Whitaker: It's very clear the president is going to be acquitted

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Whitaker: It's very clear the president is going to be acquitted

Former Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker weighs in on possible acquittal in Senate impeachment trial.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," January 31, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Welcome to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT. It's been an awfully long week, but thank God we're ending it tonight with two pieces of good news.

The first, Great Britain is an independent country again, as it has been for most of the last thousand years. Brexit has gone through. So cheers to our friends in the U.K.

In this country, the impeachment farce is almost over. That's our good news. The President will be acquitted. Now, we knew that from the first day, of course, which is one of the reasons this whole overhyped charade was always such an insulting waste of time.

But now it is official, even the wettest, Trump hating Republicans in the Senate are thoroughly sick of this. They want it over. And yet because once started, nothing in Washington ends easily, the process continues on like a ghost ship. Here was the scene in the Senate floor today.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

CARLSON: Those are actually retail drunk shoppers in box stores on Black Friday, but it's the same sickness at work. Mobs of desperate people grasping at trinkets to fill a void within. It's sad to watch.

Let's try to find the actual tape from the Senate.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

CARLSON: Nope. Once again, right theme, wrong video. Jerry Springer wasn't really in the Senate this week. But Jerry Nadler was. Check out what happened last night when Chief Justice Roberts asked prosecutors to answer a final question.

Nadler and Adam Schiff raced to the podium, all but elbowing each other out of the way to get one last blessed moment on C-SPAN. Watch this tape and ask yourself if you have ever seen anything with less dignity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE: Could you please respond to the answer just given by the President's counsel and provide any other comments the Senate would benefit from hearing before we adjourn for the evening.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Jerry. Jerry. Jerry.

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY): Mr. Chief Justice and members of the Senate --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: I want to be on TV. No, I do. These people are buffoons. That clip really was the whole impeachment from start to finish -- narcissistic, degrading, pointless -- a nation as great as this one deserves more, but that would require impressive leaders.

At some point, maybe next week, we'll look back on this whole chapter in shame. But for a few more days, at least, the hysteria will continue. In fact, it will likely increase, believe it or not.

The media class seemed to be just figuring out the Trump will not be removed from office before the Super Bowl. You've always known that, obviously. They had no idea. They're literally stunned.

Over on MSNBC, a person called Mara Gay declared that if the results of the last election aren't nullified immediately, democracy is dead forever. Think about that for a minute. She clearly hasn't. It's kind of hilarious actually. Watch her tantrum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARA GAY, EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": What's on trial is not just Donald Trump right now, what's on trial is the rule of law. What's on trial is our democracy.

I mean, what a sad moment after, you know, 300-plus years of democracy.

And by the way, truth matters. I mean, as a journalist, I just think that's what separates us from Russia, from Venezuela.

If we don't stand up for truth now, it will be too late. It will be too late.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: As a journalist -- as a journalist. And that was your tip that Mara Gay isn't just some fake Democratic strategist they invited on a cable show like they often do. She's in fact a member of "The New York Times" Editorial Board, not that that makes her a journalist, but she's still the best they can muster. Ponder that over the weekend.

The politics editor of theroot.com, meanwhile, told viewer that now that Donald Trump is staying in office until November, nothing can stop him from becoming an authoritarian dictator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON JOHNSON, POLITICS EDITOR, THE ROOT.COM: Imagine Donald Trump deciding sometime in June. Well, I heard this conspiracy theory that a whole lot of illegal immigrants voted in California. So I've decided that during the presidential election, California has to undergo extreme vetting because we can't trust their votes. We're going to shut down voting in a state. This is literally the kind of thing he will do now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Got that? Trump is "literally" going to cancel the election in California, our biggest state. Okay, Jason Johnson, let us know when he tries.

People like Johnson are saying things like this because they are so shocked their brains no longer work. They really thought Trump was going to be fired at the end of impeachment. They thought a five-minute phone call on Hunter Biden's corruption would be enough to undo an election that 136 million people voted in.

Like a creepy old man in a porno theater, the press and the Democratic Party allowed their fantasies to over strip reality. But they're about to be shocked back to consciousness very soon.

The Iowa caucuses are just three days from now. Bernie Sanders is likely to win there. His only real rival is a man who should be having dinner at 4:30 at Golden Corral.

Party leaders don't really want either one of them -- Sanders or Joe Biden -- their plan, the plan in Washington is to force voters to back Michael Bloomberg, a Napoleonic billionaire known for screaming at people who drink the wrong soda.

None of it seems very appealing. The Democratic Party is in trouble. It's about to collide with itself. And by the way that didn't need to happen. If Democrats had just spent the last three years coming up with -- I don't know -- a credible plan to lower housing prices, or raise middle class wages, or fix the student loan crisis, they might be winning the election, but they didn't do that.

