Former Greenpeace official: Green New Deal is completely crazy
Former Greenpeace executive Patrick Moore takes on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," March 11, 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." As anyone who has ever been caught in its gears can tell you, the great American outrage machine is a remarkable thing. One day you're having dinner with your family, imagine everything is fine. The next, your phone exploding with calls from reporters.
They read you snippets from a press release written by Democratic Party operatives, they demand to know how you could possibly have said something so awful and offensive, "Do you have a statement on how immoral you are?" It's a bewildering moment, especially when the quotes in question are more than a decade old.
It's really not that much you can do to respond, if not what you can do to respond, it's pointless to try to explain how the words were spoken in jest or taken out of context, or in any case bear no resemblance to what you actually think or would want for the country. None of that matters, nobody cares. You know the role you're required to play. You are a sinner that needs the forgiveness of Twitter.
So you issue a statement of deep contrition. You apologize profusely for your transgressions. You promise to be a better person going forward with the guidance of your contrition consultants, you send money to whatever organization that claims to represent the people you supposedly offended. Then you sit back and brace for a wave of stories about your apology, all of which simply pretext for attacking you again.
In the end, you get fired, you lose your job. Nobody defends you. Your neighbors avert their gaze as you pull into the driveway. You are ruined and yet, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how despised and humiliated you may be, there is one thing you can never do, one thing that is absolutely not allowed: You can never acknowledge the comic absurdity of the whole thing.
You can never laugh in the face of the mob. You must always pretend that the people yelling at you are somehow your moral superiors. You have to assume what they say they are mad about is what they are actually mad about. You have to take them at face value. You must pretend this is a debate about virtue and not about power. Your critics are arguing from principal and not from partisanship.
No matter what they take from you in the end, you must continue to pretend that these things are true. You are bad, they are good. The system is on the level. But what if we stopped pretending for a minute? What if we acknowledged what's actually going on?
One side is deadly serious. They believe that politics is war. They are not interested in abstractions or principles, rules or traditions. They seek power and they claim to win it with whatever it takes. If that includes getting you fired or silencing you, or threatening your family at home, or throwing you in prison, okay. They know what their goal is. If you are in way, they will crush you.
What's interesting is how reliably the other side pretends that none of this is happening. Republicans in Washington do a fairly credible imitation of an opposition party. They still give speeches. They tweet quite a bit, they make certain noises about how liberals are bad.
But on the deepest level, it's all a pose. In their minds, where it matters, Republican leaders are controlled by the left. They know exactly what they are allowed to say and believe. They know what the rules are. They may understand that those rules are written by the very people who seek their destruction, they ruthlessly enforce them anyway.
Republicans in Washington police their own with a never ending enthusiasm. Like trustees at a prison, they dutifully report back to the ward and hoping for perks, nobody wants to be called names, nobody wants to be Trump.
How many times have you seen it happen? Some conservative figure will say something stupid or incomplete or too far outside the bounds of received wisdom's for the moral guardians of cable news? Twitter goes bonkers. The mob demands a response.
Very often, the first people calling for the destruction of that people are Republican leaders. You saw it with the Covington Catholic High School kids, you see it all the time.
Kevin McCarthy spends half his day telling Republican members not to criticize progressive orthodoxy. Paul Ryan did the same before him.
A couple of years ago, the entire Democratic Party decided to deny the biological reality of sex differences, an idea that is insane as it is dangerous. Republican leaders decided to not criticize them for it. They might get upset.
This is a system built on deceit and enforced silence. Hypocrisy is its hallmark. Yet in Washington, it's considered rude to ask questions about how exactly it works. Why are the people who considered Bill Clinton a hero lecturing me about sexism? How can the Party that demands racial quotas denounce other people as racist. After a while, you begin to think that may be their criticisms aren't sincere. May be their moral puffery is a costume. Maybe the whole conversation is an absurd joke. Maybe we are falling for it.
You sometimes hear modern progressive described as new puritans. That's a slur on colonial Americans. Whatever their flaws, the puritans cared about the fate of the soul and the moral regeneration of their society. Those are not topics that interest progressives. They're too busy pushing late- term abortions and cross-dressing on fifth graders.
These are the people who write our movies and our sitcoms. They are not shocked by naughty words. They just pretend to be when it's useful. It's been very useful lately. The left's main goal, in case you haven't noticed, is controlling what to think. In order to do that, they have to control the information that you receive. Google and Facebook and Twitter are fully on board with that. They are happy to ban unapproved thoughts and they don't apologize for it. They often do, so do the other cable channels and virtually every major news outlet in this country.
One of the only places left in the United States where independent thoughts are allowed is right here. The opinion hours on this network. Just a few hours in a sea of television programming, it's not much relatively speaking. For the left, it's unacceptable. It demands total conformity.
