NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio spent only 7 hours at city hall in May

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NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio spent only 7 hours at city hall in May

City Journal associate editor Seth Barron on de Blasio barely working as mayor of New York City while on the 2020 presidential campaign trail.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," September 3, 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.” Hurricane Dorian has left a trail of devastation in the Bahamas. Pictures on the screen right now. At least five people have died. That number may go up dramatically as we get details.

Now that same storm is headed up the East Coast of the United States. We're monitoring its progress and we'll keep you updated throughout the hour, of course.

But first tonight, tragedies have a way of revealing who people really are. The decent ones rise to the moment, hard as it is. They bring clarity and comfort and solutions. The low ones, by contrast, see sadness as a business opportunity. They're happy to leverage the suffering of others, in order to increase their own power.

Ghouls goals like that thrive in the aftermath of mass shootings like the one we've recently seen in El Paso, Dayton and now Odessa, Texas. Beto O'Rourke, for example, wasted not a single moment for rushing onto a television set and sneering at other people's prayers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The thoughts and prayers that you just referred to, it has done nothing to stop the epidemic of gun violence.

We're averaging about 300 mass shootings a year. No other country comes close. So yes, this is [bleep] up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Wow, catch that? Beto used the F-word on live television. How unbelievably cool is that? He's like a jazz musician from the 50s giving the finger to the man.

If you're someone who finds that hip and appealing, well, you're in luck tonight. For just 30 bucks, you can buy a "This is so F'ed up" t-shirt direct from Beto's campaign. The shirt actually spells out the word, so all your 19-year-old buddies in Brooklyn will know you're as cool as Beto is, wear your Wayfarers when you wear it. Don't forget not to shave.

But Beto is not stopping there with t-shirts and profanity. He has got ideas on how to stop mass shootings. They begin in end with banning guns. Will it work? Well, we don't have to guess, we know the answer, because we've tried it before under Bill Clinton. Remember, the assault weapons ban that was in place for 10 years?

It had precisely zero effect on rates of violence in this country. It's not an opinion. It's not a defense to the Second Amendment. It's a fact. It's been studied extensively, including by the Clinton administration.

Beto hasn't read those studies though. He is not interested in what they say. He is going to confiscate firearms from tens of millions of law- abiding Americans, whether it works or not, and he doesn't care what you think about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: How do you address the fears if the government is going to take away those assault rifles -- if you are talking about buybacks and banning?

O'ROURKE: Yes, so I want to be really clear that that's exactly what we're going to do. American who own AR-15s, AK-47s will have to sell them to the government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: They will have to sell them to the government. Now, you will hear propagandas, and you often do hear propagandas. It's described that as a gun buyback. That's nonsense, of course. Americans didn't buy their guns from the government in the first place. They are not buying them back. This is gun confiscation. It's nothing but that. It's an attempt to eliminate a constitutional right that a ruling class finds inconvenient. It won't reduce gun violence.

In fact, sending armed authorities door-to-door to seize people's lawfully owned weapons is itself a surefire recipe for causing violence. So if you cared about America, and the people who live here, you would not suggest that. But they don't hesitate. Bill de Blasio has endorsed forcible gun seizures, so has Elizabeth Warren.

Over the weekend in Iowa, Joe Biden proposed banning not simply so-called assault weapons, but apparently every firearm capable of firing more than one round.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The idea that we don't have the elimination of assault type weapons, magazines that can hold multiple bullets in them is absolutely mindless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, mindless. That's the perfect word for what you just heard. Serious people don't talk like that. Mass shootings ought to be an alarm that awaken the rest of us to the emergency -- the real emergency -- unfolding at the center of our culture. Why is this happening? How did nihilism and violence and rage and loneliness become regular features of American life? Something is fundamentally wrong. What is it? And critically, is materialism, enough to fix it?

Those are the metaphysical questions we ought to be thinking about deeply, seriously and debating every time some lunatic shoots up a public place, but that's not what we get. Instead, we get mediocrities like Beto and Elizabeth Warren screaming at rural America about how they're the problem and they need to give up their ancient rights or else.

We deserve much better than that. We need much more than that. Ryan Cleckner is a firearms attorney and former Army Ranger and he joins us tonight. Ryan, thanks a lot for coming on.

So this is something we've been talking about for quite some time. Assess the specifics before we get to the general. Joe Biden has said in the clip we just played, that any magazine that holds more than a single round, ought to be banned, and it's crazy not to.

RYAN I'm hoping this is just another Joe Biden gaffe that he just has no idea what he is talking about. Because I don't know of a single magazine, Tucker, that doesn't hold more than one round of ammunition. If he means what he says, and he actually knows what he is talking about, then you're right, he is talking about banning every single gun out there that accepts the magazine.

CARLSON: So the scale of this, I mean, I think we should put this into some perspective. The scale of this is enormous, like there are millions upon millions, tens of millions of firearms and potentially up to a billion magazines that fall under the banned categories as described by these candidates. What would it look like for the government to take them away?

