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Published January 31, 2019
This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," January 31, 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." We don't do a lot of weather segments on the show, but we couldn't help but notice this phenomenon called a "polar vortex" that's descended on the Midwestern United States this week. Temperatures dropped to lows that didn't even seem real.
Parts of the State of Illinois fell to 38 degrees below zero this morning. That's a new state record. In Thief River Falls, Minnesota, the temperature approached 80 below. Cold like that will turn hot coffee to ice crystals before it hits the ground. Stay outside for any length of time and you will die and a number of people did in that region. They were found froze to death in the last few days.
Meteorologists -- and this is the good news -- say it will warm up soon. Climate change will continue as it always has. Spring will come. But this is a good reminder of something. Energy matters. It keeps us alive. What would happen if you didn't have energy?
Well, that's something we maybe need to consider very soon because of something called the "Green New Deal." What is that? It's not clear. Take a look now at a description by the chief proponent of the Green New Deal. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN: You are talking about zero carbon emissions, no use of fossil fuels within 12 years?
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: That is the goal. It's ambitious.
COOPER: How is that possible? You're talking about everybody having to drive an electric car?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: It's going to require a lot of rapid change that we don't even conceive as possible right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So no fossil fuels within 12 years. There's a lot we don't know about this plan, but that would definitely be the headline. They've spelled it out very clearly. Now, before we can assess whether getting to that point -- no fossil fuels in 12 years -- is even possible, it is, as the Congresswoman just said, an ambitious goal, let's consider what it would mean for the United States.
No fossil fuels would mean no coal, no oil, and no natural gas. And that would mean no cars and no airplanes. It would mean shutting down the single most vibrant part of the entire U.S. economy which is the energy sector. It would mean putting at least six million Americans out of work immediately.
As of today, America is the largest oil producer in the world. The country exports more natural gas than any other place. More than 90% of all of our energy comes from fossil fuels and nuclear power, so we have to figure out a way to replace that in 12 years, using primarily solar and wind power. Ambitious? Well, that's one way to describe it. More destructive than a major war on U.S. soil would be another way to describe it.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand calls the prospect of all of this, quote, "a really exciting thing." Kamala Harris agrees. Bernie Sanders isn't simply a fan, he says eliminating fossil fuels immediately is a moral imperative.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT.: That it is absolutely imperative and a life and death issue that we have got to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy.
[Applause]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: What's so interesting about that is that the party of science somehow forgot to consult actual scientists about their plan. Talk to someone who studies energy and see for yourself. We are nowhere near being able to do any of this.
Wind power is a scam. It's an elaborate rip off perpetuated on impoverished rural America by a few heavily subsidized corporations that are getting rich from making the landscape uglier. Solar is a promising technology, actually, but we're still far being able from being able to efficiently store the energy it produces and storage is key in a power grid.
Solar is not a replacement for fossil fuels now or any time soon, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't bothered to learn anything about it - that would be describe most of the people pushing the Green New Deal. How well is wind power going to heat your house when it's 30 below? What is the range exactly on those new solar passenger jets?
Well, they don't know and they don't care because none of it applies to them, it never does. But we think the science is really interesting, and so we want to go with really quickly with Daniel Turner. He is Executive Director and Founder of Power the Future, and he joins us now.
Mr. Turner, thanks very much for coming on. So you are hearing an increasing number of people and I want to be open-minded about this, but say that we are going to get rid of all fossil fuels in the United States and switch to something called "renewables" in a dozen years. Could we do that?
DANIEL TURNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND FOUNDER, POWER THE FUTURE: Not at all. The technology doesn't exist right now. And I am optimistic, we may get there one day, but right now, here's a case in point. The largest solar farm in the nation does not produce enough kilowatts to power the New York City Subway System, and that farm is 4,000 acres, which is five times the size of Central Park. Central Park.
So when Representative Ocasio-Cortez says we are going to power the entire country on renewables, there just isn't the land to come up with the solar farm or the wind necessary to have these renewables. So the science just does not equate to the reality of how we run our economy.
CARLSON: So what - I mean, what are they saying exactly? We are going to do this, but there is no science to back up that promise, so why are they saying it?
TURNER: Yes, this is, I think all part of the 2020 Presidential campaign. Everyone who has run has come out in favor of a Green New Deal with one exception who is Michael Bloomberg, and he is he a complete environmentalists. He has given tens of almost close to $200 million just to the Sierra Club alone to fight coal, and he has said this is pie in the sky. So he realizes that the Green New Deal is not a real policy proposal whatsoever.
CARLSON: The American energy sector is the great success story of our entire country economy. It's almost never really covered, but it's really the - it's the growth sector for the last dozen years and we're now the biggest of course, exporter of natural gas in the world. What would it mean to kill that in 10 years?
TURNER: Yes, look at how it powers every single thing we do, from agriculture to manufacturing to transportation. Every part of our economy is dependent upon cheap, reliable, abundant and domestic energy that makes us - it frees us from the shackles of international conflict, it gives us an awful lot of autonomy, but it lowers the cost of all the goods from everything we eat.
There is an environmentalist that's right now watching this show who is eating an avocado in New York. Does the person not realize that the avocado is only possible because of cheap, abundant, and reliable energy?