Since the day we went on the air, they've been working hard to kill this show. They haven't said much about it in public, it seemed too self- referential. The point of this show has never been us, but now it's obvious to everybody. There is no pretending that it is not happening, it is happening and so going forward, we'll be covering their efforts to make us be quiet.
For now though, just two points to leave you with. First, Fox News is behind us as they have been since the very first day. Toughness is a rare quality in a TV network and we are grateful for that. Second, we've always apologized when we are wrong and we will continue to do that. That's what decent people do, they apologize. But we will never bow to the mob -- ever -- no matter what.
Tammy Bruce is a radio host and President of Independent Women's Voice. She joins us tonight. Tammy, thanks a lot for coming on.
TAMMY BRUCE, PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S VOICE: Well, it's an honor to be here tonight. Thank you.
CARLSON: I've never said this. I've worked at Fox for 10 years. I've never said this on the air, but I thought it the whole time. You've got one channel that disagrees with all the other channels. You have an islands of dissent in the middle of the sea of sameness, and that's too much for them, and I wonder if we've been lying to ourselves about the extent to which they would like to shut this channel down.
BRUCE: I don't think so. What you've described in your commentary is totalitarianism. We've seen it unfold. It is in fact, part of the reason why I left the left. My first book is called "The New Thought Police," warning about this trajectory that the use of the complaining about words or opinions was beyond the conversations that we normally have.
It was being designed and the environment was being designed to be able to destroy people. Now, I love coming on this show. I am honored and proud to be part of Fox News, specifically for what you discussed. I've never been told what to say. I've never been told what not to say. I've never been removed because of a presumption of what my opinion would be.
You and I will disagree and have, and we disagree on many issues.
CARLSON: Yes.
BRUCE: We will take issue with each other. We even will disappoint each other on occasion, but what we embody here is that we care about each other, we will have those conversations, and we will be able to have them about other people and have that exchange.
What is manifesting here is a desire to shut that down across the board and if the left thinks that that is a monster that they are going to be able to control and just aim at us, they are going to be very surprised when that monster gets out of its bottle and begins to move amongst all of them, and this is what I think is a problem for society in general and for the larger effort about being able to have these conversations become a better nation and become better people, and embrace ourselves and the First Amendment, especially when it's difficult.
CARLSON: So I don't really understand the mindset that leads to -- and you see it on display in the other channels even now, to want to shut down people who disagree. I grew up in a world where magazines were important, and you had the "National Review," and the "American Spectator," then you had "The Nation" and "Mother Jones" and "Village Voice."
BRUCE: Sure.
CARLSON: It never occurred to me to want to shut the other side down. Why would they want to stop all dissent? What's the point of that?
BRUCE: Well, part of what I had a hand in and what I still work on making up for in these years is this design of individuals who we really couldn't argue the details of the issues. We couldn't really persuade people on the issues. And the way then -- of course, it's not just the American left, but the left around the world. The only way that the left can survive is by shutting down dissent literally and eliminating the individuals who might speak up, even with a different idea, the idea as you've noted on the issue of conformity.
Any voice or any individual that is a reminder that we can approach things differently and sometimes offend people and sometimes make mistakes and as you said, apologize, but the differences is that the left cannot withstand an environment where there is any challenging because they rely on the collective. They don't rely on ideas. They rely on fear and division and controlling people within that framework.
You see it unfolding of course, still in Venezuela, in Cuba. It was the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's the antithesis to individual personal freedom which involves the need to have larger conversations, to be able to speak our mind without fear and without being bullied or threatened because we might deviate from what the left deems to be a proper and pure thought.
CARLSON: We're almost out of time, but I just want to know if you think it is right that Republicans in Washington, some of our leaders, people who should be standing up for the other side, for the other view, seem terrified to stray outside the lines that had been set down by their enemies?
BRUCE: Look, our society, social media, there's a lot of great stuff on social media, but there is a concentration of rage that very often is contrived. It's manipulated and managed politically and on social media, it suddenly seems like it is organic, but it's not. And it frightens politicians who think that's a real reflection of real-life.
Look, people are genuinely involved and engaged in the things that matters in our lives. As a feminist, it matters to me how we are all portrayed, but at the same time, we've got to have freedom of thought and freedom of expression and we have a role in that and so do the politicians. They've got to feel strong enough and free enough that they can speak their minds and stand up for what's right.
CARLSON: Tammy Bruce, an old-fashioned liberal and I mean that as a complement. Great to see you. Thank you.
BRUCE: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Democrats are working hard to make the Federal government more powerful, so powerful that democracy is too risky. They are going to need to control it no matter what, and so to achieve that, they are making a bid to flood America with the votes of people who are not citizens. Amazing, but true. After the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: The 2016 election didn't go the way the left wanted or expected, obviously. The 2018 midterms were better for Democrats, but they still lost a number of races, and others were pretty close. This was intolerable for the Democratic Party for one simple reason -- power.
