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Tucker: Democrats were certain of Russian collusion

Since release of the Mueller report, Democrats have gone on the attack against Attorney General William Barr.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," May 6, 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 more than two long years. The institutional left told us they knew exactly what the Mueller report would say. They said it would end the Trump presidency and save this nation.

Congressman Adam Schiff, who sits on the Intel Committee and would know gave us a preview. Schiff said that he had seen with his own eyes, proof that the President of the United States colluded criminally with the government of Russia.

BuzzFeed, a noted cat blog, said it had conclusive evidence that Trump obstructed justice. ABC News momentarily tanked stock prices when it reported that Trump had ordered his National Security adviser to talk to the Russians, and so on.

The Mueller report is going to prove all of these stories true. And then the report came out, and it turns out that none of it was true. It was all a lie. So how did the people who told and repeated those lies respond? Well, they could have done what decent people do. They could have resigned their jobs, tearfully apologize for misleading our country and then move to Paraguay in shame. They could have done that, but they didn't.

Instead, they did what they always do. They became more aggressive. They decided that actually the Mueller report vindicated everything they've been saying since 2016. It's all there. It's just being hidden by that dastardly Attorney General Robert Barr -- William Barr -- whatever. Barr - - suddenly Barr was right up there with Putin and George Papadopoulos as an enemy of the people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Are you talking about just having him sit for a hearing or locking him up somehow?

REP. STEVE COHEN (D-TN): You have to have him sit for hearing and I think you have to have him locked up unless he agrees to participate and come to the hearing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The House and the Senate, each chamber has an inherent power to compel a witness to testify if that witness just refuses, and that includes arrest and it even includes jail. The House is powerless unless the House take some action.

REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D-CA): We have what's called inherent contempt proceedings, which means we send to the sergeant of arms out to handcuff the individual who is declining to testify.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Okay, who are going to handcuff.

SPEIER: Well, I'm going to start with Mr. Barr.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: These people are fascists. "Cuff him, lock him up, send him to jail." The man who has been Attorney General for less than three months must be in prison for his crimes -- whatever those crimes are -- and the President must go on trial, too. Now, you might think that being cleared of collusion by the Mueller report would be good news for Trump. But no, it's just means he must be impeached.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To invite a foreign power participate in our elections, to obstruct justice and cover up during the investigation, there must be consequences. There must be accountability. We must get behind the House of Representatives that they pursue impeachment for this President.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: He almost wishes campaign wasn't over, that it would go on forever. So every night we get new clips of the hat and the bouncing and the hand gestures. It's so great. But did you hear what he said? He said impeached no matter what the cost. Impeachment is a theological imperative. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concerned that impeachment talk may actually help the President's reelection?

REP. AL GREEN (D, TX): I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this President, he will get reelected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Impeach him before the people choose him as their President again. That's how democracy works. Now watching all of this, you might assume that the left has lost control of itself and you would be half right. The Democratic base has been emotionally incontinent for quite some time. They're getting worse, not better. And you can thank the internet for that.

But the people who run the party are not crazy. They are coolly rational, they always have been. They want power. That's all they want. Whatever it takes. These people don't throw fits unless it's serve some higher political purpose. And this fit does serve a higher purpose. They're trying to divert attention from a much bigger story.

Remember, when Trump said the Obama administration had been spying on his campaign, the Democratic Party's boot lickers went absolutely crazy the second he said it. They rushed to the nearest television studio to mock the very idea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: President Trump has a new favorite word and every time he uses it, he is lying. And that is the word "spy."

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: His baseless claims of spies.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: This so-called spy issue -- first of all, there is absolutely no evidence there was a spy. So it's really a fake issue.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: He wants you to believe that his campaign was spied on and it's one of the worst things that we've ever seen from government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: I think looking back, the VCR, one of the great inventions in human history, maybe fire, the wheel, the VCR because it allows us to preserve people's claims on tape, and then play them back. The group you just saw were hysterical at the idea that Trump might believe there was spying on his campaign. They were hysterical because they suspected it might actually be true.

And now we know that it was. In fact, according to recent testimony from a high ranking FBI official, the spying turned out to be far more extensive than Trump suspected, even James Clapper had to concede that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Using undercover agents is a standard and legitimate technique that is widely used in investigations. That technique has been used to thwart a lot of counterterrorism plots in this country. So I'm sure -- I mean, there are protocols and standards for using an agent and I'm sure that's the case here.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Was it spying?

