Dennis Rodman on the NBA siding with China

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Dennis Rodman on the NBA siding with China

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman reacts to Lebron James' comments on China, NBA controversy.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," October 17, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: We begin with the Fox News Alert. Any moment now, the President will address supporters in Dallas, Texas. He's got quite a few of those. We are going live there as soon as the President begins to speak.

Good evening, welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” From the beginning, the 2020 Democratic race has been a different kind of contest. Candidates don't seem to be competing to see who can run the country most efficiently. That's the old style of politics. Instead, these candidates are pledging to remake America entirely. Rip out the old, which is they're telling us irredeemably tainted by racism, sexism and free enterprise and replace it with something completely new and different.

At the heart of this effort is the promise of Medicare for All. Now, you may have heard the phrase. Two of the most Popular Democratic candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both have endorsed it. But what exactly does it mean? What exactly is Medicare for All?

It's worth finding out. It's not a tweak to some regulation. It's not even Obamacare, which once upon a time Democrats defended and Republicans denounced as socialism.

Medicare for All is actual socialism, for real socialism. Healthcare spending amounts to about a fifth of the entire American economy. Elizabeth Warren demands total control of all of it immediately. That's Medicare for All. If it becomes law, it would amount to the largest expansion of the Federal government since the Second World War by far.

So it's worth asking how exactly all of this would work and critically, who would pay for it. Elizabeth Warren has been asked that question many times and every time, she has refused to answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC LACEY, NATIONAL EDITOR, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Will you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it? Yes or no?

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations and for hard working middle class families, costs will go down.

Hard working middle class families are going to see their costs go down.

STEPHEN COLBERT, TALK SHOW HOST: But will their taxes go up?

WARREN: Well -- but here's the thing.

COLBERT: But here's the thing, I've listened to these answers a few times before --

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC HOST: Will middle class taxes go up? Will private insurance be eliminated?

WARREN: What families have to deal with is cost -- total cost. That's what they have to deal with.

How much are your costs going to go down?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no. Different question. How much of your taxes go up?

WARREN: No, it's how much your cost --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is it a different question?

WARREN: It is how much families end up spending.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that argument, but will you pay more in taxes? Why don't you want to answer that question because as Jake said tonight, that's a Republican talking point. It's not a Republican talking point. It's a question.

WARREN: It's a question about where people are going to come out economically.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not my question.

WARREN: I spent --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: She will not answer. She won't explain no matter how hard she has been pressed and as you just saw, even some fairly strident Democratic partisans have pressed her. Warren refuses. She will not explain what it would cost or who would pay for it.

Well, tonight we have a credible estimate. According to a study by the Urban Institute, in just the first 10 years, Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plan would cost an additional $34 trillion. That sounds like a lot. How much is it? Here's some perspective.

The Congressional Budget Office anticipates that the United States, the whole United States will collect just $46 trillion in taxes over the same period.

In other words, Elizabeth Warren's healthcare plan alone will consume the overwhelming majority of all tax dollars in the United States. That's before we spend a single dollar on I don't know, Social Security, education, National Defense and everything else. It's demented.

Now, you should know that the Urban Institute has no motive to attack Elizabeth Warren. It's not a right wing think tank. It's a little left wing think tank. They likely didn't even account for the cost of one's pledge to give free healthcare to every illegal alien who sneaks into the country.

So who is going to pay for all of this? Well think of it this way, $3.4 trillion a year. That's the estimated cost, divide that by 320 million Americans and you get more than $10,000.00 per person, not per taxpayer, per person. That means every child, every retiree, every prison inmate, everybody. That would be the largest tax assessed in American history, by far, nothing even comes close. That would change everything.

An awful lot of people would just leave the country and not come back. So how do you pay for Medicare for All? It's not a minor detail, we can settle later. It's the single most important question about the program. Why do you think we don't have it already? Because we can't afford it.

Elizabeth Warren pretends that's irrelevant and to her, maybe it is irrelevant. At some point in the last couple of years, Warren stopped functioning as a conventional senator and became a kind of Messianic figure. Details like what things cost or whether something is constitutional or even if the majority of Americans want it. None of that seems to interest Elizabeth Warren anymore.

Warren has seen the future and in that future she has complete and unquestioned control of America. She is the most powerful person in the world. It calms her repeating the phrase to herself, the most powerful person in the world. It's intoxicating, clearly.