Instead, they tried the easy way out. They wasted their energy on wild conspiracies about Russia and Ukraine, and while they were doing that, they're unhappiest, but most energetic activists forced their candidates to take lunatic positions on abortion, guns, race, gender, climate, you name it. Positions that are way out of the mainstream, even among Democrats.

It adds up to a disaster and they know it's a disaster. That's why they're so upset.

The good news is, as awful and stupid as impeachment was, in the end, it hurt the people who did it most of all.

We're joined now by Congressman Devin Nunes of California. Great to see you, Congressman. So --

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): Great to be with you.

CARLSON: We got an indication from Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee last night late that we're not going to get witnesses in the Senate portion of this proceeding. And basically, there's nothing left. There is going to be a vote, the President is going to be acquitted. So why is it continuing exactly, do you know?

NUNES: Well, they have to actually get to the point of where they actually vote to acquit, which I guess is going to occur on Wednesday, so they had to vote on the rules for that.

But I actually have some bad news for you tonight, Tucker, on a Friday night.

CARLSON: Okay.

NUNES: I know you don't want the bad news, but --

CARLSON: I'm used to it.

NUNES: The President is going to be acquitted, but the problem is this isn't going to end. Like I just can't imagine that Adam Schiff after three and a half years of this nonsense, and Jerry Nadler are not going to continue this, right?

They're going to go back and they're going to subpoena John Bolton. We're going to have the same exact thing that you've been seeing for the last three and a half years. I just think you should prepare.

We thought once Mueller collapsed completely, we thought, okay, we're going to get on to business. And then out of nowhere, this Ukraine hoax appeared and look, this really is a hoax.

This was Adam Schiff and his staff concocting this all together with people that all know each other. All these people know each other that concocted this stupid Ukraine hoax that we've been dealing with for the last week in the Senate.

So anyway, bad news for you the night. I bet even after the acquittal, we're going to be working on this.

CARLSON: So since you're an elected official and you know a lot about policy, but also politics, is there any evidence that this works? I mean, my read on it is the candidates who win are the ones that speak to the issues that people really care about. They don't care about this demonstrably. So why are Democrats continuing to do this?

NUNES: Well, I described it earlier this week as the Democratic Party is like the dog that caught the car. And now they've been promising all this crazy stuff, and now they're going to get somebody who's not even a Democrat, Bernie Sanders as their nominee.

A month ago, I would have said, nah, you know, Bernie is going to get second or third or probably not going to win. I mean, he's winning in every state, including California, which is the big prize, which is essentially a month away.

CARLSON: Yes.

NUNES: And he's winning in Iowa. I mean, this could be -- if Bernie wins on Monday night, you have an entire takeover by the extreme left of the historic Democratic Party. It no longer -- it ceases to exist. It's going to be the Socialist Party.

CARLSON: Well, so can I ask you another political question. So this is essentially a replay of what happened with Donald Trump in the Republican Party. The establishment hated him. They tried to rig the system to prevent him from becoming the nominee, and it didn't work.

The Democrats are trying the same thing. They're talking about tampering with delegates at the convention now. Will that work?

NUNES: Well, I think there's a big difference between Trump and Bernie Sanders here.

CARLSON: Well, of course, there is.

NUNES: So Trump and I mean, just in the politics of this, Bernie Sanders is a socialist. I mean, the guy spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union.

CARLSON: Yes.

NUNES: Right? Donald Trump had -- you know, he had his own brand of politics that I think caught everybody off guard, but he does believe in a few important things, right?

He wants to -- he has been very clear. He was against the Iraq War from the very beginning. He wants to bring the troops home as much as he can. He also wanted to redo trade deals.

CARLSON: Of course.

NUNES: All things that people including myself, were very skeptical of if he could actually deliver on some of this. But I think despite all the craziness and for three and a half years, well, really since the end of 2015, Donald Trump and his campaign being under investigation by the Feds, the Clinton campaign, the Democrats in the House, despite all of that, the guy is defying the odds.

I mean, I would have never thought that we could have not only rewrote NAFTA, but actually passed it. It was one of the most popular trade agreements ever passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

I mean, it's amazing what he's actually accomplished here despite everything.

CARLSON: I remember -- yes, and in the end, that's I think -- I think that's what matters. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on tonight. I appreciate that.

NUNES: Thank you, Tucker. Always a pleasure.

CARLSON: So we've been through all of this. We're at the end of it. What did it add up to? Who better to ask than Chris Bedford. He's a senior editor at "The Federalist" and he joins us on set tonight.

Chris, thanks so much for coming on.

CHRIS BEDFORD, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": Thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So you watched every second of this. What does it amount to? What does it mean?

BEDFORD: It's also -- this is very much stupid as it seemed from the very beginning, because it's amazing to watch these professional political watchers on some other channels act surprised.

CARLSON: Yes.

