Was Paul Manafort's sentence of 47 months enough? The left doesn't think so

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Was Paul Manafort's sentence of 47 months enough? The left doesn't think so

Democrats wanted Manafort to get decades behind bars; former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik on life inside prison.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," March 8, 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.” There are breaking developments at this hour in the Jussie Smollett hate hoax case, a story that goes on and on. As of moments ago, 16 additional felony charges. What does that mean? It means Jussie Smollett could go to jail. We'll have the latest on that in a minute.

But first tonight, let's say you disagree with the political views of the people who run the country, the billionaire class, the Tesla drivers, our self-appointed clergy on social media, the retired prosecutors and spy chiefs you so often see on television opining about things.

If you're watching this show, you're probably not all that impressed about these people. You don't wish them personal harm, of course, some of them are well-meaning people, but you don't think they've done a good job for America. Though somehow, they themselves are richer than ever. You might have voted for Donald Trump to make that very point.

Have you ever considered what these people think of you for voting the way that you did? For daring to be insolent and disobedient? How would they punish you if they ever got the chance? Ever think of that? Well, wonder no more.

Yesterday, Paul Manafort received four years in prison for bank fraud and tax evasion. Manafort will be 70 years old in a couple of weeks. He has got no criminal record of any kind. His sentence is considerably longer than the national average for the charges that he pled to. By the time Manafort gets out of prison, he will be elderly, broke, and disgraced. But for our ruling class, that's not nearly enough punishment. Manafort briefly managed Donald Trump's presidential campaign and for that, they believe he must die in prison. Anything less cannot be allowed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, ANCHOR, MSNBC: Shocking news.

GLENN KIRSCHNER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Shocking. And I'll tell you, as a former prosecutor, I'm embarrassed. As an American, I am upset.

DONNY DEUTSCH, HOST, MSBNC: From the very beginning, this judge seemed to have had a hard-on for just the Mueller probe overall.

BARBARA L. MCQUADE, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY: It's a serious crime and he got a slap on the wrist and I think for that, people should be outraged.

MIMI ROCAH, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I find this jaw dropping.

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: It's an extraordinarily lenient sentence in light of the extent and scope of Mr. Manafort's criminality.

ARI MELBER, HOST, MSNBC: Paul Manafort got the special clubby Washington, elite, friendly treatment.

KIRSCHNER: It's an outrage and it's disrespectful of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Paul Manafort must die. That's what they're demanding. Robert Mueller agrees with them. Mueller asked that Manafort receive up to 24 years in prison, for perspective, that is more than twice what the average murderer in this country spends behind bars. That's a death sentence. Keep in mind that serial murderer, Al Capone only got 11 years for crimes similar to those that Manafort has been charged with. But Capone was just a gangster, Paul Manafort is an enemy of the Democratic Party and that's much worse.

Is there a single person in America who believes that Manafort would be going to jail if he hadn't run Donald Trump's presidential campaign? Everyone in Washington knows that. There are a lot of Republican consultants here who are grateful tonight that they didn't take the job.

They are heading out on spring break tomorrow. Manafort is heading to prison. The judge in the case clearly understands what's happening here. As he passed down his sentence, Judge T.S. Ellis reminded those watching that Manafort was, quote, "Not before this court for having anything to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election." That's literally true.

Manafort has not been charged with any crime related to Russian collusion. Nobody has been charged with a crime related to Russian collusion. That's a fact. That's not an opinion. There's no dispute about it. And yet, somehow, a lot of people are still out there lying about this, probably because nobody in the press ever calls them on it. Watch your elected official say something totally untrue in the most self-righteous possible way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, D-CONN.: The American people would be justified in feeling that there has been some miscarriage of justice here. What Paul Manafort did was essentially -- potentially threatened our very democracy, the principles of our democracy.

SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-N.J.: This news came out about Paul Manafort and I'm really ticked off about this.

STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT SHOW HOST: Were you shocked that he only got 47 months?

BOOKER: No, this criminal justice system can't surprise me anymore.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL, D-CALIF.: I think I spent more days in detention in high school than Judge Ellis thinks that Paul Manafort should spend in jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So Cory Booker is quote, "very ticked off" that Paul Manafort may not die in jail for cheating on his taxes. Keep in mind this is the same Cory Booker who recently has spent hours on the Senate floor wagging his finger in the face of America over mass incarceration and our broken justice system.

The same Cory Booker who worked so hard to reduce the sentences for fentanyl dealers and applauded when the bill passed, and yet, that's also the same Cory Booker who now is outraged that a tax cheat isn't getting the death penalty. Has Cory Boker ever cheated on his taxes? I hope not. That would be hypocrisy. It would be interesting to know.

It would be interesting to know if any of these hyenas circling Paul Manafort has ever fudged a deduction or somehow violated our complex banking laws. Somebody should check. The penalty is pretty high these days. Just kidding.

This isn't about taxes, obviously. Cory Booker knows that well. It's about using power to crush your political opponents in order to get more power. The same principle will be on display next week when Manafort is sentenced for failing to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938. That will be an amazing moment, if only because of how rarely it occurs. It's like Hayley's Comet here in Washington.

