Migrants from Congo and Angola arriving in San Antonio, Texas and Portland, Maine

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Migrants from Congo and Angola arriving in San Antonio, Texas and Portland, Maine

Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur weighs in on the record number of African migrants at the border.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," June 17, 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 generations California symbolized everything that was fantastic and was great about America. It was most beautiful place in the world -- snowcapped mountains, pristine beaches, lush inland valleys, but it was more than a vacation spot.

California supported the biggest middle class in the country. It had an education system, the envy of the world. It had gleaming infrastructure.  California was the state that made the American dream a reality.

Now the State of California is known for a very different set of images: needles and feces in the street, a dying middle class, the country's highest poverty rate, policies that prioritize illegal aliens over ailing American citizens.

California is still symbol, but today it's a symbol of everything that's going wrong with this country.

Trace Gallagher joins us tonight with the latest from the once Golden State -- Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: And Tucker, for Governor Gavin Newsom, California is humming along nicely, apparently, and he now says the Republican Party is heading into the waste bin of history quoting here, "America in 2019 is California in the 1990s. The xenophobia, the nativism, the fear of the other, scapegoating, talking down or past people. The hysteria. And so we're not going to put up with that, we're going to push back."

Newsom ended by saying, quote, "What we're doing is working. I think Democrats are winning right now." Apparently, somebody forgot to remind the governor that 40 percent of his state's population lives near poverty, and then having among the highest taxes in the country and cost of living isn't exactly giving them a leg up.

And there's this: July 1st, California drivers will six more cents a gallon for gas taxes. That's on top of the 12 cents last year, and on top of already having the highest gas prices in the country. It doesn't appear drivers are winning.

Also on July 1st, California begins background checks on customers buying bullets, the cost $1.00 for every purchase. The check is meant to quickly return information on restrictions like a felony conviction, and non- California residents can no longer buy ammunition here, period.

Finally, a study by homeless advocates says people on Skid Row have less access to bathrooms than Syrian refugees, a problem which is vividly apparent to everyone in LA and San Francisco, but putting in more mobile bathrooms just in Los Angeles would cost $57 million a year. In other words, it's not going to happen. You've got to believe the homeless don't feel like they're winning, either -- Tucker.

CARLSON: What a disaster. Trace Gallagher, thanks a lot for that.

While California wages war on its own middle class and tries to build men's room that cost as much as houses, the Governor doesn't see a problem with the state as you just heard. Tens of thousands of middle class families have fled and are continuing to flee every year.

Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom travels to Central America, telling his citizens his priority is helping people there. As the state disintegrates, Newsom says Donald Trump's version of the Republican Party is what's headed into the waste bin of history. Maybe so, but California is going to get there a lot earlier.

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He's also a lifelong multigenerational Californian, he just wrote a column describing his state as America's first third-world state. Professor Hanson joins us tonight. Professor, thanks very much for coming on.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Thanks for having me, Tucker.

CARLSON: In what sense is California a third-world state?

HANSON: Well, it has all the symptoms of what we associate with failed states. It's got the highest basket of income tax, gasoline taxes, sales tax, and yet his schools are rated in the last 10 percent, the bottom 10 percent of the nation's test scores.

One third of the nation's welfare recipients live in California. A fifth of the population, as you said is below the poverty line, a fifth of all the homeless people in the United States live in California.

We have a medieval society, Tucker, of a very tiny but very affluent elite.  We have the most billionaires of any state in the nation, and then we have the largest underclass and part of that -- and Governor Newsom has got it exactly wrong.

Twenty five years ago when we had Prop 187 that cut off healthcare, but not emergency healthcare to undocumented immigrants that passed by 59 percent of the population. It fueled Wilson's come back from behind victory over Kathleen Brown. It was very popular, but three days later, a Federal Court invalidated it and that got rid of the deterrent factor in people who wanted to come to California often illegally and they resided here illegally.

And that was unfortunately, part of a perfect storm where at the same time four to six million people over the next 25 years said if I'm going to pay the highest basket of taxes, and get the worst roads, infrastructure, public schools, and among the highest crime rate -- San Francisco, by the way, has the highest property per capita crime rate of major cities in the United States -- then I might as well go where there's no income taxes like Nevada or Florida.

And the third wind in that perfect storm was, it came at the same time in the late 90s, middle 90s of the growth of Silicon Valley. So eventually, over the next quarter century, Google, Facebook, Apple would be capitalized at about $3 trillion.