CLAPPER: Well, yes, I guess it meets the different -- the dictionary definition of surveillance or spying, a term I don't particularly like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, the guy who ran the spy agency doesn't like the word "spying." Eric Felten broke the story that there may have been more than one government informant embedded in Trump's campaign. He wrote it for "National Review" online and he joins us on the set tonight. Eric, thanks a lot for coming on.

ERIC FELTEN, CONTRIBUTOR, NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE: Tucker, how you doing?

CARLSON: I'm -- well, I'm I feel like most people who thought maybe Trump was onto something kind of vindicated tonight. But even those of us who thought there might have been spying I think are not prepared to learn what you've reported, which is -- was real spying.

FELTEN: Well, what's interesting about it is you had Jonathan Moffa, who is Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI, sort of head of intelligence analysis, and he was put together with Pete Strzok -- you remember Peter Strzok.

CARLSON: Very well.

FELTEN: As the core two people putting together the Trump investigation, the Trump-Russia investigation at the beginning of August 2016. And they Pete Strzok sent a text message -- always the text messages from Pete Strzok -- in which he wanted to organize what they were going to talk about at their sort of first organizational meeting.

And at their first organizational meeting, they talked about CHSs, Confidential Human Sources, and liaison which is an FBI term for working with spy agencies, whether it's the CIA, or foreign agencies.

So from the get-go, right from the beginning of the investigation, using spies was on the table as one of the things that the team was going to use.

CARLSON: So now, there's evidence that there was more than one.

FELTEN: Right. We know that the Christopher Steele was a confidential human source.

CARLSON: Right.

FELTEN: And we know that Stefan Halper was a confidential human source. This is the Cambridge professor. And we know that as Azra Turk pretending to be Stefan Halper's assistant was some kind of informant or --

CARLSON: You know, some of these people were paid with tax dollars, correct?

FELTEN: Oh, yes. No, Stefan Halper, has over the years gotten paid lots and lots of money. He does analysis papers for the Defense Security Agency writing position papers that he gets paid $300,000.00 for and it ends up being a way in which the money for Stefan Halper is paid out of the sort of black bag.

But what's interesting is Jonathan Moffa in closed-door testimony back in August on Capitol Hill, was asked just how many confidential human sources there were in the investigation, and he couldn't answer the question. If it had just been one or two or three, that would have been easy. Instead, he had to say, well, there were confidential human sources. I just don't know how many there were.

CARLSON: Shocking. And shocking. Hopefully, we will know. Thank you for that reporting, Eric Felten. Great to see you.

FELTEN: Good to see Tucker.

CARLSON: Mollie Hemingway is covering the story and has been for "The Federalist" and she joins us tonight. Mollie, so why haven't we heard Stefan Halper long-standing government source and as Eric Felten just said, a long-standing recipient of U.S. tax dollars. I believe he is still in London tonight. Why is he not testifying before a congressional committee and answering basic questions about this.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: We have this amazing situation going on where we had the Russia hoax -- this allegation that the Donald Trump campaign, treasonously colluded with Russia -- to steal the 2016 election that ended with a fizzle. Robert Mueller decline to indict a single American for that.

At the same time, we start learning these other things, such as what Eric Felten has just reported on about a wide-ranging campaign against the Trump campaign that used human informants, National Security letters, wiretaps, the Azra Turk character, and I don't think that's her real name is an actual government official, I believe, who was sent to London to oversee the operation.

We know that there were probably four people who were surveilled, at least. We don't know so much about this and the media show a shocking lack of curiosity. "The New York Times" actually broke this story about Azra Turk, but then they kind of downplayed it and acted like, "But don't worry, this doesn't actually support. We're going to tell you all about this spy." But that doesn't support Donald Trump's contention that he was spied on.

In fact, it completely supports the contention that the campaign was spied on, and they need to cover it with the same rigor that they devoted to the crazy conspiracy theory that they fell for, for multiple years.

CARLSON: Donald Trump now "controls," I guess, air quotes, or he doesn't actually control much of his own government, as we've seen, but at least, ostensibly controls the FBI and CIA right now and could dispatch them on phony pretext as Obama did to him, sic them on the presidential campaigns of his opponents.

HEMINGWAY: Well --

CARLSON: Aren't they worried about that?

HEMINGWAY: There is an actual issue going back many decades of a complex within the government that is not very politically accountable, but for the first time in two years, we actually have a department --

CARLSON: But wait a minute, can you just pause with it. So why is that not an attack on democracy?

