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Bret Baier on the 1943 Tehran conference

'Special Report' host Bret Baier opens up about his latest book 'Three Days at the Brink' on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," October 22, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Good evening and welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” For many years, decades in fact, Harvey Weinstein's conduct was an open secret in the movie business. The public may have been oblivious to what he was really like, but the people who knew him and worked around him knew that Harvey Weinstein was a creep and a predator. It was glaringly obvious.

Some of them are brave enough to joke about it at award shows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SETH MACFARLANE, ACTOR: Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So when Ronan Farrow began an investigation into Weinstein's behavior, it didn't take long to unearth, a mother lode of evidence, evidence that in fact, the famed movie producer was a monster.

It was a remarkable scoop, the kind that of reporters dream about, so Farrow and his producer took their story to executives at NBC where they worked. But instead of congratulating them, the network killed their investigation.

Farrow who later wrote a book about the experience explained it this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONAN FARROW, AUTHOR: Look, we had a story that journalists looked at and said this should get on air immediately. We had a recorded admission of guilt from Harvey Weinstein, secured during a police sting operation.

This was a case where a news organization didn't behave journalistically. They ordered us to stop, to not take so much as to call and to cancel interviews in some cases with alleged rape victims. This book explains why.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Farrow's book is a bestseller tonight on the Amazon list, NBC meanwhile, has not budged. Its Executive still claim they did nothing wrong. They didn't kill the Weinstein story, they say.

NBC News Chairman Andy Lack called Farrow's book, quote, "fundamentally untrue." The News Division President Noah Oppenheim called it a conspiracy theory. Who to believe in this?

Well, maybe the most powerful corroborating witness in this story has received relatively little attention so far. His name is Rich McHugh who is a reporter in the Investigative Unit at NBC News and he was Ronan Farrow's producer.

McHugh spent eight months of his life working with Farrow reporting out the Weinstein investigation. Ten days ago, he published a story in "Vanity Fair" about it. McHugh's piece amounts to one of the most devastating accounts of malfeasance by a television network ever published.

Get yourself a copy of this story. It is jaw dropping. Andy lack and Noah Oppenheim, McHugh writes, quote, "... not only personally intervened to shut down our investigation of Weinstein, they even refused to allow me to follow up on our work after Weinstein's history of sexual assault became front page news."

"As the record shows, they behaved more like members of Weinstein's PR team than the journalists they claim to be." End quote.

Now, that sounds like overstatement, but as you read the story, you realize it's not an overstatement at all. They did act as PR agents for Harvey Weinstein. The story is crammed with damning detail.

The cumulative effect is so overwhelming and so clearly true that NBC hasn't even really responded to the story. Instead, they've ignored it, hoping it'll go away. In fact, just today, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that NBC has and this is remarkable even by their standards renewed Noah Oppenheimer's contract. It's expected that he will take control of the entire company soon.

But before that happens, we wanted to speak to Rich McHugh directly about his experiences at NBC and so we're happy to have him join us here tonight.

Rich McHugh, welcome. So, you open the piece with one of the great leads ever. "One year ago, I resigned from NBC News because they ordered me to stop reporting on Harvey Weinstein," which they clearly did.

In the piece, you unearthed evidence that Weinstein's lawyers, David Boies, being his chief lawyer had been assured by NBC lawyers that you would not do reporting on Harvey Weinstein.

RICH MCHUGH, RONAN FARROW'S PRODUCER: That's correct. And you know, part of this goes to Ronan, and what Ronan unearthed in his book "Catch and Kill," too. But, you know, the piece quotes an incident where that happened where David Boies who was an attorney for Weinstein at the time, you know, on behalf of Mr. Weinstein went to get assurance from NBC of what was going on with the story.

And he was told that, you know, we've told Mr. Weinstein, we're no longer doing a story on him.

CARLSON: So you've worked at a number of different television networks. You were a supervising producer at the Investigative Unit at NBC, not a small job. Have you ever heard of a network assuring the target of an investigation or a subject in the story that they're not going to report on him?

MCHUGH: Never. Never.

CARLSON: What do you think this was about?

MCHUGH: I think it was -- I think everybody knew -- I think everybody who has read the book, first of all, "Catch and Kill" and hopefully people who've read you know, what I wrote now see what it was about.

And I think Ronan did an excellent job of connecting the dots that you know, this was A, this a very powerful person, you know, at the time Harvey Weinstein had was you know, still one of the biggest, if not the biggest producers in Hollywood and had extreme ability to shut down stories and had done it for years.