In the space of 50 years, between 1966 and 2015, the DOJ charged a total of seven people in FARA cases, just three of them were convicted. Meanwhile, the most powerful foreign lobbyist in Washington still are not registered under FARA. Robert Mueller has no plans to indict them, of course not, they never made the mistake of running Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Chris Hahn is a radio host and a former staff for Senator Chuck Schumer and he joins us tonight. So Chris, the sentence that the Mueller investigation recommended to the judge was up to 24 years. That's twice what the average convicted murderer spends in prison in this country for tax evasion. Is that an appropriate request, would you say?

CHRIS HAHN, RADIO SHOW HOST: Well, they didn't actually make a request. Those were the sentencing guidelines set by the Court by the Federal Judiciary System.

CARLSON: No, that's not -- you're factually incorrect. That's not true. They did.

HAHN: They made no recommendation for sentencing in this case.

CARLSON: They requested that the guidelines be followed.

HAHN: Yes, they requested that the guidelines be followed, they didn't make a specific recommendation of actual sentencing.

CARLSON: No, but that was their request. So, I mean, honest question. Do you think that Paul Manafort, who has pled to bank fraud, and he didn't defraud money. He didn't steal any money from a bank. He misrepresented a loan application. No bank actually fleeced by Paul Manafort and he cheated on his taxes, as a lot of people here do, as you know. Do you think getting twice the sentence of your average convicted murder, is that appropriate? Would you feel better about America if he had gotten that?

HAHN: No. and Tucker, you and I have had many conversations about criminal justice. I never root for anyone who hasn't committed a violent felony to go to jail for any amount of time. But when there are guidelines and this particular judge sentenced Congressman Jefferson to 12 years for bribery, charges that were later thrown out by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. You would think that he would follow the guidelines at least a little bit, but he didn't.

CARLSON: Are you with the ghouls on MSNBC and CNN and the U.S. Congress who are shocked that he is not going to die in prison? Which he may. He's going to be 70. He could do -- what's your position?

HAHN: There's still another round of sentencing for him. I think that Paul Manafort was working for some pretty bad people and I think that Paul Manafort was the connection to Russia in this last campaign. I don't have any formal proof of that, but I do believe it based on his --

CARLSON: Working for some pretty bad people. Okay, so I guess I've just been here too long to take that seriously. So you have Michael Cohen, his lawyer is a friend of mine. His lawyer represents the government of Pakistan, which supported the Taliban during 9/11, are those some pretty bad people? Should he go to jail for that? Should we bust him on a FARA registration?

HAHN: I think that he spent a lot of time advising people who wanted to bring more Russian control to the Ukraine on how they could do that.

CARLSON: Okay, so what about people who lobbied for Pakistan -- I am just wondering since we're all very judgmental on that, people who lobby for Pakistan, and there are a lot of them, most of them are Democrats, as well you know, Pakistan supported the Taliban during 9/11. They had a direct line to Kandahar, the ISI, people who lobbied for that, should they go to jail?

HAHN: I don't see any evidence of those people that had been running a campaign while Pakistan was interfering with our election, which Russia clearly was in 2016.

CARLSON: But he hasn't been charged of that, so --

HAHN: Look, I hear a lot of gnashing of teeth on the right about people reacting here. I hope when Jussie Smollett gets sentenced, people are saying, "Oh my god, that was too much," because he only hurt himself in that --

CARLSON: If Jussie Smollett is looking at life in prison for lying, I will be the first one to say this is not a police state.

HAHN: Well, you know, he is being charged with 16 --

CARLSON: Okay, let me ask you ...

HAHN: He's being charged with 16 felonies, so let's hope everybody is saying he should get a light sentence, too. I just hope so.

CARLSON: I don't know what the guidelines are. I don't think he should get more than a fentanyl dealer. But the phoniest person in Washington is the senator from New Jersey, as you know, totally fraudulent human being, Cory Booker. Cory Booker.

Cory Booker just got on the Senate floor, hour after hour, telling us that we are racist for putting fentanyl dealers in prison, and we need to have their sentences. He has sponsored that bill. Now he's telling us that Paul Manafort needs to spend the rest of his life in prison for tax evasion. Do you see any kind of disconnect between those two positions?

HAHN: Look, I think the disconnect is how this particular judge sentenced a Congressman who happened to be black to 12 years for a financial crime.

CARLSON: Are you calling the judge a racist?

HAHN: But this guy lived an exemplary life he says - except for the lying he has done for the last 10 years and he's only going to get four years.

CARLSON: Now, wait, hold on. What are you saying? I am confused. Are you saying that Bill Jefferson wasn't guilty of keeping cash in his freezer? Are you saying that T.S. Ellis is a racist? I mean, add them to the list, I guess Dr. Seuss is a racist, too?

HAHN: I say that the Supreme Court threw out most of those charges and got rid of most of the sentencing.