CLECKNER: Take them away? I'm glad you said "Take them away" because Beto O'Rourke is saying he is going to buy them back like the government owned them in the first place, they have some right to buy them back.

But what I hear when he says that is, "I'm going to come door-to-door and take your guns from you, and I'm going to bring my guns because if you don't want to give them up, I'm going to use my guns to force them from you." We're talking mass scale police door-to-door. We're talking insane amounts of money.

And you already said it. The assault weapon ban we had under the Clinton era not only did nothing to curb gun violence, we actually peaked. Our worst violence we had peaked during the middle of the Clinton assault weapons ban.

This is going to do nothing to stop crime overall. It's going to do nothing to stop violence overall. I mean, look at Chicago, Tucker. We had more people shot in Chicago than we did in the horrible tragedy of Odessa. But yet we're not hearing everyone talk about that. Is it because people expect that there? Is it because people know that Chicago, "Oh, that's just Chicago." Why should we care about people to live there, too? Why shouldn't we realize that none of those shootings had anything to do with a so-called, quote unquote, "assault weapon"? It's just sad.

CARLSON: Well, it's sad, but it's -- you know, shootings like this really are something that we ought to pay attention to.

CLECKNER: Absolutely.

CARLSON: In Chicago and Odessa because they tell us that something is really wrong -- really wrong -- murdering strangers, why would you do something like that?

When was the last time you heard a politician on the left begin that conversation? Ask the obvious question, "Why is this happening"?

CLECKNER: Oh, I haven't. And I hope the reason why is they're just going for attention. I hope they really aren't as malicious as they might be. I hope they're realizing that this is polling well and this is an emotional way for them to target people's heart strings, and that they can get talked about and here you and I are talking about them.

I really hope that their ignorance is only going this far that they think it's popular. If they really think that because their emotions trump the civil liberty of the rest of the country, that scares me.

CARLSON: Well, it's a recipe for something we should be really afraid of. Ryan, thanks very much for that.

CLECKNER: Absolutely.

CARLSON: Good to see you tonight. Bernard Whitman is former pollster for Bill Clinton and he joins us tonight. Bernard, thanks very much for coming on tonight.

BERNARD WHITMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So a billion magazines that fit under this definition, tens of millions of semi-automatic weapons that fit under this definition? What would it look like if the government tried to take those by force from law- abiding Americans?

WHITMAN: Well, I've got some good news for you, Tucker. I don't think you have to worry about Beto O'Rourke becoming President, so that is unlikely to happen.

CARLSON: Right.

WHITMAN: I think what's fascinating in the whole debate is nothing seems to unite Americans more today than support for universal background checks. Nine in ten Americans support background checks, nine in ten Republicans support background checks. The President supports background checks, the problem is that he is too weak or afraid to actually call the NRA, and actually get that done. So I mean, pick again due to the fact that you have unanimity.

CARLSON: But, okay, before I let you alight over the -- before I let you alight over the questions and get off your talking points, congratulations, you did. I have to press you a little bit because it's not -- and Beta O'Rourke, obviously, is a footnote and a completely mediocre, irrelevant character.

But it's not simply Beto. That's the tape that we played. Elizabeth Warren, who seems likely to be the nominee of the Democratic Party, much more likely than Joe Biden, in my opinion has also called for gun confiscation.

So this is -- what you're calling for a Civil War. What you're calling for is an incitement to violence. It is something that I wouldn't want to live here when that happen, would you? I am serious.

WHITMAN: To be to be clear, I'm not calling for that. I would support confiscation only in the context of red flag laws. And I think that's what we need to talk about.

CARLSON: But that's not what they're saying. Hold on. That's not what they're saying. What you're saying is -- and we can debate this and it's a real debate -- if someone seems dangerous, do we have to convict him before taking his guns away?

I think that's a legitimate debate, but I don't think what you're saying is insane. What Elizabeth Warren is saying is that these kinds of firearms are now illegal. Anyone who possesses one is now a felon and we're taking them away.

WHITMAN: Well, let's look at business --

CARLSON: What would happen to our nation if you tried to do that? Seriously.

WHITMAN: But the -- I don't know the answer to that, but I do know the answer to this. Look at what Walmart did today. Walmart said that they are no longer going to sell ammunition for handguns. No longer going to sell ammunition for assault rifles, and no longer going to allow people to carry guns openly in their stores.

In the face of government inaction, businesses actually rising to the occasion, saying, you know what, we don't want to be part of this problem.

CARLSON: Well, there's no doubt that businesses in the vanguard of the activist left and Walmart, after having destroyed American retail and made this country much uglier and empowered the fascist government of China has a lot of brass lecturing the rest of us about anything -- at all.

They ought to be ashamed of themselves, that company. But does it strike you as was interesting that the response from the ruling class is not to think through why this is happening, but to attack rural America, there's no -- there's no violent crime in most places where everyone owns a gun.

I mean, honestly, why are they punishing rural America for the sins that weren't committed there?