CARLSON: But I am just confused because - maybe I'm getting old, but it seems just like yesterday that both parties were saying -- Democrats for sure were and I agreed with them -- we need to become energy independent so that we're not tied, as you said, to these lunatic countries in the Middle East that hate us.
TURNER: Yes.
CARLSON: Well, we did that. Nobody seemed to notice. But it's the great success story, economy of the past dozen years and now, we are going to kill it?
TURNER: Exactly. And this all happened despite what the previous administration did to the coal industry, right? Natural gas and fracking has been a phenomenon for our country and for our economy, but the previous administration decimated coal in rural America because they didn't like coal for some reason.
So why do we want these politicians who are so far removed from understanding how the energy sector works tinker with policy when they are so far out of their league?
CARLSON: I think those are completely fair questions - nonpolitical and fair questions. Mr. Turner, thank you very much.
TURNER: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: Luis Miranda is a former DNC Communications Director. He has thought about this question. He joins us tonight. Mr. Miranda, thanks very much for coming on.
LUIS MIRANDA, FORMER DNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thanks for having me on, Tucker.
CARLSON: What are we going to do about airplanes?
MIRANDA: Well, it's not like anybody is going to do away with airplanes. I think what the whole of the point of the Green New Deal is to push us further and we have good allies in the petroleum industry itself.
British petroleum now touts itself as beyond petroleum and plenty of the best and most significant investments in renewable energies are coming from the fossil fuel industry that is recognized that it needs to transition --
CARLSON: Oh no, no. I know how terrified -- I mean, look, big business is an ally of the left. I mean, obviously, I'm very aware of that. Very aware of that.
MIRANDA: Is that what it is now?
CARLSON: And I'm aware of the sort of Orwellian statements that their PR Department has put out. But the fact is that you have people running for President at the very top of the Democratic Party promising us and the country that we are going to be off all fossil fuels in a dozen years.
So there are a lot of questions that stem from that, but the first one in my mind since it's a country dependent -- it's a continental country, what are you going to do about airplanes? Honestly?
MIRANDA: Well, there is a variety of proposals that are going to emerge from this. This is - what you are talking about is one proposal from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and apparently Senator Markey, but there is going to be other perspectives on this.
Nancy Pelosi has appointed a Commission to look at this and to identify ways that we can move forward more aggressively on making a transition responsibly. And so nobody is talking about shutting down the airline industry. What he would talking this is the fact that this polar vortex and more severe weather like it are going to continue to happen if we don't take aggressive steps to reduce carbon emissions.
CARLSON: Right, I mean, without even getting into the global warming question, which is a separate one, it's just so striking that the United States has achieved this amazing victory over dependence on Middle Eastern oil. No one really acknowledges it. It's a thing that we have been talking for.
MIRANDA: Well, natural gas is one of the other things that has crushed coal. I mean, your prior guests says that Obama killed coal, it was natural gas.
CARLSON: Well, Obama was very hostile to coal, but natural gas, that's for sure. Cheap natural gas.
MIRANDA: And despite Donald Trump's promises, coal mines are closing.
CARLSON: Okay, but look, the question you're actually writing the script for me is once natural gas has done this amazing thing -- it's a cleaner form of energy -- now every Democrat running for President has promised to kill natural gas.
MIRANDA: Well, it's one vehicle, but we need to have as a country, we need a lot of different sources of energy.
CARLSON: But what do you think of that? We have different sources, but -- we have many sources of energy. But why would you want to kill the single most successful homegrown, cheapest, cleanest form of energy that actually works that we have?
MIRANDA: What we want to do is give the American people more options, and if you do it smartly, you can do it in a way that creates more jobs. I'll give you a perfect example where you combine smart policies have bipartisan support.
We have now opportunity zones that are going to allow people to defer their capital gains investments, potentially eliminate their -- what they owe on that entirely over 10 years to put it into revitalizing communities that have been left behind over the last many years.
And you can actually combine that with other programs that help install renewable energy systems inside ...
CARLSON: No, no. I know it's going to --
MIRANDA: ... people go work retrofitting buildings. There's a lot of ways that we can do this in a responsible way.
CARLSON: I am not against infrastructure.
MIRANDA: Nobody's talking about stopping airplanes.
CARLSON: Well, actually, a member of Congress that was taped and displayed is talking about stopping all fossil fuels, and that would stop airplanes in their tracks. There's no solar alternative.
MIRANDA: The idea is to transition to new forms of energy, not to suspend air transportation.
CARLSON: Okay, but I am just saying, why would I listen to policymakers who know nothing about the policy? None of these people know anything about energy at all, and they're making promises that are insane that they can't keep and that the science rejects out of hand. So why are they credible?
MIRANDA: I'm not asking you to listen to them, what I am asking you to do is ...
CARLSON: Okay.
MIRANDA: ... to consider that we need people like that to help bring the debate up, and then we can have a lot of different sectors find consensus.
CARLSON: Let's have this debate. So wind power is not an efficient form of power. It hasn't been - I think solar is promising, wind is not, and yet it is the scourge of rural America. Every poor community has a windmill and these offshore companies are getting rich from it. Why are there no wind farms in Nantucket Sound or off the coast of Greenwich? Or off the coast of Malibu? Why is it only in --
MIRANDA: They are continuing to expand wind power and making it more efficient and like you said, I think solar has tremendous promise.