And I think this was about -- I think he figured out that NBC had an Achilles heel. Ronan paints it more succinctly through facts in his book, but NBC had a Matt Lauer problem, and everybody was aware of it. And I think Weinstein exploited that.

CARLSON: So not to jump ahead of the story, but at the at the end of your piece, you recount a scene where you confronted Noah Oppenheimer directly and you said, did you have any indication that your chief anchor had been accused of sexual misconducts during his time here, that Matt Lauer had a problem with women. And he said, and I'm quoting, "No." Is that true?

MCHUGH: Well, that happened. Yes, I confronted him in a meeting. And did I believe it? No. And I don't think anybody else in the meeting believed it, either.

I mean, we all knew that NBC -- everybody at NBC was aware that Matt Lauer was of, you know, having affairs and whatnot. And the extent of which we've now learned through documents and settlements that have been revealed in the book, it was much more than that.

And the executives at the company, were aware, were told, you know, even Anne Curry was out years ago, and she has now come on and gone on the record since saying she did tell executives at the company. They had to be aware of Matt Lauer with women, so --

CARLSON: It's just remarkable that they could lie right to your face. Now, you've got an accounting here of what it was like to spend eight months of your life reporting on Harvey Weinstein with uncertain support from your own employer, NBC.

But in this you say that your phone wound up bugged, someone broke into your house and tampered with the phone lines.

MCHUGH: Right.

CARLSON: And the suggestion is that it was private investigators, former Mossad hired by Harvey Weinstein, did you ever get to the bottom of it?

MCHUGH: My situation, independently, parts of it I did. But Ronan has unearthed, you know, because he spoke with some members of Black Cube, he was privy to a lot of these details and we've been able to piece together what happened. He was able to figure out exactly who was tracking him.

CARLSON: Right.

MCHUGH: But my situation was a little different, but I consulted security experts and whatnot, and it was pretty clear what was going on. I mean, it still continues though. It's like I have people who have been trying to break into my e-mails, right, when I was writing the "Vanity Fair" story. So it's -- I wish I could say it's over. But it's not.

CARLSON: But to go that far out on a limb for a story and then have your employer sell you out. I mean, at one point you say, Noah Oppenheim was exchanging chirpy text and GIFs with Harvey Weinstein after killing your investigation into him. I mean, how do you feel about that?

MCHUGH: I was pretty upset to learn a lot of that stuff, to be honest. You know, I have animosity against these people. But it's clear to me that, you know, we were lied to over and over and it's just not right, especially coming from the news organization.

CARLSON: That's right.

MCHUGH: And it's just -- it's the very crux of what they do. Their mission is to tell the truth and I think they not only lost sight of it, but they just they didn't adhere to their basic principles.

CARLSON: So Noah Oppenheim was just apparently resigned, "The Wall Street Journal" reported today. I'm sure a huge salary, and he is next in line to take over the entire company. How do you feel about that? And how do you think employees still at NBC feel about that?

MCHUGH: I know employees at NBC are upset about it. I've spoken to many of them. I feel it's -- you know, it's rather tone deaf. I think it's going to be hard for employees and journalists at NBC going forward to report on corporate malfeasance elsewhere because it's just -- it makes their job ultimately harder when the leadership at the top isn't listening to what is -- the facts that are coming out in this case. There's a complete disconnect.

CARLSON: But it's baffling. I mean, I know Noah Oppenheim. I don't think he's an evil man or anything, but he's certainly mediocre. I can imagine you could hire a lot of people to run NBC.

Why is he still there? I mean, given the fact he has been caught lying repeatedly?

MCHUGH: That's a very good question, Tucker. I truly don't know. Except that I would have to guess that they have decided on a narrative from the beginning of this.

I even warned them, I said, if you go down this road with this narrative, this is going to be around for a long time, and so it's better to come clean and say, we messed up, we should have done this. We should have done that. And they chose not to do it. And here we are.

CARLSON: Let me just stop you. So you gave them that advice, which is the only advice you're absolutely right. How did they respond?

MCHUGH: Kind of like baffled, like what, you know -- what do you mean? What do you mean? I said, well, I know what I know what I know to be truth in my experience in the story. And that's what I know is the truth. So anything other than that is a narrative.

And, you know, it put me in an odd spot. You know, at NBC let's say that.

CARLSON: Yes, you resigned over. Really quick, have you ever heard from them since this piece came out?

MCHUGH: I have not. I've heard from a lot of employees who thanked me for it and said, this is a public service and, you know, kudos. You know, it's unfortunate that we have to live in this existence here.

CARLSON: It was a public service. There's been an awful lot written on Harvey Weinstein over the past year. But this is the clearest account I have read of the cover up at NBC. I was impressed with the piece. Rich, thanks for doing it and thanks for coming on tonight.