Melissa Francis is an anchor on "Outnumbered" and one of the smartest people at Fox. She joins us tonight to assess this plan. So you've taken, Melissa, a close look at Medicare for All, what does it look like?

MELISSA FRANCIS, FOX BUSINESS NEWS ANCHOR: Okay, so the part that's not in dispute, as you just said, is the cost. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, they all say between $3 trillion and $4 trillion per year. The reason why they won't tell you whose taxes are going to go up is because there is literally not enough money.

So if you look at government tax receipts from the IRS, if you've confiscated every dollar that everyone who makes over $200,000.00 a year, you gave them a 100 percent tax, you took away every cent they made and I guess, ostensibly, you sent them to an island and you left them there to die because you confiscated all of their money, that would still not do it. That would be $2.7 trillion.

If you took everything, every single cent, you're still not paying for it. So slap on top of that, what if you took every cent that every corporation made after they pay taxes, the rest of the profit, everything else when they say we're going to take a little bit of your profit, take all of it. That's half a trillion dollars. You're still not there.

So we've taken every dollar -- and these are the IRS is numbers. I mean, this isn't like models and you're guessing and this is only one year because after you've confiscated everybody's money, and after you took away company's profits, obviously they would all cease to exist.

There is literally no math that makes this possible that you could pay for this. And that's why I think it is so immoral and cruel for these two politicians to go out and make this promise on their campaign when she says your costs will go down, I guess because you'll be dead.

I don't know. I mean, because she will have taken all your money and you'll have left the country. I don't know in what instance your cost would go down because there is no way to pay for it.

CARLSON: So I just find this amazing -- I just want to make sure that I'm hearing this correctly.

FRANCIS: Yes.

CARLSON: These two -- I mean, you're saying that it's a crazy idea. I believe that.

FRANCIS: Right.

CARLSON: But you're also saying that neither one of these candidates who collectively have collected tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions and are leading the Democratic field, neither one has bothered to game it out or even explain how they would pay for this. They haven't even tried?

FRANCIS: I don't -- they must know because these are not -- I mean, these are numbers that you just get from the CBO, from the IRS. It's readily available. You can see exactly how much money is available. And this isn't even tax revenue. This is like I'm going to take everything and then that's that.

So it's just -- there's no way to pay for it. I guess the only logical answer is that it ends up being Medicaid-for-All or something you know much smaller where you really aren't getting anything, but they're pouring a bunch of money into it.

It's just -- it's amazing to me because it's another one of those situations where the math doesn't even come close to working. There's no model. There's no -- with Obamacare, they said we're going to bend the cost curve and with more people on it, the cost will go down.

CARLSON: Right. That's right.

FRANCIS: Blah, blah, blah. They're not even trying that this time because the number is so huge. There's no way to get even close to there, and it's just -- it's absolutely staggering because what are they going to do, God forbid one of them won. Then what? You can't make it happen at all. Go ahead.

CARLSON: It tells you everything about how much the party has changed. When they tried to get Obamacare through they would have Rahm Emanuel's brother out there with a calculator pretending, you know, that it all added up for whatever. They at least went through the motions. And you're saying they're not even trying now.

FRANCIS: No. The closest thing I've heard is Bernie Sanders says, well over this period of time, you know, spending is going to be $50 trillion. So 34 is a big savings or 40 is a savings. And that's a weird number where he is putting together, you know, everything the government spends, local and Federal and all of health insurance, which by the way, they would outlaw health insurance.

So this is not if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. They're saying, we are for sure taking away your healthcare, your employer based healthcare.

CARLSON: Just shut up and obey.

FRANCIS: Yes, it's for sure, going away. You can't buy health insurance, there's nothing you can do. And what would really happen is that people with money, would go buy surgery and buy healthcare from somewhere else to save their lives, and everybody else would be stuck and they would end up with nothing.

I mean, Medicare is nice, because people get out four times as much in monetary terms of what they put in. So that's why people are happy with it, because they're getting so much out. And that only works because we have a small fraction of people on it.

CARLSON: Of course. Nobody -- exactly right.

FRANCIS: You can't put everybody on it because --

CARLSON: How many doctors -- how many people would leave this country if this happened a lot?

FRANCIS: I know.

CARLSON: Melissa Francis, thank you for that.

FRANCIS: My pleasure. I mean, it's sad, but my pleasure.

