What lessons should the US learn from governments like Venezuela?

Published February 07, 2019

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," February 7, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Good and welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” For generations, the Commonwealth of Virginia had a pretty good reputation. It was famous for its verdant horse farms, the subtle beauty of its mountains and the gentlemanly common sense of its politics. Eight American presidents came from Virginia, including, of course, our first President, George Washington. The Declaration of Independence was written by a Virginian. The first Christmas tree in this country was decorated in Virginia.

Virginia was a stable, sensible place. It was not Florida. And, yet, suddenly it is. In fact, just this morning Florida mocked Virginia for getting completely out of control in public, "Settle down," said Florida. You are embarrassing yourself, and indeed Virginia is doing just that.

In the past week, that state's top three elected officials -- all Democrats -- have fallen into potentially career-ending scandals over their personal behavior. Train wreck does not begin to describe what is happening in Virginia. It's been like a 50-car pile-up on i-81 south of Roanoke. It's a disaster.

Fox's Ed Henry has been watching slack-jawed since the beginning of this unfolding story he joins you now with an update. Hey, Ed.

ED HENRY, CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Tucker, good to see you. It's hard to find a hero in this mess you just laid out. But maybe, it's the wife of Governor Ralph Northam who didn't just stop him from doing the moonwalk, she also helped convince him to not step down despite intense pressure at the beginning. That may have turned out to be wise counsel by Pam Northam.

If Northam had given in to the political mob, there could have been a far deeper crisis in Virginia. The governorship would have gone to Democratic Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax. He is now embroiled in a charge of sexual assault he denies. Next in line would be Democratic State Attorney, General Mark Herring. He has now admitted he, too, appeared in blackface, at least once in college.

Now in the wake of the push among some Democrats to believe all women during the Justice Brett Kavanaugh controversy, it's notable that a senior Democratic congressman has now been drawn in. Congressman Bobby Scott says roughly a year ago, he heard the allegations of sexual assault from the alleged victim herself, Dr. Vanessa Tyson, though he just heard there was a #MeToo problem, but did not hear the graphic details Tyson has now claimed about being forced into oral sex.

Fairfax has hired the same attorney who represented Justice Kavanaugh. The Lieutenant Governor's team has fired off a letter to NBC commanding correction to a report that charged in a private meeting, the Lieutenant Governor said of his accuser "F that B." Fairfax insists he was just using profanity to express general frustration about false allegations.

New today, a Republican was drawn in. State Senator Tommy Norment reportedly oversaw a yearbook at the Virginia Military Institute in 1968 filled with racist photos and slurs. He says, he did not directly edit that part. "The Washington Post," which published the first allegations against Kavanaugh, but held back on publishing a story about the Fairfax allegations today had an editorial saying Northam should resign. Our correspondent in Richmond, Ellison Barber noticed one sole pro-Northam protester, outside the Governor's Mansion shouting through a bull horn, "I know you are a good man. Do not resign," -- Tucker.

CARLSON: It's unbelievable. Ed Henry, thank you for that.

HENRY: Good to see you.

CARLSON: Judging by the news recently, it seems like an awful lot of people are showing up at parties dressed in costumes designed to look like members of another race. Blackface suddenly seems ubiquitous, but is it? What percentage of the American population do you think has publicly appeared in blackface? Have you done it yourself? Do you know anyone else who has? Probably not.

The real number has to be pretty low. Now, ask yourself what percentage of high profile progressives have worn blackface in public? Let's see. Two of the three highest ranking Democrats in the State of Virginia are white and both of them have worn blackface. As a statistical matter that is an astounding ratio. But it probably shouldn't surprise us. Blackface turns out to be fairly common on the elite left.

Actor Ted Danson once showed up at a Friars Club roast for his girlfriend, Whoopi Goldberg wearing blackface. Goldberg now co-hosts "The View" on ABC. "The View" is a show that covers the intersection of scandal and politics and yet, strangely its co-hosts have said very little about the blackface controversy now unfolding in Virginia, and maybe that's why. Or possibly it's because Goldberg's colleague, Joy Behar has also appeared in blackface. We know that because Behar once bragged about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that you, Joy?

JOY BEHAR, COHOST, THE VIEW: Oh, you know, this picture --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joy, is that you?

BEHAR: That is me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my word. What year or circa what?

BEHAR: I was 29. It was a Halloween party. I went as a beautiful African woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes, you ain't black.

BEHAR: But that's my hair. That's my hair. That is me.

RAVEN SYMONE, AMERICAN ACTRESS: Did have you tanning lotion on, Joy?

BEHAR: I wore makeup that was a little bit darker than my skin.

SYMONE: Uh-huh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, given the new standards we are living under, that's a little shocking. Actor Sarah Silverman won't judge Behar though. Silverman has appeared in blackface, too. She has got that in common with her long-time boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel also of ABC. Kimmel not only wore blackface, but he effected what used to be called an urban accent, he did that on camera.

