Democrats tell Howard Schultz to stay away from presidential ambitions

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," January 29, 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." One of the great secrets of Washington, something we don't tell anybody outside the city is that the only people who really benefit from the presidential primaries are the political consultants who work in them.

The candidates themselves almost always finished the experience sadder, poor and humiliated. The public, meanwhile hates the whole thing. They get to spend half a year tormented by the white noise of 30-second attack ads. Only the consultants really seem to enjoy themselves and why wouldn't they? They walk away rich. For them, it's a great deal. So they've got every incentive to recruit new suckers to the game.

The latest mark is a billionaire called Howard Schultz. He's the former CEO of Starbucks. A pair of slick consultant somehow convinced Howard Schultz that he could be President, so over the weekend, he announced he made it in the race. Here's the twist. Schultz who is an entirely conventional affluent Liberal said that he is not planning to run as a Democrat, but instead as an Independent.

Well, Democrats were horrified by this. "Boycott Starbucks" started trending on Twitter. Michael Bloomberg denounced Schultz. Some on the left were so angry, they screamed at Howard Schultz when he went in public. Watch what happened at a book event last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't help elect Trump. You egotistical billionaire [bleep]. Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter. Go back to Davos with the other billionaire elite who think they know how to run the world. That's not what democracy means.

[Booing]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, in fairness, the heckler did make some solid points. The last thing we need is another egomaniacal Davos moron running the country into the ground. If you sincerely thought Barack Obama did a great job as President, you'd probably be perfectly happy with Howard Schultz at the helm.

The problem is, nobody really thinks that Obama did a great job as President. They just all feel obligated to pretend he did. Nobody wants to be rude about it. And yet, Shultz's problems aren't really related to what he believes his political positions. His views are really indistinguishable from Nancy Pelosi's views.

Schultz's sin is running third party. That's a threat to the one thing that Democrats actually care about, and no, it's not fighting climate change or preserving a woman's right to choose or even protecting those noble undocumented migrants that are always lecturing you about. In the end, Democrats are pretty flexible and all of that stuff. They're just talking points. They're transactional bargaining chips to keep their coalition together, whatever.

What Democrats really want, what they're not kidding about, at all, is political power - the right to run things, the right to be in charge, power; and they want it so bad they can taste it. Poor hapless Howard Schultz and his overfunded midlife crisis just got in their way, so they have to crush him.

At least one Democrat was honest enough to admit this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN CASTRO, FORMER HUD SECRETARY: I have a concern that if he did run that essentially, it would provide Donald Trump with his best hope of getting reelected.

I would suggest to Mr. Schultz to truly think about the negative impact that that might make.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, the media we're watching and taking notes. Even now, you still hear people refer to the Press Corps as Liberal, but of course, they're not Liberal in any recognizable sense of the word. Genuine Liberals would welcome Howard Schultz into the race. More candidates, more opinions, more diversity of thought. May the best ideas win. That's what an actual Liberal would say. That's not with the media are saying. They're not Liberals. They're loyalists. They're party people.

Diligent worker bees toiling from the benefit of their Democratic Party masters, so of course they parroted the line precisely. Michelle Goldberg of the "New York Times" who embodies this called Schultz's run reckless idiocy. She didn't even mention his views about anything, she doesn't care, it's irrelevant. "The Daily Beast" all but accused Howard Schultz of racism because that often works as a line of attack, quote, "The Starbucks music store under Howard Schultz was painfully white," read a story today. Whatever it takes. And of course the dummies on TV news read their talking points faithfully. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He may run for President as an Independent. Democrats fearing he could help President Trump win reelection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats are easy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He could take away votes that would go to the Democratic nominee.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Democrats warn he could cost them the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Democrats fear that could be disastrous for whoever is the Democratic nominee.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats on the left are freaking out today about Howard Schultz trial ballooning. This is that if he were to split the anti-Trump vote, that's a conceivable path up the middle for Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, Trump might benefit. Well, there's another way to look at the Democratic hysteria over Howard Schultz getting in the race, and Mark Cuban, of all people summed it up pretty well today. Quote, "If 21 months before an election, you don't believe your candidate's platform is strong enough to win an election with independent candidates, you might want to rethink who you support."

Yes, you might want to do that. Maybe get some ideas that appeal to actual voters or something like that. The irony is that the very people who are the most upset about Howard Schultz entering the presidential race, are the very same ones who've been yelling at you about how vital democracy is and how they're the defenders of democracy, and yet somehow three candidates on a single ballot is just way too many for them.

You get the strong feeling they prefer to see just one candidate on the ballot. That way they'd win every time. Voters couldn't screw it up with their dumb opinions.

We've seen all of this before. Many times Ralph Nader went through it when he dared to run third party in 2000. Jill Stein experienced it when she ran in 2016 on the Green Party ticket. Remember that? They called her an agent of Russia for daring to do that. They never charged her for that crime, though. So she's free to join us tonight, and she is. Dr. Jill Stein with us now.

Dr. Stein, thanks very much for coming on. You'd think that the party of diversity would be for more diverse views, but they're not. Why is that?