CARLSON: Shocking. This week by the way marked the one year anniversary of Elizabeth Warren's DNA test video. It might have been the single most damning attack ad released against Warren in the cycle, and she made it herself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: You know, the President likes to call my mom a liar. What do the facts say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact suggests that you absolutely have a Native American ancestor in your pedigree.

WARREN: I am not enrolled in a tribe and only tribes determine tribal citizenship. I understand and respect that distinction. But my family history is my family history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's hard to believe that's real. But it is. Warren has scrubbed that video from her Twitter page, as if it never happened. But don't worry, we saved it. The whole thing is on our Facebook page where it will remain forever. Check it out after the show.

Warren's phony American Indian heritage by the way is just one of many lies she has told to advance her career. Bill Jacobson is a Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and he joins us tonight. Professor, thanks so much for coming on.

BILL JACOBSON, PROFESSOR OF LAW, CORNELL LAW SCHOOL: Thank you.

CARLSON: This seems to be a theme, and I'm not saying this for partisan reasons that Elizabeth Warren lies about her biography.

JACOBSON: Yes. And that's, I think, a narrative that is developing about her, which is going to be extremely politically damaging if she were to be the nominee and get into a general election.

We all know about the Native American problem, and I don't think people fully understand how deceptive and manipulative it was for a decade, for employment purposes only, she claimed to be Native American and then she pretends like she didn't think that would help her somehow.

And even when she was disclosed in 2012 by "The Boston Herald" during her Senate campaign, she spent almost seven years defending being Native American. She blamed her parents for telling her stories. She blamed her Aunt Bee for saying that she had had high cheekbones, like all the Indians do, in her words, which of course, if any other candidate had said that that would be disqualifying.

CARLSON: Well, but it's -- maybe a bigger problem even than that, Professor. So just today, a mom in California reported to Federal prison, her crime, in part was lying about her son's race in order to get him in to college. Here you had Elizabeth Warren who lied about her race to seek employment advantage. That's not a crime?

JACOBSON: Well, I don't know if it's a crime or not. But one thing she has never disclosed is her full personnel and employment files. It would be very interesting to see what forms she signed for EEOC - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reporting, and whether she misrepresented herself as Native American.

There's every reason to believe she did not meet the legal definition, but we don't know what she signed. And she's told many other stories as well.

CARLSON: Yes.

JACOBSON: She has portrayed herself as someone having been a lawyer fighting for the little guy, but as we've covered on your show before, in fact, she represented large corporations against the little guy.

She has a long history. She had recently a story that she's been telling on the campaign trail that she was fired for being pregnant, and then facts came out that showed that wasn't true, and she blamed the right wing smear campaign. But in fact, that was disclosed and discovered by a socialist, Bernie supporter.

So the facts aren't left wing or right wing. They are the facts and the facts are she is not Native American. She wasn't fired for being pregnant. She tells a #MeToo story that's been cast into doubt not by the right wing, but by "The Boston Globe" itself, which is virtually her house organ.

CARLSON: Virtually. Absolutely. Professor, thanks so much for joining us tonight. I appreciate it.

JACOBSON: Great, thank you.

CARLSON: Before tonight's rally, the President and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent two days in a war of words in person and online. Our Chief Breaking News Correspondent, Trace Gallagher sets up the story for us tonight. Hey, Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, CHIEF BREAKING NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker, the Impeachment Inquiry certainly hasn't helped the relationship between House Speaker Pelosi and President Trump.

So the meeting at the White House to talk about the President's decision to pull troops out of Syria was destined to get contentious. It did. And in the end, each accused the other of melting down with the President tweeting this, quote, "Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown." Pelosi then took the picture and used it as her cover photo on Twitter. And today at the Democratic National Committee's Leadership Forum, Pelosi said this again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: At the beginning of our country, Thomas Paine said, this is the dark days of Revolution. He said that times have found us. The times have found us. We think the times have found us now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: I say again, because she cited the very same Thomas Paine, the times that found us, phrase repeatedly over the past several months including the day she announced the Impeachment Inquiry.

The Revolutionary War era author keeps coming up because apparently Pelosi is suggesting Democrats are fighting to reestablish our democracy or something -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Trump is King George or something. Trace Gallagher. Great to see you tonight. Thank you.

Senator John Kennedy is a Republican and represents the proud State of Louisiana and he joins us tonight. Sir, thanks so much for coming on. Where are we in this battle of sorts? The Revolutionary War Battle of Concord between the President and the Speaker?