MCHUGH: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Robby Soave is an Associate Editor at "Reason," author of "Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump," and he joins us tonight. So Robby, this account, I think you will agree it really leaves no room for debate. Like they acted as a PR team for Harvey Weinstein. Where does that leave us?

ROBBY SOAVE, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, REASON: Right. It's astonishing. And I mean, he has the evidence there in the piece. It's not a matter of like being a human lie detector and I believe him or something. He like, he makes the argument, right, in his story and in what he just told you.

I don't think there's anyone who could doubt that those things are true, that this network not only stonewalled the investigation from the beginning, but then when it was already out, was not interested in telling the story still. When it was already out there, they weren't interested in talking about it.

CARLSON: That's totally true, and I should just put this in some context, because I think it adds to the credibility of the man we just interviewed.

Everyone in the story is a liberal in good standing.

SOAVE: Right.

CARLSON: The NBC executives are liberals. Harvey Weinstein, of course, a big Democratic donor. Rich McHugh, the man we just talked to works down for Al Gore. So there's no way that I can tell some weird political motive going on here.

SOAVE: Right.

CARLSON: He is just telling the truth, and they're lying.

SOAVE: Well, and if it was what the executives have claimed, then they would be behaving totally differently. If it was just, we screwed up. There was a miscommunication. We should have had this story, but we let it get away. That was bad on our part. Like none of their subsequent actions comport with that, right?

They've been attacking Ronan relentlessly trying to say that he didn't actually have any of the evidence. We know that's not true when we know we had tons of evidence.

CARLSON: Right.

SOAVE: He had a tape, he had people willing to go on record, and he turned it around at "The New Yorker" like two months later, which is a short time. They would have had to recheck everything he was bringing to them. It's not like he could just drop it in their laps, and they could run it the next day. That's not how journalism works.

So it's baffling that their strategy has been to deny that they've done anything wrong, which speaks to some of the kind of more out there explanations, although they're becoming less out there that they were afraid of maybe the Lauer stuff coming out or that they had some kind of -- there was there was some suggestion of some kind of business they were getting with Weinstein.

CARLSON: They were being blackmailed. Right.

SOAVE: Blackmail or the kind of more -- those incentives. I think it's reasonable to say, or to wonder, at least whether those incentives were what was really at play given how they behaved.

CARLSON: Absolutely right. I think that is what happened.

SOAVE: Yes.

CARLSON: I'm fascinated however by the response of NBC, because it speaks to a much bigger problem we have in corporate America, where mediocre people are elevated. Nobody is punished for screw ups. You know, you can invade Iraq under false pretenses and go on, you know, run the World Bank. Do you know what I mean?

Marissa Mayer runs Yahoo and like the value of the company disappears, and she is still a heroine. This guy, Noah Oppenheim clearly is a fraudulent character lied, covered up for Harvey Weinstein and they respond by giving him a race, like how does this work?

SOAVE: And there's real damage here because the kinds of stories you tell and don't tell as a journalism company affect what kind of stories you can tell in the future.

Like I've written a lot about Child Protective Services.

CARLSON: Right.

SOAVE: So then people who have cases where their kids got taken away wrongly and unjustly come to me and I investigate their stories and not all of them are true. You know, we don't instinctively believe everything we're told. But that's the kind of person who wants to tell me their story.

I have to imagine if you are someone with a sexual misconduct kind of story, you are not going to trust NBC to cover it after this stuff has happened. And that sucks for the people who work there, for the reporters who want to hold powerful people accountable.

CARLSON: Oh, it does. But it's also ominous. I mean, it's ominous if you have a country that can't reward excellence or punish malfeasance, you know, the future doesn't look bright in a place like that.

SOAVE: It's the myth of meritocracy to some degree, right?

CARLSON: It is the myth of meritocracy. That's exactly right. Robby, great to see you.

SOAVE: My pleasure.

CARLSON: Every day, Democrats on the campaign trail are slamming a place as racist, evil. Maybe irredeemable, what place is that? Our country.

Now some party leaders are asking the obvious questions. What if voters don't hate America as much as they do? Can you get elected slamming the country you want to lead? That's the question we'll address, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So what's Elizabeth Warren's strategy for becoming President? Well, it's coming into focus slowly. She apparently believes she can win the nomination, and ultimately the President with a simple approach, on every issue, find the most left wing possible view, and then go even further than that.

So promise Medicare-for-All, but without any tax increases. It's magic. Use America's wealth to fund race-based reparations because almost no one is in favor of that.