Since the Second World War, the Federal government has expanded inexorably in the power it holds over your life, it has grown exponentially. A vast bureaucracy is capable of policing what you buy, what you say, what you see, and increasingly what you think. Couple that with the tech sector, and it's almost total control.
But for the left, it's not enough. They have big plans to take even more of our economy over, the healthcare sector and the energy sector. That's what it's about, controlling our economy. They want nationalized state day-care services so the government operatrix can take over parenting itself.
Senator Kamala Harris promises the next thing the government will control as your own behavior. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is a fact that we can change human behaviors without much change to our lifestyle and we can save the future generations of our country and this world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: There is nothing they can't do. Really? They are going to change human nature next. Just like the Soviets. Good luck with that.
The vision though is pretty consistent. The left is fighting for an all- powerful state, a state that is so powerful that you couldn't really responsibly give it over to your political opponent. Democracy is a threat to their plans. They would obviously prefer elections where there is only one possible outcome. Winning over existing voters doesn't work. It hasn't. They are not even trying anymore.
So instead, add new voters and replace the old ones. That is the plan and they are saying it out loud. They did last week in the Democratic controlled House. They passed a bill they claim that is needed to protect voting rights because voting rights are a threat -- voter suppression. It's ridiculous.
There is no number that shows that's true. Every number there is shows that's a lie. It's more propaganda ginned up by the DNC, repeated on critically by the morons on cable news and believed unfortunately, by a lot of people.
In 2016, 140 million people voted. There is no danger that voting is going away despite what they are telling you again and again. What Democrats overtly want is the votes of noncitizen children and criminals. They say that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The focus needs to be on bringing more people to vote, not driving them away, not throwing them off the voter rolls.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We want them when they come here to be fully part of our system and that means not suppressing the vote of our newcomers to America.
REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Young people should also have a say in who represents them. For your consideration, Amendment Number 127, which would lower the minimum voting age in Federal elections from 18 to 16 years of age.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D, MD), CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEEL: Restore the voting rights to felons who pay their debt to society.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We must help more Americans to purchase a paid in their democracy. We need work to remove barriers to voting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Where to begin? Restore the voting rights to felons, but not gun rights, if you'll notice. It's purely transactional.
House Republicans forced to vote on an amendment to H.R. 1 that would condemn letting illegal immigrants vote in elections. That amendment failed, all but six Democrats voted against it. Make no mistake, Democrats believe that anybody in the entire world has the right to enter this country illegally or not and start casting votes in our election.
It's odd because this very same party tells us that Russian Facebook trolls are a threat to our democracy. And yet by the standards they themselves have laid down, they have no problem with, I don't know, a million Russians walking across the Mexican border and voting as long as they voted for Beto O'Rourke.
The illegal votes are not their only idea though. As you saw Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley got dozens of Democrats to back a bill that would hilariously lower the voting age to 16 nationwide. Now, no one wants to be mean, some of us think that a lot of 16-year-olds are nice people, but they can't smoke, they can't drink, they can't join the military, they can't get married or undergo surgery without their parents' permission, why? For a reason.
By the way, if they break the law, their parents can be held liable for damages. What's the theme here? They are not adults. We don't treat them like adults because they are not.
But soon, Democratic Party consensus will be that they should vote, and only for one reason, by the way. Not because they are apt to make wise decisions, but because they are apt not to and they are much more likely to vote Democratic as a result. No doubt, Democrats would give them two votes apiece, if they could.
They want to felons voting for exactly the same reason. No offense against society that is enough to outweigh favoring Democrats at the ballot box. Those are the stakes then. Democrats are running a legal and legislative push to change the electorate, so much they know longer have to worry about elections again.
But the current electorate has to allow that to happen. They are the only ones who can stop it from happening. Jason Nichols is a Professor of African-American Studies in the University of Maryland, and he joins us tonight. Professor, thanks very much for coming on.
JASON NICHOLS, PROFESSOR OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: So I want to start with the age question because I can't resist because you are a Professor and so you teach young people, presumably they are all at least 18, but you've got kids. You've been around kids. I'm sure you love 16-year-olds as much as the rest of us do, but I mean, are they capable of making wise voting decisions?
NICHOLS: Well, I think are lots of people who are capable of making wise voting decisions. We have seen that, but we don't stop them from voting. And the other thing is --
CARLSON: That's true. You're right about that.
NICHOLS: The other thing is that we allow 16-year-olds to drive. We allow 17-year-olds to join the military, so we allow them to -- we put them in positions where they could literally determine life and death for many of us, including themselves.
So the idea that they can't vote, I think, you know, is something that we can at least question.
CARLSON: Okay. How about 13? I mean, 13 years old in some places can work. I mean, they can work in their parents' store. They can work in a farm.
NICHOLS: They can't drive, though. They can't join the military. They can't --
CARLSON: Well, I think they can drive in farms actually.