BEDFORD: We've known exactly what's going to happen since Nancy Pelosi won the House and Mitch McConnell held the Senate. The House was going to impeach Donald Trump. The Senate was going to acquit Donald Trump. The end.

But it's still going on and on and on and people are acting like if we don't have an 18th witness for this trial, then the whole world's going to catch on fire.

Now, the problem here is that the Democrats are blaming the system. They've been doing this since the beginning. They want to tear down basically anything that doesn't work for them.

CARLSON: Yes.

BEDFORD: So the election, the Electoral College, grading in schools. I mean, we just saw that in Brexit, the U.S. Senate, the whole world catches on fire if they don't get their exact result, so they need to tear it all down.

They're going to push again for that. I think Nunes is right -- Congressman Nunes -- that this is going to continue. The investigations will continue. The stupid will continue. But the Senate at least will be freed up.

CARLSON: It is stupid, though. I mean, and maybe this is just wish fulfillment. I think this was appalling. I don't think it should be rewarded. So I want to believe it will be counterproductive.

But I haven't seen one piece of polling data showing that this is a massive win for Democrats. Meanwhile, their party is being taken over by people who are going to destroy the party.

So this -- it just seems like a highly stupid path for them to continue going down.

BEDFORD: There was one week of clarity you might remember after Donald Trump was elected when everyone was kind of shell shocked and a little bit honest with themselves and said, wow, maybe we've forgotten the working class of America, maybe we're not paying attention to the opioid addiction. Maybe jobs going overseas is a bad thing and we should pay attention to this.

And then it was quickly forgotten, and before you knew it, Jeff Sessions with the KGB agent and a Klansman at the same time, and this narrative has continued, and that's not something that's good for winning voters.

If you actually care about your family and your job is not to watch all this insanity all day, then that's not helping you at all. None of this is helping you, and you're going to going to vote against it.

CARLSON: Ce rewind a little bit? Why do you think -- this is maybe unknowable -- but why do you think that moment of clarity passed so fast? The lessons of the election in 2016 were very clear. You forget about voters, they will vote against you. Democratic voters went for Trump. Democrats forgot that, like within about a day. Why?

BEDFORD: It was like a retreating army when there's just chaos everywhere and everyone is to take care of themselves. Maybe think for themselves for a minute, and then the generals got back in charge and said, wait, wait, wait, guys, remember, they are racist.

Donald Trump is a racist. Half of America is horrible. The system didn't work. And they said, oh my gosh, you're right. Russia -- a couple of Russian trolls are the reason why Hillary Clinton lost. I guess her plane was rerouted from campaigning in the Midwest.

It's completely insane, and it's just a denial. But I think it's the Democrats getting back into order and saying you're right, you're right. This is not us. This is everybody else.

CARLSON: So you watch all this stuff, and you think, you know, this isn't happening by accident. Somebody orchestrated this. Somebody thought it was a good idea.

Those are the exact same people who are telling us they must be in charge of the country. This seems like proof positive, they should not have power.

BEDFORD: They shouldn't have power, and I think it looks like right now, Donald Trump is cruising for reelection because he is up against a group of people who are doing very well.

Bernie Sanders is the only maybe honest politician -- he lies about numbers -- but on the Democratic side, who's telling the voters exactly what he's going to do, and all the D.N.C. is trying to do is tear him down. All the Democratic Party is trying to do is destroy his chances of winning, whether it's with Bloomberg or changing rules, which means they're going to get a Civil War on their hands because voters are mad.

CARLSON: So wait, you mentioned numbers -- last question, what do you think if you could put a number on it is the audience -- the receptive audience - - for woke politics? Like what number of Americans actually likes that crap?

BEDFORD: I think you add the journalists and the college students of D.C., New York and Los Angeles together, maybe a few in San Francisco and divide it by two. That's it.

CARLSON: That's not 270 electoral votes.

BEDFORD: No, it's not.

CARLSON: Chris Bedford, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

BEDFORD: Thank you.

CARLSON: Democratic insiders frantically hope that Michael Bloomberg, their billionaire savior will swoop in and save the party for himself.

Now, they're trying to rig the process to help that happen. We will tell you how.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, as you remember, during the 2016 election, leaked e-mails proved that the Democratic National Committee sided with Hillary Clinton and rigged the primaries to hurt Bernie Sanders, and the nomination to her. It worked obviously. It wasn't even necessary, really.

But the fact it came out may have cost them the General Election. Democrats who were for Bernie were outraged. So that was counterproductive.

Four years later, though, the Democratic Party seems determined to make exactly the same mistake. So far, presidential candidates have had to raise money from thousands of individual small donors in order to qualify for the primary debates.

Why did the party do this? Because they wanted prevent a wealthy billionaire, for example, with no grassroots support from buying his way onto the stage.

Oh, wait. But now they want a wealthy billionaire with no grassroots support on the stage. So the rules are changing, so Michael Bloomberg can rescue them from Bernie Sanders.