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY, R-LA: In terms of the war of words. You and I both know President Trump. He is not a turn the other cheek kind of guy.

CARLSON: True.

KENNEDY: I think he believes if you turn the other cheek, you just get it in the neck. So Speaker Pelosi knows that. I've talked to people who were in the meeting. She baited him, he took the bait. If he asked my opinion, and he hasn't, I would tell him to ignore her. When you argue with a fool, which just proves there are two.

Now, I don't expect the President do that. The President is -- I happened to visit with him last Friday. He is angry. And here's why he is angry. He is being charged or I think he will be charged with a high crime or a high misdemeanor.

Anybody who knows a law book from a "J. Crew" catalog knows that requires and can't mens rea. This whole case against him is going to come down to intent, and I believe whether others believe it or not, I believe that he believes that Ukraine -- the Ukrainian government may have interfered in the 2016 election.

I believe that he believes that the Biden's may have been involved in the impropriety in Ukraine and that he believes that it is an appropriate exercise of his foreign affairs powers to withhold Federal taxpayer money until he is certain that the impropriety has been investigated and that any Ukrainian officials who were involved are no longer in the government.

There is precedent for this. Some of my friends in the mainstream media may affect me when I say this, but Thomas Jefferson prosecuted Aaron Burr, had him prosecuted and investigated him, a political rival Ravel for treason.

He didn't prosecute Burr because he was a political rival. He prosecuted him because he thought he had committed treason, and he happened to be a political rival. To me, this whole length is about intent and I can tell you based on my conversations with the President, he honestly believes that the investigation needs to go forward.

The second point I'd make, the Ukrainian government not the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian government is historically and organically corrupt.

CARLSON: I've noticed.

KENNEDY: Yes. And when you say, okay, you investigated the Vice President and his son, can you show me the report? No. Can I see the evidence? No. Why are the allegations unfounded? I'm not saying they are founded. But why are they unfounded? Well, it's because it's been reported.

Well, who reported it? And then you go to them and they say, well, we haven't seen it. They reported it.

Number two, and here is my final point. Now, suppose the Ukrainians did have a report. Who in God's name over there are you going to believe?

CARLSON: True.

KENNEDY: I mean, I hope President Zelensky turns out better, Tucker. But the people who preceded him, looked to me like they're all crooked as a barrel of snakes. And I honestly don't know -- I don't understand Speaker Pelosi's theory of her case.

CARLSON: And the fact that there's been no vote on it, which strikes me as kind of shocking. Senator, thank you so much for that assessment.

KENNEDY: Thank you.

CARLSON: We promised you last night, we ran out of time, so our interview with Dennis Rodman about what's going on between the NBA and China is straight ahead.

What's a better way to get an endorsement by the way from President Obama - - served as his closest friend and second in command for eight years? Or wear blackface. President Obama just revealed the answer to that question. We will share it with you next.

Plus, we will be covering the President's speech in Dallas. He will be up probably, making news in just a minute. We'll bring it to you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: The President will be speaking very soon. He is in Dallas, Texas tonight. We're monitoring that. We will go there when he does.

In the meantime, though, President Obama delivered a big political endorsement today. No, it was not for his lifelong friend and sidekick of eight years, Joe Biden, who is by the way running for President. No.

Instead, Barack Obama meddled in a foreign election and gave an endorsement to a known racist, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau has worn blackface two or three or who knows, maybe 10 times, we don't know, a lot of times he's been wearing blackface. And as they often tell you, that means he's a bigot. But Obama endorsed him anyway.

And that's got to be a little sad if you're Joe Biden. For eight years, he served loyally as Obama's Vice President. He did all the un-fun things, all the boring appearances at rotary clubs and speeches Obama didn't want to do.

And now, Obama is endorsing Prime Minister Blackface ahead of him. Biden can't even get a call from Obama anymore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, TALK SHOW HOST: Have you heard from President Obama this week?

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, I haven't.

KIMMEL: You have not?

BIDEN: I have not, no.

KIMMEL: You guys don't talk about this kind of stuff?

BIDEN: No, we don't talk about this kind of stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It just breaks your heart. Does it break the heart of author and columnist, Mark Steyn? I don't know. He is here tonight to tell us. Does it make you a little sad, Mark?

MARK STEYN, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST: I do feel sorry for Joe Biden. You have to -- if you look at it from Justin Trudeau's point of view, when that fella down in Virginia, the Governor of Virginia, when he wore blackface just once 40 years ago, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, every major Democrat, Hillary called for him to resign immediately.