On the border, it is not easy for Warren to stand out because at this point, almost every other Democrat wants amnesty, no deportations, free healthcare for illegals. So what does she do? Well, she has found a way.

In a new letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Elizabeth Warren demands that all transgender illegal immigrants and she doesn't say how many there are, but all transgender illegal immigrants caught at the U.S. border must be let into this country immediately.

Warren says that it's dangerous to be transgender in Mexico. So anyone who claims they were born in the wrong body must be allowed to stay here, no questions asked to receive a taxpayer funded transition. That's right. It's a daring gamut by Elizabeth Warren.

She seems to have calculated that she can alienate every normal person in the continental United States and still become President. Will it work? Well, we're about to find out.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are both running on a Medicare-for-All plan. And they really mean for all. They promise to give free medical care to everybody who is here illegally. It's about 22 million people. That number is rising, and of course, it will rise dramatically if this new handout becomes law. But let's pretend it won't. Let's pretend the number stays static at 22 million.

How much would it cost to give free healthcare to the legal immigrants already here? According to a new calculation, by the American Enterprise Institute, Medicare for all would cost about $10,000.00 per person per year. So multiply that by 22 million illegal immigrants and you get to $220 billion every year.

Now, even in an era of supersize numbers, that's a ton of cash. That is, for some perspective, 10 times the entire budget of NASA. It's also more than the current Veterans Administration budget, the VA budget, which means America would quite literally be spending more on illegal immigrant healthcare than it does on veterans. That's their plan.

Melissa Francis is cohost of "Outnumbered." She also hosts over at Fox Business and thankfully is a frequent guest on the show. She joins us tonight. So you're the numbers person. You're one of the good people who went to Harvard, assess our math. It's true. There aren't many, you're one.

MELISSA FRANCIS, FOX BUSINESS CHANNEL HOST: Well, thank you.

CARLSON: Assess our assessment. Are the numbers that we're throwing out there correct?

FRANCIS: I mean, it's interesting because the number that you quote on the number of illegal aliens that are in the country. Who knows what that number really is, right?

CARLSON: Well, that's right.

FRANCIS: I mean, there's no way of knowing. MIT was the latest one to do a study with Yale, but all focus on MIT, because they're very good at math. And they were the ones that came up with this idea of 22 million people.

But the point is, if you do all that math out, it doesn't even really matter, because we already can't pay for Medicare-for-All and I don't mean, we can't pay for it in the sense of, you know, we'd have to tax the middle class.

I mean, like, there isn't the money at all. And I don't know why more people don't press Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, for that matter on this, because even when Bernie Sanders admits that taxes would have to go up dramatically on the middle class - that still wouldn't do it.

If you confiscated all the money. I told you this before, but if you took away every single dollar that every person who makes more than $200,000.00 a year makes and you threw them into an abyss somewhere to die, and you took all their money, it still would not pay for Medicare-for-All.

So what difference does it make if we add a lot of illegal aliens? Why don't we add Canada? They're nice people. I mean, why not?

CARLSON: You know that's exactly it. They are nice. And by the way, I have always thought and I still think that most illegal aliens are probably nice people. I mean, they came here because they like America. Well, so do I. I get it?

And most Americans like immigrants, really like them. If you want to make Americans hate immigrants, give free healthcare to illegals because that will -- I mean, that will engender resentment, why wouldn't it? Most Americans aren't able to pay for the healthcare they want. Do you know what I mean?

FRANCIS: Right. No, it's absolutely true. I mean, the reason why people love Medicare, and if you talk to seniors in Florida, they love it. It's because they use four times as much in dollar terms as what they've paid in.

That obviously can't work on a larger scale. It means everybody else is supporting this group. They're the elderly, we love them. We're happy to do it. You can get the Medicare add-on insurance, but you can't put the whole population on that.

But you know, it's amazing to me, Democrats and a lot of people in D.C., including Republicans, I think they think math is a myth. Math is like a vast right wing conspiracy. They're allergic to math.

I mean, they don't want to do any of these numbers because it would make everything impossible. And it is depressing when you can't pay your bills and you continue to rack up credit card debt, who wants to sit down and crunch those numbers? Certainly not the politicians in Washington.

But the truth is that there literally isn't enough money for Medicare-for- All. It's not about who can you tax, because if you raise taxes on everyone -- everyone -- it still wouldn't pay for it.

CARLSON: They're liars.

FRANCIS: Yes.

CARLSON: And that's kind of what it comes down to. Melissa Francis, good to see you tonight.

FRANCIS: It's immoral.

CARLSON: Yes, it is.

FRANCIS: Good to see you, too. Yes, it's really disingenuous. See you later.