Today, the D.N.C. announced that there will be no donor threshold for making its upcoming debate in Nevada, or Nevada, as they now call it. The decision drastically increases the likelihood that the Napoleonic figure from New York will qualify for the debate. What does this all mean?

Chris Plante knows. He hosts radio's "The Chris Plante Show" which is excellent. He joins us tonight. Chris, great to see you. Do you feel like you've seen this movie?

CHRIS PLANTE, RADIO HOST, THE CHRIS PLANTE SHOW: You know, it just gets more and more ridiculous with each passing day when you think it's impossible that it couldn't become more ridiculous. It becomes yet more ridiculous.

Here's a guy, you know, if you looked up his numbers recently, he has gained about $2 billion dollars in wealth over the last several weeks, spent $100 million of his own dollars so far on TV ads that are all anti- Trump ads, and President Trump's numbers are going up, during the impeachment, during Bloomberg's anti-Trump ads, Trump's numbers are actually going up.

And he's buying an $11 million 60-second spot at the Super Bowl day after tomorrow, Mike Bloomberg, with his own money -- with his own money.

And you may recall just a short time ago, as you started to describe. The Democrats are very anti-billionaire, anti-one percent or anti-money in politics and the terrible influence of the Emoluments Clause. Right?

I think there is still lawsuits going on --

CARLSON: The Emoluments Clause, yes.

PLANTE: Now, how many different businesses does the $60 billion man have his fingers into in media and real estate and all of these things? And he's running and none of this is coming up interestingly enough on CNN and on MSNBC, even among the other Democrats so far.

But the D.N.C. -- and as the last time they stole it from Bernie and the Bernie Bros who are still furious about this -- they should prepare to get furious again, because they are positioning Bloomberg in there, the billionaire with unlimited funds, forget about all that Emoluments Clause stuff now, because they're looking at their field and they know they've got Joe Biden who, you know, God bless him take the remote control away.

They've got Bernie Sanders who had a heart attack and attended the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and they've got Elizabeth Warren who's like the crazy camp counselor that you remember from you know, Camp Hiawatha who danced around the campfire at night, you know making wallets with war paint on them, and she's completely berserk. She is going to have the transgender teenager approve her selection --

CARLSON: No, nine-year-old.

BEDFORD: Oh, not even a teenager, a child, a transgender child. She's going to have to go to Hollywood for that to approve her Secretary of -- you were talking about it last night -- of Education choice.

I mean, these people are nuts. And if you're the D.N.C., you've got to be looking around and saying, can we throw you know a life ring somewhere? Is there anybody out there that can save us?

CARLSON: But is the lesson right now that America doesn't pay enough attention to billionaires. Let's let a billionaire decide for once. But they don't have enough influence in our society.

PLANTE: Well -- and this is what -- again, this is -- were it not for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all as a wise man once said. They just make it up as they go along, and today they believe A and tomorrow they believe Z. It's just extraordinary.

And look, Tom Steyer bought his way onto the stage.

CARLSON: Yes, he did.

PLANTE: Right? And they've got two -- they're going to have two billionaires, I think they're trying to squeeze him out now, they only have room for one billionaire. And the hypocrisy is astonishing or at least appalling if not astonishing.

CARLSON: Yes, I mean -- look, I don't know if -- I don't know what Trump is worth. You know, I have no idea.

PLANTE: Right.

CARLSON: But he didn't buy his way into the position.

PLANTE: No, he didn't.

CARLSON: I don't think he spent any of his own money actually.

PLANTE: No, no. It's extraordinary. I mean, the double standard is extraordinary. The hypocrisy is extraordinary. I mean, really, it's corruption. These are -- this is corrupt. The D.N.C. is once again rigging the rules to manipulate the process, so that the back room cigar chomping, you know, old school pals are still pulling the strings.

CARLSON: I've got to say, I hope the Bernie people will fight back.

PLANTE: I expect they will.

CARLSON: Chris Plante. Great to see you tonight.

PLANTE: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Thank you so much. The press is wondering if they simply ignore the fact the President is about to be acquitted, can they pretend impeachment extends for the next nine months. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the President's impeachment trial is winding down, finally. Senators have rejected any additional witnesses, but a final vote to acquit the President may have to wait until next week, Wednesday, we're hearing tonight.

Congressman Mike Johnson represents Louisiana and is on the President's defense team. We are happy to have him in the studio tonight. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So what remains to be done? Why wait until Wednesday?

M. JOHNSON: What remains to be done is the senators want to give speeches, so they have to allow a couple of days for that. Monday they come back for closing arguments. There's four hours allotted. I don't think it'll take all that time.

As you know, the defense side -- our side -- has not been using all the time because you don't have to run the clock out when you have the facts and the law on your side.