CARLSON: I'm not here -- I knew Bill Jefferson. I liked Bill Jefferson. I am not here to attack Bill Jefferson. I'm just asking what you're saying --

HAHN: Well, what I'm saying is that this judge seems to be stricter on Bill Jefferson than he was with Manafort, and there were guidelines in place. He completely ignored it. The difference between God and a Federal District Court judge is God doesn't think he is a Federal District Court judge.

CARLSON: So your position is that for tax evasion, Paul Manafort ought to have spent the rest of his life in prison not four years. I just hope nobody else has cheated on their taxes and you know what it really helps is that nobody else has failed to register under FARA in this city, can you think of anyone who has registered with FARA?

HAHN: That is not what I am saying at all. That is not what I am saying at all. What I am saying, look, I don't want anybody to go to jail for a long period of time over financial crimes, but if there are going to be standards, they should be applied equally and clearly, Paul Manafort got better than equal treatment by Judge Ellis.

CARLSON: Well, good, well, I agree. Let's do a quick check on everybody taxes and everybody's FARA registration and like half the people I know will be doing life. I am setting that show.

HAHN: Look, I hope later on in the show, when people are talking about Jussie Smollett, they remember this conversation and call for leniency.

CARLSON: Join me when the law is equally applied. It would be interesting. Okay, thank you, Chris, good to see you.

So we talk a lot about prison. All the dumb people on TV think it's no big deal, go to prison. Yes, whatever. Die there. You're on the other side, you deserve it, but you never hear from anyone who has been in Federal prison and one thing about people who have been in Federal prison, they tend to be for prison reform because it's bad.

Bernie Kerik is one of them. He is a former NYPD Commissioner, author of the book, "From Jailer to Jailed," and he joins us tonight. Quick question for you, Bernie Kerik, because you see people lively recommend that so and so do the rest of his life in prison, what's your reaction as someone who's been there?

BERNARD KERIK, FORMER NYPD COMMISSIONER: Honestly, it makes me sick, especially Cory Booker. I've worked with Senator Booker for the last five years on trying to get these bills passed and every meeting, everything we've done, first-time non-violent offenders should not go to prison for life, should not go to prison for extended time. We should look at alternative sentencing and then to hear him talk today like Paul Manafort should go to prison for 19 to 24 years, whatever the recommendation was, it's BS. It's completely hypocritical and he just makes me sick.

CARLSON: So you hear people say -- and let's just be honest, I mean, most people you see on TV are dumb. That's why they're not in finance. So, they don't know. But you do know. And when you hear them say it's Club Fed, whatever, it's easy. You're basically going to be golfing the whole time, is that true?

KERIK: The only people that thinks that a minimum-security camp where Paul Manafort should go, may go, the only people that believes that are people that's been in the system and are institutionalized and they have been there for 15, 20, 25, 30, 40 years. Those people think that a minimum- security camp is Club Fed because they've been turned into monsters.

But when you take a law-abiding citizen, a 70-year-old man, and you stick him in a minimum-security camp where the noise is atrocious, where there's filth, where you have to live on a daily basis and worry about MRSA and staph infection and HIV, and you live out of a Tupperware dish, and you live in a cubicle that's made for two people and there's five guys in there and you have the deprivation of freedom, which is so profound that you can't even imagine it.

You don't get to see your kids. You don't get to see your grandkids. And if you don't have money, you can't survive because you can't talk to anybody on the outside. Don't tell me that a minim minimum-security camp is a country club or Club Fed because you have no idea what you're talking about. You're delusional or you're just plain stupid.

CARLSON: How do you feel, as someone who's over 40 watching your country become a place where people openly call for the imprisonment of their political opponents because they're political opponents?

KERIK: You know what, Tucker, I wrote about this today. There's an article in "News Max" and it's basically, it's all about Nadler sending out 81 letters. He's going to torment and torture and bankrupt 81 people for political reasons, selective and political reasons. It has got to stop. Somebody has to do something to stop this. They're bankrupting people. They are destroying people's lives. They are crucifying people, families, kids -- it's just sickening.

CARLSON: It is sickening, I agree with that completely. Bernie Kerik, thank you very much for your perspective on that.

KERIK: Thank you.

CARLSON: We have a Fox News Alert for you. The actor, Jussie Smollett has been charged with more than a dozen additional felonies stemming from his fake hate crime last January - this January. Trace Gallagher has the very latest on this and he joins us now -- Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tucker. He went from one felony count of disorderly conduct to 16 felony counts and to make matters legally worse for Jussie Smollett, the grand jury also returned two sets of charges because they say he gave false statements to two different Chicago police officers and the stories were different, telling police about the racist and homophobic slurs. The suspects yelling, "This is MAGA country," and saying they beat him up, put a noose around his neck and poured bleach on him.

Each set of charges carries a penalty up to four years in prison. Now, experts say it's highly unlikely he will serve eight years, but it is more likely now that he could serve some jail time, though a plea deal is also a strong possibility. Police say Smollett paid two brothers $3,500.00 to stage the attack. And they say the brothers did strike Jussie Smollett, but the scratches and bruises on the actor's face were likely self- inflicted.