WHITMAN: With all due respect, Tucker, I don't think anyone is talking and calling out rural America.

CARLSON: Of course, they are.

WHITMAN: I think, a number of the candidates, for example, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has called for massive investment in mental health. That clearly, the cause of these mass shootings is mental health, aided and abetted by the easy access to guns and high capacity magazines.

So I think we need a comprehensive approach that looks at how to deal with mental health issues in a better way, how to flag people who shouldn't have guns, and how to begin to limit the number of high capacity magazines.

I don't think magazines that have one, two, three, four -- but I mean, high capacity magazines. Why do you need this? I think no one is hunting with an AK-47.

CARLSON: I guess -- I guess, my question is, why should I have to explain myself? I'm a taxpayer, a citizen. I'm an adult man in a free country. I've done nothing wrong. I shouldn't have to answer questions for you or anybody else about what I have in my closet. I pose no threat to anybody.

WHITMAN: But we do have as a society, we do have collective restrictions on actions that are deemed unsafe. You have to --

CARLSON: You are attacking the law abiding for the sins of the few because this is a power grab. It's not a sincere effort to make this a safer country, which I would welcome. I think mass shootings are horrifying. But nobody is actually serious about trying to fix the problem.

Because if you were, you'd be every bit as upset about the rest of the shootings that take place, which far outnumber the casualties from mass shootings, like less than 10 percent of all murders in this country are from a rifle. We are not trying banning any other kind of guns.

WHITMAN: If we had -- if we have less -- but if we had less access to guns, less access to ammunitions, the suicide rate would plummet and the number of gun deaths which are now at 33,000 per year, would decrease.

I mean, 93 people are killed every single day by guns. Seven kids are killed every day, 50 women are killed every month by their partners.

CARLSON: Are you against suicide now? Really? Because I thought the left supported suicide? Because the last time I checked, like the State of Maine, for example, the left has now made physician-assisted suicide legal. The left push that. I'm opposed to it. So you're for or against suicide? I'm kind of losing track on this question.

WHITMAN: I personally am against suicide, but I think physician-assisted suicide is something that should be between the doctor and the patient.

CARLSON: Oh, but you shouldn't be allowed to do it yourself.

WHITMAN: Blowing your head off with a gun is still different.

CARLSON: Oh, I got it. You're going to take my guns away because of suicide. But meanwhile, you're making suicide legal.

WHITMAN: But to be clear, Tucker --

CARLSON: I am sorry, the BS is just too much.

WHITMAN: I don't want to take your guns away.

CARLSON: All right, yes. Yes, you do.

WHITMAN: I think people -- I think people who are mentally unstable should not have access to guns. And I think if we have fewer assault weapons on the street --

CARLSON: Okay, I agree with you there.

WHITMAN: I mean, I actually believe that we should put an assault weapons ban back on because these weapons are not used for hunting. I mean, come on, nobody goes and shoots a deer with an AK-47.

CARLSON: It didn't affect the crime rate. So obviously, there's another agenda here. Bernard, thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate it.

WHITMAN: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: We've got a Fox News Alert for you. Hurricane Dorian whipping its way up the East Coast tonight. Rick Leventhal is in Atlantic Beach, Florida where he expects to feel the storm's impact within a few hours. He joins us tonight. Hey, Rick.

RICK LEVENTHAL, CORRESPONDENT: And Tucker, no question the State of Florida, incredibly fortunate that this storm turned to the north and more to the east. We do expect to feel tropical storm force conditions sometime tonight into all day tomorrow.

We're told winds of 35 to 50 miles per hour here in Duval County with three to six inches of rain and a storm surge of three to five feet, but other stretches of the Florida coastline could also get hit as hard or harder and the states of emergency stretch all the way up to Virginia.

North Carolina mandatory evacuation of all barrier islands along the North Carolina coast and in South Carolina, they already reverse the flow on I-26 from Charleston all the way to Columbia. So every lane heading westbound, so that people can evacuate the coast of South Carolina, the Storm Dorian obviously doing its worst damage down in the Bahamas where it first hit is a Category 5 with 180 mile plus hour winds and 220 plus mile per hour gusts. And we've seen now aerial footage from the Bahamas -- excuse me -- which is just devastated.

I mean that the destructive force of the storm cannot be underestimated, certainly, down there. It wiped out entire communities, buried many homes and businesses underwater. They are still suffering down there.

We know that the Coast Guard made some runs down there today with the MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter. They were able to make some medical evacuations, help out the Bahamian forces who are trying now to get in there and get people, but we still are hearing five confirmed dead and are hoping that that number doesn't get any higher.

Tucker, the State of Florida again, is -- there are many mandatory evacuations here. They've done a lot of preps here. They closed a lot of airports. There are 1,800 plus flights canceled today alone and 650 more tomorrow. So there's a lot happening down here and the weather is getting worse.

But again, the worst of it was in the Bahamas, and the worst may yet to be to come up there on the South Carolina-North Carolina coast.