Tuesday they have some speeches that they can go in and pontificate for a while and then Wednesday, we finally get the vote to acquit.

CARLSON: So this is really more a TV question than a political question, but do we have to pretend it is significant until then or can we just ignore it?

M. JOHNSON: We can and most of the American public is. No one has been watching this for the last few days because it's so dreadfully boring.

CARLSON: Yes.

M. JOHNSON: They regenerated the same arguments over and over and over and it's frankly been painful to watch. I'll tip my hat to the senators who have been able to stay awake somehow, for all this, but as you've been saying in the last couple of segments, this was decided a long time ago. We all knew the outcome and the sooner we get there, the better.

CARLSON: What do you think the outcome, as numbers matters as they are likely to be -- do you think you'll see any Republicans defect or any Democrats crossover?

M. JOHNSON: I believe and we expect it will be a bipartisan acquittal. I think we'll get at least two maybe three Democrats, and I think they're going to take a lot of heat over the weekend with people trying to twist their arms, but I think they're going to do the right thing.

CARLSON: There are Republican senators who would clearly like to convict and expel the President. Mitt Romney obviously would like to do that. Will they dare do you think?

M. JOHNSON: He can't. There's no way. He has to vote to acquit. I mean, look, if you look at this objectively, as we've proven, I think very well, these are not impeachable offenses. There was no -- there was nothing here. There's no treason, bribery, high crime or misdemeanor, so they really don't have a choice.

It doesn't matter how much they dislike Donald Trump, you can't kick him out of office. You can't undo the results of the last election as hard as they tried.

CARLSON: You think this will happen again?

M. JOHNSON: I do. Look, they are committed to take him out, and our Democratic colleagues, unfortunately, probably a majority of them have committed to do it again. So I don't think this ends and it's a sad and unfortunate chapter in U.S. history and I'm not sure how we get out of it.

CARLSON: It's pretty much the one thing I never thought would become standard operating procedure.

M. JOHNSON: No. And they've opened a Pandora's Box, as we've talked about. They've weaponized impeachment. So we're in for a long and dark road, I'm afraid.

CARLSON: Depressing. Well, luckily, your job as member of the defense team will end soon, so congrats on that. Congressman, thanks very much.

M. JOHNSON: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, the President's acquittal is inevitable as it has been since day one. That was clear again in December, and even when this bogus scandal exploded -- it exploded back in September.

So now the press is scrambling for a way to keep the impeachment story viable beyond next week. So their current phrase of choice, everything is coordinated, in case you haven't noticed, is telling you that the Senate trial is simply a "fake acquittal."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): Here's the deal. You cannot have a true acquittal if you've not had a fair trial.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): No vindication and no real acquittal for the President because it has become a sham.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): But he will not be acquitted. You cannot be acquitted if you don't have a trial and you don't have a trial if you don't have witnesses and documentation and that --

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): But I fundamentally and strongly agree with Speaker Pelosi's point, in the absence of a fair trial, how can the American people conclude that justice was done?

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): The President's acquittal will be meaningless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Matt Whitaker was the President's acting Attorney General. He joins us tonight. Mr. Whitaker, thanks so much for coming on.

MATT WHITAKER, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Hey, Tucker.

CARLSON: It seems like just the other day they were lecturing us about how the President was undermining our institutions and killing public faith and the system et cetera. Now, they're telling us that the trial which played out longer than it needed to in my view wasn't a real trial?

WHITAKER: It sure seemed boring like a real trial. Everyone I've talked to --

CARLSON: Good point.

WHITAKER: But in all seriousness, this is -- it's an impressive trial and let's not confuse a criminal trial or civil trial with, you know, sort of juries of your peers versus a Senate impeachment trial, which is what we saw where the House brings their case over and tries to convince the senators and the senators make the rules, and it's very clear that the President is going to be acquitted, much to the chagrin of all those folks in the video.

But this is -- this is the way the system works. If you bring a terrible kind of pell-mell case to the Senate, you're going to end up losing it and the President's going to be acquitted.

CARLSON: I don't even understand the talking points. So you saw the Speaker who really has become a kind of hard eyed extremist, I would say. She used to be kind of a cheerful person, but whatever.

She said, it's not a trial, because you don't have witnesses and you don't have documentation. I thought the witnesses appeared during the House portion of the proceedings. So I thought there were like 17 witnesses and a ton of documentation or am I missing something?

WHITAKER: Right. And if you saw the sleight of hand that happened today, they were saying, well, the President could have cross examined witnesses in the Judiciary Committee, but all the witnesses were heard in the Intelligence Committee, so I was a little confused as to where they thought the President could have actually examined --

CARLSON: But we had a ton of witnesses or am I missing --

WHITAKER: We had 17, no, we had 17 witnesses and we all watched them.

CARLSON: They were on TV, right?

WHITAKER: They were on TV.