JILL STEIN, FORMER GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I'm not sure it's actually the party of diversity. We've got two parties and they're both working for corporate masters and the fossil fuel giants and the big banks and Wall Street and war machine and so on. So that's not my opinion that that the Democrats are the party of diversity. But let me say, voters deserve more choices. And in the last election, we saw over a hundred million voters - the largest block of voters is not voting because they're not being represented by the system.

So we really do need more choices. We need non-corporate choices and people-powered choices. And we can have those choices without fear of splitting the vote. There is a win-win solution here. It's called ranked choice voting. The State of Maine just passed it. It's used by millions of voters around the country.

So it really makes obsolete this whole issue of the struggle between, "Well, can we have choices or do we have to force people into two pigeonholes --" the majority of voters, almost 60% of voters, they're saying that we need a new independent political party because they're tired of being thrown under the bus by the other two, whether we have Democrats or Republicans, it's not working out so well for everyday working people who --

CARLSON: Well, I think that's probably right.

STEIN: -- don't have healthcare. They're locked into debt and so on. We need more choices and we can have it, so let's not keep that a secret. We should require these elected to actually pass a simple reform, the State of Maine just did it. It's available to us right now. We can have it --

CARLSON: Well, I wonder, I mean --

STEIN: -- before the 2020 election.

CARLSON: I've followed that pretty closely because I'm interested in Maine. I'm not sure I understand ranked choice voting or many people in Maine understand it, but I wonder the broader question seems pretty --

STEIN: Well, they think they do.

CARLSON: And maybe they do and maybe I will if I studied harder, but the broader question of should you have --

STEIN: I think I could explain it to you real quick.

CARLSON: You could not. Trust me, I've tried. But here's the broader question, why do the media cooperate with this effort to shut down anybody who offers an actual choice to what we have? Why wouldn't they be open- minded enough to let the candidates speak of their piece, let voters decide and the system work the way it's supposed to? Why do they have to crush people, accuse them of being Russian agents, if they have a different view?

STEIN: Well, if they were doing their job - you know, their job is to educate voters, not to tell voters or to pigeonhole voters or to vilify voters for expressing their discontent with the two parties that have thrown them under the bus.

In the last election, we had two candidates who were the most disliked and untrusted in modern history and 75% of voters were screaming for open debates. They wanted to hear from the Libertarian and the Green. They wanted to hear a debate about, for example, our war machine which is going full speed ahead right now.

The last tax day, the average taxpayer gave over $3,500.00 practically to the war machine and $40.00 to the EPA. They give us clean air and water. How's that working out for us? Not so well.

CARLSON: So are you going run? Are you going to --

STEIN: This needs to be debated.

CARLSON: I think everything needs to be debated. I'm totally in. That's a place where we agree vehemently.

STEIN: Exactly.

CARLSON: Are you going to run again in 2020, do you think?

STEIN: I do not have any plans to run at this point? There's plenty else to do, and I feel like I've done my duty this time around. And it's time for someone else to carry that banner, but I'm certainly fighting for the cause of more voices and more choices in our political system.

CARLSON: I agree. I agree with that 100% and you're not a Russian agent if you think that. Dr. Jill Stein, thank you very much.

STEIN: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Bernard Whitman is a Democratic pollster. He worked with Bill Clinton; and the founder of Whitman Insight Strategies. Bernard, thanks very much for coming on.

BERNARD WHITMAN, FOUNDER, WHITMAN INSIGHT STRATEGIES: Thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So I don't understand or maybe I do understand, and that's why I'm offended, the reaction against Howard Schultz, who for the record, I think is dilettante and a buffoon and not what we need, I'm not endorsing Howard Schultz, but the idea that anybody who might threaten the party needs to be destroyed strikes me is kind of a Stalinist reaction, does it?

WHITMAN: Let's call it spade-to-spade. Howard Schultz has no experience, no platform, no constituency and no reason for running other than a pure vanity play. If he, as I take him at his word, is really a Democrat, he should toss his hat in the Democratic Primary process and I would welcome him and welcome that debate. I think everyone else would as well.

But let's explore why he's not doing that, because there's another guy in there named Michael Bloomberg who has far more experience, how has demonstrated a record of actually creating constituencies and moving agendas for, who has devoted years and years and years of blood, sweat, tears and money to progressive causes like climate change and like gun control, who was a mayor for 12 years of the largest and most diverse city in United States and he has a lot more money than Howard Schultz.

Howard Schultz is scared that Michael Bloomberg would get into the Democratic Primary and leave no room for him to operate, that's why.

CARLSON: Okay, so in other words, he's just the wrong billionaire. Okay, so let me just say, I don't think there's any doubt --

WHITMAN: He is the wrong candidate.

CARLSON: Okay, but I don't think there's any doubt about Howard Schultz's commitment to fashionable progressive politics. He turned his own stores into homeless shelters. So that's like the most authentic thing you can do, I think, to prove you're bona fide. You just don't like it because his getting in might hurt the party, and I wonder if voters might think like, "Who cares about your dumb party? What are the ideas you're proposing?" Do you see what I am saying? Maybe it should be about the issues and not the party.

WHITMAN: I think that's totally fair. So let me explain. Let me explain. I wish that the American political system were different, but it's not. Right now, there is no viable room for a third party candidate to run. I studied this extensively in 2012. Mike Bloomberg studied this extensively in 2016.