HEMINGWAY: It is a huge threat that was warned about from every President from Eisenhower on or that people have been concerned about since Eisenhower on, but there is now finally political accountability at the Department of Justice. And that's why you see so many people upset that we now have an Attorney General who has expressed merely an interest into looking into this. He hasn't said that he's going to go after Donald Trump's enemies or anything like that. He just says, "I'd like to know more about how this began. I'd like to know more about what protocols were followed." And the media and various people who are in the agencies at the time are just absolutely freaking out.

CARLSON: So this is why Congresswoman Speier and that little rice guy are both saying he should go to jail?

HEMINGWAY: Right.

CARLSON: So the Attorney General might actually find out why the spying was allowed, the extent of it and for that crime, he should go to jail?

HEMINGWAY: Well, it was a great plan to spend all these years on this conspiracy theory to delegitimize Donald Trump's election. And if it instead turns out to be sort of a boon for him, that that all the things he said about it were true and that nobody was indicted for treasonous collusion with Russia, it is something I don't think they are psychologically prepared to accept at this point. And that's why you're seeing so many people react so strongly.

Remember, it was just a year ago that we were told that any critique on Robert Mueller was an attack on the Republic, it was a threat to rule of law. We couldn't have administration of justice if we attacked -- if we even criticized in any way Robert Mueller. Well, what's going on then with this extreme criticism of William Barr simply for saying he would like to make sure that our Federal agencies that are tasked with law enforcement and intelligence gathering were following protocol?

CARLSON: And a sitting Member of Congress says he should be in handcuffs for that. It tells you a lot about it. I hope they never get power. I mean that. Mollie, thank you. Great to see you.

HEMINGWAY: Thank you.

CARLSON: Hillary Clinton says the 2016 election was stolen from her. She is not the only Democrat who has decided you never need to concede an election. That's for losers. The great Mark Steyn responds after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Hillary Clinton continues her grievance tour around the United States. It could be coming to a town near you soon. Tickets at this point are heavily discounted, they are probably paying people to go by the very end.

It's never quite clear who Hillary will blame for her election loss. But we do know she never blames herself or her failure to campaign in key states like Wisconsin, by the way, we don't think the tour is going to Appleton anytime soon. She didn't make it to LA though the other day where she implied that the 2016 election was quote, "stolen" from her. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it's also critical to understand that, as I've been telling candidates who have come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee and you can have the elections stolen from you.

(Cheering and Applause)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, they stole it. They stole it. Sad. And she's not the only Democrat disputing election outcomes. Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams says that she won her election. At a fundraiser in Houston over the weekend, Abrams told her audience quote, "I'm here to tell you a secret that makes Breitbart and Tucker Carlson go crazy. We won." She said, "I am not delusional." That's reassuring. "I know I am not the governor of Georgia -- possibly yet."

Although, whenever they tell you, "I am not delusional," which is always at the guy next to you and the bus tries to assure you. It makes you wonder. In reality, Abrams did lose that race by more than 50,000 votes. It's not a close margin. The great irony in all of this is the Democrats say that Trump can't accept election outcomes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just told "The New York Times" she worries about whether the President will accept the 2020 results if Democrats win by a narrow margin. She felt the same way about the midterms. You should recall that before last November, she believed that quote, "If we win by four seats by a thousand votes each. He is not going to respect the election." Because everything is projection. Sigmund Freud called it.

Mark Steyn is a bestselling author, and really the best guest on TV and joins us tonight. So here is yet another example, Mark, of them accusing you of what they're doing. Are they not aware that they're doing this?

MARK STEYN, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST: Yes. I think Hillary Clinton is totally unaware when she says that, you know, you run the best campaign and all the rest of it -- she is actually clutching at straws as to why the inevitable candidate did not win. But this is really the flip side of what you were talking about with Mollie just now because these two stories run in parallel.

The Democrats essentially provide political cover for all these FBI types, monkeying around wiretapping and surveilling the opposition, because if the Democrats didn't lend it political cover, we would all see it for what it is -- the deep state gone rogue.

At the same time, the deep state's investigation of George Papadopoulos and co, provides cover for the Democrats as to why Trump's victories -- Republican victories -- are never legitimate. So in a sense, these two things operate on twin tracks and support each other.