Over at NBC, there has been quite a bit of blackface over the years though you would never know it from how the network attacked its former anchor, Megyn Kelly. Kelly, for the record, has never appeared in blackface, she's never even performed next to someone in blackface. She merely asked a question about blackface. You can't say the same thing for Tom Hanks though. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HANKS, AMERICAN ACTOR: Five thousand shares that seems to be the ideal part. I know there's people out there that are combing over this guy for 5,000 IPO for [inaudible] series C preferred stocks and bonds. Remember these things? Anybody else?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Tom Hanks works in the movie business. You would think his peers would be deeply offended by the tape you just saw, but they are not. Keep in mind that Hollywood once produced a movie whose lead character wore blackface for much of the film. The movie was called "Soul man." It came out in 1986.

If that seems like a long time ago, keep in mind that it was after Ronald Reagan made Martin Luther King the subject of a national holiday. Attitudes in America really weren't much that different back then. Blackface was not a mainstream phenomenon in 1986. Hollywood just couldn't imagine living by its own rules, then or now.

It's pretty clear that the very people most likely to wear blackface are also the most likely to demand that you get fired if you do the same. That's the definition of hypocrisy. But, it's deeper than that. Hypocrisy isn't simply a recurring feature of modern liberalism, it's the whole point of it.

Being a progressive allows you to attack others for the very same sins that you, yourself are committing in greater abundance. And it's not just true of wearing blackface. It's true of everything.

Let's say you got rich doing something that earlier generations would have recognized as dishonorable, if not criminal. You manipulated international currency markets, for example. Or you placed huge bets in the stock market based on insider information, or you stripped functioning companies for parts and left the employees with nothing.

Let's say you made a quick bundle doing something like that, and many have. In order to show your friends just how rich you were, you then, of course, purchased the usual vulgar merit badges -- the private airplanes, walled estates, football sized yachts -- the point would be to brag about your wealth. And, yet, on some level you wouldn't feel especially good about this. Why would you?

You didn't help anyone, but yourself. You are a selfish and mediocre person and you know it. So how would you make yourself feel better? Giving the money back is too obvious and also too costly. Maintaining your yacht is expensive, you need the money. Instead, you might decide to join a movement that accuses other people of destroying the planet by consuming too much. Suddenly your own overconsumption might not seem so sinful, at least you are a deeply caring person and you would tell yourself that as you flew private to global warming conferences all over the world.

That's what Tom Styer did and Mike Bloomberg and Leonardo diCaprio that's what they tell themselves. This attitude defines a ruling class. Once you understand that, contemporary politics comes into focus. Why are people with private security forces demanding that you give up your guns? How come so many womanizers pose as feminists? How did Ted Kennedy lead the women's movement after he abandoned a young woman to die at the scene of a drunk driving accident he caused?

Another on the subject, why is it at the always that the very people who attack others on the basis of their skin color happen to be the first people to lecture the rest of us about racism? What is all of this? Well, they know they are guilty of the very same things. It all makes sense now. Ask any waiter how well progressives tip. Seriously, ask a waiter.

A group of aggressive activists arrives at a restaurant. They linger for hours delivering passionate lectures about the horrors of income inequality. When they leave, they shaft to the working people who serve them food, the very people they claim to care about. Only with progressivism is this behavior possible, precisely because they care so much about structural inequality, progressives don't have to leave actual cash on an actual table for actual workers. Their tip is their profound sense of caring. Too bad waiters can't pay the rent with that.

This is all a profound departure from what we have had before. Conventional politics concerns itself with improving people's lives. We can argue about how to do that, but the goal is always the same, always has been the same -- to make citizens happier, safer, more content and prosperous.

Modern progressivism is very different. It has nothing to do with any of that. Modern progressives care about virtue and redemption and the expiation of sin. That's not a political philosophy, it's a religion, an especially rigid form of religion. The kind of religion that produces witch hunts and inquisitions.

So the press has played a pretty central role in the dramas now unfolding in Virginia. Larry O'Connor has been paying close attention to that. He is an associate editor at the "Washington Times." You can hear him and you should hear him on the radio in Washington and out in Los Angeles. He joins us tonight. So Larry, you have been paying attention to the genesis of the story. It seemed to come out of nowhere, the allegations precisely against the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax. But it turns out they have been floating around for a while in media circles. Tell us what happened.

LARRY O'CONNOR, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, WASHINGTON TIMES: That's right. And specifically, Tucker, "The Washington Post" of course, right here in D.C., which covers Virginia politics, they had this story during the 2017 campaign when Justin Fairfax was running for Lieutenant Governor and they decided that they were going to ignore it because who could corroborate it? It was he said, she said.

Interesting note there though is of course, it was completely different standard when it came to the Brett Kavanaugh story and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. But, furthermore, when Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax made his very first statement about these allegations last week, he not only said that the "The Washington Post" had the story, but they decided not to run with it because there were inaccuracies.