CARLSON: Rick Leventhal for us live tonight. Thanks a lot, Rick. We will be keeping you updated as we progress on Dorian's progress throughout the hour and throughout the night. Stay tuned to Fox News.

But first, Joe Biden appears like he is running for President because he feels obligated to. Why is he doing that? Is it working? Brit Hume joins us after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Running for President -- whatever you think of the people who are doing -- it isn't easy. It means in some cases, spending years on the road, not much time to rest. You don't see your family very often. And that means the people who do it really sincerely want to be President. They don't have an ambition deficit.

Joe Biden, though maybe the exception. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I think at this moment in time, I'm the most qualified person to do it. Could I die happily not having held the chief play for me? Yes, I could. That's not why I'm running. The irony is, the longer I've been around, the less that appeals to me.

I've watched up close and personal what eight years in the White House is like, and I watched it. And it's not something that I can hardly wait to move into the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So maybe he doesn't really want to be President. The question is, is anybody excited about Joe Biden becoming President? Recent polls show his lead over Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are getting smaller. His own campaign is now downplaying the State of Iowa, saying it's not a must-win state for them.

It's possible with Biden is not even the front runner now. So if he is not winning, and he doesn't even really want to be President, why is he doing this?

Brite Hume is our Senior Political Analyst here at Fox News, and he joins us now. Hey, Brit.

BRIT HUME, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Tucker.

CARLSON: So Joe Biden, I think a lot of people on the right, me included think that Biden is probably the most reasonable person in the field. That's saying much.

HUME: Yes, a very nice man to boot.

CARLSON: I think that's right. I absolutely think that. But I've never thought that his heart seemed in it. And I never thought that this was his year, what's your assessment?

HUME: I think he has always wanted to be President. You know, he has tried it before repeatedly, right?

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: It hasn't worked out. I think he thinks that perhaps now is his turn. I think he wants to be President because I think it represents the sort of the culmination of his career. And I think he is -- you know, I think his problem isn't just that he makes these gaffes which he has always done. You know, he blurts these things out that are totally impolitic, for example, you know, poor people are smarter as white people or however he put that, right? They are just as smart as white kids. That's a gaffe.

However, Tucker, the stuff you see with him more recently, for example, not remembering that when he met with the students from Parkland High School, that he wasn't still in office. He'd been out of office for more than a year when that happened.

The fact that he misremembered that, that's not a gaff. That's the kind of memory problems that people his age and indeed my age have all the time. And I think that the thing that may catch up with Biden over time, even among Democrats who would otherwise be for him is the feeling that his -- that senility is overtaking him, and I think it is.

CARLSON: Jeez, no one wants to say that. Do you think that -- but you make you make a compelling case for it -- do you think that Democratic leaders in Washington to the extent they still exist and have power share the concern that you just shared?

HUME: I am sure they do. They're bound to. They see this stuff and you know, look at the history of his presidential campaigns. You know, it's been -- he has undone himself repeatedly.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: Remember the plagiarism of the Neil Kinnock speech and other stumbles that he has had. He tells these tall tales. I mean, this recent story that he told about, you know, trying to pin the medal on the guy. He had the facts all jumbled up and that strikes me as you know, another case of his memory failing him.

And I think that, you know, as Democratic voters look at this over time, and are thinking about somebody going into confront Donald Trump, right, who says all kinds of crazy stuff all the time, but that's kind of baked in the cake with Trump. People know that about him.

And I think, you know, if you're going to beat him, you can't -- you don't want to be a candidate suffering from the same kind of problem, although expressed in different ways.

CARLSON: Right.

HUME: You know, you can't be somebody who tells all kinds of tall tales all the time if you're trying to beat the guy who you think is bad because he tells tall tales all the time.

CARLSON: So you meet people in Washington all the time. I spoke to one today who look at the polls, they say Biden is in front. He is going to be the nominee. Do you share that view?

HUME: I think, Tucker that at this stage, we have no idea who the real front runner is.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: That sentiment -- this -- we are so early in this process. We are months and months and months away from anybody voting, right? I mean, we are, you know, half a year away from just about from the early caucus in primary states.

Biden's lead in those places is much smaller than his national lead. He is just a few points ahead, single digits in both Iowa and New Hampshire. I think that sentiment is very soft. And I think that, you know, we see these reactions in debates.

For example, Kamala Harris had a big, big up moment after the first debate when she took Biden on.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: And then by the time the second or third debate rolled around, she was back to where she started from and he had gone back again. I just think everything is soft. A lot of -- nearly everything is name recognition, and so on. And the Democrats around the country have not even really begun to think seriously about this because they're normal people. They're not as absorbed in this stuff as we here in the Capital City are.

CARLSON: I think you're absolutely right.

HUME: And until people start voting, I don't think we'll have any real sense of who the front runner really is.

CARLSON: Thank you for that wise perspective.

HUME: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Great to see you.

HUME: Good to see you.