We created a very small but influential, wealthy manorial class that was not subject to the ramifications of their own ideology, and by that I mean, when Jerry Brown retired, he didn't live here in Fresno, he went to Grass Valley with his pension.

Dianne Feinstein didn't put her kids -- her daughter -- in the public school. She lives in Pacific Heights, not Redwood City. Nancy Pelosi rails about education, but none of her grandchildren are in the San Francisco Public School.

So we've created a very wealthy class that doesn't mind high taxes because it has ways to navigate around that and poor social services. And the people in between are sort of like peasants outside of a medieval keep that can't survive and so they drift off. We were left with a sort of a romanticized indigent class and then a royal elite that doesn't really care about the vanishing middle class at all.

CARLSON: From the outside, Professor, this doesn't look like a sustainable system at all. It looks like it's teetering. Do the people running it sense that or do they think they can continue forever?

HANSON: Well, they all have one thing in common. I mean, if we look at Gavin Newsom, or Dianne Feinstein or former Senator Boxer, or Nancy Pelosi or Mark Zuckerberg are the architects of this system, they're all multi- millionaires, in some cases, multi-billionaires.

And so they have -- they have a sort of a psychological penance. They feel good about being a virtue -- virtuous in the abstract. But meanwhile, on the ground level, I mean, we're sort of like Constantinople under Justinian in the Sixth Century AD.

We've seen the return of things like typhus infections near the City Hall of Los Angeles. We've seen epidemics of hepatitis A. We've got 140,000 people that are living on the streets in California. And we just built a high-speed rail system that we cancelled and now we're going to -- out of shame or, I guess, pride -- we're going to try to build Merced to Bakersfield, a high-speed rail to nowhere where the three main laterals, Tucker, the 99, I-5 and 101 have never achieved their intended result of six lanes.

So it's sort of like "Road Warrior" in the pre-modern world where we dream of a postmodern high-speed rail system that will never be built.

CARLSON: There is -- it is a lot like "Road Warrior," funny you said that.  Professor, thank you very much for that extensive update.

HANSON: Well, thank you. It's a tragic -- yes, it's tragic.

CARLSON: It is tragic.

HANSON: Thank you.

CARLSON: As we told you in this program last month, the three West Coast States of California, Oregon and Washington have more than 100,000 homeless living on the streets at any given night.

Cities officials have blamed low wages, a lack of affordable housing and other factors. They've thrown tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the problem. They have expanded services for the homeless. They've given them much more generous legal treatment, but none of these has made things better. Instead, the problem has gotten worse, consistently, steadily.

Cristopher Rufo is a Discovery Institute research fellow. He says that local governments are ignoring the most obvious driver of homelessness on the West Coast and the rest of the country, and that's the opioid epidemic.  Christopher Rufojoins us tonight.

Christopher, thanks very much for coming on.

CHRISTOPHER RUFO, RESEARCH FELLOW, DISCOVERY INSTITUTE: Thank you.

CARLSON: So you say that this, the cause -- the main cause -- there are probably many causes, but the main driver of this is hiding in plain sight, and it's drug addiction.

RUFO: Yes, that's right. I think that we have an addiction crisis that's being disguised as a housing crisis. And if you look at the numbers from the City of Seattle, King County prosecutors and law enforcement, some of their estimates are that up to 50 percent of the homeless are addicted to opioids. That's heroin, fentanyl, and other synthetics; in 80 percent of the people that are actually unsheltered. People living in cars, tents and RVs suffer from substance abuse disorders.

And if you look at the numbers, only six percent of people on the streets say that it's because of rising rents, while at the same time 80 percent of people on the streets are suffering from addictions. And that's the clear cause nobody wants to say it, but I think until we really address that, we aren't going to be able to solve this problem.

CARLSON: There are no opium fields in this country. These drugs come from abroad. They come from Mexico, largely. So this is a foreign policy crisis as well. Why does nobody say that?

RUFO: Yes, this is. You know, I've spoken with the DEA field office here in the City of Seattle, and they estimate that 80 percent of the heroin and fentanyl comes directly from Mexican drug cartels, and 20 percent is shipped through USPS and commercial mail directly from fentanyl manufacturers in China.

So what I've estimated is that if you put all these numbers together, we have a $1.8 billion annual business supplying heroin and fentanyl to the homeless population in California, Oregon and Washington. This is a tremendous amount of money. And we're essentially sending truckloads of cash to Mexican drug cartels, opium and fentanyl manufacturers in China and organized street gangs in our West Coast cities.