CARLSON: But shouldn't wind power be - shouldn't we evenly share the burden? Why are there no wind farms in rich neighborhoods? Why is it in the Central Valley of California and the mountains --
MIRANDA: We are going to have to share the burden, but one of the examples of how solar has been so effective is that a lot of power companies used to give out a lot of incentives to people to install solar panels, and if you exceeded what you used in energy because of what you were collecting and kicking back into the grid, you actually got a credit.
Well, a lot of power companies in states like Arizona and others are trying to cut back on those credits because there's so much electricity from the solar panels in people's homes coming back into the grid. They don't want to give --
CARLSON: They can't store it, that's the problem. That's why nobody is talking about - they don't know what they are talking about. It's not the question about generating electricity ...
MIRANDA: Well, it kicks it back into the grid.
CARLSON: ... it's storing it.
MIRANDA: And they get a credit for it.
CARLSON: So you can release it when you need it at peak usage times. So anyway ...
MIRANDA: It's going to have to be a combination of technologies.
CARLSON: How can we get some smart --
MIRANDA: But we have to have this debate and whether or not you agree with Miss Ocasio-Cortez, with Congresswoman Cortez, the important thing is ...
CARLSON: She doesn't have any idea what she's talking about.
MIRANDA: ... that we have people who are pushing the debate, so we can have these questions and answered in a way that works.
CARLSON: I am interested. I am interested in it.
MIRANDA: I want the science to continue to evolve on it. Is it going to be running in 12 years? Maybe not. But at least we're moving in that direction.
CARLSON: Maybe they should stop lying for once. That would be great. Thank you very much for joining us.
MIRANDA: Thanks, Tucker.
CARLSON: Democratic Party is lurching from pro-choice to pro infanticide. If you think we're being unfair, you've probably seen the tape, we're not being unfair. It's real. What is the new standard? That's after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: On the show, last time we told you how the newly radicalized Democratic Party is changing abortion laws in a number of states. In Virginia, a lawmaker called Kathy Tran has introduced a bill that by her own description would allow the killing of children as they are being born.
We're not exaggerating that, though it sounds like we are. Watch her describe it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where it's obvious that a woman is about to give birth that she has physical signs that she is about to give birth. Would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion if she was so certified? She's dilating.
KATHY TRAN, D-VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES: Mr. Chairman, that would be a you know, a decision that the doctor -- the physician and the woman to make at that point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand that. I am asking you if your bill allows that.
TRAN: My bill would allow that, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Well, that was a blunt subscription, and it would have horrified many Democrats just a decade ago, and embarrasses some even today. One of Tran's co-sponsors has disavowed the bill. She claims she never even read it.
Many others, though, have jumped to Tran's defense and the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam is one of them. Northam is a pediatric neurologist. He explained that Tran's bill would allow not just abortion at the moment of birth, but also killing the child after the child is born -- infanticide -- and that's okay.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RALPH NORTHAM, D-VA: It's done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that's nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen.
The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated, if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Killing a child who's already been born. Is that the new pro- choice position? Well, yesterday we invited professional Democrat on the show called Monica Klein and asked her to explain. We didn't get far in that. The conversation devolved immediately into a barrage of bumper sticker slogans about choice and coat hangers and Roe v. Wade. Here's the mercifully short selection of it. In case you missed it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: There's a point where the mother and the physician can decide whether to kill the infant or not. What do you think of that?
MONICA KLEIN, FOUNDING PARTNER, SENECA STRATEGIES: Look, Tucker, I understand that you want to go back to a time where Roe v. Wade was illegal, where women were having back-alley abortions ...
CARLSON: Don't give me that -- I just -- come on.
KLEIN: ... and they were using ...
This is about babies. This is about healthcare, this is about you attempting to control women's bodies.
CARLSON: Okay, please, don't be a robot, Monica. You're smarter than that. This is the Governor of Virginia just saying this. I just want to know what you think of it. Is that okay? Does that bother you? It's a sincere question that's just happened.
KLEIN: It bothers me - okay. It bothers me that you are attempting to control women's bodies.
This is about a woman's right to choose and you as a man should not have a single say in that.
CARLSON: Wow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So it went on and on like that and nobody learned a thing in the end. But the question remained, what exactly is the new Democratic position on abortion? It's worth talking about. We'd like to settle it tonight.
Julie Alvin is has worked with "Time" and "Bustle," and she joins us. Julie, thanks a lot for coming on.
JULIA ALVIN, LIBERAL COMMENTATOR: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: So I think the video of the Governor of Virginia who was asked about it, by the way at a press conference today and said he stood by everything he said. He didn't say that he misspoke. I think it evokes the obvious question which is, is it okay, is it pro-choice to kill a child who's already been born, and so I ask that question of you.
ALVIN: I think that this has actually been a gross mischaracterization of Northam's comments, and he did clarify somewhat today what he meant. So basically, what we're talking about is people who are seeking an abortion that late in their pregnancy are women who either are at severe health risk because of going through with the pregnancy or because their fetus is facing severe abnormalities. It may be incompatible with life, it may be unviable to live outside the womb.
So I think that what he was talking about was an unviable fetus who has been delivered and is probably only going to survive outside of the womb for a short period of time. And that is a decision as far as how to proceed for those couple of hours between the physician and between the mother.