NICHOLS: They can't drive.
CARLSON: And neither can 16-year-olds, but no -- but I mean, like what is the limit, would you say?
NICHOLS: Yes, I mean, I think you know, again, I'm not necessarily endorsing 16, but I think that it is a conversation that we can have. I think that that's a fair conversation. The fact that we get on the roads, we all put our lives in our hands, and we allow a 16-year-old to make life and death decisions there, and as a 17-year-old, you're able to potentially join the military and certainly make life and death decisions while you are in the military. So I think, you know, at least having that conversation - -
CARLSON: Right, with your parents' permission.
NICHOLS: Yes, at least they are having that conversation.
CARLSON: Right, right. Good. Well, I'm for the conversation. I think it does say a lot, though, because you want the wisest people you can find to vote. You want people to make smart votes, not just -- right? I mean, let's take of those ...
NICHOLS: But I think that's dangerous, Tucker. But I think that's dangerous for us to sit here and try to choose who is wisest and who is not? Who is fit to vote and who is not? There is no man who is so wealthy or so great and so smart as to determine the destiny of his neighbor.
CARLSON: But that's not what I am arguing. I'm marking that children are not adults. That's all I am saying. And if you care about the system itself, you don't want to encourage children to doing something they're not capable of doing, voting. But why would you ever encourage people who are not citizens to vote? I mean, that kind of destroys the whole idea of your country, right? Someone could just move here -- what would happen if, you know, if a million Russian Facebook trolls moved here, swept over the border from San Ysidro and came in and voted? Would that be okay?
NICHOLS: That would not be okay, and I don't think that people are saying that undocumented or unauthorized immigrants should vote, at least in state and Federal elections. I think what people have talked about, and at least entered into a conversation about is very local elections, you know, in College Park, there was a regulation to allow undocumented people to vote.
CARLSON: Right.
NICHOLS: And the reason being is because they pay property taxes, they own property, they should be able to determine whether a pothole gets fixed or something in their community, so I think --
CARLSON: So there is a requirement? I didn't know that we still required people to own property to vote. I thought that was kind of something that we were against.
NICHOLS: No, it's not a requirement that they own property.
CARLSON: So they don't actually own property, I mean, most of them probably don't own anything, right?
NICHOLS: They have a vested interest in what goes on immediately in their community. Now, as far as the Federal and state elections, I haven't not heard anyone on the left to press for undocumented people to cast votes in state or Federal elections.
CARLSON: Super quick, how long would you guess it would be until someone, I'm just guessing, may be a former bartender from Queens, says that and suggests that and calls for that?
NICHOLS: I don't think she's going to do that. I think that she is idealistic, but I don't think she's going to make that decision.
CARLSON: All right, I will be monitoring Twitter and have you back when she does. It's just a matter of time.
NICHOLS: All right, Tucker.
CARLSON: Professor, thank you very much.
NICHOLS: Thanks a lot, Tucker.
CARLSON: Nice to see you. Well, in Washington, everybody is steadfastly denying that there is a crisis at the border and you're crazy if you think there is. Meanwhile, the people who are actually watching the border and spent a career trying to protect the border have a different view.
They are preparing for a record-setting wave of migrants coming in the spring. Mark Morgan was Border Patrol Chief under President Obama and he joins us tonight. Mr. Morgan, thanks very much for coming on.
MARK MORGAN, FORMER BORDER PATROL CHIEF: Thank you.
CARLSON: So this is not at all -- I keep hearing even from guests we have on this show, but certainly on the other channels and they are never, ever challenged, that we are at record low levels of illegal immigration. So what are these numbers?
MORGAN: So first of all, it's just another false narrative among many. Right now, we are facing skyrocketing numbers at the border. Border Patrol right now, CBP is estimating, if the numbers continue at this pace, Tucker, we could reach 900,000 or a million apprehensions this year.
But really quickly, the difference between the '90s and 2000s are the demographics. In the 2000s, we had a million, but 90% of them, Tucker were removed. This year, we could reach a million. The difference is because they are family units and children. We will release 65% of that million; 650,000 will be released into the United States. That's a difference. It's a crisis.
CARLSON: So of the -- I mean, to the extent that we know, so of that 65%, how many will ultimately be deported?
MORGAN: Right now, if you look at the asylum laws and you look at other judicial activism that has just been passed, right now after you had due process and you have your hearing, now the court just ruled you can appeal that hearing. That's basically a lower court creating amnesty. So basically, as a family unit or child seeking asylum, you are here indefinitely.
CARLSON: So in other words, all that -- the propaganda that we were hearing last year about child separations and you saw all the people crying on television about it, and Trump is a Nazi and all that stuff, that was all the pretext for setting up a system in which nobody could actually be deported?