Jussie Smollett could also face Federal charges for mail fraud. Investigators believe before the alleged attack, he sent himself a threatening letter with white powder that turned out to be Tylenol. The letter is now at an FBI crime lab, so far, no word from the 36-year-old actor or his lawyers about these counts -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Really an amazing story. Trace, thanks so much. We've got new information coming in at this hour on the Smollett case. We're going to have a reaction from Deroy Murdoch of "National Review" and more. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSSIE SMOLLETT, AMERICAN ACTOR: I still want to believe with everything that happened, that there's something called justice, because if I stop believing that, then what's it all for?

ROBIN ROBERTS, HOST, ABC: Beautiful. Thank you, Jussie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "Beautiful. Thank you, Jussie." That's my new ring tone. I can't get enough. I'm not going to forget that, you shouldn't either. A month ago, Jussie Smollett stood at the very apex of America's social hierarchy, he was a victim. Now a grand injury has charged Jussie Smollett with 16 felonies. The indictment accused Smollett of repeatedly lying to police officers in a deliberate effort to fabricate a hate crime against himself.

Those are the facts as we know them. What do they mean? Deroy Murdoch is a contributing editor at "National Review" and he joins us tonight. Deroy, thanks a lot for coming on.

DEROY MURDOCH, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, NATIONAL REVIEW: Tucker, how are you? Good to see you.

CARLSON: So, I would say you're an expert at taking three steps back and assessing the meaning of news events. What's the meaning of this one?

MURDOCH: Well, I think we had the presumption of innocence on the part of Jussie Smollett, but beyond that, it looks to me that the evidence seems rather overwhelming with this check we just saw and all else that he has got a couple of major problems. One is illegality, filing a false police report. People have done this in the past, for example, the UVA rape case, the "Duke Lacrosse rape case" quote-unquote. And there really were no consequences suffered by the people who went to the police and lied to them about events that didn't place.

I think if Smollett in fact is convicted, it will send a message, a badly needed message that if you lie to police about events that didn't take place, that's very serious especially in a city like Chicago with a massive crime problem with homicides. You've got police who ought to be finding murderers who were sidelined to work on this fake case, so that's very serious.

And then there's a very serious moral problem here, which is in a country that's completely divided, with all of us at each other's throats, the last thing we need is one more reason for us to try to strangle each other and when this whole thing happened a few weeks ago, you had a case involving a black man who is also gay, which made it a racial case, a sexual case. And of people blamed it on people who supposedly said, "This is MAGA country," which turned it into basically a war on Trump supporters.

So the last thing we need in this country right now is people adding to the tension and division we're suffering already and I think this is why this man has done something very immoral as well as illegal and he ought to spend several years in jail breaking rocks as a consequence.

CARLSON: So, your final point is the one that really resonates with me. As you put it, we already are each other's throats. We don't need more reasons to be.

MURDOCH: Absolutely.

CARLSON: Why do you think so many of our opinion makers in the media and on social media are encouraging that division?

MURDOCH: Well, unfortunately, this is something the left has pushed. They've pushed racial division for years. I mean, going back to the slave days through Jim Crow and on and on, identity politics, not looking at us as individuals with whatever talents or shortcomings we may have, but instead by putting us into competing racial camps, sexual camps, sexual orientation camps and so on, and letting this sort of tension and acrimony continue.

And here we have this actor who gets paid $65,000.00 per episode inculcating or perpetrating this sort of thing, supposedly so he could get a raise and make more than $65,000.00 a week working on "Empire," which works out if did 20 episodes, about $1.3 million, which I think is a pretty comfortable wage, but I guess he didn't like that.

And fortunately, he got caught. If he didn't get caught, he would still be considered a victim. He probably would have gone to the Oscars and would have been applauded by all the elite in Hollywood as this black gay man who's suffered the most horrible consequences. "GQ" magazine had a headline about this. It was, "The Racist Homophobic Attack on Jussie Smollett is Far-Right America's End Game." And this is the narrative that existed. Fortunately, the police got to the bottom of this and this whole thing unraveled or it would still be menacing this country.

CARLSON: It's sad to see what happened in American magazines. I spent years working in them. Only the losers remain. Depressing. And very quickly, last question, am I making this up or is there a theme here that the people who claim to be victims tend to be the more powerful in our society? I can't remember the last time I saw an HVAC repairman or someone on unemployment benefits claiming to be the victim of something. It's always the powerful that claim to be victims.

MURDOCH: Very often, it's people who are in elite schools. People in lead institutions or what have you who will claim to be victims and rather than celebrate the victors in society, we seem to be celebrating the victims. It's a very, very sad situation. Jussie Smollett took a sad song and made it worse, which is of course, is the opposite of what John Lennon encourages to do.

CARLSON: Deroy Murdoch, great to see you.

MURDOCH: Tucker, great to see you.