Justin Trudeau has worn blackface multiple times in the 21st Century. He can't actually say how many times he's worn blackface.

CARLSON: No.

STEYN: And America's first black President has just endorsed Canada's first blackface Prime Minister. We're told they're like, somebody -- I heard somebody on the radio in Canada today who said, well, they're very close. It's like, you know, he's just like his brother from another mother. In this case -- in Justin's case, he's like his brother from another mammy. He's basically the world's wokest mammy singer, and Barack Obama has decided that that is something he is entirely cool with.

It's different in Virginia. But if you do it north of the 49th parallel, Barack Obama will endorse you.

CARLSON: Of all the world leaders, you have to endorse Prime Minister Blackface? It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

STEYN: Yes, no, no. That's a bit unfair. We know he has worn white face at least three times. I think Justin, he can't remember how many times has been in blackface, but I'm pretty certainly was in white face for the last G7 summit. My memory is a bit hazy.

But actually, no American President has actually done this. The last time anyone talked about it was in 1911 when Sir Wilfrid Laurier, asked President Taft, if he would put in a word for him and President Taft thought about it and prepared some remarks and then pulled out at the last minute. This is actually unprecedented.

This is actually unprecedented interference. If Canadians were like Americans, we'd be having a three-year investigation to get to the bottom of this foreign interference in a Canadian election.

CARLSON: But you won't. Mark Steyn, the great Mark Steyn. Thank you. Good to see you tonight.

STEYN: Thanks a lot, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, in this country, LeBron James pushes left wing politics, the NBA touts itself as a socially conscious sports league, but neither one dares criticize their masters in China and they don't want anyone else doing it either because they don't want to lose money.

Dennis Rodman won five NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, the Detroit Pistons, but after leaving the NBA, he has had something of a second career as an informal diplomat. He has been in multiple trips to North Korea where he has befriended the country's dictator.

We just spoke with Rodman. Here's how it went.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: So when you see LeBron James -- and it's not just LeBron James, but NBA players and coaches -- unwilling to tell the truth about the Chinese dictatorship. What's your response to that?

DENNIS RODMAN, FORMER NBA PLAYER: Well, I just look at it for us. I think that NBA is a great, great sport. It is a great sport around the world.

CARLSON: Yes.

RODMAN: I think that NBA players have an obligation to do one thing, it is to face force.

CARLSON: Yes.

RODMAN: I think when you put politics and sports, it doesn't -- it doesn't mix.

CARLSON: Oh, I agree with you there.

RODMAN: I mean, I think that the fact that, you know, when you when you put politics and sports, it seems to have a different twist on the game of the sports world. And basketball is a very, very universal sport. It fixes violence around the world.

Now, I think the players -- the players in the NBA had no information about what's going on in China or in Hong Kong. I think they were misinformed or it wasn't known to them what was really taking place at that particular moment.

CARLSON: Right. I get it, but they also have Google and some of these guys, LeBron James is smart. No one thinks he is dumb. And LeBron James has spent, you know, years critiquing American politics. He's got no problem attacking the government here.

But anyone who texted government there should be punished. I mean, he said that. That seems like a double standard.

RODMAN: Well, I just think that the culture in Hong Kong and in China, a very, very great, great country by that, I think they feed the American people in an America way. I think the fact that a lot of people -- to force the culture in China and Hong Kong, it is very difficult to try to change that culture overnight, because they have a certain way of living and certain way of thinking.

I think the fact that the NBA players, any players of any sport -- that has anything to do with sports, if they understand the culture of the Asian community and the Asian countries, I think they should understand the fact that they are very loyal.

They are very loyal people. If they say yes, they mean yes. If they see - - if they hear something that's very out of context. They take it in a wrong -- they take it in a different direction and say wait a minute, hold on. You know -- they like to say no --

CARLSON: Okay, but what if you had a country that was taking people, Muslims in this case, and putting them in concentration camps or a country that was executing anyone who disagreed with the government and then selling their organs. Would it be okay if you were an American to say, I know it's a different culture, but you know that's kind of disgusting.

RODMAN: Well, it is disgusting. I think the fact that, you know that's up to the people in Washington, the politicians. I think like I said, sports is sports. I think that people that's playing sports is for sports. Basketball, that's not their concern.