CARLSON: So nothing that you've said is speculation. I mean, it's true, and you have the numbers, and they're publicly available to back up what you just said. So why is nobody else saying that? And why are city officials resolutely ignoring the conclusion you've come to?

RUFO: That's a great question. I mean, we don't have perfect data. This is the best data that I think is available. But the real thing is, is that I think the kind of ideological factions that are in kind of the dominant position in California, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, they don't want to say there's an addiction crisis because it conflicts with their social justice ideology, that the homeless are kind of virtuous victims of an oppressive society.

And they also want to avoid what they call stigmatizing addiction. So rather than confront the problem with clear eyes and really digging into it, they've chosen to ignore it.

If you go on Mayor EricGarcetti's website in LA, he has a kind of an outline of the six causes of homelessness, not one of them is drug addiction.

So they've adopted a policy of denial and deflection, and the results you can see on the streets, it's absolutely not working, and it's a catastrophe.

CARLSON: They're liars and ideologues. Christopher, thank you very much for that clear analysis. Appreciate it.

RUFO: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, last week, she compared them to racists. This week, Senator Kristen Gillibrand says the pro-life people should not be allowed to be judges in this country. So by saying something that dumb, does she automatically get the Democratic nomination? Will tell you after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, for more than two years, virtually everybody in D.C. has pretended to know with absolute certainty that the government of Russia was responsible for hacking, famously, those DNC servers back in 2016. Anyone who dissents from that storyline is attacked in silence.

Okay. But how much do they actually know? Do they really know that? Even our own Intel agencies have been taking a third party's word for it -- in fact lawyers for a third party, their word for it.

Now the Federal government has admitted it has never seen the full, unredacted version of the private sector report from CrowdStrike that blamed Russia for the hacks -- never seen the whole thing. Fox chief intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge has more in this story tonight -- Catherine.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Tucker and good evening. According to a new filing in the case, Roger Stone's attorneys are demanding a full copy of the forensic report into the 2016 DNC hack. They argued there could be information helpful for their clients.

This back and forth with Stone's lawyers began in late May when the government confirmed the DNC lawyers gave them a copy of the forensic report by CrowdStrike, a computer security firm and the government said their copy had redactions, and the DNC lawyers told them the blacked out sections had nothing to do with blaming Moscow for the 2016 hacks, quote, "Counsel for the DNC told the government that the redacted material concerned steps taken to remediate the attack and to harden the DNC and DCCC systems against future attacks."

"According to counsel, no redacted information concerned the attribution of the attack to Russian actors."

The government argues that Stone has no legal reason to believe the redacted material is relevant to his case, because he is not charged with conspiring to hack the Democrats, quote, "The government does not need to prove at the defendant's trial that the Russians hacked the DNC in order to prove the defendant made false statements and tampered with a witness and obstructed justice."

Critics say the government has taken the word of the DNC's legal team who has a vested interest in the political and legal outcome -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Catherine, thanks very much for that report.

HERRIDGE: You're welcome.

CARLSON: Well, believe it or not just a decade ago, Kirsten Gillibrand was trying to brand herself as a moderate Democrat, conservative even. She was pro-gun. She sent a letter to the NRA saying as much, pledging loyalty.  She believed in a border, and she said that, too.

But moderate positions are not how you become a Democratic presidential candidate in 2019, only extremism will get you there.

So now practically, by the day job, Gillibrand is adopting outlandish positions to see what you can get away with. Now she says that pro-life people should not be allowed to serve as judges in this country. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One out of four women in America, access abortion services, and a woman has the right to make all those decisions. And if you are telling me today that women in America don't have that right, I think you're so backward-looking that those judges and justices are not the type of people we should be appointing because it's too backward looking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's too backward for Kirsten Gillibrand. Lisa Boothe is a forward-looking person, by contrast. She is a senior fellow at Independent Women's Voice, and she joins us to discuss this and other stories from the Democratic race, which she has been following assiduously, jaw agape for months. Lisa Boothe, great to see you tonight.

LISA BOOTHE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's because I'm forward-looking.  Thanks, Tucker. It's because I'm forward-looking. But you know what's crazy? So this interview she did with New Hampshire Public Radio, she was asked about a previous interview she did with the Des Moines Register, where she basically likened pro-life beliefs to racism. So that's how far she's come, as you mentioned, from the days where she represented a conservative upstate House district, right? That's how far she's come.