But when you have someone like Stacey Abrams actually saying, "We don't need to concede anymore, because this entire system is oppressive and out to get us." The Democrats are coming close actually, to making politics entirely impossible. And when you do that, it doesn't actually leave much else except Civil War. So by delegitimizing this process, they are actually playing with matches.

CARLSON: When you say that the election is illegitimate, because the system is illegitimate because the founding documents are illegitimate, because the people who wrote them were racist. And at a certain point, aren't you really saying like, "I don't need to play by your rules. I'm just going to seize power when I can."

STEYN: Well, Stacey Abrams argument is, "Unless I win, the election was rigged," and Hillary Clinton, who is a far more senior figure than Stacey Abrams, actually came close to saying that on stage in Los Angeles, "Because I didn't win, the system must be rigged."

And actually, when we read that Nancy Pelosi thing, I don't think Trump is like that at all. I think if Trump were to lose narrowly, he'd sound off on Twitter. He'd say the presidency is for losers. Living in the White House was so degrading after you've lived in Trump Tower. I'm going to build a fabulous new Trump Resort in Kazakhstan, screw you all. He'd have a ball with -- if he lost, he'd have a ball and he'd be gone.

But what the Democrats have done for the last two years, in particular, Hillary Clinton. It's Hillary Clinton's refusal to lose tied to what we've been talking about with all these deep state guys going rogue, in alliance with foreign Intelligence agencies, eavesdropping, monitoring, trying to entrap American citizens, these two crimes are actually the same crime and one half supports the other half.

CARLSON: Very smart. As always, Mark Steyn, thank you.

STEYN: Thanks, Tucker. Great being with you.

CARLSON: Silicon Valley is dramatically stepping up its efforts to silence viewpoints it disagrees with, anything right of center. It's not your imagination. It's happening right now before the 2020 election for the purpose of influencing that election.

Facebook just banned a number of prominent conservatives earlier this week, essentially wiping them off the internet. The rest of us are supposed to think that's okay. The latest victim is the conservative Claremont Institute, which wanted to buy Google ads, in order to promote a gala -- an anniversary gala. Google declined to sell those ads to Claremont because Claremont had published an essay that violated Google's race and ethnicity policy. Read the essay for yourself. Nothing racist about it, actually, not even close.

Google now says that decision was a mistake and it will allow Claremont to purchase ads now that Claremont complained and has gone public, including on this show. It's interesting though, how those mistakes always go in exactly the same direction.

Harmeet Dhillon knows a lot about this. She is one of the most famous attorneys in America on the question of big tech and its threat to our liberties and she joins us tonight. Harmeet, thanks a lot for coming on.

HARMEET DHILLON, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So it was a mistake. How many times have we heard this from some big tech company or another when caught silencing conservatives?

DHILLON: Well, we hear it every other day and Tucker, I am not delusional, and people are actually discriminating against conservatives every day this way and they're gas lighting us by saying, "Oh, it was just a mistake." You imagine that?

I mean, the chilling effect that occurs every time this happens publicly is that it keeps normal conservatives far from the boundaries. It keeps them from saying anything that they think might be controversial and because these rules that they have are unwritten and constantly evolving and being made up all the time, they make a mockery of the concept of contract between consenting adults, and they simply -- people don't know where they stand. It's really an Orwellian type of a situation.

CARLSON: So, but think of the practical consequences. So newspapers are all but dead. Radio is in decline in general. Cable news speaks with one voice, with the exception of just a very few shows, this among them. So really, social media, that's the entire political conversation. That's where it takes place and if you control the terms, then you control the outcome of the election, don't you?

DHILLON: You will, and Republicans are ignoring this at their peril. And I keep saying this, I feel like you know, Cassandra, I keep saying this, we are going to lose every single election going forward if we don't put a stop to this bias.

Now, you know, some either conservatives who are being paid off by big tech, or simply ill-informed say, "Oh, well, this is just, this is just competition. This is just the market. If you don't like Twitter, you don't like Facebook, go make your own." I mean, these are all statements made by people who've never started their own companies and were paid by think tanks. They don't know what it means to start a business. And so that's ludicrous.

And now these companies have all built themselves up to the point of monopoly power on the back of protectionist government regulation, Communications Decency Act Section 230 and others. Now that they've gotten there and they've crowded out everybody else, they are now changing the rules on us.

So from last year, Facebook advertising that it was going to allow controversial pages on the right and on the left up so that there could be a dialogue; today, they're simply snuffing out people completely.