I think you can voice your opinion in America. But once you start going across to over the Asia, China, Singapore, Beijing and those countries over. There is a difference. It's a different way of living over there. You've got to be really careful what you say you know, because they take it the wrong way.

CARLSON: But hold on, well, I know that for the Chinese, but here in America, we're protected by this umbrella called the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and we can say whatever we want.

So LeBron James goes into a meeting of teammates and team owners and says anybody who criticizes China ought to be punished in the United States. What do you think of that?

RODMAN: Well, I think it is difficult. Like I said, politicians should understand the fact that, you know, don't involve people like us, sports athletes involved in politics. I think LeBron James is a very smart individual. I think he's very -- he is very caring about the people around the world, and especially his charity he does around the world.

But I think that, you've just got to understand that we don't know too much about politics. We don't want -- I don't want to know too much about politics to be honest about you.

CARLSON: Okay then. Then should LeBron James continue to comment on American politics?

RODMAN: Well, you know, what is -- one of the great things about living in America, we've got the freedom of speech.

CARLSON: Except when we criticize China. Except when we criticize China.

RODMAN: Well, I am just saying that --

CARLSON: And then LeBron says you have to be punished for that.

RODMAN: But I'm saying, the deal is though, we have no right as American people to sit there and criticize China or any country in the world, in essence because you know why China is one the countries where they really praise American people. They love sports. They love American people.

Hong Kong loves American people. China, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, every Asian country love American people, especially sports. Now, I think if people and sports athletes understand that because they're very loyal to people, and for the American people.

So I think that LeBron James needs to understand, you know what, keep -- let the politics be politics. Let the basketball players be basketball players.

CARLSON: Well, I hope he would -- he would live by that standard here, too. I'm not sure I understood a lot of that, but I really appreciate it. It's great to see you. Thanks a lot for coming tonight, Dennis Rodman.

RODMAN: Cool.

CARLSON: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Anyway, send us a text if you understood any of that. Nice guy though.

The Ukraine controversy has moved rapidly from the beginning with a lot of accusations hurled around and not many facts. What do we really know about the Biden family, Burisma -- or is it Burisma? And Ukraine? Our investigation of that next.

Also Donald Trump is about to step on stage in Dallas, Texas. We're told he would be would there any minute. Of course, we'll go there when he does.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, we're still monitoring Dallas, Texas, the arena where the President will begin to speak at any moment. We'll go there when he does.

Fox's Dana Perino just spoke with Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. In their interview, Zuckerberg had a number of interesting things to say about tech censorship, and recent democratic demands for more of it. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA PERINO, HOST: Kamala Harris said that she thinks that Twitter should shut down President Trump's account like do you think that's a ridiculous idea?

MARK ZUCKERBERG, FOUNDER AND CEO, FACEBOOK: My belief is that in a democracy, I don't think that we want private companies censoring politicians and the news. I generally believe that as a principle, people should decide what is credible, and what they want to believe and who they want to vote for.

And I don't think that that should be something that we want tech companies or any kind of other company doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Good for him. That's interesting. The whole interview was interesting. It airs tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. You should set your watch for this. It's good.

Well, the President is speaking in Dallas, he should have a lot to say about the impeachment efforts being marshaled against him, as well as Ukraine and this tangled relationship with the Biden family.

In just a few weeks, the Ukraine story has become very complex, even if people follow it full time. So where are we? What do we know for certain?

There's only one person we know who can untangle that, and that's our Chief Intelligence Correspondent, Catherine Herridge and she joins us tonight. Hey, Catherine.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Tucker. Through our reporting this week, we learned from sources with direct knowledge of the congressional testimony that the administration's point man on Ukraine said Burisma was notorious for having a history of corruption and being investigated for money laundering that's why the Ukraine energy firm would bring in Hunter Biden.

Kurt Volker told congressional investigators the firm was quote, " ... looking to spruce up its image by having prominent named people on its Board."

On Tuesday, Hunter Biden went and told his side of the story to ABC News that his last name likely played a role in securing the Ukraine position while his father was Vice President and led the Obama administration's regional foreign policy. Hunter Biden also dismissed criticism that he was unqualified to sit on Boards.

Throughout the closed door interview this week, Volker said he didn't know the Biden's name came up during the call between the President and the Ukrainian leader until the transcript was released last month. And his read of the call was that the President wanted an investigation into Biden's actions to stop the prosecutor's investigation.