Ironically, the nation is so divided right now that at this point in time with President Trump in office, a vote for against President Trump needs to go to a candidate that actually has a chance of winning. There is no conceivable place for someone in the middle right now between the two parties. We are so divided that there's actually ironically no room left.

So get in the process. Get with one of the two political parties. Put your hat into the ring. Let's have an honest debate. The reason why this is so important, Democrats are so upset about it is, the future of the country is at stake. The future the climate, the future of the country, the future of the environment, the future the economy, the future of undocumented workers.

CARLSON: That's all bogus - I mean that's totally bogus.

WHITMAN: It's not, it's true.

CARLSON: Look, so just said, Democrats are upset that Schultz is trying to buy the office, right? He's a billionaire.

WHITMAN: No, they're upset because he's going to be a spoiler.

CARLSON: We don't need more billionaires. No, but hold on, you've heard people attack him as a billionaire, but it would be totally cool if Michael Bloomberg bought the office as long as he was a Democrat.

WHITMAN: I don't mind he's a billionaire. I don't mind he's a billionaire at all. I think running on a record of business success is perfectly fine, but running the system that we have, don't try to spoil the system on a vanity play. There is no conceivable route for him to win.

CARLSON: How is this system working? Okay, so people said that about - I mean, just to play devil's advocate here, and maybe you're right. I mean, I don't think he can win. I agree with you there. But then no one thought Trump could win. Unexpected things can happen. People are deeply dissatisfied with the parties --

WHITMAN: You know what? Nobody thought Trump could win. Anyone who is actually paying attention realize, once you have the chance of winning the Republican Primary, he has a 50/50 shot at being President. Let's do the math. Just listen to me for once. Listen do the math. Let's say he runs, Schultz runs as an independent. There are at least a hundred electoral votes who would definitely go from Liberal states like California, like New York for the Democrat. There at least 175, 180 electoral votes who go from hardcore southern states, right-wing states in the west and the south. That's over 280 votes.

There's no room left. That would mean that no one got a majority. No one was able to get a majority in the Electoral College and now it would be passed to the House of Representatives. Does anyone really think that the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives is going to vote to elect Howard Schultz? There's no math that allows Howard Schultz to become President.

CARLSON: So very quickly, I do have one last math question, super quick since you've worked in politics. The two consultants - well, I know them both - one a Republican, one a Democrat who convinced poor Howard Schultz to live out his midlife crisis by running for President. How much you think they're going to walk away with? Conservative estimate.

WHITMAN: You know what? I'm all for business. I hope they walk away with as much money as they possibly can make and the only real winners are going to be Steve Schmidt and the other --

CARLSON: Bill Burton.

WHITMAN: Bill Burton. I am sure they're great guys and more success to them.

CARLSON: They're rich guys for sure. It's unbelievable what a scam this all is. Bernard, thank you very much. Great to see you.

WHITMAN: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris wants a vastly expanded welfare state. But here's the interesting part. She also opposes border security. Can you have open borders and free stuff? How long will that last? That's after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well Kamara Harris just became a senator from California, it seems like about 20 minutes ago. Already, she's running for President. The cycle gets shorter every year and she's fighting hard to stake a claim as the party's top left candidate. On healthcare, Harris is backing Medicare For All, for example.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIF.: What I actually feel very strongly about this is that we need to have Medicare for All. That's just the bottom line.

Access to healthcare is a - it should not be thought of as a privilege, it should be understood to be right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: A right. Okay. That's a case she could make. But here's the interesting part, Harris also opposes a border wall and has denounced ICE, the border enforcement agents, the government workers as a modern day KKK. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD VITIELLO, ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: The Klan was what we would call today a domestic terrorist group.

HARRIS: Why? Why would we call them a domestic terrorist group?

VITIELLO: Because they've tried to use fear and force to change political environment.

HARRIS: And what was the motivation for the use of fear and force?

VITIELLO: It was based on race and ethnicity.

HARRIS: Right. Are you aware of the perception of many about how the power and the discretion that ICE is being used to enforce the laws? And do you see any parallels?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So Senator Harris does not want to vigorously enforce American Immigration Law, so how does that work? Think about it for just one second. Harris argues and many Democrats agree with her that free medical care for everyone who lives here is a human right. It's mandatory. Government has to provide it.

But if you don't control immigration into the country, why wouldn't half the planet move to the United States to get free MRIs et cetera? Why is it the middle class's burden in the United States to finance a welfare state for the rest of the planet?

Jonathan Harris is a Democratic political commentator. He seems like a good man to ask. He joins us tonight. Mr. Harris, thanks very much for coming on.

JONATHAN HARRIS, DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL COMMENATOR: Thank you for having me.

CARLSON: So this seems to me the fundamental tension in the position that the left is taking basically universally right now that we need to radically expand the welfare state, a lot of support for that. Medicaid For All, Medicare For All and universal pre-kindergarten et cetera. Overall, majority Democrats supports it. A lot of Republican support it. How can you pay for those programs if you don't close the borders?

J. HARRIS: Well, I mean there's various ways you can pay for it. You can increase taxes. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70% tax over $10 million, when you make over $10 million everything after that; not your entire income. You can raise taxes. You can cut spending in other places.

But I think, when you have - our military budget is what? $716 billion, almost a trillion dollars, I think.