CARLSON: Well, a Democratic Congresswoman was just caught sleeping with one of her 22-year-old staffers in something called a throuple. What's a throuple? We will tell you, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: A Democratic Member of Congress is refusing to admit any wrongdoing tonight after she was caught having an improper sexual relationship with a 22-year-old member of her staff.

Chief Breaking News Correspondent, Trace Gallagher has the latest on this breaking story. Hey, Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, CHIEF BREAKING NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker Democratic Congresswoman Katie Hill is clearly viewed as a rising star of the party's new progressive wing. She initially got glowing media coverage and was quickly brought into the party's leadership, then news broke about her being in a so-called throuple, a relationship with her now estranged husband Kenny Heslep and a 22-year-old unidentified female staffer.

"Red State" obtained both casual and intimate pictures and critics said the relationship, which is now over was inappropriate, but Hill's supporters say it was between consenting adults.

Now "Red State" has obtained text messages between Heslep and the female staffer that appear to call into question both the power structure of the two-year relationship and how the female staffer felt it was abusive, writing to Heslep headset quote, "It was a dark time and you treated me really poorly. But I also stayed which I have to own."

In response, Heslep writes, quote, "Don't take full responsibility for staying with people that are abusing you. That is basically victim blaming, and none of it was your fault."

The staffer also said she was afraid to push back against Katie Hill for fear of losing her partner and her job. And now Kenny Heslep says Katie Hill was an abusive wife and accuses her of having an affair with a male staffer. Hill denies the new affair and tell POLITICO it was Heslep who was abusive and that he is trying to humiliate her by making vindictive claims.

She also claims her opponents are using a private matter for political gain. We reached out to Katie Hill for further comment. She has not gotten back to us -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Wow. Not your average personal life, it looks like. Not that we judge. Trace Gallagher, great to see you. Thank you.

GALLAGHER: Sure, you too.

CARLSON: Well, Congresswoman Hill's throuple, whatever that is, may not be the most egregious personal scandal even within her own House Caucus. FEC record show, for example, that in the past three months alone, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has directed almost $150,000.00 in campaign funds to a company owned by her alleged lover, Tim Mynett.

Scott Johnson is an attorney. He blogs over at powerlineblog.com. He is an expert on Congresswoman Omar and he joins us tonight. So Scott, thanks for coming on. Tell us what this means. She is sending money to her boyfriend's company. Why is that illegal?

SCOTT JOHNSON, ATTORNEY: Well, I'm sure their relationship must have started on some kind of a professional basis, and that is his business. He is in political consulting and fundraising.

But the question it raises is whether she is using campaign funds for personal purposes. And that harks back to her time in the state legislature.

We learned this year at the conclusion of a year-long investigation by Minnesota State Campaign Finance Board that she freely used campaign funds on a penny ante type basis for personal purposes on at least nine occasions and they ordered her to pay back the funds and fined her for it.

And I would say you know, there are complaints that have been made to the FEC related to the facts that you laid out about her financial relationship with her lover. But the FEC isn't entirely a functioning agency, and I think it's going to take some time for that to play out.

In the meantime, I'd encourage your viewers to take a look at what can be learned from this State Campaign Finance Board investigation that incidentally discovered that she had filed two years -- at least two years -- of tax returns jointly with a guy who she is now married to, but wasn't her husband at the time while she was married to her brother, whom she married in 2009.

And in Omar's case, we don't have an old fashioned kind of, you know, woman or man cheating on her spouse scandal. We have not just that, we have a scandal of a new kind, new kind of fraud, kind of for the age of Trump. And in fact, President Trump talked about it with great point at the rally in Minneapolis.

So it's of interest here. This "Daily Mail," you covered this in Trey Gallagher's -- I'm sorry, Trace Gallagher's hit last night.

CARLSON: Yes.

JOHNSON: "The Daily Mail" story which has had a huge impact here in the Somali community. To my surprise, I've been talking to Somalis all day, this segment is live on my friend, Zerda Sheik's (ph) Facebook page tonight because of interest in the Somali community about this "Daily Mail" story.

That is, you know, a classic stakeout on her affair with this fundraiser, and I thought the story was more of the same. This is the second or third "Daily Mail" story, Tucker on her affair, but this one had a photo of the guy carrying in what looks to be like a six-pack of Stella Artois in their apartment in D.C.

And that has really added kind of insult to injury, especially in the clan that her husband belongs to here, the Hawiye clan that this thing has gone from disgrace and disgust.

CARLSON: Yes, alcohol being forbidden of course.

JOHNSON: Exactly. Let me say she is a fraud in every respect.