But what we're seeing from Kirsten Gillibrand, this is just pandering.  This is desperation from a candidate who has really struggled to gain traction with such a crowded primary field. This is someone who in the Des Moines Register poll recently, is registering at zero percent, who just reached the benchmark of 65,000 unique donors.

When you have someone like Marianne Williamson, who is a spiritual guru, who reached that benchmark before her and what's so pathetic about that is she is a Senator from the State of New York. So the fact that she was struggling to hit that benchmark demonstrates how pathetic her campaign is right now.

And another candidate who we've sort of seen this similar hyperbolic rhetoric from recently is New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, who was on MSNBC the other day saying that President Trump should be impeached for treason. Listen to this, Tucker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, D-N.Y., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What happened the other day changed my mind because that was treason; that was treason. What he said was openly treasonous. That's the last straw. They should begin impeachment proceedings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOOTHE: And that's him talking about the conversation that President Trump had with George Stephanopoulos, of course, where he said that he would consider taking opposition research from a foreign government.

He also has been pushing for this legislation that the New York State Legislature is looking at of giving driver's license to illegal immigrants.  Listen to what he posted to Twitter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DE BLASIO: I believe in driver's licenses for all. I believe that all New Yorkers, regardless of documentation status, need to be able to get a license the right way.

And I ask everyone to weigh in -- driver's licenses. It's fair, it's smart, it's safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOOTHE: So we've seen this just complete embrace of illegal immigration from the left. As you know, Tucker, we also saw California looking to get healthcare to illegal immigrants. Julian Castro was recently called and laid out a plan for decriminalizing border crossings.

So this is where the left is going. And these candidates that are really struggling to register are just going to keep saying this kind of crazy hyperbolic rhetoric from them as we move forward.

CARLSON: Have you noticed that it's people with the most undisguised contempt for the country, the most anti-American candidates are always the first to accuse other people of betraying the country? Am I imagining that?

BOOTHE: No, I think that's true. And I also think with the case of Kirsten Gillibrand, I mean, I mentioned earlier last week we talked about, she's my least favorite candidate running so I'd like to stay on that.

But anyway, this is someone who's just --

CARLSON: I can see why.

BOOTHE: This is someone who just -- she has no beliefs, Tucker. This is someone who is not beholden to anything. She has not rooted any conviction. It's the same problem that Hillary Clinton had, but Kirsten Gillibrand is so much more transparent about it.

You had mentioned the NRA. This is someone who called for, you know, wanting to increase deportations for illegal immigrants and now, she is calling for abolishing I.C.E. and policy positions like that.

So the Democratic Party right now, especially with this crowded primary field, these positions are just moving so far to the left. It's very radical.

CARLSON: She and Cory Booker -- neither one is going to win. Both should stop degrading themselves.

BOOTHE: You mean, "Spartacus."

CARLSON: Just shh, yes, be quiet, maybe people will respect you when you speak, you confirm they have no cause to -- Lisa, great to see you tonight.  Thank you very much.

BOOTHE: Great to see you, too, Tucker. Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, the U.S.-Mexico border is 5,000 miles from Africa, so why are hundreds of African migrants streaming across it into our country? How is that happening and why? There's a reason. We will tell you in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: We've got a Fox News Alert for you tonight. The White House has announced that 1,000 additional American troops are being dispatched to the Middle East, that's after what it says is an Iranian attack on two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

In a statement, the acting Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan says these attacks, quote," ... validate the reliable, credible intelligence we received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten the U.S. personnel and interests across the region," end quote.

So far Iran has denied any of this, some allies are skeptical as well. The United States' narrative is being questioned even in Japan. That's the home country of one of the stricken tankers. Japan says it's not convinced that Iran is responsible for what happened.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says in fact, the proof of Iranian involvement is quote, "unmistakable. "Of course, this is not the first time the Secretary of State has expressed total confidence in the sinister intent to a Middle Eastern country. Colin Powell made a very similar case to the United Nations 16 years ago about Iraq, and we're still paying the price for that misplaced certainty. We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds, of course.

Well, for decades, the foreign policy issue with the biggest effect on your life by far and your children's lives, has been the permanent crisis on the American-Mexico border. But that's actually a misnomer. Thanks to decades of neglect, America's southern border isn't actually with Mexico anymore, or even with Latin America.

Nom instead, it's become our border to the entire world. Here's one example. Since May 30th, more than 500 African migrants have been apprehended crossing the border in Texas, at the Del Rio Border Patrol sector south of San Antonio. That's 500 from Africa in less than a month, just two weeks.