Now, they're snuffing out people who probably you or I don't necessarily hang out with, listen to or follow like, that's not the point and that's how they're doing it. They're testing the waters so nobody protested when it was Alex Jones. Now they're not protesting with a few more and pretty soon, it's going to be people closer to you or me or even one of us are silenced or be silenced.

CARLSON: Well, it will be us, and when Republicans lose every election that matters in the next cycle and they wonder why. "I wonder why our message didn't get through." Okay.

DHILLON: Exactly. Exactly. And it may be too late.

CARLSON: Harmeet. It is great to see you.

DHILLON: Thank you.

CARLSON: Please continue sounding that alarm.

DHILLON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, here's a kind of amazing fact that should be on the front page of every paper, a secret Department of Defense program paid for researchers to run psychological evaluations on people who said they've encountered UFOs. Apparently, warehouses were rented, it sounds kooky, but this is actually being reported by "The New York Times," where metal from downed UFO could be stored what. What? When did that happen and why did nobody tell us? We will tell you what we know after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, a lot of people believe that there might be life on other planets. Apparently, a lot of people who do work in the U.S. government which secretly over the years, we now learned has spent millions on a program that investigated UFO reports. So what did they find and does that program still exist? We asked Fox News Headlines, Brett Larson to explore that question for us. He joins us tonight with the outcome. Hey, Brett.

BRETT LARSON, FOX NEWS HEADLINES 24/7 ANCHOR: Hey, Tucker. Yes, we have fearlessly reported on previous reports of UFO sightings or what the military sometimes calls Unexplained Aerial Phenomena, detailed by Navy pilots and other members of the military.

Now it's a situation that the Pentagon piqued the world's interest in, when they release some declassified documents that made it clear the government is keeping an eye on the skies, and potential UFOs a bit closer than anyone would have expected.

Now that release included the now infamous video from 2017 of what is clearly some kind of flying object that honestly does not match any of the physics I remember learning about or any aircraft design any of us have ever seen outside of science fiction.

But the story actually got a little more interesting. It turns out, former U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada put together a multimillion dollar investigation into the Pentagon's UFO files, and it included a real life Fox Mulder tasked with cataloging, not just those documents related to UFO reports, but also to collect actual debris.

In fact, a company was hired to modify buildings in Las Vegas to store metal alloys and other materials that were reportedly from sites where these unexplained events happened.

Now, people who have had encounters have been tested for any physical changes. Military personnel were interviewed about what they saw. Now we know what some of them saw from the 2017 video captured over the Pacific when multiple military officers confirmed this mysterious sighting including pilots and radar technicians.

The program to catalog then revealed to the public what was found has been canceled. Tracking UFO by the military isn't stopping. In fact, they're going to keep it for a simple reason. The military needs to know who is doing this and what their intent is.

Now unfortunately, this means we may not get to see those detailed reports, those mind blowing videos or as one of the pilot said of something seen out his window truly radical technology. All of the data they collect may simply end up in a chart that shows an uptick in sightings in their locations as we all collectively wait for those documents to be declassified.

I want to know where it's coming from and I want a tour of this warehouse to see these metal alloys. This is kind of amazing.

CARLSON: Well, since they say they have multiple sightings per month --

LARSON: Yes, this isn't like a once a year or maybe -- we can't excuse it as a falling star. This is happening a lot.

CARLSON: No. It's not a drunk guy in a field in New Hampshire. No, no.

LARSON: No, these are very well trained pilots and military personnel.

CARLSON: Yes, guys with nuclear payloads who are quite sober.

LARSON: Yes, you know, you're hoping they know what they're looking at and I want to know what they're seeing.

CARLSON: I do, too. Brett Larson, thank you very much for that.

LARSON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, one of the things you most frequently heard then candidate Trump say was that China was ripping us off. Yet more than two years into his presidency, the trade deficit with China has actually grown quite a bit dramatically, really.

Last year, the United States ran a $419 billion trade deficit with China. For perspective, that's enough money to pay off our country's entire revolving credit card debt. Instead, that all goes to the fascist government of China.

Now, the President says in response to these plans to increase tariffs on some Chinese products to 25 percent. He announced that last night. For perspective on what this means we go, as we often do to Michael Pillsbury, the author of the book, "The Hundred Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower." Dr. Pillsbury joins us now. Thanks very much for coming on. So is this the beginning of a new chapter of U.S.-China relations, do you think?

MICHAEL PILLSBURY, AUTHOR: Yes, it is. The President obviously got upset if that's the right word.