CARLSON: Well, the field crowded with hypocrites and phony center, Kristen Gillibrand stood out. He key positions were transparently false; her accomplishments, hard to find. And then she thought she could present herself as a champion of all 160 million American women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.: Do you believe in women? Do you value women? That is the question.

When we beat President Trump and Mitch McConnell walks into the Oval Office -- God forbid -- to do negotiations. Who do you want when that door closes to be sitting behind that desk? To fight for women's rights?

Make no mistake, if President Trump wants a war on America's women, it's a war he's going to have and it's a war he is going to lose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Nobody was fooled by that. Nobody, apparently except for "The New York Times." In a piece published over the holiday weekend, the paper suggested that, you guessed it, sexism was to blame for Gillibrand's campaign failures.

"The Times" thought that even though Gillibrand actually had just as much support among women as she had among men -- zero percent.

Tammy Bruce is President of Independent Women's Voice and hosts "Get Tammy Bruce" on Fox nation, which is fantastic and worth paying the subscription for you to see it. She joins us tonight.

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NATION HOST: Hey, Tucker.

CARLSON: So, Tammy, it's almost a rhetorical question. But do you believe that sexism killed the Gillibrand campaign?

BRUCE: No, obviously we don't believe that. But keep in mind also who the "The New York Times" really is accusing of that, other Democrats.

CARLSON: Well, that's a good point.

BRUCE: They are accusing the Democratic base of this, because those are people who have not been responding to her candidacy. I mean, this is the generation that was supposed to understand all of this.

The fact of the matter is, is that Gillibrand was the problem. These candidates are the problem, not the average Democratic voter, not the average American. These elitists, these hypocrites, they are the issues.

The journalists -- I use that word lightly -- at "The New York Times" they think they own it all and they know it all. They don't know anything.

The fact of the matter is, she lost for the same reason she withdrew for the same reasons men withdraw. It's because they're bad candidates, they have a bad message. And especially in today's era, Tucker, that we are able with so much coverage, to be able to assess people very quickly. And we know who's being genuine and we know who isn't.

And speaking of your conversation with Brit, one of the greatest strengths of Donald Trump is that he is himself. You know, he is not trying to be somebody else. And he was himself from the start of the campaigning in the primary season to the very end -- to this day.

It is one person of all these campaigners who didn't shift when it went from primaries to a general to being the President. He is just himself.

And that is a unique framework. So when you see someone like Gillibrand, it's a little shocking. Remember, she was supposed to be the likable Hillary Clinton. And I think that what we've learned here is that no iteration of Hillary Clinton is acceptable. And it comes down also to this story, kind of an insult that if we think we can be President and I believe a woman can be and will be a fabulous President that we need to be taken seriously.

But we will only be taken seriously when we take ourselves seriously and hold ourselves accountable. And as is Hillary, and are many of these liberal women have been raised in an environment where they have no repercussions to their behavior. They don't have to take anything seriously. Everything is the politics of victimhood, and they think they're going to shame you into elevating them.

They're learning that the American people are far ahead of them when it comes to what's the right move for the country. And at this point, they're not it.

CARLSON: If I had a child who made this many excuses, I would spank the child for his own sake. I mean, of course --

BRUCE: And you ground them and you would not let them out and run for any office either. I know you wouldn't.

CARLSON: Tammy Bruce, great to see you tonight.

BRUCE: Thank you, sir.

CARLSON: Thank you. Well, a Federal judge just tossed out the conviction of Kate Steinle's killer; meanwhile, in the State of Maryland, every week brings more horrific crimes by people who shouldn't be in this country in the first place. Details on that ahead.

Plus Hurricane Dorian has already caused massive flooding in the Bahamas and death. Now, it's coming up the East Coast. We're tracking it. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: A sad update for you tonight on a very sad story, the story of Kate Steinle. Steinle's family already lost its chance at justice. Last year, you'll remember when a jury failed to convict the illegal immigrant, Jose Garcia-Zarate of murder or even manslaughter for shooting her to death on a pier in San Francisco.

Now Federal judges are doing their part to inflict even more pain on Steinle's family and to make a mockery of our laws. Just on Friday, a California appeals court threw out Garcia-Zarate's only conviction that was for being a felon in possession illegally of a firearm. Now, he is a felon, and he was carrying a firearm. Nobody disputes that.

Instead, the court found a legal technicality throughout the conviction. So for now, Garcia-Zarate is still in Federal custody on criminal charges, but that charge has been thrown out.

We've learned a lot about the priorities of the ruling class in this case. Jose Garcia-Zarate was deported from this country five separate times. He was a convicted felon. He had been arrested multiple times on drug charges, including just months before he murdered Kate Steinle.

And when those charges were dropped, he was simply released. Instead of being kicked out of the country, again, deported five times.

So Kate Steinle's death never should have happened. We knew that. But it did happen because powerful people in this country won't tolerate even dangerous criminals being kept out of this country.