CARLSON: Sure.

J. HARRIS: If you can a lot that much money to send your military all over the world, but you can't take care of the health of your citizens, it says something about your priorities, absolutely.

CARLSON: Sure, sure but what - and that's a case you could make. But what you can't argue is that a program that generous can be applied to say 50 million or 100 million new people, poor people coming in. So if you say to the rest of the world, "Hey, we're giving away free medical care to anybody who's within our borders right now, and we're not enforcing our borders," which is the space where we are right now.

J. HARRIS: But see that's - I think that's a problem I would have that argument. There's nothing to say that we're not enforcing our borders. Being against the wall, which is - would only take care of a third of our illegal immigration does not mean you don't want to support our borders. That's incorrect.

CARLSON: Let's see, we have over 20 million people living here now illegally, so if you -- and they got here a bunch of different ways. Some overstayed visas, some came across the border.

J. HARRIS: A majority of them are people overstaying their visas.

CARLSON: Yes, okay, but the bottom line is, you've got over 20 million of them. And so it's clearly pretty easy to get into the country illegally by whatever means, and Democrats don't want to make it harder. But they also want to offer --

J. HARRIS: Absolutely, that's the issue. They absolutely want to make it harder.

CARLSON: Really? By doing that?

J. HARRIS: All of the Democrats - but all of the Democrats have talked about it --

CARLSON: No, they don't. I mean, what's --

J. HARRIS: They have. They have absolutely --

CARLSON: Come on, let's be honest.

J. HARRIS: Just saying you don't want to spend $6 billion on a wall doesn't mean you don't want to --

CARLSON: But they don't have - look, they have a bill pending right now --

J. HARRIS: They talked about increasing --

CARLSON: -- that has the Democratic bill in the House and the Senate.

J. HARRIS: Right.

CARLSON: We know, we covered it last week, has no new funding or ideas for restricting immigration into the country.

J. HARRIS: But it does --

CARLSON: So how does the math work?

J. HARRIS: But to say that it has no new funding is different than saying that it doesn't sound any funding.

CARLSON: Well, it's not working now. So do the same --

J. HARRIS: It has billions - no, but it has billions of dollars of funding, and Democrats have talked about ways of doing surveillance and things like that to actually take care of our illegal immigration problem.

CARLSON: Okay, but Jonathan, well, you just acknowledged that this is a problem. If you're saying - because we have the internet now so the like the rest of world sort of knows what your policies are, right?

J. HARRIS: What we're doing, right?

CARLSON: And if you're saying to the rest of the world, "We welcome you," which is what Democrats have said explicitly, "We welcome you. The Statue of Liberty commands us to welcome you."

J. HARRIS: Reagan gave them amnesty, so I don't think it was just Democrats. I don't think it was just Democrats.

CARLSON: He did. He shouldn't have, but that's right now --

J. HARRIS: I can't remember Democrats giving out amnesty.

CARLSON: And as long as you're here, legal or not, we're going to give you free healthcare, then which is what Gavin Newsom and Bill de Blasio -- biggest state, biggest city -- just announced this.

J. HARRIS: But in California, what they're doing is they're giving getting healthcare to illegal immigrants that are up to 26. It's not just blanket illegal immigrants.

CARLSON: Just saying, do you see the incentive that you're creating --

J. HARRIS: Of course, I see the incentive.

CARLSON: -- and can we really afford this? And answer is, it's freaking insane, and you know it.

J. HARRIS: Right, but I see the incentive. I would just say that we're the only industrialized nation in the world that does not offer universal healthcare.

CARLSON: But the question is not --

J. HARRIS: They all - no, but --

CARLSON: I get it. I get it.

J. HARRIS: They all have illegal immigrants, all of them.

CARLSON: I am not arguing, but I am not - no, not on the scale that we do. I am not aware of any industrialized country that has over 20 million people with within its borders illegally and it's asking for more.

J. HARRIS: Are we just uniquely incapable of providing universal healthcare, is that what it is?

CARLSON: To the world? To the world?

J. HARRIS: Not to the world. Just --

CARLSON: Yes. No.

J. HARRIS: Kamala Harris is advocating for healthcare for American, that's what she says.

CARLSON: No, she's not.

J. HARRIS: She said that repeatedly.

CARLSON: That's not true. She has said that universal healthcare should apply to people here illegally.

J. HARRIS: Medicare for all his healthcare for Americans. That's what she's advocating.

CARLSON: That's not true. That is absolutely not true.

J. HARRIS: If we consider the trillion dollars on our military, we can do it.

CARLSON: If it's just for Americans, maybe you could win me over, but it's not.

J. HARRIS: Sure.

CARLSON: Mr. Harris, thank you very much.

J. HARRIS: Thank you.

CARLSON: Good to see you.

J. HARRIS: Good to see you.

CARLSON: Tammy Bruce is the President of the Independent Women's Voice and she joins us tonight. So, Tammy that is - I don't think anyone has explored this basic tension. You have two ideas on a collision course with each other -- open borders, welfare state -- you can have one, you can have the other. You cannot have them both.

TAMMY BRUCE, PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S VOICE: Right. And we've already seen - and when we think about what the Democrats are planning to do, we've seen this in California with Governor Gavin Newsom announcing that they already had Obamacare open for illegal aliens. And then he announced that it would apply to everyone in the state, regardless of whether you were there legally or not.