CARLSON: Yes.

PILLSBURY: Perhaps infuriated by the Chinese reneging on what they had promised in writing over the last few months. And I think he probably saw this as a test of strength by his friend, Xi Jinping. The reaction, therefore, was very swift. The tweet came not too long after the President learned of China taking back concessions that had made in writing.

Actually, I knew about some of the details of the agreement. I was quite impressed. I praised the President directly that you've done more than any previous President to get this far. But I had a faint feeling, Tucker that the Chinese leadership had not really blessed this agreement. And that apparently, is what happened.

Liu He, the chief negotiator has the rank of Vice Premier. He's a well- known economist and reformer in China. He signed a number of studies 10 or 15 years ago, one is called China 2030, trying to reduce the amount of state control to open up China's markets, not steal intellectual property, so to make him the chief negotiator was a test of him and perhaps he went too far.

And then with -- the book I wrote is about the hawks in China, the nationalistic, I like Steve Bannon, let's just call him the Steve Bannon of China. He got hold of these concessions and this text, which we keep secret, we don't quite know who in China can look at it. It's about 150 pages long. And apparently there was a reaction in China that we're not going to accept this, take it back.

But when President Trump heard about it, he has immediately responded with these harsh punitive tariffs been increased on Friday. So now we're in a whole new chapter, as you say.

CARLSON: It's amazing. Very quickly, if this happens, we assess at 25 percent tariff levy on some Chinese imports into this country. What does that -- I mean, that upends a lot of their model, right?

PILLSBURY: Yes, it hurts them. We don't know exactly how much it hurts them. But the first round of tariffs brought them to the table quite quickly. So there's reason to believe it's still possible to get a deal. But the first step the Chinese have to take and it might happen as early as this week, is to undo the reneging. The next step will be to close the deal on the enforcement mechanisms.

I think the reason China is doing this is this fight between the hawks and doves or the hawks and the reformers is not over yet in China. When a side losers over there, they don't just go home and mope. They get put in jail.

CARLSON: Yes, right. Thank you very much for that.

PILLSBURY: Thank you.

CARLSON: China's communist government has a long history of putting people in jail. Right now, they're rounding up millions of ethnic minorities, mostly Muslims and sending them to reeducation camps in their vast remote desert.

The victims are mostly Uyghurs, that's an ethnic group that lives in northwestern part of the country. Those who avoid the camps live in a horrifying surveillance state with travel restrictions, ethnic profiling, vehicle checkpoints, et cetera. Uyghur officials are not allowed to practice their religion, attend mosque or fast during Ramadan. The goal is to destroy all traces of Uyghur identity. It is textbook ethnic cleansing.

Here's the weird thing. The international left doesn't really seem to care. Millions of Muslims rounded up and put in camps barely a mention from liberals. Why? Because it's happening in China and not Kentucky. Therefore, it's okay.

Joe Biden clearly paid attention to high school history class. First, he said, Republicans want to put African-Americans back in chains, now he says they want to bring back Jim Crow. The remarkable developments, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, Democrats running for the nomination this year are obviously in an arms race who is to see who can make the most flamboyant statements and push the most aggressive racial incitement. Joe Biden is the presumptive front runner. Here's part of what he said to predominantly African-American audience in South Carolina over the weekend. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Last year, 24 states introduced to enact at least 70 bills to curtail the right to vote. And guess what? Mostly directed at quote "people of color." You see it. We've got Jim Crow sneaking back in. No, I mean it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: The guy is an idiot. Obviously the question is, what does it do to the country when you say things like that? And what exactly is he talking about? It is a single word that just you just watched on television? Is it true? Is it rooted in reality in any way? It's a real question here, because you're going to hear more of it.

Max Burns is a Democratic strategy. He joins us tonight. So, Max, there was a -- I think the conclusive study on this was just done in February out of Harvard on the question of voter ID laws, which are by far the most controversial, right? Republicans say we need them because they, obviously are a hedge against voter fraud, and Democrats say they're racist.

So here's the study found, we find that strict voter ID laws have no significant effect on registration or turnout. They do not decrease the participation of ethnic minorities relative to whites. And it goes on like that, but it's conclusive. Why is no one acknowledging the facts of this? Why are they still calling it Jim Crow?

MAX BURNS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, and as you say, one study, and Joe Biden is only wrong in the sense that thinking that Jim Crow has ever actually gone away. I mean, African-American voters, Latino voters have experienced having their votes invalidated for decades.