He is not talking about a full-term, healthy mother and a full-term healthy child giving birth and then committing infanticide following that birth. He is talking about a very specific set of circumstances.
CARLSON: Well, that's not what he said. That's actually not what he said. And of course, it wouldn't apply to mothers who faced a health risk from giving birth because the child has already been birthed. So that's already --
ALVIN: In this particular situation, that's true, but as far as this bill goes --
CARLSON: Well, it is true. It is true. So no, I'm talking about Northam's comments. I think it's just so interesting because my impulse would be, well, that's - obviously it's - you don't have a right to kill a human being who didn't commit a crime. And so why would that be okay? But the impulse of so many is to defend this.
So I'm confused. What are the standards? He said, and I think I'm quoting him exactly "profound abnormalities." He didn't say the chat was going to die anyway, he said, the child is disabled, for example, that's a real thing. It's legal in some countries, should it be legal here to kill a child who's disabled and who gets to make that choice?
ALVIN: Well, I think that again, you're mischaracterizing Northam's comments. He said that would be a discussion between the mother and physician. At no point did he say this child is going to be killed? So I think that you're mischaracterizing it and I think you're also mischaracterizing the fact that any person could potentially have this procedure.
CARLSON: Well, then, what would -- hold on, Julie.
ALVIN: It is people who are in crisis and who are dealing with potentially an unviable fetus who are dealing with severe birth defects.
CARLSON: But hold on, but what --
ALVIN: These women are in crisis themselves and I believe that they deserve sympathy.
CARLSON: Okay, well, it's not that I don't have sympathy for the women or the doctor.
ALVIN: it certainly seems you have sympathy for neither party.
CARLSON: No, I think asking adult questions, I think is our obligation like, what is the standard? So what is the conversation that the mother and her physician have? The conversation is should the child live or die? And are you comfortable with killing? Because at this point, it is not a part of the woman's body. It's a distinct human being and so as any society has to ask itself, when is it okay to kill somebody? Why are dodging this question? And when is it okay to kill somebody who's been born?
ALVIN: I think that again, you're mischaracterizing the comments and I think they very much were about a specific set of circumstances in which this baby was not going to live much longer and it needed to be determined how to deal with that --
CARLSON: Okay, so you don't want to address that. You don't want to address that question, so under this law in Virginia and in the state of New York, a woman does not have to prove that her life is in danger, as you know, that's the change that has taken place or that the child can't live outside the womb.
And in both those states, it is now legal or would be if this law in Virginia passes to kill the child as the child is being born. Is that okay with you?
ALVIN: I don't think that you are characterizing this properly. So for example, we're talking about --
CARLSON: Is that not true?
ALVIN: No, it's not true. I think we're talking about for example, one procedure you're talking about is actually called dilation and extraction and it happens in 2% of abortions and it's typically that's something that happens when a mother has carried the baby full term and the baby is not going to survive and it is an unfortunate situation ...
CARLSON: The law doesn't require that.
ALVIN: ... and it is an unfortunate situation for the mother. It is an unfortunate situation for the child.
CARLSON: Well, all of course, it is unfortunate by definition, but the law - you're mischaracterizing the law that was just signed by the Governor of New York. It does not require that the child's be in any way ill, about to die outside the womb. It doesn't mention any of that. It's the woman's --
ALVIN: It absolutely clarifies that the child needs to be in in danger to have severe here abnormalities, to have fetal birth defects.
CARLSON: No, that is not true. And I am quoting the law, "It's the physician's good judgment." And so a child who has no abnormalities could be killed as the child is emerging from the birth canal. And I'm just asking, is that all right with you? It's a super simple question.
ALVIN: I mean, I think that if a physician were to say that a perfectly healthy child is able to leave the womb and be killed, then no, that would not be okay with me. But I think that we're dealing with well-trained physicians.
CARLSON: But that would be legal.
ALVIN: I think that we are dealing with physicians who have signed an oath who say that they are here to protect and we're dealing with physicians who are going to make the call and it has to do with the viability of the fetus.
CARLSON: But wait, I am confused though. Why should the - hold on a second. This doesn't make any sense. What does it - if it's a woman's body and her choice, then why are you letting some male physician make the decision for her? Why is it different from --
ALVIN: Who is to say that it's a male physician? First of all, women can be doctors, I don't know if you're aware of that.
CARLSON: Okay, male or female. Hold on. Of course, I am aware of that. If it's a woman's choice, why does a physician have a say in it?
ALVIN: I think that it's a conversation between the two of them, and I think Northam will say and I think that anybody who's involved in this will say that it is a conversation between the woman and her physician and that's a decision that they made together and this is why this is a private decision. It's something that needs to be happening in the hands of physicians and women and it needs to not be on the hands of legislators who clearly don't really understand the process.
CARLSON: But why should it be in the hands -- I don't understand because no one will give me a straight answer to any of these questions, it's just that --
ALVIN: Well, I am working with you here, okay.
CARLSON: Okay. And I appreciate that, by the way. You tried, I think a lot harder than anyone else I've talked to on the subject, and I appreciate that. Julie, thank you.
ALVIN: Sure.
CARLSON: Roger Stone could die in prison for the crime of lying to Congress. It turns out others have lied to Congress, too. Are they going to die in prison? One Congressman has an idea about that. He joins us next to explain. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Well, the Mueller investigation sure knows how to make a splash. You hear nothing from them for months, and then bam, one morning they're on CNN with guns.