CARLSON: She married her biological brother and lied about her identity just to sneak into the country, it sounds like. I mean, there's certainly preponderance of evidence, I would say. Scott Johnson, really the world's expert on this subject. We're grateful for your expertise. Thank you.

JOHNSON: Thank you for having me on, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, the Democratic field in 2020 is uniting finally around the following message: America -- the country they hope to lead -- is a horrible place. It is irredeemably evil. It is racist. In fact, it needs a total remake, a social revolution immediately.

That's the message Beto O'Rourke, if nothing else, is communicating it the most efficiently. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Racism in our criminal justice system is also a racism in our economy. It is also a racism in healthcare. It is also a racism in education in America.

When it comes to this foundational racism in America that teaches us that the foundation of this country is not the Fourth of July 1776, but the 20th of August 1619. The first time someone was brought here in bondage to build the wealth and the success and the greatness of America.

This country, though we may not be in El Paso, Texas is still racist at its foundation, at its core, and throughout this system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: What is so interesting and what ought to make you pause and what should make you really worried about the future of this country is that Beto O'Rourke is supposed to be the most impressive kind of person that we produce. He went to the world's most expensive all boys boarding school in Virginia then went to Columbia University, famously a member of the Ivy League.

He is from a rich family. He married into an even richer family. He has been compared to one of the Kennedys. I mean, he is our leadership class. And yet he hates the country he seeks to lead and he is not shy about it. He was taught to feel that way.

What happens to a country whose leaders hate it? Interesting, I guess we'll find out. In the case of Beto, though he's not going to be President, so it's not strictly speaking relevant in political terms.

And yet Elizabeth Warren, who has a pretty good shot of being her party's nominee, has taken up the same message. She is now leading in the polls.

Her tone, though has some on the left worried. A "New York Times" piece today described several big Democratic donors who say they're concerned that the party's lurch to the left will lose them the election.

These donors are scrambling for an alternative who could enter the race at the last minute, maybe Hillary Clinton, maybe Michael Bloomberg, maybe even former First Lady Michelle Obama.

But would Michelle Obama be better than Beto? Open question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics.

And let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Robert Patillo is a Democratic attorney, a frequent guest to the show. He joins us tonight. So, Robert, thanks a lot for coming on.

ROBERT PATILLO, DEMOCRATIC ATTORNEY: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So I would say, I would put you -- if I had to guess, sort of a little left of center on the spectrum politically, probably a Biden voter would be my guess. And so you're exactly the person I want to ask this question of.

It does seem like -- and we can't see the future -- but the Biden candidacy, you know is cratering. And certainly a lot of democratic donors think that, so if Biden is not going to be the nominee, who is and can that person win?

PATILLO: Well, I don't think you should write the obituary for Joe Biden quite yet. Let's understand that Joe Biden has been under attack for the past year, whether it's his -- whether it's Ukraine, whether it's hugging, whether it's any of these other issues, Joe Biden has been attacked continuously from both sides of the aisle, and still continues to be one of the top two contenders in the race.

As the field narrows down, we're going to get into more substantive debates. As you said, Beto O'Rourke is not going to be President. What he says is interesting, it is good to push the argument forward. But will it actually impact the national conversation?

I think once we get back to talking about issues like Social Security, infrastructure, union rights, things at -- the kitchen table issues that families are interested in, that is when we will have a real debate and that's where Joe Biden will shine.

CARLSON: Yes, I mean, union rights that shows how old school you are. I think that's a really interesting topic. But the Democratic Party in 2019 is a coalition of private equity moguls and MS-13. You know what I mean? There are no private sector labor union members who are voting Democratic anymore. I mean, that's just like the 1975 -- sorry.

PATILLO: Tucker, that is the spin coming from the far right.

CARLSON: That's not a spin. It's true.

PATILLO: That's the spin coming.

CARLSON: It's totally true. I wish it weren't true, by the way, I would like to see a Democratic Party that cared about ordinary people. But I don't see that.

PATILLO: When you have a field of 25 plus candidates, people say crazy things in order to get attention. People play to the -- play to whatever gets you the best sound bites.

So once we get back to the issue to average Americans, Rust Belt Americans care about, that's when we will have a real contrast between the President and the Party.

CARLSON: So let me ask you, so Elizabeth Warren is leading and she is saying things that are every bit as extreme as Beto. So that makes me think -- I just have to get your view of this -- Hillary Clinton weighs in out of nowhere the other day and attacks Tulsi Gabbard, calls her a Russian spy.

My theory and I think it's true and someone who worked for the Clintons for years confirmed it to me today, the Clintons don't do anything haphazardly, accidentally. Everything is strategy.