MORGAN: That's absolutely correct and they knew that. They absolutely knew that, Tucker. They knew that because at Flores, they pulled a number out of the air that you cannot detain kids more than 20 days, so now the kids are being used as pawns. We actually have information that kids are being trafficked across and sent back to Mexico and they come back across with another adult, so they can all become -- enter the United States.
CARLSON: Why isn't this being covered on other channels? I mean, not that you are in charge of their news coverage, but this seems like a significant story. Shouldn't there be some other news outlet other than this one that notices it?
MORGAN: Yes, and I think that for the men and women who are risking their lives every day on the border, I think this is what is so frustrating to them, because political ideology is so infused on this and they know the truth, that law enforcement, Tucker, we can only draw one conclusion that this is being driven by one ideology rather than doing what is in the best interest of the safety and security of this nation, as well as those illegally entering.
Kids are being abused and used as pawns more and more every day because Congress won't do their job, Tucker.
CARLSON: That's really stunning. Mark Morgan, thank you very much for coming on tonight. Good to see you.
MORGAN: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: Well, for two years, the left has fantasized about the day the Mueller report was finished. "Let's just wait for the report." But what will they do if there's nothing really in the report? There is no Russian collusion. What will they say? We are going to fantasize a little a bit after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Robert Mueller's Special Counsel Investigation has gone on for what seems like several lifetimes. NPR just did an unintentionally hilarious piece, like many of its pieces, about sad elderly liberals who are dying without a chance to read the Mueller report. It's their final regret.
Well, for many on the left, Mueller's takedown of the President is what they live for, literally according to NPR, so what happens if the report doesn't really have anything in it at the end? Over at ABC, Terry Moran just warned about the possible effect of that scenario. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TERRY MORAN, SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, ABC NEWS: The central and most serious question in this investigation, the reason Robert Mueller started it is, did the current President of the United States assist the Kremlin in an attack on our democracy. And if Mueller, after two years comes back and says, "I don't have the evidence to support that charge," that's a reckoning. That's a reckoning for progressives and Democrats who hoped that Mueller would essentially erase the 2016 election, it's a reckoning for the media, it's a reckoning around the country if, in fact, after all this time, there was no collusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, you think? It might be time for some people to apologize, not one of them ever well. You can bet your house on that. Nancy Pelosi seems concerned that Russian collusion might not be in the report, it might not be proved by the report in any case.
Today, she warned that a push towards impeachment against the President may not be worth it, but the Party's base represented by Maxine Waters of California is not deterred.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: I believe that we have everything that it needs to basically impeach him. I believe that and you're absolutely right, we are depending on Mr. Mueller.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Dan Bongino is a former Secret Service officer and he is the author of the great book, "Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump" and he joins us tonight.
Dan, thanks a lot for coming on. So if -- I mean, that is kind of the bottom line question, if the report comes out and there are rumors in any case that its release is imminent, and it doesn't show that the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin to subvert the election, what is the press going to say?
DAN BONGINO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Nothing. First, let me say, Tucker, I'm happy to be here with you tonight and I sincerely mean that from the bottom of my heart.
CARLSON: Thank you, Dan and I'm glad you are here. And I hope we will see you many times in the long future.
BONGINO: I mean, don't ever, ever genuflect, you know it, before the rage mob -- ever. We can all be better, Tucker. I know it's what you brought me on for, but don't ever take a knee in front of the rage mob -- ever, ever. Okay, moving on because that's not what I am here to talk about.
CARLSON: You are cracking me up.
BONGINO: What will happen with the media? Nothing will happen. Here is how the media handles Republican scandals. They cover it until somebody leaves office or is punished. I mean, it started with Watergate, it ended just recently with Trump Cabinet officials who, they had some kind of -- they take a flight on a private plane. He had a go. They have got to get rid of all of these people.
With Democrat scandals, however, they'll cover the story. I mean, no one can deny they covered the Clinton e-mail stories, but, Tucker, who has been punished on that? Here is the answer. Nobody, a big fat zero and there were no demands from the media that anybody be punished. As a matter of fact, they cover for her constantly.
Listen, tape this show and peg this to your YouTube account or whatever, folks, nothing will happen. They will move on. They will not be embarrassed, horrified and disgusted like normal rational people who make mistakes, like you and I would be, they won't do any of that. None of that will happen.
CARLSON: So Al Capone's vault is finally open and there is nothing in it and they pretend it's full of gold? I mean, we would not have had this investigation or any of these investigations without the core claim that there was collusion. No collusion, no legitimacy. So I mean, I guess, there is nothing we can do about that.
BONGINO: Tucker, think about this, right? We have not heard nothing, not a scintilla, a shred of evidence that Trump colluded with forward Russian actors to overthrow the election, not a scintilla of evidence that any of that is true, correct? Now, we do know as a matter of fact that the dossier, this fake thing, was used to spy on the Trump team. Now, this additional information that is going to come out, it is described three different ways, I wrote it down.