Most of them came from Congo, Cameroon and Angola. Some of them pass through more than half a dozen countries in order to get to the United States traveling on foot all the way from Ecuador. Many of them already know where they want to settle. Of course, places like Portland, Maine, believe it or not, where friends and family have already settled before them, and where they know an accommodating government provide them with the programs and benefits they desire.

This is just the latest surge of what is now a flood of thousands of people -- migrants from Africa and Asia making a very long trek illegally to enter the United States. Why the surge? Well, one reason is that Europe is finally cracking down on its own migrant crisis. But it's also simply a matter of word of mouth, which by the way is global.

Millions of people worldwide know the truth. If you can show up at this country's border illegally and say the right words, you will likely get permission to enter the United States. Once you do that, it is unlikely you will ever be forced to leave. Virtually no one is ever forced to leave.

So this is not a failure of tactics. It's a failure of political will.  And it's one that will continue until leaders decide that America's borders actually matter and are worth defending, but only for that kind of change that come from the 2020Democratic field. They don't believe it, at all.

For example, an interview with Axios, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg says that really the endless flood of illegal immigrants into this country could in fact be a political ploy by President Trump. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG, D-IND., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Immigration is more useful to this President as a crisis unsolved than it would be as an achievement if he actually fixed it.

MICHAEL ALLEN, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, AXIOS: So you're saying the President is using the border crisis for to get reelected?

BUTTIGIEG The President needs this crisis to get worse, even though it makes a liar out of him. I don't think he's worried about that. He is worried about the ability to stir people up.

ALLEN: You're not saying he is literally making it worse.

BUTTIGIEG: I don't think he cares if it gets better. But he certainly doesn't benefit from comprehensively fixing the problem. And I wouldn't put it past him to allow it to become worse in order to have it be a more divisive issue so that he could benefit politically.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So really, it's Trump's fault that illegal aliens are streaming across the border from as far away as Africa. And almost every day, Democrats make accusations against their political opponents that in fact describe their own behavior. This is the most flagrant example yet, we could give you a thousand examples, but this one is quite amazing.

The border crisis isn't an invention of President Trump, obviously, he was elected in response to the border crisis. In fact, the crisis is a product of choices by our leaders in Washington, choices they've made over and over and over for decades.

Republicans have made it to placate their wealthy donors. Democrats have made it because they decided a new pool of voters is better than appealing to the existing pool of voters for whom they no longer care.

Their plan is working. Just look at California right now. And look at what Texas and Arizona are swiftly becoming. There are no rush to fix things for the left including Mayor Buttigieg. Thousands of African migrants, that's not a sign of failure, it's a sign of success.

Andrew Arthur is a former immigration judge and resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. He joins us tonight. Mr. Arthur, thanks very much for coming on.

ANDREW ARTHUR, RESIDENT FELLOW, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: Thank you for having me, Tucker.

CARLSON: So just to take out of circulation, Mayor Buttigieg's accusation right off the top. He is claiming that the President for all his fault is pushing for more illegal aliens to come into this country. Does that seem likely to you?

ARTHUR: That's completely contrary to everything that the Trump administration has done in recent weeks. The President threatened a five percent tariff going up to 25 percent against Mexico in order to get Mexico to actually defend its southern border, and we're seeing unprecedented cooperation out of a government that quite frankly, is hostile to any idea of stopping migration through Mexico to the United States.

The President has actually made the President of Mexico, Lopez Obrador, step down his rhetoric and put troops on the border to actually stop those individuals. We have seen the Guatemalan government begging for American help, actually accepting CBP officers to come and help them defend their borders.

The President is asking other countries to do what Congress should be doing, but Congress is not acting because the Democrats in Congress don't want to.

Mr. Buttigieg is just simply deflecting the responsibility from the Democratic Party to the President.

CARLSON: But I mean, even by the standards of the Democratic field that's a lie that's so ambitious, it kind of -- I don't know -- you've got to kind of stand back in awe and respect to say something that absurd.

But when African migrants are coming across the border from Mexico by the hundreds, just in the past couple of weeks, is there a clear sign you've seen that the system really is collapsing?

ARTHUR: That is probably the clearest sign that the system is collapsing because those individuals are paying tens of thousands of dollars, because they know that they are going to get into the United States and they're going to be able to remain here permanently once they get here.