CARLSON: Well, according to a lot of polls, Joe Biden who has run a number of times for President, is the favorite once again for the Democratic presidential nomination, should he choose to run? But who is Joe Biden actually? How much do you know about him? You'll know more at the next segment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Joe Biden isn't officially running for President once again, and yet he's bumming around the country getting rich from speeches to corporate groups, around the world, really, but if he does enter the race, poll show he will immediately by a front runner for the Democratic nomination.

Joe Biden has been in politics for a long, long, long time. The Democratic Party of today is completely different from the Party he joined 50 years ago. How will the party's red guards, who are now in charge of everything feel about Joe Biden's past?

Lisa Boothe has been digging into this. She is a senior fellow at Independent Women's Voice and she joins us tonight with the results of her Joe Biden investigation.

LISA BOOTHE, SENIOR FELLOW, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S VOICE: Hi, Tucker.

CARLSON: Hey, Lisa.

BOOTHE: Well, there's a lot there, as you can imagine. He served on the Senate for 36 years. He spent eight years as the Vice President and with that, there's a lot of positives. Part of the reason why he's the front- runner is high name ID. You are more easily able to raise money when people know you like that and you have a base of support among the donor base.

But there's also a lot of challenges. There's a lot of things that you've said that you're going to have to answer to, things you have to vote on as well, and Joe Biden has recently come under criticism, one for his treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing. There's a lot of Democrats who felt that he was too tough on her and negatively impacted Anita Hill.

And also, remember how much trouble Hillary Clinton gotten over her super predator comment and how that impacted her 2016 presidential run. There were interactions with the Black Lives Matter protesters who interrupted a fundraiser, demanded an apology for that comment. Well, Joe Biden had a similar comment that he might have to answer to as well. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: The cadre of young people, tens of thousands of them, borne out of wedlock without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience. We should focus on them now. Not out of a liberal instinct, for love, brother and humanity, although I think that's a good instinct, but for simple pragmatic reasons.

If we don't, they will, or a portion of them will become the predators 15 years from now and Madame President, we have predators on our streets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOOTHE: And, Tucker, remember, of the 4.4 million voters, 2012 Obama voters that sat home in 2016. More than a third were African-Americans, and there's also this comment when you look at the fact that you've got people like Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren embracing and endorsing reparations for slavery, there is this comment I want to show you as well if we can pull it up that Biden made back in 1975 regarding school busing.

And he said, "I do not buy the concept popular in the '60s, which said, 'We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. I order to even score, we must now give the black man a head start or even hold the white man back to even the race.' I don't buy that."

So a lot of these comments he has previously made could end up being an issue both with African-American voters and just where the Democratic Party is now as a whole. I mean, we know that the Party has gone increasingly leftward leaning. Medicare for All used to be outside of the mainstream, now it's a litmus test for Democratic candidates, so Joe Biden may not be in the mainstream of the Democratic Party anymore.

CARLSON: I would say he's not even in the same zip code as the mainstream party. Lisa Boothe, great to see you.

BOOTHE: Well, that's a more interesting way to say it.

CARLSON: It's true. It's unbelievable. Thanks a lot for that.

BOOTHE: Happy Friday.

CARLSON: Well, the Russia story has completely and utterly warped the Democratic Party in the last two years. It's driven them -- many of them anyway -- to become pro-war, pro-censorship, pro-China, pro-CIA and a bunch of other things that would have horrified them just 10 years ago.

Stephen Cohen knows a lot about this. He's been at the heart of Russia studies and politics for a long time, obviously, a very famous Russian Studies Professor at Princeton NYU and a contributing editor to the "Nation" magazine and he joins us tonight. Professor, thanks very much for coming on.

So you've been around American politics and Russian diplomacy for decades. How has this story, the Russia collusion changed the Democratic Party, would you say?

STEPHEN COHEN, PROFESSOR OF RUSSIAN STUDIES, PRINCETON NYU: Some people think I've been around too long. I'm working on that. Look, as a historian, I know that parties have parties within them. They're divided. And I saw that when I was growing up in the segregated south.

My father was a Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democrat for social justice, yet, the Democratic Party was a segregationist party in the south. We see something like that going on today, I fear. That is to say that the party and its candidates for the presidency are preaching social justice and economic justice and traditional liberal values, but they're pushing this Russiagate story against Trump in a way that I think is making the Democratic Party the party of Cold War with Russia, which easily could be Hot War, the party of neo-McCarthyism and a party that doesn't care the way it used to about civil liberties.

You made the point at the top of your broadcast, I think about Paul Manafort. It seems to be a party that wants a death sentence for artful tax returns, so that would put an awful lot of people in prison.

CARLSON: And Russia seems to be the unifying force behind all of these changes. I mean, you're seeing censorship online that liberals of my childhood would have rebelled against, fought against, filed lawsuits against that they now support because it's done in the name of eliminating Russian disinformation.

COHEN: Yes, I have a different way of formulating it. In the 20th Century, we had three major episodes of detente with Russia or what President Trump has called cooperation. They were all done by -- I don't know if you have thought of this -- by Republican Presidents. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan, correct?

CARLSON: Yes.