A week ago before dawn, an army of rifle and flashbang toting Federal agents descended on the home of poor Roger Stone. They dragged him away barefoot. The crime that justified this military style capture of a 66- year-old man - lying to Congress.
But wait a second, people lie to Congress all the time. We live here. We can tell you that and almost none of them ever get charged with anything. Should that change?
Congressman Matt Gaetz represents the State of Florida, and he joins us tonight. Congressman, am I imagining this or is lying to Congress as common as the sun rising? Is anyone ever charged?
REP. MATT GAETZ, R-FLA.: It happens daily. Yes, I thought Robert Mueller was supposed to be investigating Russia collusion, now, he's become a glorified hall monitor, enforcing the provisions of lying to Congress.
The problem, Tucker, is that he's enforcing them unequally and so I'm introducing the Justice for All Act, which would create criminal referrals for the people that we know have lied to Congress.
Hillary Clinton said that she didn't send or receive any classified e-mail. We know that's a lie. Jim Comey said he was never the source or never the director of leaked information. He later admitted that that was not true even though it was the subject of his sworn testimony before Congress. And you'll remember Clapper, told all the American people before Congress that there was no bulk collection of data.
The Deputy Director of the FBI, Mr. McCabe, he lied four times. He lied so frequently, he was demoted and referred for criminal prosecution. But a whole lot of these other people haven't been and it's the greatest evidence that Robert Mueller is not a person in search of the truth. He's out to get Trump and the people close to Trump, because if he wasn't, if he was unbiased, you would have seen similar charges brought against other these other people.
Instead, he sends an army bigger than the force that killed Bin Laden to go chase down Roger Stone in Fort Lauderdale.
CARLSON: Amazing. So you're going to refer all of that to the Department of Justice. I hope you will come back and tell us what happens, by the way.
GAETZ: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: I think that will be deeply revealing. Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida. Good to see you.
GAETZ: Good to see you.
CARLSON: It's hard to think of a recent innovation that has changed our society more profoundly than the smartphone has. A machine many times more powerful than the supercomputers that guided the moon landing, shrunk to the size of a Crackle bar.
Suddenly it's possible to text your college roommate in Burma or FaceTime with your grandkids in Cape Town. You can order toilet paper on Amazon while flying to Los Angeles. You can answer every question on "Jeopardy" correctly without learning a thing. The sum total of human knowledge resides right in your pocket.
There's no longer reason to stare out the window. Entertainment now fills the space where reflection used to be. You can play Candy Crush at red lights. You can slay foes on Fortnight while waiting in line at the DMV. Nothing is the same since we got the smartphone. We've only had it for about a decade. Imagine where we will be 20 years from now.
Well, you probably can't imagine that actually. Imagination takes concentration and if you're like most of us, you know longer have the capacity to concentrate for very long. You're too distracted by your smartphone. When was the last time you read a book cover-to-cover? When was the last time you sat through an entire dinner without wondering who was texting you? Or talk to your spouse or kids for more than an hour without checking your device? Been a while?
The cost of all of this progress has been high. How high? Well, the signs are all around us -- endemic loneliness, a rising suicide rate, a country where huge groups of people hate each other. At some point, we'll know exactly what we've traded in exchange for faster sushi delivery.
In the meantime, though, it's worth considering what this technology means for our children. About a quarter of kids under six now have smartphones by the age of 10. The devices are ubiquitous. The average teen spends at least nine hours a day staring at a screen online. Parents abet this. They buy smartphones because their kids demand smartphones and we justify this by telling ourselves, it's for their safety.
Now you can reach your daughter after soccer practice or your son when the movie gets out. And that's all true. But what are the other effects? Science is just beginning to answer that question and the results are grim.
A new study in America's top pediatrics journal finds that high levels of screen time are associated with delayed cognitive development in small children. Studies by the National Institutes of Health have found the same thing. Hours spent staring at devices, lowers kids scores on thinking and language tests.
Smartphones have made our kids dumber. It's measurable. But they've also made our kids much less happy. Thanks to smartphones, kids have nonstop access to Facebook, Instagram and other social networks and the science is very clear on that. The more time you spend liking social media posts and updating your Facebook status, the less healthy you are.
A 2015 University of Missouri study found that Facebook use made people more depressed and increased their envy of others. A 2016 study found that quitting Facebook boosted psychological health.
Last fall a study in the "Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology" found that social media use is directly tied to feelings of loneliness and depression, which can lead to life threatening psychiatric disorders. It's not surprising then that rates of mental illness and suicide among teens began to surge right around 2012. That's just as smartphones and social media became universal.
You probably didn't need to study to know all this. If you're a parent, it's obvious. Smartphone use makes your kids sadder, slower and more isolated, and over time can kill them. That's all certainly obvious to the people who make the phones and that's why so many executives in Silicon Valley restrict their own children's technology use.
The software they make is addictive. It was engineered to be that way. As Facebook's first President once explained in a burst of candor quote, "We need to give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains," end quote.
Well now, we do know. We know enough anyway. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Most parents will do nothing, not because they don't want what's best for their kids. They do. But because in real life, it's just too difficult. Try taking an iPhone away from a seventh grader. You'll learn a lot about what addiction means. It's like trying to get a junkie into rehab. You cannot do it alone. Parents need help.