And the trip, which many of the make goes through Ecuador, Colombia, up through Central America, each one of these countries is an asylum-granting country. If they were actually in fear of their lives, they would apply for asylum in any of those countries, but they're not. Because their ultimate goal is to come to the United States and live and work here permanently.

And this is something that I saw when I was an immigration judge with Somalis. It's just simply becoming a new group of nationals from Central Africa now who have heard about how open the American borders are, and who want to come and exploit them.

CARLSON: The population growth in that part of the world, particularly on the continent of Africa, suggests that I mean, this flood could become a torrent, no?

ARTHUR: Absolutely, and there's, you know, without the support of our southern neighbors, in the absence of support from the United States Congress, we truly would just be overwhelmed with individuals, you know, from poor countries, who have literally sold everything that they had to make the journey to the United States.

In fact, I think The New York Times reported one woman said she didn't have $1.00 to her name by the time that she arrived in the United States.  But they do it because they know that they're going to come here. And you know, when looking at a U.S. wage every day, it's a smart economic decision to make. Until Congress acts, it's just going to continue.

CARLSON: Right. I would I would do the same. I don't judge them, I judge our leaders. It is going to overwhelm our country and change it completely and forever, and our viewers should know that.

Andrew, thanks very much for coming on. Appreciate it.

ARTHUR: Thank you for having me, Tucker.

CARLSON: Every year, an increasing number of transgender athletes enter women's sporting events, and they tend to completely dominate. What does that mean for the biological women who are forced to compete with biological men? We'll talk to one of them, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Even as he faces decades in prison for defrauding his own clients and extorting major corporations like Nike, the creepy porn lawyer has opened up a new feud. He is an energetic character, you've got to give him that.

This time, the enemy is progressive actress, Alyssa Milano. You know eight months ago, Milano called the creepy porn layer, quote "totally disgusting" after he was arrested on allegations of domestic violence. Milano is wrong on a lot of issues, basically, every issue, she was right. We've got to give her credit. She was right that one time.

CPL said nothing in response. He was turning the other cheek and pursuing a new healthier path in life. No, he was not doing that. That would be a wise idea. But it's not what happened. Instead, CPL bruited for seven whole months, then today, he tweeted at Milano quote, "You preach about Trump's need to follow the Constitution, but then ignore it yourself. You are a disgusting hypocrite. I don't care what side you're on. Where the hell is my apology for you proclaiming my guilt for something I was never even charged with?" Question mark.

Well, CPL has a lot of things, it would make a lot more sense to worry about -- his criminal case, for example; the imminent loss of his Bar license, how to pay the electric bill, the condition of is immortal soul. But thinking rationally is not his style. Rational thinkers don't, by the way, get anointed as presidential material by CNN in the first place.

But I have to say Alyssa Milano-CPL. It's tough to decide.

Well, for decades, America has been a world leader in providing athletic opportunities to women and girls on the same footing as boys. But now opportunities for women are being shoved aside for a new priority -- transgender athletes.

Biological males who identify as females are entering the competition and dominating their opponents in many sports across the country and the world, in fact.

The athletic organization, USA Power Lifting, for example, may have to go to court to protect the rights of girls to compete on a fair playing field.  JayCee Cooper, a biological male was barred from lifting in a Minnesota competition and has filed a discrimination complaint against the organization.

Selena Soule is a Connecticut High School track athlete. This year she failed to qualify for the New England Regionals in the 55-meter dash by two spots. It turns out two of the competitors who beat her though we're biological males who are able to enter the race because they identify as transgender.

Selena joins us along with Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, Christiana Holcomb. Thanks both very much for coming on.

So Selena, tell us your story. Did we misstate that? You were in a race, two biological males were allowed to compete and you didn't make it by two slots, is that correct?

SELENE SOULE, CONNECTICUT HIGH SCHOOL TRACK ATHLETE: Yes, it is. I came eighth place and the top six qualify for the regional New England Meet, and if those two athletes weren't competing, then I would have been the sixth girl and I would have moved on and advanced.

CARLSON: Did you raise your voice and say anything about this?

SOULE: Yes, I have been vocal since earlier this winter, and my mother has been for about a year now.

CARLSON: And what was the reaction that you got when you said something about it?

SOULE: I've gotten nothing but support from my teammates, and from other athletes, but I have experienced some retaliation from school officials and coaches.

CARLSON: Oh, tell us. Tell us, what would what kind of retaliation?

SOULE: I've gotten some very difficult requests for me to complete in practice, and if I don't fulfill these requests, then I can't compete at all. And this never happened before, it only started after my parents met with the school principal.