COHEN: In that sense, Trump is calling for cooperation or detente with Russia is squarely in the Republican tradition. I don't know if Trump knows that himself, but he is. And yet when he does, whatever a Republican President did in the 20th Century, try to cooperate with Moscow, it's called treason. And I'm not making this up.

You remember in July last year, he went to Helsinki for a summit with Putin, the Russian leader, something that every American President since Eisenhower had done, had a Summit with a Kremlin leader and what did they say when he came home - Trump came home? Treason -- driven by the Democrats.

So, I mean, to my mind, though I've been a kind of Democrat most of my life, the Democrats are becoming the party of anti-national security.

CARLSON: It must be so bewildering -- I mean, it's for me and I know only a fraction of what you know.

COHEN: Well, what zip code are you in? I am not sure --

CARLSON: I am in a very far away zip code.

COHEN: Do we have zip codes anymore?

CARLSON: That's right. I don't think we have cell service in my zip code actually, that's how far out I am. Professor, great to see you.

COHEN: Thank you.

CARLSON: So much, thank you.

COHEN: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Big tech has become a critical part of the left's censorship agenda, really the engine of it. Does that problem have a simple fix or is it time to break up the tech giants entirely? That's a rhetorical question, you know the answer. But we have more on it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Most of the Democratic Party is happily aligned with the interest of big tech, which funds their campaign. But there is one exception, at least, Elizabeth Warren, believe it or not. Today, Warren unveiled a plan to break up the country's largest tech monopolies -- Google, Amazon, Facebook -- if she is elected President. Nobody has ever accused this show of carrying water for Elizabeth Warren, that's for sure.

But when somebody says something smart and true, we want to be the first to congratulate that person. We are not partisans. We're just looking for people of good faith to make good decisions. And that would be a good decision, one of the main reasons it would be is because monopolies have immense power and these monopolies use that power to censor unpopular speech -- conservative speech almost always.

A Twitter executive recently appeared on the "Joe Rogan Podcast" and basically admitted that. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM POOL, AMERICAN JOURNALIST: Your platform restricts speech.

VIJAYA GADDE, GLOBAL LEAD FOR LEGAL, POLICY, AND TRUST AND SAFETY, TWITTER: Our platform promotes speech unless people violate our rules.

POOL: You are biased and you are targeting specific individuals because your rules support this perspective.

GADDE: No.

POOL: Why are people being suspended for tweeting #LearnToCode?

GADDE: Some of these tweets actually contain death threats, wishes of harm, other coded language that we have seen to mean death to journalists. So it wasn't about just to learn to code, it was about the context that we were seeing.

POOL: That's just not true. The editor-in-chief of "The Daily Caller" was suspended for nothing but #LearnToCode.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: She's just lying. They all are. Jesse Kelly is the host of the Jesse Kelly Radio Show in Houston. He has himself been a victim of tech censorship and we are proud to have him on tonight. Jesse, thanks very much for coming on. So what strikes you more, the willingness of Twitter and other social media companies to just censor things they don't like or their complete lack of self-awareness when asked about it?

JESSE KELLY, RADIO SHOW HOST: I think they're extremely self-aware, Tucker. They are aware of the fact that other than that interview right there and people like your show, nobody is going to ask them the tough questions, and I'm not surprised about them censoring. That's what totalitarians do, they censor things off.

And we as conservatives have better wake up to the fact that we have a cultural war with socialism in the United States of America right now and the socialists control all of the supply lines and conservatives wonder why we're starving to death.

CARLSON: That's exactly right, and I should say I think -- I don't know the guy who asked the question, I think it's Tim Pool, and I think he is a leftist, but an honest one, and good for him, but you're absolutely right that they're never pressed on this by anybody except in the most sort of sensitive way.

Robin Roberts interviewing Jussie Smollett kind of in a wonderful way, and that confuses me because journalists have everything at stake in the First Amendment. They should be opposed to censorship. They usually have been. Why are they no longer opposed to it?

KELLY: Because journalists want to be eaten last. The journalist are socialists just like the tech guys are, just like all the media is, just like Hollywood is. All the journalists just want to be aligned with the socialists that are in charge of the government at the end. But conservatives had better wake up and they had better realize that making your living just off these tech platforms is dangerous. It spells trouble. It's like inviting Ilhan Omar to your kid's bar mitzvah.

CARLSON: I mean, if only conservatives controlled the branch of government or a chamber of congress, maybe someone would do something about it. Why aren't the conservative office holders who wield power doing anything to protect their voters and America and the Bill of Rights itself?

KELLY: Well, Tucker, they should. They should be treating these tech companies like publishers. They are publishers. They censor out conservatives. They only censor out conservatives. They've never censored out liberals out there, so they should change their tax status and that's what these tech companies are most scared of.

But then again, you and I both know Congress is going to screw that up, too. Congress can't do anything right. Congress couldn't sell cat litter at an event for feminists.

CARLSON: I'm not allowed to laugh at that, so I am not, I am just going to nod like I don't even understand what you're saying. Okay, so if Elizabeth Warren comes out, who I don't think -- I haven't made a lifetime habit of complimenting, if she comes out and says let's break up the tech companies, let's get this under control, why wouldn't Republicans ally with her in that one thing?