And there's no reason that the Congress which made smartphones possible in the first place shouldn't be part of the solution. So here's an idea. Ban smartphone use for children. Pass a Federal law tomorrow. Why wouldn't we do that? An addictive product that science has determined which gravely harms kids? Sound familiar?
Once upon a time, people actually argued against age limits for cigarette sales. It's hard to remember exactly what their arguments were. They seem so mindless and embarrassing now.
Well, in case you haven't been convinced that big tech is a direct threat to the health and happiness of your children. Here's another data point. Since 2016, Facebook has been paying kids as young as 13 to install a program on their phone that, unbeknownst to them, gives Facebook access to all of their phone data.
Josh Hawley is a senator. He represents the state of Missouri. We're glad to have him in Washington, and on our set. Senator, great to see you.
JOSH HAWLEY, U.S. SENATOR, MISSOURI, REPUBLICAN: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: So is this legal that Facebook has been secretly monitoring your kids?
HAWLEY: It may be legal, but it's certainly a breach of trust, Tucker. And I mean, I have to say that the more evidence we get about Facebook, I mean, every time you turn around, you see them doing something else creepy, and whether that's worrying to Congress -- you were just talking about that a second ago, Mark Zuckerberg said not long ago to Congress that every piece of data that a user has on Facebook belongs to him or her.
Well, we know that's just not true. We know they've been selling user data without users' consent and now they've been paying teenagers, 13 year olds to spy on them. I mean, it's unbelievable.
CARLSON: Will there come a time do you think where the Congress decides to push back?
HAWLEY: I hope so.
CARLSON: In a substantial way against these companies?
HAWLEY: I hope so. And I think that time is here. I mean, it's time to do it. I mean, number one, we need to know if Facebook, I think is violating their consent decree from 2011. Let's remember, they were investigated by the Federal Trade Commission for all sorts of privacy violations.
It looks to me like they're in violation of that decree, so they should be getting investigated and having that decree enforced. But we may need additional legal protections for children especially.
CARLSON: So the FDA is threatening right now to shut down JUUL, which is an e-cigarette maker on the grounds that e-cigarette use might be harmful to kids. There are no actual evidence. It is, but it seems like it would be. We have a lot of evidence that using smartphones hurt kids in a measurable way. Why shouldn't somebody at least begin the conversation of banning this?
HAWLEY: Well, you know, we need to have a conversation, I think, about the society wide effects of social media and smartphones on children, on youth violence, juvenile delinquency. And look, I think it's time that we thought about really stringent protections - privacy protections for young adults, and we should -- for instance, advertisers be able to target young adults, should they be able to collect all this data on them? Maybe not. And maybe it's time that we embody those restrictions.
CARLSON: Yes, like tomorrow morning, do you think that there will be bipartisan support or will it just be Conservatives?
HAWLEY: I would hope that there would be bipartisan support. What parent in America isn't concerned? I'm the father of two little boys. What parent in America isn't concerned about what these companies are pushing to their children? What data these companies are collecting on their children? And then whom they're selling it to? Everybody should be.
CARLSON: I don't think -- it's just an endless stream of porn and video games. Do you know what I mean? And privacy violations that we know makes you dumb, depressed, possibly suicidal and violent? I mean, I don't think it's a big deal. Maybe someday. You know what I mean?
HAWLEY: Yes.
CARLSON: It's unbelievable. Senator, thank you very much.
HAWLEY: Thank you.
CARLSON: Great to see you. Time for "Final Exam." Can you beat the experts at remembering the news of the week? That is after the break. Plus, a new picture of Kamala Harris with Stacey Abrams just surfaced. It really tells you everything about the moment we're living. Now, now if you haven't seen this, get your popcorn. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Oh, the best part of the week, the shelter from the storm, "Final Exam." The quiz show where news professionals compete against one another. Let's see who has been paying the closest attention during the preceding seven days.
The defending champion this week, and this has been true for a while now is Fox correspondent, Lauren Blanchard. Last week she defeated a sitting Member of Congress. This week, she faces fellow correspondent, Lawrence Jones.
Wow. You ready Lawrence?
LAWRENCE JONES, CORRESPONDENT: I don't think I am, but let's --
CARLSON: She's so deceptive in the way she approaches this.
JONES: Yes, she is. She has all of these notes. She has a whole dossier.
CARLSON: She's got - it is a dossier, but not a discredited one. Okay. So this is a little bit different this week. And we've -- the judges have analyzed this and Lauren knows her stuff, but she's also so fast on the buzzer. We're going to try it without a buzzer.
This is just a bit - we're just going to see how this works.
LAUREN BLANCHARD, CORRESPONDENT: Okay.
JONES: It helps.
CARLSON: Okay, so instead you're going to raise your hands and first one to raise his or her hand gets to answer the question. You have to wait until I finish asking it before you raise your hand.
Once you are acknowledged by name, then you can tell me what the answer is. Each correct answer is worth one point. If you get it wrong, you lose a point. Best of five wins.
By the way, I'm going to allow the judges to decide whose hand went up first. Are you ready? It's a little complex, but we think you can do.
BLANCHARD: You ready?
JONES: Let's get it.