I mean, look at North Carolina, where they just throw their votes directly in the trash. There's nothing more suppressive than that.

CARLSON: Wait, okay, there's no -- okay, first of all, there's no one -- anyone's votes were thrown away in this generation in North Carolina and in the specific case you're talking about on the basis of race, that's a lie as you know. Second, you blew right -- hold on, you blew right past the fact.

BURNS: So corrupt they had to redo the entire election, Tucker.

CARLSON: But there is no evidence just to restate as someone who is familiar with exactly what you're talking about, that anyone's votes were discarded because of the color of their skin. That's just not true. And to say otherwise to suggest that you don't know what you're talking about, or you're misleading our audience.

I just wanted you to respond to the study that I cited, which is not written by right-wingers, that voter ID laws have no effect on voter turnout. They're not just inherently discriminatory. Do you have another study that shows the opposite that's more current than this one or bigger?

BURNS: Here's the problem, and I'm glad you mentioned the turnout question, because here's the problem with that turnout point in the study is that the turnout doesn't show you how hard people had to fight to get there. If a black voter has to work twice as hard to get to a polling place to register to vote at all, that is not an equitable similarity to a white person vote.

CARLSON: No, no, but voter ID laws are separate and distinct from the question for polling places, or I think I'm too literal for this moment because nobody tells the truth, but everyone just lies for political effect. And here I am, like, arguing a point of fact, I guess, maybe I should give up and just become a demagogue like everyone else.

I'm talking about voter ID voter law. Voter ID laws do not according to this study, the definitive study on it, don't suppress African-American voting turn out, they don't make it harder. I mean, I don't know what you're talking about.

BURNS: Correct. And the fact that African-Americans are turning out in those numbers, even with the hurdles they have to face, the difficulty in getting a license, the difficulty and even finding a polling place that hasn't been shut down.

CARLSON: What do you mean the difficulty? How patronizing can you be? Why is it harder for black people to get a driver's license? What are you talking about?

BURNS: Are you are -- there are only 11 states in the country that require you to have a license to vote, and oddly enough, those states that are largely affecting Democratic-leaning voters, African-American voters, well, why make it expensive to get a license, expensive to get copies of your own documentation.

CARLSON: What about -- hold on -- let me just, I'm sorry, obviously you don't care about whether what you say is true or not. But let me just ask you two quick questions. Is it racist to require an ID to fly in an airplane? Or to stay in a hotel or to cash a check or to get welfare benefits or to do anything? Is that racist to you?

BURNS: None of which are your fundamental constitutional right to vote.

CARLSON: What about to have a job? You can't have a job without a government ID.

BURNS Would you agree that you have a fundamental constitutional right to vote, Tucker?

CARLSON: We have a fundamental constitutional right to a lot of things, to own a gun, okay, and to vote, to have a job -- and all of these things require an ID, but none of that is racist. Only voting? What?

BURNS: And in fact, Tucker, you know, buying a gun doesn't require an ID, first off, and let's point out fact that after African-American voters --

CARLSON: Son, I doubt you've bought many guns. I have. Yes it does. I just bought one. I can't deal with this. Max, thank you.

BURNS: Tucker, I come from Virginia. I bought a gun without a driver's license in cash at a gun show.

CARLSON: Not at a gun show you didn't. No, maybe from a buddy but not in a gun show or a gun store. Sorry, I know a lot about this stuff.

BURNS: At the largest gun show in Virginia. So yes, you do not need a license to exercise your rights.

CARLSON: Not anymore. Unfortunately, I was there two weeks ago. You need an ID. All right, Max, this is -- I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

BURNS: Thank you.

CARLSON: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is running for President. There's no one in New York who thinks de Blasio is impressive. Why is he running for President? How unimpressive is he? We will speak to the world's expert on Bill de Blasio's un-impressiveness after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is universally regarded as a clown. He takes a nap at City Hall, uses police helicopters to avoid traffic, shows up late to everything, marijuana smokes wafts out of Gracie Mansion. Despite all of this, he is planning a presidential run. Seth Barron covers him for the "City Journal" and joins us tonight. Seth, who is this Bill de Blasio who is now going to run for President?

SETH BARRON, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CITY JOURNAL: Well, he's got us all on tenterhooks here if he's going to run or not. He says this is the -- it is believed that this is the week he's going to announce.