And then, of course, the mayor of New York doing the same thing, making the same proposal. That one would stretch out over and apply effectively to 2021 and apply to everyone, of course, conveniently just after the 2020 election.

So they're campaigning on this. It's a big campaign dynamic. But it's California and New York saying exactly the same thing that there should be universal healthcare and it should apply to whoever is in our borders.

Now, that is impossible, and it would - and you can look at, we can use historically, not just Venezuela, but you can look at even as controlled socialist framework like this destroy civilizations. It destroys cultures. It destroys countries.

And it does so because it's unsustainable, and yet the left has nothing else to offer. So what they do is they promise free things, they print out more money. You've got like in Venezuela, I think the inflation rate at this point is 80,000%. And it's unsustainable.

So when Kamala Harris says this, and she said it in that clip, that it's a human right. Now, when you're saying that, this then presumes that the supply of it, the presenting of healthcare, if it's a human right, then it means if you choose to not give people that healthcare as a doctor, as an individual, you then are violating those people's human rights.

So it comes down into quite a totalitarian framework about what the government is going to tell people to do and what it says they deserve.

CARLSON: Well, so you're - quickly, if you're a Democratic candidate, why wouldn't you just say, "I want to be as generous as we can with our people, with American citizens. They come first, and I've got all kinds of pie in the sky crazy socialist ideas, but I'm going to focus on just on Americans." Why wouldn't they do that?

BRUCE: Well, because part of it, of course, is this notion of already who was here. They imagine those individuals eventually voting. They want to encourage the influx in; part of that is because of course, it's political.

You've got the number of people who are in the House of Representatives are based on the population of the state. So the more people that move in, whether they be citizens or not, equates to maybe more members of the House of Representatives.

So it has a number of fronts to it, but it appeals to the far left part of the base. And so it's about the politics abandoning any kind of normal sensibility for the American people. But most of all, what I don't like the most, Tucker, is that they're lying to people about what's possible.

CARLSON: They're totally lying. That's exactly.

BRUCE: And what the end result will be, and that is what all of us should reject.

CARLSON: You're exactly right. Tammy Bruce, great to see you.

BRUCE: Sure.

CARLSON: Democratic donors and lawmakers are suddenly talking a lot about impeachment. Will they do it? After the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, if you've been paying any attention recently, you know there's something of a religious revival underway in the Democratic Party. Policies they oppose are no longer simply unworkable or unwise or too expensive or stupid. No. They're now immoral. And God Himself agrees he's endorsed the Democratic platform and this is especially true of walls.

"Walls are wrong," Democrats tell us. Every brick is wicked. Every drop of mortar suffused with evil. Building a wall is like robbing a widow or beating a child. It's a mortal sin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: A wall is an immorality. It's not who we are as a nation. It's an old way of thinking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hate the wall. I think it's immoral. I think it's wasteful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we a country that puts a wall between ourselves and an allied nation? A wall is an immoral symbol for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, that couldn't be clear. But wait, there's a caveat. There always is. Some walls are not evil at all. Some walls are necessary and good. So for those of you keeping track of the theology at home, we offer you now a brief tour of walls the Democratic Party has deemed perfectly moral. Walls that have received an indulgence.

We begin with border barriers in Tunisia and Jordan. Democrats voted to pay for those walls, so obviously, they're okay. Israel has walls, too, everywhere basically protecting its borders with Egypt and Gaza and the West Bank and Democrats won't criticize those walls.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has a massive fence, a wall really on its border with Afghanistan. It's designed to combat smuggling, terrorism and illegal immigration, and yet, Pakistan still gets plenty of American aid, so that wall is fine, too.

Even peaceful Denmark has a wall it turns out. It's 43 miles long. It's on the German border. It's meant to keep pigs out, so it passes the morality test.

Here in the U.S., it turns out we have plenty of moral walls, too. Just this Sunday, Kamala Harris announced her campaign for President for security. Huge swathes of the streets of Oakland, California were blocked, walled off, you might say with her own security at stake. Senator Harris had no problem with this. They were moral walls and there are many more moral walls.

Benny Johnson of "The Daily Caller" has set out across America to find more of them. And as you might have guessed, a huge number of the most moral walls we have protect the homes of Democratic donors. Here's a selection of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENNY JOHNSON, JOURNALIST, THE DAILY CALLER (voice over): This wall belongs to Jimmy Kimmel.

JOHNSON (on camera): This is magnificent and it belongs to one of my favorite anti-Trump comedians, Chelsea Handler.

We have a barbed wire wall behind us, Rob Reiner.

LeBron chooses to protect his castle like a king with a big ol' wall.

George Soros's own personal Great Wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: That's quite a list and there are more, but it's not surprising. The more you think about it, there really is only one immoral wall on earth. No, it's not in China. The Chinese are highly moral as Dianne Feinstein know. The immoral wall is the proposed wall on our southern border, the one that might keep future Democratic voters out. And for that reason alone, it's immoral.