CARLSON: Christiana, is there any chance of this being undone?

CHRISTIANA HOLCOMB, ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM ATTORNEY: Absolutely, yes.  So girls like Selena should never be forced to be spectators in their own sports. But unfortunately, that is exactly what's taking place when you allow biological males to compete in sports that have been set aside and specifically designed for women like Selena?

Title IX was designed to ensure sure that girls have a fair shake at athletics and are not denied the opportunity to participate at the highest levels of competition.

So Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of Selena and a couple of other brave female athletes has filed, they are in the process of filing a Title IX complaint asking the Department of Education to step in to investigate and to restore a level playing field for Selena.

CARLSON: Selena, do other girls on your team feel the way that you do?  That opportunities are being taken from you by biological males?

SOULE: Yes, no one in the State of Connecticut is happy about this. But no one is -- no one has enough courage to speak up. And I haven't been the only one affected by this. There have been countless other female athletes in the State of Connecticut as well as my entire indoor track team.

We missed out on winning the state Open Championship because of the team that the transgender athlete was on.

HOLCOMB: And Tucker, to underscore the inequity here, I'm going to highlight the fact, one of these male athletes now holds 10 records inside the State of Connecticut that were once held by 10 individual girls and were established over the course of about a 20-year period.

So it's fundamentally unfair to allow biological males to step into women's sports and frankly dominate them and take away opportunities not just to medal, but to be at the podium to advance at the next level of competition and even compete for scholarships for young women like Selena.

CARLSON: Well it's grotesque and insane and it hurts women and girls and the very people who claim to be defending women and girls are abetting this, they are making it possible.

HOLCOMB: You're exactly right.

CARLSON: You are a brave girl, Selena for standing up in the face but what I'm sure is very intense pressure to be quiet and obey. Good for you for not. Thank you both very much. Good to see you.

SOULE: Thank you.

HOLCOMB: Thanks for having us.

CARLSON: Well, it's not exactly Margaritaville, but dozens of Jimmy Buffett fans say they were wasting away in the Dominican Republic from a mysterious illness. We'll have an update on what happened to them, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Problems continue to pile up for tourists in the Dominican Republic. The State Department had confirmed the death of a ninth American citizen there. Meanwhile, dozens of Jimmy Buffett fans say they fell mysteriously ill during a recent visit to the country. Trace Gallagher has been on this story for a week, he rejoins us with more new developments.  Hey, Trace.

GALLAGHER: Hey Tucker, a 55-year-old New Jersey man died in the Dominican Republic a few days ago. We don't yet know if he fits into the common denominators, meaning if he suffered a heart attack or water on the lungs or if he drank alcohol or drank from his hotel room minibar, but we do know he was vacationing for a friend's birthday and complained to feeling hot at the pool. He went up to his room and was found dead the next morning.

Meantime, a Jimmy Buffett fan group from Oklahoma State at the Hotel Riu Palace in Punta Cana, a hundred fourteen of them went to the DR, 47 got sick. We're talking severe cramps, chills, aches vomiting. Some of the people were sick for more than two weeks.

The group's organizer who was sick for 19 days and lost 14 pounds says there's a common link between them all. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody that did get sick at one time during the trip had either swam at the pool where the swim-up bar was or they had drank something from that swim-up bar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Another woman said she spoke with others who stayed at the hotel who were not Parrot Heads and they also got sick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now looking into at least one of the cases. Some of the travelers think the illness could be related to pesticides because the workers are constantly spraying it. That would mesh with the Colorado couple who got violently ill after being in the DR, and when they got home were diagnosed with pesticide poisoning.

The Dominican Republic has asked the F.B.I. to help with toxicology exams following the deaths now of nine American tourists -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Trace Gallagher, thanks for that. Believe it or not, it's been seven years since Colorado became one of the first states in the country to fully legalize marijuana for recreational use.

Advocates said at the time that it was progress. This is progress and we're going to improve public health and safety by getting rid of the backward ineffective reefer madness drug laws. All the cool people agreed.

Is that what happened? No, it's not what happened. Instead, a few people are getting rich while the state struggles with a new public health crisis.  It is a crisis by the way, even The Washington Post is admitting in a new piece today.

Colorado law is supposed to restrict marijuana sales to those who are 21 years or older. But right now in Denver, for example, legal marijuana stores are everywhere. They outnumber Starbucks and McDonald's combined.