KELLY: Because I think if you give Elizabeth Warren that kind of power, what's she going to grab next? Yes, it sounds nice to break up Amazon and Google and these things that frankly, they scare me, too how big and powerful they are and I know they scare you, but once you give Elizabeth Warren that kind of power, then that hungry animal is not going to stop there. She's going to start looking at people like you and me and you know we're going to get eaten next.

CARLSON: They're going to break up your house. You know, it's probably a fair point. You're a wise man. Jesse, great to see you. Thank you.

KELLY: Appreciate you, brother.

CARLSON: Well, you thought typhus was gone. It was a 19th Century disease, a disease of poverty and filth and you're sort of right and you're sort of wrong. It's making a comeback in Los Angeles. We hit the streets for our investigation, "Madness in California." We've got it on tape.

Also, Janice Dean, one of the great people at Fox News joins us tonight in "The Friend ZONE" with some great news to share. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Now, to the slow-moving disaster known as California. Los Angeles has one of the largest homeless populations in the United States. Local officials have done virtually nothing to fix the situation, as a result, diseases you used to read about in novels are making a comeback in this supposedly developed country. Diseases like typhus. Hillary Vaughn went to Los Angeles to investigate this for the show and here is what we found.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

HILLARY VAUGHN, CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the heart of Los Angeles, rats are breeding and a medieval disease is born again -- typhus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEON JOSEPH, POLICE OFFICER, LOS ANGELES: This medieval diseases are here now because this environment got out of control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUGHN (voice over): Typhus is popping up in L.A.'s Skid Row, an area where homelessness sprawls across 50 city blocks, and an infectious disease eradicated in the 1800's that festers in filth and is spread by fleas and rats is back, because the city allows hundreds of homeless people to set up shacks on the sidewalk and live there forever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH: Sometimes, they have duplexes, three-stories. They have furniture. One lady had like a little rubber Jacuzzi in here one time. They get real comfortable here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUGHN (voice over): Officer Deon Joseph has spent over two decades on Skid Row.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH: It's a mess everywhere now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUGHN (voice over): He says letting tent cities thrive isn't protecting the poor, it's proliferating drugs and disease.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH: We have some people right in this row here who have housing, but they'll set up a tent and pretend to be homeless all day and sell drugs -- spice, methamphetamine, crack cocaine.

COUNCILMAN JOE BUSCAINO, D-LOS ANGELES: We have drug dealers, thugs preying on our most vulnerable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUGHN (voice over): Councilmember Joe Buscaino also a former police officer led an effort to pass a city ordinance that let homeless people pop tents on the street to sleep at night, but have them pack up in the morning to keep streeets clear.

But the court blocked it from being enforced after advocates representing a group of homeless people sued the city, calling its enforcement cruel and unusual punishment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSCAINO: Our police officers are not able to do their job and clear our public sidewalks. It's insanity. They are not allowing us to clean our streets and our sidewalks. What they are doing is they are embracing and encouraging a lifestyle of filth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUGHN (voice over): Over time, squalor builds up on the streets with rats feasting on rotting food mixed with sewage and used syringes, but far away from Skid Row, through rats and fleas, typhus traveled through the streets and a deputy city attorney who works way up on the sixth floor at City Hall got infected.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH GREENWOOD, LOS ANGELES DEPUTY CITY ATTORNEY: I felt like I was going to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUGHN (voice over): Greenwood says the building has always had rats, but what's changed isn't what's in the building, it's what's around it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREENWOOD: The homeless population has moved closer and closer. They surround the building. So as folks walk to work and back, they are walking through rotting food, raw sewage.

JOSEPH: They're going to stay right here and surround themselves with filth. That's only going to lead them to demise.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

CARLSON: Hillary Vaughn joins us. Hillary, that's dirtier than downtown Mumbai, India where I just was. Were you surprised by it?

VAUGHN: I was surprised and I actually threw away my shoes after walking through the streets because I didn't trust that I could clean them effectively to make sure I didn't get any form of typhus if a flea hitched a ride on my boots.

CARLSON: How could there be used hypodermic needles on the streets and no one picks them up?

VAUGHN: We saw some cleanup efforts, but a lot of the controversy is what they're allowed to throw away as trash. A lot of homeless people keep piles of things on the street and you may think it's trash, but they get upset if you try to remove it.

CARLSON: Homeless people get upset, okay, that makes total sense. It's insane. Thank you. Thank you for that amazing package. Thank you for investigating for us.

We've got great news. End of the week, we want to end on the happiest possible note. "The Friend ZONE" is back. We welcome an actual friend from Fox News onto the program, Janice Dean, a beloved meteorologist, a co- host for the "Fox and Friends." She has a new memoir out, "Mostly Sunny" and she joins us tonight. Janice, it is so great to see you.

JANICE DEAN, CO-HOST: Hi, I'm just glad to be in the same studio as you.

CARLSON: I love it, "Mostly Sunny."

