUCK: It’s also helpful, Clay, with the woke police to be 6’8” and 350 pounds. Tyrus is a big guy.

CLAY: The book, by the way – (laughing) yeah, that does help — Just Tyrus: A Memoir, you can see Tyrus just about every night on the Gutfeld show on Fox News. Okay. So we had Dave Chappelle attacked last night in L.A. The Will Smith slap to Chris Rock — Chris Rock actually got up after Dave Chappelle and asked if it was Will Smith that had attacked Dave Chappelle too.

Is this a trend in your mind, Tyrus, of words being considered violence and this is a manifestation of that, where suddenly guys with getting attacked on the stage for saying things that theoretically have made people uncomfortable? Or are these unconnected, aberrant results? How would you assess the fact that Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock — probably two of the, what, four or five most famous comedians in all of America — have been attacked on stage in the last month or so?

TYRUS: I don’t even think it’s that deep. What I think it is is that a lot… Whenever somebody of Will Smith’s stature does something so egregious, walking up and slapping Chris Rock for making a joke, it rang the dinner bell for the worst of our society. Because they see the attention, they see the exposure, and they see there’s a group that will justify what they did.

So he wasn’t sitting there sipping a beverage and Chappelle made a joke and he was like, “Oh, I’m offended’ I’m gonna go slap him.” He came to the show with a plan, and he was waiting to do that because two things were gonna happen. One, whatever weird political message he has will come out, but his face will be on every TV show and there will be a group of wokesters who will come out and use it to attack Chappelle saying that his comedy leads to violence.

It’s just like saying the gun causes violence. And it will be the same thing, where there will be this whole pulpit to where, “If he wasn’t doing these things, if he wasn’t dressed that way, he wouldn’t be getting attacked.” People have had enough and they’re gonna try to spin it and this guy, in some circles, is gonna be a hero. The good side of this is that a lot of the extreme, progressive and woke, whenever they attack with gender politics and all that stuff, live in that exterior, First World sanity problems where the biggest problem we’re facing today is that no one’s calling out white children for having white privilege.

You know, that’s not the real world. And we saw what happens when you attack somebody who has a security force, has friends and works out. Chappelle is not Little Chappelle now. Chappelle’s shredded. He’s looking like a julienne salad up there. Busta Rhymes is a biscuit away from 300 pounds and is a big brother himself. And he got some real-life consequences.

They didn’t unfollow him on Facebook. They just removed his arm from his socket, and he got the beating of a lifetime because that’s what happens when you attack people. And a lot of the Antifas and everyone else and those type of individuals who are shooting their message and, “I’m gonna go up and teach these people who want to make jokes a lesson,” they’re gonna see that and be like, “I didn’t anticipate that,” because it got real.

Will Smith didn’t take those consequences because the entire security team for the Academy Awards should have been fired. But if he would have faced those consequences — if let’s say two guys would have tackled him and dragged him out and embarrassed and humiliated him — there wouldn’t have been as much. And agai,n this is just one instance that we know of. We don’t know what’s happening in small clubs everywhere with small comics.

But we’re seeing it in schools like if you guys are gonna go speak at a college, they would think it’s perfectly fine to threaten you. I saw one — I think, Buck, you were on the show — they threatened a 60-year-old woman who was there to talk about getting along. But they wanted to fight her, you know? It’s just… They ring the dinner bell, and this is the stuff that happens when comedy is attacked and it’s justified. Everyone who justified what Will Smith did, they’re condoning this type of behavior. And I called it. I said this would start to happen.

BUCK: Speaking to Tyrus. He’s got a memoir out Just Tyrus, which is currently number one on Amazon for books. So congratulations, Tyrus, on that. Obviously, the news last couple of days has been a lot around the issue of abortion and the realities of what’s gonna happen here soon with the Supreme Court. There’s an excerpt from your book, Tyrus, that I just wanted to expand on this and have a moment to speak to folks across the country.

You said, “My mother could have had an abortion and no one would have questioned her at 15 years old, but she chose to have me.” I mean, I hear that, and I just think it’s the right choice, the brave choice and obviously you’re here with us today. What do you want to say to people listening all across the country, given this is such a topic of conversation right now?

TYRUS: Here’s my spin on it. I don’t… I always say I don’t have a dog in this fight, because telling a woman what to do with her body isn’t really any of my business, and I feel it’s a decision that it should be left to women to make. But I do think an abortion should be the absolute last choice because you don’t know what could happen. And I understand inconveniences and financial and all that, but I’m trying to be as respectful…

Because it’s one of those things where, as a man, it’s a tough thing because we have no say. We can’t even financially abort a child, you know what I’m saying? We can’t be like, “You know what? Sorry, dear, I don’t want to pay for this so I’m going to abort all responsibility.” Like, we don’t even have that right. So I just think that when it comes to this stuff, hate to see the fighting and the protesting.

There has to be a… I don’t think states making the choice is a horrible idea. This is America, and if you don’t like the decisions of one state, there is a ton more places — I think 50 other choices — that you could make to move somewhere to where your ideology is accepted. But if I had to characterize, I’m pro-their choice. Like I said, I feel like it’s an argument that I’m not gonna have with a woman what’s she gonna do with her body. But I’m living proof that sometimes taking a chance works out.

CLAY: Tyrus, we appreciate the time. Look forward to watching you on Gutfeld. Keep up the good work.

TYRUS: Thank you very much, man — and, you know what? I’m working on Kat, Buck, so she doesn’t pick on you so much. She gotta let that Beatles stuff go.

BUCK: Apparently she does have the Beatles on vinyl. She actually showed me photos. I was impressed about this. I didn’t know if that was a thing that anybody had anymore.

TYRUS: I had no idea that… You know, thank God she didn’t have a gun made of a knife, you know, ’cause —

BUCK: I mean, I just hope she’s not a Bruce Springsteen fan ’cause I tend to upset those folks a lot too.

CLAY: By the way, the gun-made-of-a-knife idea? The dude clearly is mentally insane who stormed the stage with Chappelle there. But what’s the point of having a fake gun with a knife? So you have something that’s more deadly and then you turn it into something that’s…? I mean, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all, does it?

TYRUS: It seems to be something that was invented about somebody whose father had a lot of money, and was a world-famous inventor. He was recognized around the world and his son said, “Hey, Dad, how about a gun that’s not a gun but it’s really a knife?” And the love of his son blinded him and he went ahead and got a pad and put it out there and it’s only sold in Party City.

CLAY: That is… Uh, yeah.

TYRUS: That’s gotta be what it is.

CLAY: Tyrus, check him out on Gutfeld. You can also check out the book.