CARLSON: This is this is the back to the land version. No technology. Okay, question one. Super Bowl 53, Sunday. To celebrate that event, Sam Adams the famous beer brewing company is releasing a brand new beer that honors which competing player? Lauren Blanchard.
BLANCHARD: It's Tom Brady.
CARLSON: Tom Brady.
JONES: Oh.
CARLSON: Says Lauren.
BLANCHARD: The greatest of our --
CARLSON: Is it Tom Brady?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY, HOST, FOX BUSINESS NEWS: Sam Adams is releasing a new beer in honor and Tom Brady. Tom Brady goat beer honors the man they consider the greatest of all time.
CARLSON: You're not even from New England.
BLANCHARD: No, but Michigan.
CARLSON: Michigan.
BLANCHARD: Tom Brady, he went to Michigan.
CARLSON: Oh, he did. Oh, he did. That's right. Well, now, he's the pride there. Okay, I am impressed. Okay. Leveraging a little hometown knowledge. Okay, question two. Which former governor went on TV for a boozy late night interview and said he would have been a better President than our current President? Lawrence say our judges.
JONES: Chris Christie.
CARLSON: Chris Christie. Was it Chris Christie? Boozy interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Would you have been a better President than Trump?
CHRIS CHRISTIE, R-N.J., FORMER GOVERNOR: Yes.
[Cheering and Applause]
COLBERT: I like that. That's nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Rule one. No drinking on TV. Wow. One to one. Okay. The tiebreaker question mid-quiz. Question three. A central Pennsylvania man is getting global attention, thanks to his strange attachment to an animal. That emotional support animal weighs 60 pounds, is five feet long and is called "Wally." What kind of animal is this? Lauren Blanchard.
BLANCHARD: It's an emotional support alligator.
CARLSON: I don't believe this.
JONES: What?
BLANCHARD: Yes.
CARLSON: Let's see if -- I know. That's my reaction, Lawrence Jones. What?
BLANCHARD: I got to meet it.
CARLSON: Is it an alligator?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOEY HENNEY, ALLIGATOR OWNER: Wally is my emotional support alligator for my home use and stuff, but we are invited everywhere. I do take him to Lowe's and Home Depot and he usually is always welcome there. What's up, buddy?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: This is getting out hand. It's getting out of hand.
CARLSON: I love how he phrased it, "It's my support alligator from my home use." Stop right there. We don't want to know more. Okay. Question four. This is multiple choice. Don't get tripped up with an early answer. You may have noticed it's very cold in some parts of the United States. Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of the coldest places. Wind chill over there reached the lowest temperature recorded since 1985. How cold was it? A. Negative 40. B. Negative 55. C. Minus 70 degrees. Lawrence?
JONES: A.
CARLSON: A. Minus 40. Was it minus 40?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look how cold it got; 55 below wind chills in Minneapolis Minnesota; Chicago 52 below the feel is like. Those are the coldest wind chills you all have seen since 1985, so it's seriously once in a generation here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: No. Don't take it away.
CARLSON: Okay, so we had to take a point, but our judges are saying because, look no one's going to beat Lauren -- and there's no shame in this by the way.
BLANCHARD: Okay, I study so much.
CARLSON: So we're going to make the last question worth two points for a tie breaker, say the judges. Look, I am a passive -- look, I am a marionette being controlled by my puppet masters in New York. You by the way, when he said 40, you shook your head.
BLANCHARD: We just had a crew out there covering this. My like co-worker, so I got to watch him and his eyelashes froze to his scarf.
CARLSON: I don't know who your supervisor is here at Fox, but you need a raise. You know what? I'm going to make that case on your behalf soon. Okay, final question. Road workers in Pembroke Pines, Florida were called to repair a sinkhole in the street. When they arrived on the scene, they realized it was not a sinkhole at all, but a 50 yard underground tunnel heading toward what? Lauren.
BLANCHARD: A bank.
JONES: Shut up.
CARLSON: You're ridiculous.
BLANCHARD: They were trying to get to a bank.
CARLSON: Was it a bank?
BLANCHARD: It was.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tunnel discovered leading right toward a bank.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tunnel, at least 50 yards long near the entrance in the woods, a pair of boots, a generator, a rope and a wagon. The tunnel leading right to a Chase Bank nearby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mysterious tunnel with a criminal plot and a suspect that got away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Really, let me just say, you're in the wrong business. You really should be like a professional "Jeopardy" player or something. It's unbelievable. Lawrence, you know what, there is no shame in losing to her. There's no way I could beat her.
JONES: No, she's just too good.
CARLSON: But thank you for coming in and doing it anyway.
JONES: Thanks, Tucker. And great job.
CARLSON: Lauren, I don't know which number Eric Wemple...
BLANCHARD: You gave me a scare there.
CARLSON: ... mug this is, but you now have close to a whole set and that is a coveted thing, I can tell you that.
BLANCHARD: I am trying to fill my kitchen.
CARLSON: Unbelievable.
JONES: She's just good.
CARLSON: She's unbelievable. We'll see you next week.
JONES: Tom Brady level.
CARLSON: "Final Exam," pay attention to the news all week. Tune in next Thursday to see if you can beat Lauren Blanchard and whoever has the huevos to line up with a professional. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Well, every age has an iconic photograph, an image that seems to capture everything about a moment. Here's one that says a lot about the time we're living in. It's a tweet from California Senator Kamala Harris. She's running for President.