CARLSON: So why are they telling me there were no witnesses. I mean, I think we actually aired it on this show, but I'm getting old, so maybe I missed it. I don't want to be Joe Biden about it. But did have witnesses, right?

WHITAKER: Right. Yes, we had witnesses in this impeachment proceeding. But again, this is -- these folks expect it to look like a Perry Mason court of law, and that's not what this is. This is an impeachment trial, and this is the way the rules were developed and this is how it ends up.

CARLSON: So I'm saying this as someone in the news business, but I kind of wanted an endless parade of all -- I want to hear from the buffoons. I'd like to hear Hunter Biden explain how he got his Master's in Ukrainian natural gas exploration.

WHITAKER: Yes. Well, thank God, you're in the minority, Tucker. Most of us can't bear another day of this.

CARLSON: Yes, that's a fair point.

WHITAKER: But you know, it is -- there is a bit of Macabre Theatre where folks do want to sort of see politics as almost a sport where we're entertained by it.

But you know, fundamentally, you know, having served with this President, it would be good to get impeachment behind us, have the acquittal on Wednesday and let him get to continuing to move his agenda forward.

CARLSON: So if you guess, if you don't mind, do you think that Democrats really want to continue it? Because as I've said, like 50 times, I don't see any evidence they're benefiting from it. I think it's hurting them. Their party is in disarray. They probably want to move on. Or maybe they really do want to continue it. What do they want?

WHITAKER: They want the narrative, and it's all about the narrative. And so they are keep -- you know, listen, it played out in the House, too. First it was bribery, then it was treason then -- you know, now we've ended up with high crimes and misdemeanors, which they didn't prove.

All of these senators, both on the right and the left here say you haven't met the constitutional standard, and I think they want to keep the arguments and to bludgeon this President, but to have this whole thing over because they are not looking good.

Adam Schiff, his team does not look good, and I think some of the senators aren't looking good.

CARLSON: If you allege -- I mean, you served as Attorney General, if you allege, you know, bribery and treason, shouldn't someone call the cops at some point? I mean, this is like serious stuff that they're alleging.

WHITAKER: You should. Those are crimes. And the thing that we have here also is they're trying to convince us that the facts are so bad, you must impeach, instead of saying there was a law violated and the facts -- here are the facts, and so you compare to the facts in the law like you would normally would in a court of law.

Instead, they're just trying to say, these facts are so bad and they're just not. I mean, at the end of the day, this President, you know, has an ability to conduct foreign policy. He was concerned about corruption in the Ukraine. We've seen the transcript and that's -- the case is over for all intents and purposes.

Except, as the Congressman pointed out, we get to listen to two more days of senators talking.

CARLSON: I don't think it went far enough. He should have canceled aid to Ukraine, in my opinion. There is no reason to send weapons to Ukraine, in my opinion. So I'm on the side that way, at least he delayed it.

Mr. Whitaker, thank you very much.

WHITAKER: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Great to see you. Most Americans still don't know -- no, actually, they're pretty convinced because they were in sixth grade once and took biology there are two sexes.

Up next though, we will interview a newspaper columnist who was fired for saying that. You just can't. He lost his job. 2020 at work.

Plus, the Trump administration just set down strict new rules to contain the spread of the coronavirus out of China. We will tell you the state of that epidemic. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: An astonishing scene this evening in New York City, hopefully not a harbinger of the future. Hundreds of people with the Antifa group decolonized this place, swarmed several New York City subway stations. They vandalized the walls. They poured glue on turnstiles.

They then flooded Grand Central Station in rush hour to confront the police. Five of them were arrested. The "purpose of the protest" was to demand the abolition of all fees on the New York City subway because demanding money for a subway ride is racist.

They also demand removing all police officers from subway trains because to the modern left, normal people exist only to be victimized by criminals, trapped with them in underground tubes with no one to protect them.

Criminals, meanwhile, should be free to operate with impunity. That's their view explicitly.

We're following the story closely. We'll have more to say about it on Monday.

The student loan bubble has grown to more than $1.6 trillion, and that's not just an economic burden for young people, the ones who have to pay the loans off. Those loans are shaping the basic life decisions they make and changing our society.

According to a new study from LendKey Technologies, about a third of adults between the ages of 18 and 34, said they would consider postponing marriage until they've paid off their student loans.

One third also said that student debt would influence their choice of spouses. The survey didn't ask young adults about having children, but you know exactly what it would have found.

For young people, debts mean dreams delayed or destroyed. It means families aren't formed. That's the kind of thing conservatives care about. That's why they exist to fix problems like that. This is the party of family values. Keep in mind, and yet at this very moment, families are disappearing. Why? Well, we know why.

It's not an unfixable problem. It's not a natural disaster. It's not a matter of culture or values. It's an economic problem that people caused.