Bill de Blasio is a mayor who has won consistently on very low turnout, driven mostly by the public sector unions and the professional nonprofit class mostly funded by the city. He has expanded spending in the city by $20 billion per year from $72 billion to $92 billion this year, largely funded by the stock market and Wall Street which he detests.

Bill de Blasio's new saying, his motto is, "There's plenty of money in this country, it's just in the wrong hands." But I think we know whose hands it belongs to.

CARLSON: But Bill de Blasio is the driving force behind decriminalizing public urination in New York City.

BARRON: That's right. Yes. Decriminalizing public urination, decriminalizing fare beating, decriminalizing marijuana smoking, all of which have contributed to a decline in you know, public order, I think you would say.

We're not quite at the level of San Francisco yet with feces littering every sidewalk. We might be getting there soon and the subways are a real mess. One thing you neglected to point out is that de Blasio takes an armed convoy to the gym every morning. He drives 11 miles back there and back at about 10:00 a.m. Most New Yorkers are hard at work at their desks at that hour. De Blasio likes to go to the gym and then get a croissant at his favorite cafe.

And let me add, he says that he does this so he can stay out of the political bubble. This is what he does to be with the common people. This is his common touch.

CARLSON: If Bill de Blasio runs for President, obviously, we're rooting for him here. I hope you'll be able our de Blasio correspondent. Seth Barron.

BARRON: Oh, I hope so.

CARLSON: I hope you will. Thank you. Good to see you. Republicans spent decades pushing financial regulation and free trade deals -- is that agenda international interest? It's an issue that we've addressed quite a bit on this show. Someone who has thought deeply about it is Johnny Burtka, he is Executive Director of the American Conservative, fantastic site, and he joins us today.

So Johnny, very simple question for you. What would a conservative economic policy look like?

JOHNNY BURTKA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: Thank you so much for having me, Tucker. There are two fallacies about the economy that elites believe here in Washington, DC. The first is that bigger is always better. They love monopolies in this city. Second, is that free trade is always beneficial. The question we need to ask is better for who?

Now in the case of corporate monopolies, this was something that Thomas Jefferson was so concerned about, he actually urged that James Madison include it in the Bill of Rights. It's clear, Tucker, based on the research that we've looked at that high industrial concentration results in higher prices for consumers and lower wages for workers and who benefits? It's the multinational corporation with no allegiance to America, to our system of government, or to the values that conservatives hold dear.

CARLSON: Yes.

BURTKA: In fact, if multinational corporations had their way, they would do away with everything that conservatives value -- the nation state, borders, family, the church and even the concept of citizenship itself. Anything that gets in the way of the individual and the market, they want it gone. They want complete control.

CARLSON: Why -- every word you said is true. Given and obvious once you think about it. Given that, why in the world would you have politicians in Washington who call themselves conservatives who clearly have made their first allegiance to these corporations, which have no loyalty to United States whatsoever and hate everything conservatives say they are for?

BURTKA: I don't know, Tucker. But the good news is that there is a long Republican tradition and American tradition going all the way back to the American founding of standing up against concentrated corporate power, because it poses an existential threat to our political, cultural and economic well-being. And it's time that conservatives and Republicans and President Trump take the moral high ground back from the left and make this an issue front and center in the 2020 election.

CARLSON: The left all of this -- again, I couldn't agree with you more. The left all of a sudden, though, is the group defending the economic status quo and defending Jeff Bezos and the Google creeps and Travis from Uber. I mean, those are all liberals.

BURTKA: That's right. Well, they've made an alliance on their social issues, and they're willing to sacrifice their belief in equality and a society that works for everyone. And so now it's the perfect opportunity for conservatives to take this issue back to fight for an economy that puts American citizens first, American families first, and American workers first and if Republicans can do that, they can build a majority that will last for generations, Tucker.

CARLSON: But wait, in one sentence, answer this, the Chamber of Commerce and libertarians don't like it, you can't disobey them, can you?

BURTKA: We can do whatever we want, Tucker.

CARLSON: Johnny Burtka. I think -- I wish we had 30 minutes because that was such an amazing summation with the crispest, cleanest description I've heard in such a short period of time. Thank you very much for that.

BURTKA: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: That's something to think about. I wish we had more time to talk about it because it really matters, unlike most things, but we'll be back tomorrow night 8:00 p.m., the show that is the sworn and absolutely sincere enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink. I am being encouraged to encourage you to figure out how to use the DVR attached to your television if you can, something I've never mastered, but good luck to you, those with engineering degrees. Good night from Washington.

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