They are so extreme and they've become this way. They weren't always this way, but they've become so extreme on the left that not only are they unwilling to stop a murderer, they're unwilling to punish him after he has been caught. That can't continue.

Meanwhile, in a related story back here to the nation's capital, authorities in Montgomery County, Maryland, right outside the D.C. line, have arrested yet another illegal immigrant for another violent sex crime against another child.

Emilio Carrasco-Hernandez is an illegal arrival from the country of Honduras. According to police, he sexually assaulted his 15-year-old stepdaughter. Carrasco-Hernandez is the seventh illegal immigrant arrested for a sex crime in Montgomery County, just since July 25th.

Vince Coglianese has followed these stories closer than maybe anyone else in the region. He is a D.C. radio host with WMAL Radio and he joins us tonight. Vince, thanks a lot for coming on.

VINCE COGLIANESE, RADIO HOST, WMAL RADIO: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So why are we just learning about this now? Is there some reason that seven of these stories have come to light in such a short time?

COGLIANESE: This is the question and it's an important one. Carrasco- Hernandez, by the way, already deported from the United States in 2017. He made his way back into the country, thanks to our porous border policies.

So he does this and now he has raped a 15-year-old girl, and we talk about seven as the number you've brought up since July 25th. That's the number of people who have been arrested on rape or sexual abuse charges. The majority of these cases -- sexual rape or abuse of a minor -- these are children who are being hurt in almost all of these cases.

The reason why we're all of a sudden finding out about this concentration of stories is not that this is a new phenomenon. It's that rank and file police officers and prosecutors in Montgomery County are furious at their own leadership for allowing this problem to continue to fester as long as it has.

These stories haven't been public before because they've been trying to deal with them. But now they're done dealing with them. Montgomery County leadership led by Marc Elrich, who is the County Executive. He is the top elected official in the county have made it so that Montgomery County, Maryland specifically, is a place where illegal immigration is protected at all costs, even at the expense of the community.

And now cops and prosecutors are furious and they're taking matters into their own hands. They want these stories out there.

CARLSON: God bless them for doing that. Because by publicizing these crimes, really that's the only recourse I think that people have. Marc Elrich, the County Executive who maybe more than any other person made this possible has sat for an interview with you.

COGLIANESE: Yes.

CARLSON: What was his explanation for this?

COGLIANESE: He doesn't have explanations. He has -- he blames a lot. He points fingers at the Federal government for allowing illegal immigrants to be in the area. He says that illegal immigration shouldn't even be considered a problem.

And when posed -- when I posed questions to him about all of this, he responded to me, "Well, what do you think we should do? Deport all illegal immigrants?" And my response to him was really simple, if you don't like the laws of this country, work to change them, but in the meantime, enforce them and that's not what they're doing in Montgomery County.

And in fact, in late July, he passed an Executive Order codifying -- well, he was already heading in this direction in that county -- saying, if you're a county official, you are not allowed to inquire about immigration status. You are not allowed to allow Federal agents into jails in Montgomery County.

The Feds have to stand outside and catch these guys, when they're coming out of the jail. Actually, it makes it a more unsafe environment to have this -- to have somebody ejected into the public and then caught by the Feds, rather than a peaceful prisoner transfer.

The Feds have probable cause to make these arrests. They're issuing detainers because they've already done the research into establishing this is somebody we believe to be illegally in the country.

Montgomery County is saying, "We're not going to work with you." I'll tell you, we have one story that I was so stunned by. I was talking to one source that said inside of these jails, they've gotten calls from Feds who say, "That guy is MS-13, do not release him." And then they release them.

They don't have an address on file and he looks at these jailers in the face, he will smile and then walk right out the door.

CARLSON: Meanwhile, children are raped. Even a left wing county like Montgomery County, you have to think there are people -- Democrats -- who think this is too much.

COGLIANESE: Yes, and they do.

CARLSON: I'm glad. Vince Coglianese, great to see you tonight.

COGLIANESE: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: A young woman in the Trump administration just lost her job in the most humiliating possible way. Why? Because a reporter from "The Washington Post" decided to expose off-the-record comments she made in violation of everything journalists say they believe. Interesting story. We've got details on it.

Plus, we'll continue tonight of course to track the progress of Hurricane Dorian as it makes landfall in the United States. The death toll in the Bahamas has risen since the show began tonight. Stay tuned for details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Purdue Pharma is the company that makes OxyContin, the powerful opioid painkiller and basically just OxyContin.

When the company released that drug, they claimed that it would be less addictive than other opioid medications. That was a lie. At some point, Purdue Pharma knew it was a lie, but they kept telling it and multitudes died as a result.

OxyContin turns out to be terrifyingly addictive, it has helped drive a drug epidemic in this country that has killed more Americans than any conflict since the Second World War. We now know that Purdue Pharma understood exactly what they were doing.

Recent legal filings have exposed internal communications within the company, and they showed that the company's sales staff were pressured to sell as many pills as they could without regard to the risk. Physicians were urged to prescribe the highest possible doses of the drug in order to maximize profits.