Well, since that one big wall is so immoral, Democrats badly want to impeach Trump for the sin of wanting to build it. Billionaire activist, Tom Steyer has held a special town hall where he's stoked his acolytes to seek impeachment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM STEYER, BILLIONAIRE LIBERAL ACTIVIST: It never struck most people growing up in this country that the biggest threat to this country would be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But it is.

This is a dangerous, reckless and the lawless man.

We need to start impeachment today and we need to tell the Congress they need to start impeachment today.

(Cheering and Applause)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, another woke billionaire. When did rich people get so radical? I love it. It's hilarious. Meanwhile, Maxine Waters says she has no actual proof, but she knows in her gut that the President's campaign was run by Russia all along.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAXINE WATERS, D-CALIF.: I believe and I don't have the proof, but I believe that Manafort was sent to the campaign to be there to ensure that they get Trump elected in every way that they possibly could.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Jon Summers is a former Communications Director for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and he joins us tonight. Mr. Summers, you know, I've got to say, I'm being honest. I'm kind of for impeachment now. It's preferable to this. Nobody raids anybody else's house. There are no guns involved. There are no wild unprovable charges. It's a very straightforward process. We can watch it on television and voters can assess whether they agree or not. Why wouldn't we do impeachment at this point?

JON SUMMERS, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR SENATOR HARRY REID: It's not the priority. We don't have the evidence that we need to have. So what we need is for Mueller to complete his investigation. Let's get that evidence in and then make an informed decision. Impeachment shouldn't be done on the basis of politics and it should not be done on the basis of politics. It should be based on the evidence and what's best for the country. That's how our - how the Constitutional framers intended.

CARLSON: But wait a second. Wait a second. Yes, well, I agree. Of course, I agree with you. And I'm being half facetious, but only half. I mean, I watched Nancy Pelosi yesterday say that she knows that Russia has something on Donald Trump. He is the pawn of a hostile foreign power. If that's not a high crime or misdemeanor, I'm not sure what is.

I just watched Maxine Waters who I believe chairs a committee in the House of Representatives saying that Trump is a tool of Putin. So why wouldn't you impeach on the basis of that?

SUMMERS: Well, because you need evidence, right? So if you were to compare impeachment to sort of our criminal system, it's like an indictment.

CARLSON: Wait a minute, if they don't have the evidence, if the Speaker of the House doesn't have evidence, why is she saying it?

SUMMERS: Well, I didn't say that we shouldn't be going out there, propping up - you know, conspiracy theories and that sort of thing. I think that that doesn't add a whole lot to the discourse. The Maxine Waters clip isn't one of my favorite clips at all. We need evidence. We don't need conspiracy theories or gut feelings. We need evidence. And then if that evidence exists, take that to the House and then start that impeachment process.

CARLSON: But wait a second. So Maxine Waters is a bit of a ringer because even though she's a committee chair, she's obviously an outlier. No one really takes her seriously in Washington, but Nancy Pelosi is third in line to the presidency. She is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. She's the most powerful Democrat in the world and she's accusing Trump of being a Russian agent. Shouldn't other Democrats say, "Wait a second. That's irresponsible. You don't have evidence. You shouldn't say that." Why does nobody correct her?

SUMMERS: Well, I think we need to just wait for the evidence to come out from the Mueller investigation.

CARLSON: Are you afraid of criticizing Nancy Pelosi? I know everyone is terrified by Nancy Pelosi.

SUMMERS: No, I think I just talked about how it doesn't do a whole lot of good to prop up conspiracy theories. So if she's got more information, then that'd be great to have. But I don't know that she has that. So let's actually see what comes out of the Mueller investigation.

CARLSON: So this is why in the end, I'm for impeachment because everybody gets to stop posturing and we can watch it on television. It's totally --

SUMMERS: Oh absolutely, no posturing during an impeachment proceeding.

CARLSON: No, but I mean, I am just saying, you have to prove it, you know, in the end.

SUMMERS: I think you might be for impeachment because you saw what it did to the Republicans in the 90s.

CARLSON: I did, they --

SUMMERS: They hurt them very badly and so you're hoping --

CARLSON: They overreached and in the 90s, Democrats had no - in the end, this is really about a guy's sex life and you know what? They were right. And in the end, this Russia thing is insane. It's a truth or conspiracy. And that's true. And history will show that and I think impeachment will hasten the process of making that clear.

SUMMERS: I hope history shows that there is no collusion.

CARLSON: I hope not.

SUMMERS: I really do hope that.

CARLSON: Whew. Mr. Summers, thank you very much for joining us. Great to see you.

SUMMERS: You bet.

CARLSON: A little news for you. After more than a year, the FBI has closed its investigation into the horrifying shooting in Las Vegas in 2017. It was the deadliest killing spree in the history of this country.

The findings have nothing really new. The FBI says the shooter, Steven Paddock acted alone. He had no ties to an extremist group and he had no clear motive except for a vague desire for infamy. Vegas police, meanwhile, wrapped up their investigation a long time ago, and at this point, it looks like we may never know why Paddock did what he did.

But the FBI has given up and you can't really blame them. They had much more important things to do like raiding the homes of unarmed perjury defendants in the Mueller probe. They know where the real threats are.