Jim Comey described it as the dreaded air quotes here, the "mosaic of information," right? John Brennan described it as the "corpus of intelligence." And Andy McCabe described it as "articulable facts." Articulable, meaning -- is somebody ever going to articulate what these facts are? Because all we have is a hoax dossier and we've heard about these for two years.
Is anyone ever going to articulate what the actual facts are? The answer is no because there are no facts. You all got worked, and I'm sorry, but you are a moron if you believe in this collusion hoax. I'm really sorry to tell you that. But you are really stupid because you believe in something, you believe in an Aesop's fable. There is no evidence. This did not happen. You believe in Sasquatch -- no, no, there is more evidence of Sasquatch than there is this -- at least, there are photos. They may be fake, but there are photos.
There is no evidence of collusion.
CARLSON: I think there is a pelt out there, a hair sample. I don't know - -
BONGINO: There's foot bridge, right?
CARLSON: Dan, it is great to see you. You're in fuego today. I love it. Thank you, Dan Bongino.
BONGINO: I had to be. Thanks, buddy.
CARLSON: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says you ought to be excited that the robots are coming for your job and your reason to live. You don't have to work anymore. What would that world be like? That's next after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: It's obvious, there is something really wrong, there's something bad going on at the center of American society. Combined deaths by suicide, alcohol, and drug overdose is the highest since record keeping began.
Many of those who are still around rely on psychiatric pills. The cause is not a big mystery. In a world without meaningful work, many people feel lost and miserable. Work is central to the way people feel about themselves. People need a purpose. Automation is likely to make this crisis much worse.
Young pioneer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she's excited, though. We should be thrilled we are about to lose our jobs. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D), NEW YORK: We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work, right? We should not feel nervous about, you know, the tollbooth collector not having to collect tolls anymore. We should be excited by that. But the reason we are not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So this is coming. And she is right to say that it is coming. She's honest enough to admit it is coming, but how odd to think it isn't a crisi that it's coming. According to Ocasio-Cortez, the upside is, we will tax the robots.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Now, Bill Gates has talked about taxing the robots at 90%. And what that means, what he is really talking about is taxing corporations at 90%, but it's easier to say tax the robots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Nomiki Konst is a former Bernie Sanders surrogate. She is also a Democratic socialist and was the socialist candidate for New York Public Advocate, she joins us tonight, and Nomiki, thanks for coming on.
NOMIKI KONST, FORMER BERNIE SANDERS SURROGATE: Hi, Tucker, thank you.
CARLSON: Unlike a lot of people on the right, I don't dismiss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I don't think everything she says is wrong. I admire the fact that she's brave enough to say what she thinks and I think she says interesting things. So I want to take this point seriously.
She's right that automation could eliminate a lot of jobs. That seems like a tragedy to me. She seems to dismiss it is no big deal. Why shouldn't we be really worried about that?
KONST: Well, I think, I wouldn't say that she is dismissing it as no big deal. I mean, she said that it really comes down to economics. I mean, our system -- and she's a Democratic socialist, I'm a Democratic socialist, and essentially that means that more democracy is brought to our government and to our economic models and our economic system.
Right now, we have a system where there are a very few who are profiting off of illness, very few who are profiting off of debt, and few very few who are profiting off of automation, which is essentially putting people out of work. If we build an economic system that, you know, innovates -- innovation should not be at the expense of jobs.
We need to innovate, otherwise we would be in horse and buggies, right, of course. But it doesn't mean at the expense of a labor force which ultimately hurts creativity.
When fewer people are able to innovate because they cannot -- they are working three or four jobs that hurts business. That hurts small businesses, that hurts our ability to innovate as a society and that hurts society as a whole. But we need to make sure that when we are innovating, we are also protecting workers.
We are making sure people have benefits. We are making sure people can pay off their debts. And when you have a system - an economic system of capitalism, this late stage capitalism we have now, where very few are making an extraordinary amount of money off of exploiting workers or keeping people unemployed or in debt.
CARLSON: So I actually agree with the majority of what you said. I am just not -- and I am concerned about a system where a smaller number of people get a larger percentage of the shares. It makes our society unstable, obviously, and it is unstable as a result. I just don't understand her point about automation.
If all of a sudden, and McKenzie and lots of other forecasters predict that in 30 years, a huge percentage of our jobs will be gone, people will have nothing to do, you could get -- and Andrew Yang makes this point, a revolution. So why shouldn't we be really worried about that? I don't understand.
KONST: I think the revolution is happening right now. I mean, look, the rise of Democratic socialism, when the majority of young people who are burdened by debt who can't find stable employment, or if they do, they have multiple jobs to pay their rent or living at home with their kids or with their parents.
CARLSON: I get it.