Congress is pumping tens of billions of dollars every year into student loans. Those loans in the end don't help the students. They enrich wealthy colleges and their overpaid administrators who hate you, and then who will hiked tuition by six percent every year.

This is hurting the country badly and we don't have to tolerate it. We could change law in all kinds of ways. We can make colleges responsible for loans the default, like every other beneficiary of loans, they could cosign.

We could restrict student loans to schools that let tuition rise too quickly. If you're ripping off kids, we're not going to give you a Federally-backed loans you can build another climbing wall or pay the Minister of Diversity 400 grand a year. We could bar useless programs on all the impoverished kids.

So far, we haven't done any of that. And one of the main reasons is the Republican Party hasn't tried to do any of that. And that's one of the main reasons the Democratic Party, which is insane and getting crazier, still as a shot to win.

They're not doing anything about student loans, but they're talking about them. Conservatives should talk about them, too. They're preventing families from forming. We should care.

Well, the left wants to impeach the President for asking about Hunter Biden's corrupt business deals, but don't worry. They also want to crack down on your ability to say what you want.

Until this month, Jon Caldara was a conservative columnist at "The Denver Post." Now, he's been fired because he would not submit to transgender language dogma. Caldara insisted that "There are only two sexes." That was a mistake it turned out. They canned him for that.

We spoke to Jon Caldara recently. Here's his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, it's a remarkable story, and I should say if you read the whole column, we just read excerpts from it, but you basically say it doesn't -- you know what other people do doesn't bother you, and wear whatever you want, call yourself whatever you want as I read it, and what he basically said was don't tell me to deny biological reality, am I describing that --

JON CALDARA, FORMER DENVER POST COLUMNIST: It's not even that. You can tell me not to deny but biological reality, but I'm rather libertarian. If you want to wear a dress, wear a dress.

CARLSON: Right.

CALDARA: I'm pro-gay marriage. I'm pro right to die. These things are your business. I believe the individual is sovereign. But that also means that I'm sovereign.

If you want to wear a dress, go for it. If you want to call yourself a woman, go for it. I will protect your rights. You deserve to be protected for that.

But in exchange, as a sovereign individual, you don't have control over my speech. And what I've found is if you don't use the speech that the pronoun police give you, you're going to lose your job.

CARLSON: So you knew that this was something that they have no sense of humor on. They've crushed other people for doing what you did. You did it anyway. Why did you think it was important?

CALDARA: It was actually a subsequent fact in a larger article. I was doing a piece on the Associated Press Style Book and for your viewers, that's the manual that writers and reporters use to make sure that their language is about the same and grammar is the same.

And I looked at it, I said, no, they're pushing an agenda through this book. Look at how they say you cannot say illegal alien, but you can say undocumented. When it said there are more than two sexes in the Style Book, obviously, they're making a judgment call that it is now pushing an agenda.

When they said that the word they is now a singular word, not a plural word, they're making a call.

So I was bringing a larger point about the AP pushing a leftist agenda, but I got in trouble for saying, no, I think there's only two sexes.

That doesn't mean there's more than only two sexual identities. You can to identify any way you want. But to say there are two sexes is now a hate crime, considered bigoted and can cost you your voice.

CARLSON: None of this sounds like journalism, which I was taught 30 years ago was the process of describing reality for readers or viewers. So why is the AP telling you something that is -- well, it's factually untrue, but it's also taking a side in a political debate. Why are they doing that?

CALDARA: You know, my job was an editorialist. I run the Independence Institute in Colorado at thinkfreedom.org. We're a think tank, but reporters are supposed to tell the truth.

CARLSON: Right.

CALDARA: But when they make the judgment that there are more than two sexes, think of the headline, the other week in "The Daily Mail," I think it was. It said, "Man gives birth to baby from woman's sperm," and it's two fibs in one headline. It's not accurate. So when it comes to science, we will say no to that because we need to push an agenda.

I think in my case, it was more of we don't want people to feel bad, and we don't want you to write in an insensitive manner. So you can say what you want to say. But you have to use your political opponent's words, when you say it. That's not having your say. That's thought control and speech control.

CARLSON: That's exactly right. You have to violate your conscience and lie in order to appease the demands of people you disagree with. When did those become the rules?

CALDARA: What's odd about this is it comes from a movement that claims to be pushing tolerance. It claims to be pushing diversity. You know, diversity to progressives today seems to be more about skin color and your genitals and your sexual identity than it is diversity of ideas and more importantly, diversity of speech.

You might talk in one word using all the pronouns that you want to use, I don't speak that way, and I believe people will benefit from hearing two different types of speech.

It's why my column was the most read column in "The Denver Post," which is a struggling newspaper. It makes little sense to can the most popular column there.

CARLSON: They fired you anyway. It makes me so grateful to work here where we can say what we think is true, and I just wish you the best. Thank you for your bravery and I hope in the end, you're rewarded for it. Thanks for coming on.