When evidence emerged that people are becoming junkies as a result, Purdue Pharma responded by shaming the patients they had hooked on their drug. They called them "degenerate criminals" essentially or refusing to take any responsibility at all for the human carnage they caused.

It's hard to imagine an uglier story. Throughout all of it, we should note, Purdue Pharma's owners, the Sackler family grew spectacularly rich -- looking back, repulsively rich.

Earlier this year, the Sacklers were estimated to have more than $12 billion in the bank. Thanks to the opioid epidemic, the Sackler family is now one of the 20 richest families in this country.

In the last three years, Purdue Pharma has faced a wave of lawsuits from the people and places devastated by its pills. Now, apparently the company has made a settlement offer. To resolve all of these outstanding lawsuits, Purdue Pharma is willing to pay $12 billion, $3 billion of that would come from the Sackler family, which would then give up control of Purdue Pharma.

It sounds like a lot of money, but let's put it into some perspective. The massive tobacco settlement of 1998 totaled about $206 billion. But no one would defend cigarette smoking. Over time, it will kill you.

But Marlboros don't cut down young people in their prime. Smoking doesn't turn teenagers into zombies. It hasn't destroyed entire towns throughout the Midwest and New England. The Sacklers are hoping to get off with just six percent of what the tobacco companies paid more than 20 years ago. That feels wrong. But it's easy to see why the Sacklers are for it.

According to Bloomberg, the Sacklers would retain at least a billion and a half dollars after the settlement. Is that justice? No, it's not. But unfortunately, it's a now familiar pattern in American life.

A ruling class gets incredibly rich by wrecking our country, in this case by killing many thousands of young people. They get caught doing it, details emerge, everyone in Washington, New York and Los Angeles spends a week pretending to be horrified and concerned, and then nothing happens. Not a single one of the perpetrators ever goes to jail. Nobody is ever really punished, we've seen it again and again, including in the financial crisis of 2008.

In the end, and in this case, they take their blood money and they had the St. Bart's for Thanksgiving, and they laugh. They get away with it every single time.

For once, it will be nice if people like the Sackler got what they deserve. It might make the rest of us a little less cynical.

Well, you may not have heard her name before, but until a few days ago, Madeleine Westerhout was the personal assistant to President Trump. By all accounts, she worked hard and did well at her job.

It's hard to find anyone in Washington who doesn't like her. And yet now, she is unemployed and humiliated. How did that happen?

Well, she made the mistake of eating dinner with a "Washington Post" reporter called Phil Rucker. At the meal, Westerhout made a couple of caddy remarks about the President's daughters. That's unwise, but it's hardly without precedent. That sort of thing can happen at dinners where wine is served.

What is stunning -- what is really unusual is what happened next. The meal was explicitly off-the-record and for journalists, that is a bright line. That's the brightest of all lines. Information journalists learn in off- the-record conversations absolutely cannot be shared. It's one of the few unbreakable rules of the business. Everybody in the business knows that.

But because Madeleine Westerhout worked for Donald Trump, Phil Rucker of "The Washington Post" decided to break that rule -- casually break it.

According to multiple sources, Phil Rucker decided to burn Westerhout and shared her remarks with others. Westerhout was immediately fired, and as we said, humiliated. Her life completely derailed.

Rucker, meanwhile, returned to Washington, the hero. In fact, he was happily yapping away on MSNBC this afternoon. His bosses at "The Washington Post" issued a statement telling the rest of us what a great guy he is.

Joe Concha writes about media for "The Hill." He joins us tonight. So Joe, has something changed in the past couple of weeks? Is off-the-record no longer a category that journalists have to observe?

JOE CONCHA, MEDIA WRITER, THE HILL: As you mentioned, Tucker, that is a commandment -- a commandment that should never be broken. It's like Vegas, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." When you have an off-the-record conversation with a reporter, it is understood as long as the parties established beforehand that this is an off-the-record conversation that it's not going to be mentioned. It's not going to be published. It's not going to be talked about in any capacity. It's like seeing your psychiatrist almost or a priest or in confession. It's not supposed to get out.

And in this case, there was also some other reporters there as well. Reporters from Bloomberg and Reuters and "The Wall Street Journal," and then Phil Rucker, who you mentioned from "The Washington Post."

It can't be confirmed however, that Rucker actually burned this source here in Madeleine Westerhout, but that's what a lot of sources are reporting right now. But again, I can't confirm that, and I'm not going to do that here. Go ahead --

CARLSON: I think -- hold on, let me just say, I think I can confirm that and we've spoken -- I personally have spoken to people who have confirmed it. I'm satisfied with their knowledge of it.

So I believe that happened and I'm willing to say so explicitly. But we called over to "Washington Post" as we always do, and asked the subject of the segment, you know, for a statement. Did this happen? And "The Washington Post" refused to respond to our questions that issued this absurd little statement about how much they like Phil Rucker.