KONST: That is a revolution. That is a political revolution. It's what Bernie Sanders built and it's what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez --
CARLSON: Okay, hold, I get it completely. I think you're absolutely right. There is a lot more economic insecurity among young people than we acknowledge and that's why they are all socialists. I totally agree. I've been saying that for two years.
I just think we need an answer to that and the answer is not, "We are just going to pay you a thousand bucks a month to cool out and smoke weed." People need purpose in their lives.
KONST: They need jobs.
CARLSON: They need to feel like they have meaning. I'm serious. And most people get meaning from their jobs. So if robots take our job, where's the meaning?
KONST: Well, historically, I mean, if you look back at these transitions, whether it was the transition from horse and buggy to car or other forms of technological innovations, radio to television, I mean, there was always a concern about jobs being lost, and there is always work. There is always work.
It's just, we need to make sure that work is protected. And I think what she's referring to, I don't want to speak on the behalf of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but if what she's referring is innovation is going to happen, we just need to make sure that the companies who are making money off that innovation are being taxed appropriately, and right now, they are not.
I mean, when you look at the companies that don't want to pay their workers the $15.00 minimum wage and they choose to automate, they are not paying enough taxes if any in exchange. When you look at the rise of suicide and the tax of workers -- Uber is not paying taxes.
CARLSON: I think you need to read up on this. I mean, it maybe that there aren't jobs. That would be very bad.
KONST: There's always -- I think that you know, listen, there are always going to be jobs. We have to essentially innovate with new job creation. There are going to be architects. There are going to be scientists. There are going to be lawyers. And the more the educated society gets, now, of course, millennials are a very overeducated generation. But they do not have the jobs to match their education.
CARLSON: We've disagreed more than we've ever agreed ever in every conversation we've had.
KONST: You're a Democratic socialist now, Tucker.
CARLSON: We're going to a point where there is going to be more lawyers and I thought, I'm out. I am not for more lawyers. That's the one thing I am definitely not for.
KONST: I'm not for more lawyers either.
CARLSON: Nomiki, we're out of time.
KONST: Thanks, Tucker.
CARLSON: Good for you.
KONST: Welcome to the DSA.
CARLSON: Right. I don't think so. Well, Ocasio-Cortez doesn't seem very worried about jobs that will be lost due to automation because far more jobs will be lost implementing the Green New Deal.
Patrick Moore helped found Greenpeace. He has been aggressively critical of the Green New Deal though and we thought we'd find out why.
Mr. Moore, thanks very much for coming on. So you are one of the founders of one of the most famous environmental organization in the world, and you think the Green New Deal sounds terrifying. Tell us why?
PATRICK MOORE, COFOUNDER, GREENPEACE: Well,because it would be basically the end of civilization if 85% of the world and also 85% of the U.S.' energy in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas were phased out over the next few years, like ten years.
We do not have anything to replace them with. Yes, if we went into a crash course of building nuclear reactors, we could replace them for producing electricity but that isn't going to happen because the Greens are against nuclear and they are even against hydroelectric dams which at least is renewable. But they don't support that either.
So basically they are opposed to approximately 98.5% of all the electricity that we are using and nearly 100% of all of the vehicle and transportation and ships and planes energy that we are using.
So I just -- when I tweeted the other day and had a huge response, over three million impressions on Twitter, when I said, "You don't have a plan to feed eight billion people without fossil fuels or get the food into the cities where it's needed." That requires large trucks and there's not going to be any electric trucks anytime soon hauling 40 tons of foods in the supermarkets where the people in the cities probably thinks it originates in the supermarket, but it does not. It is coming from farms out in the country where a few million people are growing the food for all the rest of the population.
And if we ban fossil fuels, first agricultural production would collapse in a very short period of time. There are these things called tractors and they use fuel, and all the other implements on the farm and then there is the transportation.
So when you have no fuel, how do you get the food to the center of New York? To Manhattan where AOC is from? You don't. Then the people there will begin to starve, and that will spread out as a rot from the center of the metropolises all across the country and half the population will die in a very short period of time.
And as I also pointed out, there wouldn't be a tree left on this planet, say this was a worldwide thing. Because the United States isn't going to ban fossil fuels if no one else does, but say the Paris Agreement came into effect fully all around the world and everybody ban fossil fuels, there wouldn't be a tree left on this planet because that would be all there was for fuel for heating and cooking as they did in the old days when there was hardly anybody on the planet compared to what there is today.
So just that one point, never mind the insanity of banning aircraft and fossil fuels using vehicles.
CARLSON: You just completely blew my mind. And I knew some of that, but the way you put it was really stirring. Patrick Moore, I hope you will come back on the show any time that you would want.
MOORE: Anytime, Tucker.
CARLSON: I appreciate it. Thank you. Well, CNN was just hit with a massive lawsuit for its misleading coverage of the Covington Catholic students. Will the press ever pay a price for rushing to judgment in the way that hurts actual people? That story is next.