Attached is a picture of her laughing with her friend, Stacey Abrams of Georgia quote, "There's no better person to showcase our country's strengths and speak the truth after the State of the Union," Harris writes of Abrams.
Senator Harris's social media consultant must have been proud of that tweet, and you can see why. It's the perfect distillation of every stale cliche our ruling class uses to celebrate itself packed into 280 characters or less, but then a sharp-eyed Twitter user notice something about the pictures. Zoom in a little bit to the left in the background.
Behind the two laughing politicians is a reminder that this country has changed quite a lot from the period 50 years ago that permanently shaped the sensibilities of our baby boom leaders. There's a man there he's lying on a bench unconscious. There's a can of malt liquor underneath him. There are thousands of men like this right now in every big American city.
Maybe that's why Harris and Abrams didn't notice him. He's just a feature of the landscape. This is the world they created and you're happy with it.
Well, American politics is increasingly haunted by a strange new specter, the "Woke Billionaire." They've got a ton of money, but otherwise they sound a lot like socialists. How does that work exactly?
Venture capitalist, Nick Hanauer recently declared that Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez is at the very beating heart of American politics, and he is for that. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICK HANAUER, VENTURE CAPITALIST: It's easy to call what AOC is doing as far lefty, but nothing could be further from the truth. When you advocate for economic policies that benefit the broad majority of citizens. That's true centrism.
What Howard Schultz represents, the centrism he represents, is really just trickle-down economics -- tax cuts for rich people, deregulation for powerful people and wage suppression and benefit cuts for everyone else without the overt racism. He is not the centrist, AOC is this centrist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, it's woke billionaire versus woke billionaire. Meanwhile, there's Tom Steyer, he uses his vast wealth, a lot of which he got from fossil fuels to organize and lead impeachment rallies. He may be the "wokest."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM STEYER, BILLIONAIRE ACTIVIST: I will be dedicating 100% of my time, effort and resources to one cause - working for Mr. Trump's impeachment and removal from office.
Start impeachment now.
Now impeachment question has reached an inflection point.
One hundred percent for impeachment.
And insist that this President be impeached and removed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So when billionaires start endorsing socialist policies, call me skeptical, but you think maybe there's a scam afoot. How are they benefiting from this? You know, they are. Author and columnist, Mark Steyn has some ideas about that, and he joins us today. What's going on here, Mark Steyn?
MARK STEYN, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST; Well, I think the woke billionaire is a phenomenon of our time. The way you get rich now is not the way you got rich in the days of the 19th Century Robber Baron's in the Gilded Age. It's possible to do it now, while being ever more disconnected from the concerns of ordinary people.
So these woke billionaires, I think, they're a lot like rock stars. You know, Bono, for example, goes on about debt forgiveness for Africa, but when he wanted to save money, he moved his music publishing firm from Dublin to Amsterdam for the lower taxes. He doesn't move it to Wagadugu and give a big injection into the African economy.
And I think that's actually the way these guys are. They understand that they're in a world in which striking attitudes that preserve their own power base is actually more important than anything else.
CARLSON: Well, exactly. And they're smart enough because they are smart by and large, that's how they got rich - to understand that there there's a lot of roiling politics right beneath the surface and the main theme going forward is the populist economics and guys like them could get crushed. So do you think this is a defensive move?
STEYN: Yes, I think it is. We have declining social mobility in the United States, which is a tragedy.
CARLSON: Yes, I agree with that.
STEYN: And we have across the planet, a huge rise in the growth of billionaires controlling -- a small group of about 2, 000 billionaires, controlling an ever greater share of the world's wealth and it's easy to strike attitudes at home while then taking advantage of tax loopholes abroad.
So you know, Google doing the old double Irish as they call it, by routing its money from one Irish company to another and then into a British tax haven like Bermuda. The whole point is to actually create a world in which there's an elite at the top and a vast mass underneath and not a lot of -- and the escalator to get from the bottom to the top is running ever slower and with an ever fewer people able to get on it.
CARLSON: Don't you think though there should be some standard? I mean, if you're a billionaire who's going to go on MSNBC and call for a revolution, shouldn't we get to see your tax returns and assess the tax havens that you're using to prevent paying your fair share? I mean, isn't that sort of a minimum requirement for this?
STEYN: Well, I think actually, on the left there's a huge acceptance now that the rules they want to apply to others don't apply to them. So if you made your money in say coal or construction and you want to keep your - and you want to keep that money in the Cayman Islands, or Bermuda or the Channel Islands, you're a bad person.
But if you're - you don't even have to be a businessman. If you're the Southern Poverty Law Center and you have that ridiculous name and yet you have billions salted in, as I said British colony tax havens, then that's okay.
The left has a high degree of tolerance because they actually think it's different when they do it. That's their basic view of it, and I think that's true with these guys. I mean, everyone knows you can salt all your money away in these little Irish Bermudan tax loopholes, not pay tax here but still get invited to the Obama White House and be standing between Obama and Bill Clinton. It won't affect that.
CARLSON: There's never been a more hypocritical age or a smarter analyst of it than Mark Steyn. Thank you for that.
STEYN: Thanks a lot, Tucker.
CARLSON: We'll be back tomorrow. Still the enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think. We will see you then.
But in the meantime, Sean Hannity standing by in New York City.
Hey, Sean.
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