Well, Tom Brokaw being destroyed today by the left for calling on people in this country to speak English. What did he say that? That's after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Tom Brokaw was long one of the most respected men in America. He anchored the "NBC Nightly News" for 22 years. He's 78 years old now. He ought to be enjoying a happy retirement, fly fishing every morning. Instead, Tom Brokaw just made a terrible mistake. He expressed an unauthorized opinion in public. Can't do that.

During a live television show, Brokaw said that assimilation is good and that immigrants should try to learn English.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM BROKAW, FORMER HOST OF NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That's one of the things I've been saying for a long time. You know, that they ought not to be just codified in their communities, but make sure that all of their kids are learning to speak English and that they feel comfortable in their communities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, not so long ago, those words would have passed pretty much unnoticed. Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barbara Jordan said it all the time and if you don't believe it, go to Google right now and look up Barbara Jordan on immigration. Whoa.

And they said it for a pretty simple reason, English unites the country, obviously, and now around the world, it is also the language of business and science and culture. It's clearly a good thing for everyone in America -- immigrant or not -- to learn English as quickly as possible, but no, you're not allowed to have that opinion anymore even if you're Tom Brokaw.

So the activist group Latino Victory, whatever that is, accused Brokaw of quote unquote "white supremacist ideology." An NYU journalism professor called Carolina Moreno announced that actually, it's Americans job to quote "try harder to assimilate into a global society." And then some kid at Vox called Dylan Matthews suggest that Brokaw with sympathetic to quote "pure racial animus."

Even after Brokaw apologize profusely, the cowards on his old show over at NBC denounced him for his thought crime. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A former long-time anchor of this broadcast is in the news tonight for comments he made Sunday on "Meet The Press." The criticism was widespread and almost immediate.

STEPHANIE GOST, ANCHOR, NBC NEWS: Lester tonight, an NBC News spokesman tells me quote, "Tom's comments were inaccurate and inappropriate. And we're glad he apologized."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, he'll be getting paid a lot at NBC to say stuff like this. John Daniel Davidson is a senior correspondent at "The Federalist," and he joins us tonight. So John, look, my bottom line hope is that you could live in a country where you could have a conversation about assimilation in English, and whether or not they're important.

The response to Tom Brokaw makes it absolutely impossible for any decent person to have any opinion on this at all, and it makes it impossible to solve our problems if we can't have a conversation about it.

JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, THE FEDERALIST: Well, exactly. It's like you say, it used to be an unremarkable thing to talk about the melting pot as an American ideal. The idea that from many, we are one and we come together from all different countries, all different backgrounds and we become Americans.

And of course, language is one of the things that binds us together as a as Americans. But there are other things that bind us together as Americans, too. And that's not to say that because we have a melting pot that you have to abandon all aspects of your own culture. Those cultural aspects feed into the American life and the American culture that we have and make it richer and make it better and that shouldn't be controversial, and it shouldn't be scandalous to suggest that learning English is part of assimilating and it's part of what immigrants should strive for.

There's nothing controversial about that and there should have been nothing controversial about what Tom Brokaw said.

CARLSON: Of course not and you'd think Brokaw out who is a Liberal by the way would be given the benefit of the doubt, but he was ceremonially slayed instead. But I wonder if the people pushing this - and by the way, nobody is pushing for anyone to give up their own culture or their identity. That's insane. Only to participate in a common identity, which is not a racial category. It's a culture that binds us together as Americans from different backgrounds and races and religions. But what do we have in common is the question. Why is there such an organized caucus against having anything in common? What is that?

DAVIDSON: Well, for the left, the whole idea of assimilation cuts against the idea of identity politics. Identity politics necessitates that everybody's kind of stay in their lane and keep their racial or ethnic identity as the number one most important thing about them.

And to the extent that you view assimilation as a positive thing, as a good thing, as something that helps immigrant communities get ahead economically or achieve more in terms of education. It's to be viewed as a negative thing. They want to hold on to discrete identities and not assimilate and this is the opposite for example of what we see in Europe, where you have massive numbers of unassimilated immigrant communities, especially Muslim communities that have fared very poorly in European countries partly because they don't adopt the cultural norms, they don't adopt languages. They don't achieve highly in education and in business in Europe, and they stay in these sort of segregated enclaves.

That is the opposite of what we want for this country, but that seems to be what the left would like in terms of what their identity politics dictates for us.

CARLSON: Maybe keeping people poor and helpless and atomized helps them rule more efficiently. Just a thought, just kind of throwing that out there, John. Hey, we're out of time. It was great to see you. I'm sorry to cut you short. Thank you.

Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy, one of the heroes to the show was just kicked out of the Super Bowl Media Day. Expelled. Threatened. There he is right there. He'll join us after the break to tell us why?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the past couple of weeks have been pretty awful for American journalists. Hundreds of reporters and editors at places like "Huffington Post" and BuzzFeed lost their jobs, victims of systemic changes to their industry. No matter what you think those sites, it's sad. Anyone who has lost his job knows, it's very tough.

Now those journalists suddenly have a lot in common with millions of other Americans -- factory workers, loggers, retail clerks, coal miners -- all of them and many more have seen their way of life disappear, thanks to technology or outsourcing or private equity. This kind of thing has been going on a long time.

Now in previous cycles, what we used to call creative destruction, journalists had ready advice for newly unemployed blue collar workers. Just learn to code. Coding is the future. Stop whining and embrace it. Here's a selection of headlines you might remember on that subject.