DEAN: We miss you.

CARLSON: You are the sunniest person I think and we worked together for a long time. You're the sunniest person I think I've ever met.

DEAN: Well, what about your wife?

CARLSON: She's pretty sunny.

DEAN: She is very sunny.

CARLSON: But why would your memoir be entirely sunny?

DEAN: You know, I was going to call it, "Partly Sunny," but I think it's all about your outlook. If you have a sunny outlook during challenging times, I think that truly can help you through life and that's what I try to do. I tried to find the silver lining. I think all of the bumps on the road that I've had, and I've had a few, I realize now they had to happen for me to have this moment, sitting here with you, Tucker.

CARLSON: I love that. I love that you decided that and you stuck with it. That is -- who are we looking at, Janice Dean?

DEAN: That is me back home in Ottawa, Canada. I was a bylaw enforcement officer in uniform for about two weeks, trying to make it look cute there.

CARLSON: What bylaws did you enforce?

DEAN: So bylaw is basically non-criminal laws -- barking dogs, lawn grass complaints, annoying dogs, cats not on their leash -- we actually tried to leash cats at one point, try that my friends. So I was a dispatcher there and I would dispatch calls. I did that every summer while I was in school, like, "Bylaw base to 16, there's a dog on the loose." It was a 10-69, something like that. "Bylaw base to 10-69. We've got a 10-69 lose ..."

So I did that for a while and they tell me that I got my start in radio from dispatching those calls and I did the actual uniform thing for about two weeks. I was terrible at it. There would be a dog across the street that I was supposed to catch and I would pretend that I didn't see it.

CARLSON: How long were you -- I know that you know the name of every song written between 1960 and 2000, how long were you a disc jockey?

DEAN: Well, on and off for probably 15 years -- well, 10 years, because I've been at Fox for 15 years. My broadcasting career has been 25 years, so I started when I was about 23. I worked at a classic rock station. I met all these cool rock stars, which I document in "Mostly Sunny." There I am, Shannon Bream and I were talking about like my hair was terrible back then. It was sort of mushy and thing.

CARLSON: Not, it was great, actually.

DEAN: There's Billy Ray Cyrus, "Achy Breaky Heart," there.

CARLSON: When is that?

DEAN: That was the '90s, but my big story was with Steven Tyler and that's in the book you, Tucker Carlson, actually helped me get my autograph on the actual picture of Steven Tyler and I, 20 years later. Do you know that story?

CARLSON: I don't know.

DEAN: So you have to read the book, but here is Steven Tyler and I. We had a moment together back home in Ottawa. He never signed my picture until "Fox and Friends" a couple of years ago.

We were playing, "Love in an Elevator." I said, "I have this great moment with Steven Tyler, but I don't have an autograph."

CARLSON: Yes, I remember.

DEAN: And then on Twitter, somebody contacted me and said, "Send me the picture, I'll get Steven Tyler to sign it." He did. There it is because of Tucker Carlson.

CARLSON: That is so cool.

DEAN: Isn't that amazing?

CARLSON: And that was in Canada?

DEAN: That was in Canada. Yes, that was backstage. He wanted me to come backstage after the show and then that would have changed the whole trajectory of my life.

CARLSON: That's probably -- you know what, it's probably best that you didn't do that. We never would have met you if you had done that. So without getting too heavy on live TV, we've talked about this a number of times. You decided that you were going to approach the challenges in your life in a positive way.

DEAN: Yes.

CARLSON: How -- I mean, people are inspired when they hear that. Can you give advice to other people who are facing challenges? How do you do that? How do you stick with it?

DEAN: Well, I wrote this book for myself when I was diagnosed with MS, and that was almost 15 years ago because I was looking for people that were doing well despite the challenge. And I couldn't find a lot of that.

I needed a book like this, "Mostly Sunny" to make me feel like I wasn't alone. So I wrote this book sort of for me 15 years ago, when I was facing a really dark time. I just wanted to know there was somebody out there doing well.

CARLSON: Whatever you did, really I've never met anyone who's approached life as you have, and I'm very impressed by it.

DEAN: Well, it also helps to have really good friends around you and I consider you a very good friend.

CARLSON: Thank you.

DEAN: And now I have my mug.

CARLSON: Your Eric Wempel mug.

DEAN: I've been waiting for this mug. I won that contest and you never gave me the mug and I had to come to D.C.

CARLSON: I know because we're not allowed to send Eric through the U.S. Mail. You had to come here and get it.

DEAN: He's in my book, too.

CARLSON: I know. I know, he is. One of his relatives approached me in an airport and asked for one of those mugs. She feels the same way about him the way you do.

DEAN: I love it. I love you, Tucker Carlson.

CARLSON: Janice Dean. You're the best, Janice. Thank you.

DEAN: Mwah.

CARLSON: What a great end to the week. We're done. We'll be back Monday, 8:00 p.m. The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and group think. Have a truly happy and relaxing weekend with people you love, Trump advises (ph), if you can. And we will see you Monday evening. Hannity is next from New York.

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