I'm starting to think Hillary Clinton wants to get in the race. Is that a crazy theory?

PATILLO: No, I think she is absolutely going to get into the race. I think that the entire concept --

CARLSON: You think Hillary Clinton is absolutely getting into the presidential race.

PATILLO: I think absolutely. Because what we have seen is the Democratic Party has been looking for that standard bearer. They need -- they're looking for the bootstraps after Obama, somebody who can carry on that legacy.

The idea of Warren and Bernie, if you take their combined numbers, it's still about 30 percent of the party. So you have about 70 percent of the party that is looking for something different. The hope was that it will be Biden.

But as his campaign continues to get hit over Hunter Biden, it continues to get hit over Ukraine and all the other scandals that does open the door for someone like Hillary Clinton, who has 100 percent name recognition, who have the political structure, who already has all the mechanisms in place from 2008 to be able to step in and run.

CARLSON: Why are we ignoring the obvious? I mean, and that's not to belittle your point. It's a really smart point. No one else is saying it, but I think you're absolutely right. Of course, she is getting in. Duh.

PATILLO: Oh, I remember anytime a candidate mysteriously has a book tour for some random book, they're running for something.

CARLSON: You're right. You're right. I know. Sometimes the obvious thing is the ones you miss. Robert, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

PATILLO: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: A special team of police is credited with saving the lives of homeless people in Seattle, but some members of the City Council in Seattle, some of the craziest people in the world, by the way, want to eliminate them. Why could that be? We'll have that story after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the crisis of vacancy of homelessness in Seattle is one of the worst in North America. But for some officials, things aren't quite bad enough. And so they've tried to make them worse, making the crisis as harmful as possible. That honestly seems to be the goal of some elected officials in Seattle.

The city currently operates something called a Navigation Team. It's a group of specially trained police and social workers who help clean up dirty homeless encampments and get homeless people into shelters. During cold winter days, they almost certainly save some lives.

But two Seattle City Councilmembers want the team gutted or defunded completely. Their agenda is not complicated. They want more filth, more unsafe homeless encampments filling up the Seattle City Center. Why do they want this? Jason Rantz is a Seattle area radio host and he joins us tonight.

Jason, thanks a lot for coming on. So normally, with these stories I could see the motive. But in this case, it seems guaranteed to produce more suffering, more people living on the street, more filth, more needles, more encampments. Why would a City Councilmember possibly want that?

JASON RANTZ, RADIO HOST: Well, two main reasons; number one, this program the Navigation Team operates in is within the Seattle Police Department, meaning they have cops on board.

These are two councilmembers Kshama Sawant and Lisa Herbold, they do not like cops. You have one councilmember literally calling cops bigoted murderers.

CARLSON: Will you say their names -- will you say their names and names again because I think they are elected officials, I think they should take the credit for this.

RANTZ: Absolutely.

CARLSON: Yes, what are their names?

RANTZ: Kshama Sawant and Lisa Herbold. These are two socialist councilmembers. One acknowledging that she is a socialist, the other one voting alongside. So that's number one, they just don't like cops.

And number two, they end up making some really easy political moves to placate the people in Seattle that don't like cops, and then they go ahead and push ideologically driven agendas for affordable housing.

But let's be clear, the reason why people are living out on the street in such big numbers is not about necessarily affordable housing. These are people who weren't born homeless, right? They were born into a home and they got on the wrong path for a variety of reasons.

And unless you go after that root cause of homelessness, you're just going to continue the suffering.

CARLSON: Well, I mean, drive, you know, 20 minutes east of Seattle, anywhere in rural America, there's a housing glut. People have abandoned them. I mean, there's more housing that we know what to do with in a lot of communities. It's not about housing. It's much deeper than that and anyone who tells you otherwise is a moron.

So it does seem like in Seattle, though, you've reached a level of crisis where normal people, even liberals, normal liberals are saying, we can't live like this. So why are your elected officials still basically promoting homelessness?

RANTZ: Well, there's a lot of special interests behind the scenes. We have union money that is absolutely flooding this upcoming election.

Now the good news is both Lisa Herbold and Kshama Sawant are both up for reelection. A colleague of mine on the radio station I work for says the soul of Seattle is on the line and I truly believe that. We have the opportunity right now, not just to get these people out of office. But in the short term, it's really important to back the Navigation Team.

To put this in perspective, 700 tons of trash, human waste has been cleaned from the streets just in the first half of the year, thanks to the Navigation Team. They cleaned up 200 incredibly dangerous encampments.

We call this compassionate in Seattle when we let people live out on the streets and not get quote unquote, "swept away." I'm sorry, they're not being swept away. I've said this on this show before, Seattle compassion is literally killing people.