This one is from NPR, "From Coal to Code: A new path for laid off miners in Kentucky." From "Wired," the tech evangelist magazine. "Can you teach a coal miner to code?" From CBS News, "Out of work coal miners find new work in computer industry." And this from Bloomberg, "Appalachian miners are learning to code." And from the venerable "New York Times" "The coders of Kentucky."

See, it's that simple. Let's say you spent 30 years making a solid middle class living in a paper mill in northern New Hampshire. Then one day, the mill shuts down, sold for scrap to China. It happened a lot, but no problem. Just learn to code. Everyone in Brooklyn is doing it.

Well, coding was never a real solution to any of this, obviously, but it had the effect of making journalists feel even more self-satisfied, and of course, that was the point, it's always the point actually.

Fast forward to this month. Someone on Twitter came up with a pretty brilliant piece of advice for all those laid off journalists trying to figure out what to do with their lives. Learn to code. Perfect. Suddenly "learn to code" was everywhere on Twitter. But journalists didn't see the humor in this at all.

A former "New Yorker" employed called Talia Lavin called the phrase quote, "Far right hate. People who went to Wesleyan shouldn't have to learn to code so they can play into the censorship authorities at Twitter," who immediately concluded that asking someone to learn to code might be quote, "targeted harassment." But only when it's directed at people who used to work at BuzzFeed. For the paper mill guy in New Hampshire, coding is still the future.

Well, Barstool Sports, probably the best set in the internet, Dave Portnoy runs it and he has become a scourge of the modern NFL. The NFL does not appreciate that. They have banned Barstool from all NFL events for years, and that includes the Super Bowls Media Day.

So last night, Portnoy snuck into the Media Day event anyway, but he was spotted and kicked out and charged with criminal trespassing. Dave Portnoy, fresh from prison apparently joins us now to tell us what it was like. How did you wind up charged with criminal trespassing? I thought you were a legitimate website operator?

DAVE PORTNOY, FOUNDER, BARSTOOL SPORTS: Yes, well, we are but when you challenge authority, you need to challenge Roger Goodell, it generally ends up with a lecture, sometimes behind bars, sometimes with police officers.

In this case we had 10 guys that looked like they work for the FBI with little NFL lapel pins thinking they're the toughest guys in the universe trying to rough me up.

CARLSON: I mean, well, I'll ask you two questions. First is why do they hate you so much?

PORTNOY: Oh they hate me because of Deflategate. I support Tom Brady. I'm one of the few people that challenges Roger Goodell's power which is absolute and if you disagree with Roger Goodell, it's like the old Gestapo, you end up in the bottom of a well somewhere. That's how he operate, but we continue to challenge him and he continues to try to shut us down.

CARLSON: So you're disobedient. That's your crime? Okay. That was my first question. Second question is, how dumb is Roger Goodell? So if you're going to arrest somebody, hassle somebody, you probably shouldn't make that person the head of Barstool Sports. It actually isn't smart PR is it?

PORTNY: He's one of the dumbest humans that has ever left. He's a rock. He has no brain. It's like an old Atari game just bouncing back and forth. There is no win for when you hassle us. There is no win.

If you put cuffs on us so we go to jail, it's a national media story. They knew that. Once they escorted us out, they were like, "Now what are we going to do with this guy?" He probably wants to go to jail, because he will be on every newspaper in the cover.

And the police officers who were down there and the SWAT teams, when they hear why I am being detained, they can't believe it and they're talking to the NFL like, "You are really wasting our time with this guy," and the NFL and all of these suits are saying, "We've got to prosecute him. We've got to prosecute him."

So Roger Goodell - if he just said, "Hey, here's your credentials." It's a non-story. But he's so stupid. He's just the stupidest leader that we've ever encountered. It's really embarrassing.

CARLSON: So Roger Goodell is a mouth breather. I think you've made a pretty compelling case for that. And yet, and this is a serious economic question, how much does he make?

PORTNOY: Forty million dollars a year. It's enough to make you puke.

CARLSON: Wait, wait. So how can an economy support - how can an economy be so vibrant that a dumb person makes 40 million a year? How does that work, Dave Portnoy?

PORTNOY: Well, the owners, all the owners, this guy was brought through the system. His father, and he was in the NFL system forever, so he got this cushy job that probably 50% of Americans can do.

He has the least skills for the highest paying job of any human whoever lived, but the owners don't want to screw up the money train. The money is coming in despite this guy because we love football, but all he does is cause controversy. An ant could do his job. Literally.

CARLSON: Dave Portnoy, not only El Presidente, editor-in-chief of Barstool Sports, but now a freedom fighter. I'm so glad you're breathing fresh air tonight. Dave Portnoy, great to see you.

PORTNOY: Somebody has got to fight for the little people, Tucker.

CARLSON: That's the spirit. The best. What a fun hour that was. We will be back tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. "Unchanged" will be our mandate. We're the sworn enemy of lying pomposity, smugness and group think, and if you don't watch it live, it's an inconvenient hour, we dare you to figure out your DVR. Good luck with that.

We have some good news, one small piece of breaking good news at the end of our show. Sean Hannity's standing by live in New York tonight.

Content and Programming Copyright 2019 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2019 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.