Again, more marijuana stores than store Starbucks and McDonald's combined.  So for teenagers, getting access to marijuana is very easy. And that includes variants whose THC content vastly exceeds what is possible even just a few years ago -- fifty-fold what was available when you were a kid.

So after years of decline, marijuana used by teenagers is rising again.  And thanks to years of pro-weed propaganda, many perceive it as a low risk drug safer than alcohol or tobacco, which it is not.

In 2005, 161 children visited Children's Hospital in Colorado, to be treated for paranoia, psychosis, cyclical vomiting and other symptoms of severe marijuana abuse. By 2015, that number had risen to 777. That's a nearly five-fold increase.

Kids don't need to be in the hospital to be suffering, though. More and more health research is showing the marijuana use is devastating to the still developing brains of teenagers. One doctor told The Washington Post quote, "I hope we don't lose a generation of people before we become clear we need to protect our kids' brains."

Right now, though, in Colorado, nobody cares about protecting children.  That's true across the country all of a sudden. The State has voted to further deregulate marijuana. Why? It's not complicated.

In 2018, Colorado businesses sold $1.5 billion worth of legal marijuana, the government took a cut of $266 million. That's the answer right there.  Just as with immigration or trade or empowering big tech, lawmakers sacrifice the wellbeing, in fact, the future of the society to cash in now.

They are day traders. They don't care about you and they really don't care about your grandkids.

Well, the war for the soul the Democratic Party continues. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to tamp down her party's demands for an immediate push to impeach the President.

Young pioneer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez though says that is not acceptable.  The party demands impeachment she says and in Pelosi won't give it to the party, then she is part of the problem. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: Impeachment is incredibly serious, and this is about the presence and evidence of the President who may have committed a crime, in this case more than one.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC HOST: So how real is that progressive frustration that Speaker Pelosi has said at least so far, and she seems to be really holding the line that she is not ready to do that?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think it's quite real. I believe that there is a very real animus and desire to make sure that we are that we are -- that we are holding this President to account.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Richard Goodstein has been around the Democratic Party for a long time. He used to be an attorney and a former adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton. He joins us tonight. Richard, thanks a lot for coming on.

RICHARD GOODSTEIN, FORMER ADVISER TO BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON: Thanks, Tucker. Sure.

CARLSON: So the obvious question is who is more powerful Pelosi or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and you know, of course Nancy Pelosi. But the question is, if you're running for Congress as a Democrat right now, whose endorsement would you rather have? Pelosi or Ocasio-Cortez?

GOODSTEIN: So the Democrats are in the majority, because of all these districts that went from red to blue. AOC's district went from blue to bluer. Nancy Pelosi is Speaker because of the red to blue people.

So if your district was super blue, yes, having AOC in your corner would be cool.

But it's interesting that Nancy Pelosi used to be seen as this wild-eyed liberal, and here she is standing up to the liberals on impeachment, Medicare-for-All, Green New Deal, it is making her seem downright moderate.

God, so you wonder kind of whether behind the scenes if AOC and she have a deal going on? Who would have thought that would be possible in 2019?

CARLSON: Do you think do you think honestly that 10 years from now, they'll be any people like you left in the Democratic Party? Well, again, 50- ish white guys who are worried about Medicare-for-All? Will there be any any left, honestly?

GOODSTEIN: So the biggest block of House Democrats are the pro-business new Democrats. There's 101 of them more than there are progressives, more than the Black Caucus, more than this.

You know, I understand there's this interest among some to paint the Democrats is being crazy left. It just happens not to be where the leaders of the party are, and where the biggest block in the Houses, at least. You know, it's just not even debatable.

CARLSON: It's where the energy -- I mean, you're right, you're absolutely right. But it's where the energy is, it's where Twitter is, and everyone is bowing to the will of the lunatics. In 10 seconds, are you disagreeing with that because it's demonstrably true.

GOODSTEIN: We will see how true. We'll see how Democratic presidential primary voters, whether they're bowing, or whether the reason Joe Biden is now in the lead, maybe because there are in fact more moderates than there are on Twitter. I think that we kind of actually know that as a fact.

CARLSON: We'll see how that works out. I'm not hopeful for him, but we'll see. Richard, good to see you tonight. Thank you.

GOODSTEIN: Thank you for having me.

CARLSON: We are out of time. We'll be back tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m.  The show that is the sworn and sincere enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink. DVR if you can figure that out. What do they know. Stay tuned. Sean Hannity takes over right now.

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