And if we gut this team, people are going to die in the streets of Seattle. That's not very compassionate.

CARLSON: They don't have a right to wreck one of the prettiest cities in our country. They didn't create Seattle. Seattle spent a long time. It's a real city. And in this generation of lunatic, woke, dumb people, they don't not have a right to wreck it. Right?

RANTZ: You know, they're so woke. I mean, they pretend that socialism is the reason why we've got the city while by the way, they demonize Amazon, which is located here that's responsible for the growth that we've seen, the economic growth in particular.

They like to blame Amazon because they're a corporation, and they're big and evil. And they pretend that that's the reason again, why people are out on the streets.

Amazon people moved here, cost of living goes up and all of a sudden, they're just like you and me, they are one missed paycheck away from landing on the street.

I'm sorry, we've got to stop downplaying the fact that there are people living with mental illness. There are people living with a dangerous and deadly drug addiction, and that's why they're on the street that needs to be fixed.

CARLSON: Yes, well, this country specializes in ignoring the drug crisis. Jason Rantz, it's great to see you tonight. Thank you.

RANTZ: Unfortunately. Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, the left has a new label for people who want to protect themselves constitutionally, terrorists. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: One thing about political campaigns, they change people. If you spend all day giving a stump speech, over time, your opinions tend to change, and in the last year, on the Democratic trail, a trail for the nomination of the Democratic Party, there's a new agenda clearly.

No matter which one of these candidates win, millions of ordinary Americans are going to have their guns taken away. If you don't like that idea, if you think the Second Amendment may mean something, the left has a label for you. You're a terrorist.

In the city of San Francisco, the City Council voted to brand the NRA as a quote "domestic terror organization."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Supervisor Catherine Stefani wrote the scathing declaration reading in part, quote, "The National Rifle Association spreads propaganda that misinforms and aims to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence."

CATHERINE STEFANI, SUPERVISOR, SAN FRANCISCO: The NRA has it coming to them and I will do everything that I possibly can to call them out on what they are, which is a domestic terrorist organization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Dana Loesch is the host of "The Dana Show." She joins us tonight. So call me paranoid and I don't think you can actually be too paranoid in defense of your constitutional rights.

But this is -- this is a predicate to something. I mean, they're saying this for a reason, when they start telling you that people who have a 12- gauge at home to defend themselves are terrorists. They're setting it up to do something to those people. No?

DANA LOESCH, RADIO SHOW HOST: Yes, well, I completely agree with your analysis here, Tucker. And also first off, you know, all day today, these same individuals that have -- these same Democrat lawmakers that have been screeching and raging because President Trump used accurately the phrase lynching to talk about the witch hunt on him.

These are the same lawmakers that have been calling innocent, law-abiding Americans referring to them as quote, "domestic security threats" and terrorists.

So I think they kind of need to look in the mirror a little bit if they want to start being the rhetoric police.

CARLSON: Yes, I mean, that that lynching is just noise. But I think you're absolutely right. It's -- so just to be clear, they're calling Americans who have committed no crime, who pose no threat, who merely want to exercise their constitutional right a terrorist, but what do you do to terrorists?

LOESCH: Yes, exactly, and that's the whole point, what do you do to terrorists? And these are also the same individuals, Democrats like Bernie Sanders, you have people like Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, all -- particularly Biden and Harris, Tucker that have been trying to run away from their hard on crime, tough on crime stances previously, because now it's in vogue for Democrats to be soft on crime.

Bernie Sanders and all these other Democrats have been blasting innocent American gun owners while at the same time Bernie Sanders says he wants to get violent offenders, people like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the terrorists from Boston. People like the murderer in Parkland. He thinks giving them the right to vote on who is going to determine your laws. That's totally okay.

That's a mainstream Democrat candidate, Tucker, that's talking about allowing violent felons to vote while simultaneously completely endorsing through silence and/or omission of it during any of his speeches, calling innocent law-abiding Americans as terrorists.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is somebody who wants to end mass incarceration. And here's something else to think about, too, Tucker and for everyone else out there. These same lawmakers who are referring to innocent people as terrorists and security threats because we disagree with them on the Second Amendment are also the same lawmakers that went to implement the red flag system, and they want you to trust their judgment while they're simultaneously smearing people with these awful terms.

CARLSON: That's not going to happen. I'm not trusting their judgment. Dana Loesch, great to see you tonight. Thank you for that.

LOESCH: I wouldn't either. Good to see you, Tucker. Thank you.

CARLSON: We're out of time, sadly. We'll be back tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m., the show that is the sworn and sincere enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink. Sean Hannity is next.

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