But I just want you to confirm for us that this is a really important question. This is not a small thing, if you're a journalist, right? The question of whether you broken an off-the-record agreement.

CONCHA: It's a fire able offense, in my opinion, because now you have taken this career of this 28-year-old in Madeleine Westerhout, and you think she is ever going to work in Washington again?

CARLSON: Exactly.

CONCHA: I mean, this is a very difficult situation for her. Now, granted, she bears some responsibility here. Clearly, you should know that given the acrimony between the press and the administration, and given the fact that there's complete mistrust between the press and the administration and vice versa, the last thing you do is go out to dinner, get over served. It's like sodium pentothal at that point, and you start talking, thinking that you could actually trust the people that you're with, because in this case, it's a means to an end.

No one cares that Madeleine Westerhout was burned here by somebody, they only care about the message, which was embarrassing to the President. So, I think that's what we're talking about here.

CARLSON: Well, that's exactly it, so nobody gets to act like a human being anymore. Everyone has to be political all the time because of creeps like Phil Rucker, and organizations like "The Washington Post," which are pure political organs designed to affect political outcomes.

They don't care about individuals. They don't care about the rules. They just care about power, and I really think there should be -- I mean, you just said it, it's a fire able offense to break this rule. Do you think there's any chance that Phil Rucker will be fired from "The Washington Post"?

CONCHA: No, of course not. Because they would have issued a statement right now talking about it. But obviously, they're backing them. And look, why would you burn this source if they're openly talking like this?

The only thing I could think of is that it was a promise for more access by leaking this out from somebody else within the administration, by letting people know that you had this information and that the source said that.

CARLSON: Yes, I don't know. All I know is that here, this young woman has really seen her life derailed, and none of the self-described feminists who are always jumping to the aid of women seem to care at all, and they're all patting Phil Rucker on his ample back.

CONCHA: Good point.

CARLSON: And I think it's wrong. Joe, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

CONCHA: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So Bill de Blasio is famous as the worst mayor in the history of New York City. Could he also be the laziest? New evidence tonight suggests, yes, a new title for Bill de Blasio, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, back in May when Bill de Blasio launched his ludicrous presidential campaign, he had a lot to say about working people. In fact he counted himself among them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, D-NYC, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As President, I will take on the wealthy, I will take on the big corporations. I will not rest until this government serves working people.

As Mayor of the largest city in America. I've done just that. I'm Bill de Blasio and I'm running for President because it's time we put working people first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's certainly weird as a postulant. It looks like he left his hangar in his suit jacket. "I will not rest," he pledged. That turned out not to be true. In fact, the one thing you can be certain de Blasio is doing, resting.

According to new report of 'The New York Post," for the entire month of May, Bill de Blasio spent a total of -- drumroll, please -- seven hours at work running New York City at City Hall. Not seven hours per day, seven hours total.

Seth Barron lives in New York City where he is an Associate Editor at "City Journal." He joins us tonight. That's not -- I mean, look, I'm not as hip as I used to be. I'm not sort of current with what is considered hard work, I guess. But seven hours in a month, that's still considered slacking, right, even in New York?

SETH BARRON, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CITY JOURNAL: It's not -- it's not a full day's work. But you know, I mean, Tucker, to be honest, you know, everyone I've talked to about this says, "Oh, well, that's good. The less he is here, the less damage he can do."

CARLSON: That's right. That's absolutely right.

BARRON: You know, we should have sent him away. Why didn't he run in 2016? Look, he -- this is a man who considers it a normal thing to go in mid-morning and take a fleet of limousines to Brooklyn to go to the gym and sort of desultorily stand on the elliptical and you know, peddle in the middle of the working day for most people and then go get a pastry.

This is a guy who is reported to take naps during the middle of the day. You know, his campaign has been a disaster from the beginning when he went to Trump Tower and made some absurd announcement and people were parading behind him with "Worst Mayor" ever signs. You know, then he went down to Miami and he quoted Che Guevara. It's a joke. It's very much a joke.

CARLSON: So I remember speaking to a New York City cop, retired, who had been around his security detail who said that their Gracie Mansion was redolent of marijuana smoke with when the de Blasio's were there. Do you think that's maybe part of it?

BARRON: Well, look, I've heard this, too. It's kind of a common theme around City Hall and around the press and so forth. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. But it certainly -- it would explain a lot.

CARLSON: It would explain a lot. It would explain a lot. And here we just thought it was laziness and a slow metabolism. But it turns out, America's worst mayor is bad because he is really high.

BARRON: Tucker, he may not be the worst Mayor in New York history, only the 20th Century. Only since the 1900s.

CARLSON: The most stoned.

BARRON: Only since the 1900s.

CARLSON: It would be exculpatory in a way. Seth Barron, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

BARRON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: That's it for us tonight. We are out of time and that brings us sadness, but the good news is, we will be back to tomorrow and every weeknight from now until hopefully a long time from now.

The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and especially groupthink. We'll be back tomorrow. But in the meantime, Sean Hannity live from New York City.

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