CALDARA: You too. Thank you for the attention.

CARLSON: Appreciate it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: The Trump administration has just announced new travel restrictions designed to stem the spread of coronavirus, but at CNN, the only question they're asking is, what's the skin color of the people making these rules? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: This is a Fox News Alert. The Trump administration has announced new travel restrictions meant to slow the spread of China's deadly coronavirus.

Foreign nationals who visited China since the virus began spreading are now banned from coming into this country. American citizens who visited the province where it started will be allowed back into the U.S. and will have to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Coronavirus, in other words is not a small thing. It's a big deal. Thousands of lives are at stake, maybe more.

But at CNN, not even human life outweighs identity politics, which is all important. A headline yesterday bemoaned that the President's Coronavirus Task Force is "another example the Trump administration's last of diversity."

Buck Sexton hosts "The Buck Sexton Show." We're happy to have him tonight. Buck, thanks for coming on. It's funny, I don't ever hear this complaint about Alzheimer's or cancer researchers. They're not diverse enough. Is that a concern too?

BUCK SEXTON, HOST, THE BUCK SEXTON SHOW: Well, this is just a reminder that CNN will take any opportunity, no matter how absurd to try and criticize this President, even when quite literally, there are lives at stake.

I mean, people are dying from this. It's a public health emergency. Risk is low right now in this country. But CNN can't miss this opportunity to take some shot at the President of the United States no matter what the damage is to its credibility.

I mean, we would like to think that when something like this, Tucker, the possibility of a pandemic comes up, maybe CNN could put aside it's pathological Trump derangement syndrome, but clearly they can't.

And, by the way, given what's happening right now, with the Senate trial, they're going to look for an opportunity to -- whether it's Trump's handling of this, how he talks about this. This is I think, very likely to become another angle of attack. How coronavirus is being handled by the Trump administration, irrespective of what he does.

CARLSON: So I just can't help but notice that the attack is a very specific kind of attack. I mean, they've been infected by their own virus, the virus of woke politics, which is brain destroying, and you're watching it happen to Elizabeth Warren. It happened to Beto O'Rourke who used to be kind of reasonable. Now, he is like floridly insane.

The idea that we have to care about the ethnicity of everyone and count people according to their DNA, and then we would like even notice what color are coronavirus researchers are -- like that's like insane.

SEXTON: Yes, well, this is the kind of the test that people will put out, sometimes. They'll say, half-jokingly, that if Trump cured cancer, CNN would run a story about his authoritarian tendencies in addressing public health crises.

I mean, and people say this, and they're joking, but then something like this comes up where it is really serious issue, and yet CNN still finds the most urgent thing, the virtue signaling of the identity politics and as you said, has infected the left. I mean, it really actually controls them. It's taken over the host now. It's not just a symptom of other issues.

CARLSON: It's unbelievable. Let me -- can I ask you a broader question about this? It occurred today. So maybe this is a warning about globalization. I mean, here's a virus in, you know, a faraway province in China that threatens us.

Maybe one of the reasons United States has thrived for all these years is that we are kind of physically distant from a lot of the rest of the world. Maybe that's not a bad thing necessarily, or always a bad thing. Could this challenge our views about how great a connected world is?

SEXTON: Well, certainly when you look at the transmission of pandemic disease stretching back for a long time, it's an issue that affects large cities much more than anything else.

I mean, you look at the explosive growth of cities, particularly in China, the amount of just human density on top of each other, and then the interconnectedness of flights, more flights today than any other time in human history. We're not ready for this.

And I would just add that the Davos sets spent so much time concerned about a 1.5 degree theoretical raise in the temperature over the next hundred years, and not things like this that in our great grandparents living memory killed 50 million people.

CARLSON: Yes.

SEXTON: I mean, this is actually really serious stuff, but they'd rather talk about climate change, and you know, get lectures by Greta Thunberg going all over the world. That's what we hear from that set of internationalists.

CARLSON: And the destruction of nature, which continues at a very brisk pace in China and India, throughout Asia. They're destroying nature. They're polluting the world, dumping garbage into the oceans, killing the fish.

Like, I don't -- nobody cares, because they're so obsessed with this climate.

SEXTON: Well, there's a political correctness concern here as well, Tucker, because when we start to talk about the handling of certain food and certain animals that are eaten in China, that's a real thing, but we're not supposed to talk about that here.

CARLSON: Yes, I don't care. You know, you shouldn't be eating bats. Okay. That's it. Call me what you want.

SEXTON: I would not.

CARLSON: No bat eating, okay?

SEXTON: Agree.

CARLSON: Great. A reasonable man, Buck Sexton. Great to see you tonight.

SEXTON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: No bats. Don't mistreat animals. Gosh. That's it for us tonight. Tune in every night, 8:00 p.m., the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.

Goodnight from Washington.

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