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CARLSON: Jussie Smollett did what his agent didn't do, he tried to boost his career. Unfortunately he tried to do it by defaming half the country. Now he is facing 16 felony counts for what cops are calling a planned hoax. The press raced to believe Smollett after his initial allegations. We're quoting Robin Roberts of ABC when we say, "Beautiful, Jussie."
They also raced to attack the boys of Covington High School for standing in place. That's no longer allowed. Now they could be paying the price for that. A new lawsuit brought against CNN seeks $250 million in damages for the channel's absurd and misleading coverage of the Covington incident.
Robby Soave is associate editor of "Reason," author of the new book "Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump," and he joins us tonight. We should also note that Robby is one of the world's experts on hoaxes of this kind.
Robby, thanks a lot for coming on. So the suit against CNN for prematurely tarring these kids for the sin, I guess, of standing there, does it have a shot?
ROBBY SOAVE, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, REASON: That's a very complicated question. I think some of the things alleged in the suit are perhaps opinion, wrongful opinion. Things that the media claimed that were not correct. But you have to show that it was a fact, a demonstrated fact.
Now, some of it, you could make an argument for instance when Nathan Phillips, the Native American man claimed that he couldn't get out of the situation because his way was blocked. That according to the First Amendment lawyers I spoke with seems more like a fact you could maybe prove.
But again, let's keep in mind that it was that "The Post" and CNN are actually the second sort of source purveyors of the misinformation here. The primary purveyor is this Native American man, right, Nathan Phillips. I mean, Smollett is facing 16 counts of charges for the lies he allegedly told, whereas this guy, he hasn't gotten anything. He's not being sued, which I find kind of interesting even though I probably think --
CARLSON: Wait a second, Robby, wait hold on. Before you defame the guy. I watch CNN, so I know for a fact that that Native American man you referred to is quote, "a tribal elder and a Vietnam veteran." Okay, that's what CNN told me about him. So you're not going to sue a tribal elder and Vietnam veteran, are you?
SOAVE: Right, I guess not and I don't know that he has any money, so it wouldn't be worth doing it. I mean, I think the broader point, though, obviously we do need to hold the media accountable for the mistakes it makes. I would rather do that in the court of public opinion rather than lawsuits that could potentially chill future -- you know I am a free speech person and I am concerned ...
CARLSON: I am, too.
SOAVE: ... that they got suckered and they are going to pay big. But maybe it shouldn't be through the lawsuit. But the broader loss of trust in the media, the erosion of trust in the media when they get things like Smollett and Covington so wrong, I mean, it's bad for the country and it's on them to do better, to be skeptical, to not trust everything they hear.
We politicize the concept of fake news, but it's true that the media gets things wrong and there are real consequences, I think, to the integrity of our democracy when they do that.
CARLSON: Yes, and to the lives of individual people who are defamed.
SOAVE: Certainly.
CARLSON: I mean, the kid -- there was an actual fraternity at UVA that was accused of rape, serial rape, and they didn't commit it and no one ever apologized.
But I wonder, Jussie Smollett seems like an imbalanced character. I am not even mad at him, but what about all the reporters and media figures -- Robin Roberts at ABC who carried his water and have never really apologized? I am not saying they should be fired or anything, but shouldn't someone admit, you know, "Went along with a hoax."
SOAVE: Yes, and maybe they could hold back a little bit on social media in particular. I think that -- especially in the Smollett case more than their reporting. That was where too many sort of journalists, writers, pundits whatever you want to call them, blurred the line between objective reporting and sort of advocacy.
That's where you see kind of the media in the activist corner, because obviously the things they're tweeting aren't being approved by editors, so they're not as cautious and they are not as calculating as their stories. So I think social media has maybe allowed too many a journalist to kind of let the mat slip and reveal they have these deep-seated biases that often go unchallenged and that has contributed to a loss of faith in them. Perhaps, deservedly.
CARLSON: Really quick, do you think the next time someone makes an outlandish claim like this, the "Washington Post" will pause maybe for example, before lying to us again?
SOAVE: I would hope so. But you know, unfortunately, I see hoaxes day in and day out, not all of them are this sensational, but the media and people allow themselves to be deceived. So I hope that's not the case because I like a lot of the reporting "The Post" does, and I would like to have faith in them, but hopefully, they'll do better next time.
CARLSON: You're a hopeful man, Robby. Great to see you. Thank you very much.
SOAVE: My pleasure.
CARLSON: We are out of time. We could go on forever, but we are grateful for the hour that we had. We will be back 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night and every weeknight. The show that is the sworn and sincere enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and group think.
We are proud to be the show that you watch at 8:00 p.m. and we are going to do the best job we possibly can for you for as long as we possibly can for you.
So with that in mind, stay tuned because live from New York, right now, standing by, 9 p.m., we have a surprise for you. Sean Hannity, ladies and gentlemen.
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