And then there was a heated exchange with Democratic Chairman Adam Schiff, after Volker said the Ukrainians likely learned about the temporary hold on military aid from a political news story in late August adding that they had all already got a meeting with a senior administration official quote, "And in that context," he said, "I think the Ukrainians felt like things are going the right direction and they had not done anything on a [Biden] investigation."

So think about that information, and how it conflicts with a lot of the public reporting, Tucker.

CARLSON: Had not done anything on the Biden investigation.

HERRIDGE: Correct.

CARLSON: So that's --

HERRIDGE: A little gap there.

CARLSON: Yes, a little gap. A little gap there. Catherine Herridge, the clearest explainer of the facts that we know of.

HERRIDGE: Thank you.

CARLSON: Thank you very much. The President will start speaking in a moment tonight in Dallas. We will be going there live once he does. But for now, a recent Gallup poll finds that only 41 percent of Americans trust the news media. That's a massive drop from the 1960s and 70s, when a large majority trusted their own press.

Walter Hussman is a newspaper publisher. We just spoke with him recently about this trend and how to fix it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: And so you believe, and I think you make a great case for it that in order to be really informed, in order to have a functioning democracy, you have to have a thriving print media. Americans say, however that they have lost a lot of faith in that medium. Why do you think that is?

WALTER HUSSMAN, NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER: Well, I think there's the perception that there's too much bias in the media and there's not enough separation between news and opinion, and I see it myself.

About two years ago, I heard some journalists saying things like, don't believe in the false equivalency of giving both sides. Well, I mean, that's what I learned in journalism, you're always supposed to get both sides.

CARLSON: Right.

HUSSMAN: And statements like you know, I'm here to figure out what the truth is and then share that with you and that's not what we understand our role is, our role is not to find the truth, our role is to gather all the facts, verifiable facts we can, give those to the readers, let them determine what the truth is.

CARLSON: That is, I mean, you just described what I think was universal orthodoxy, just 30 years ago, and you've been running papers for an awfully long time. No one questioned what you just said. But now what you just said is a minority view, what changed do you think?

HUSSMAN: I'm not sure how it changed. I think it changed slowly over time. But we are trying to take the step to move it back in the right direction again.

And so two and a half years ago, I wrote a six paragraph -- short paragraphs -- statement of core values. And we run that in all 10 of our daily newspapers every day on Page 2, because we want the public to know what our journalistic standards are and we want everyone that works for us to know what our journalistic standards are, and we want the public to hold us accountable.

CARLSON: So recently, you've seen -- and you see it a lot -- newspaper reporters, not columnists or opinion people but just daily beat reporters, writing books in which they express, in some cases, aggressively partisan opinions. Should that be allowed?

HUSSMAN: No, we don't allow that. We would not allow our reporters to write books about the subjects they cover for, you know, news or anything as controversial.

We have had feature reporters that might write a book on hiking trails in Arkansas or a food editor might write a book about recipes. I don't think that endangers our credibility at all, but we would not let a reporter write a book about something they cover.

CARLSON: So when you go -- my last question -- I just can't resist asking you. When you go to conferences with other newspaper publishers and of course you know them all, what do they say about your standards and your approach to news?

HUSSMAN: You know, they generally agree with it. As a matter of fact, you know, a newspaper group in Kansas, the Seaton family that's owned "The Manhattan Mercury" for over a hundred years. They own 10 daily newspapers. They've now adopted our statement of core values identically.

And more importantly, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Journalism School has now adopted our statement of core values. So, I hope this spreads and more and more news organizations adopt it and not just newspapers, I'd like to see broadcast and cable and other news organizations to let the public know what your values really are.

CARLSON: Right and a clear line between news and opinion. That's the big -- I think we have that here. Walter Hussman, thanks so much. And I know our viewers will look up your statement of principles online. They're worth reading. Thanks for joining us.

HUSSMAN: Thank you, Tucker.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: We're bringing you a Fox News Alert. The President making his way to the podium in Dallas, Texas. What's he going to say? What should he say? Mark Steyn joins us to answer that question.

So Mark, you're the President, a lot of things going on. What do you focus on there?

STEYN: Yes. I think I'd put impeachment behind me. I think things have changed since a week ago and he is looking pretty safe. The Adam Schiff backdoor behind the scenes, impeachment isn't going anywhere and talk up the economy, make or draw a contrast between him and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders level craziness.

CARLSON: That is such a good point. I hope he follows your advice. Mark Steyn. Thanks. The President of the United States in Dallas, Texas.

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