He said that the "The Washington Post" had found discrepancies in the story. So Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax's very first statement on this contained a lie. "The Washington Post" actually denied that there were any inaccuracies. So right there, you have quite a bit to talk about just in this one part of this story.

CARLSON: What's interesting to me is the precision of the parallels here. You've got two professors from California.

O'CONNOR: Yes.

CARLSON: Both Democrats.

O'CONNOR: Stanford.

CARLSON: Both making allegations -- exactly right -- against powerful men in the public eye. Both of them tell their stories to the "The Washington Post" but "The Washington Post" only runs one of those stories.

O'CONNOR: That's right, and, also, I mean, as one starts to question these stories that are being made by these women who say that they are victims, you have to compare how thorough both stories are, how detailed they are, whether those stories change or not and also, you know, one always asks what is the motive for a woman to lie?

Well in the case of the Kavanaugh story, let's face it, Dr. Ford was a Democrat. She opposed Trump. She opposed Kavanaugh's politics. Not so in this case. These two -- or actually, the alleged incident happened when they were both at the 2004 convention for John Kerry in Boston. They are both Democrats and they're both activists for liberal causes, so you take that motive out. Why would this woman lie about Lieutenant Governor Fairfax?

There is one other thing that I think everyone needs to bear in mind here because obviously, I talk about media a lot here, Tucker. I talk about the media bias that we perceive and see. But this is important. This isn't just about the 2017 election and what it would do for these individual Democrats. The media at that time were building a very big narrative.

Virginia was the first state to vote right after the Trump election, right? Virginia votes one year after a main election. A big, big narrative was built here that the blue wave was coming and every Democrat in Virginia symbolized that.

The media at that time, they didn't want to do any investigation of these candidates. They didn't want to look into their closets or look under their bed and they certainly didn't want to run a story like this because it would have upset that very large narrative they took into 2018.

CARLSON: Well, exactly right. Would any of these three sitting politicians -- the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General -- been elected had voters known what we know now. Had the "Washington Post" done its job?

O'CONNOR: Yes.

CARLSON: No. Right, so they were doing their job in the way that Jeff Bezos approves of, which is something that --

O'CONNOR: Exactly. And that would have done away with that very important narrative that Virginia rejects Trumpism. America rejects Trumpism. Here comes the big wave.

CARLSON: Larry O'Connor joining us tonight. Thank you, Larry. Appreciate it.

O'CONNOR: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, lunatics in the Congress would like to prove their virtue by destroying the U.S. economy. It's called the Green New Deal. Mark Steyn is here with us after the break to assess what's in that plan. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has posed what she is calling a Green New Deal. The deal would shut down America's entire traditional energy sector within 12 years. Gasoline cars would be history. Close to 10 million Americans would lose their jobs. Virtually every building in the country would need to be retrofitted to become something called carbon neutral. Those are just the big points. There's a lot more and a lot more.

Amazingly, quite a few Democrats seem to be taking this proposal seriously or at least they are afraid to say otherwise for fear of offending the 29- year-old leader of their party. One person who clearly thinks it's ridiculous though is Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi still believes that she is the leader of the Democratic Party. She described Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's plan as quote, "The green dream or whatever they call it nobody know what is it, is but they are for it, right?"

Ouch. Dana Perino served as George W. Bush's Press Secretary, of course and she hosts "The Daily Briefing" which you daily and she joins us tonight. Dana, it's great to see you.

DANA PERINO, HOST: Nice to see you.

CARLSON: I mean, I guess the first thing that strikes me about this plan - -

PERINO: I mean, I was thinking about how am I not going to laugh?

CARLSON: Well, I mean, what I'm so struck by that my initial thought is the party of science forgot to consult scientists when they draft a complete rewrite of the American economy. How did that happen?

PERINO: Well, interesting, also that Nancy Pelosi called it -- you said the green dream and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, "I like that. I like the sound of that." She wasn't offended. But what I also saw was that Speaker Pelosi said, "I appreciate the enthusiasm." And boy, is it enthusiastic. What it is not, Tucker, is about the environment. It is about progressivism.

If it were about the environment, then we might actually have some science in here. So for example, one of the things they want to do is to end fossil fuel use in 10 years. Well, the problem is not taxes in this matter, okay? The problem is physics.

If it were possible to get off fossil fuels with our current technology, we would have done that. There is plenty of money to be had for the first person to figure that out. It's just that the physics isn't there yet.

But why is this not about the environment and about progressivism? The best way, the only way really right now with the technology we have in order to get off fossil fuels is to add more nuclear power, but guess what? In the Green New Deal, nukes banned and it also says that they can't even say within 10 years that they would be age to completely eliminate nuclear power all together. This is the stuff of dreams. But, it also could turns out to be a nightmare.

CARLSON: Well, you make such a good point. If your aim is to reduce carbon emissions, we can debate whether that ought to be your aim, but if it is, then nuclear power, as you just said, as a factual matter is the cleanest, easiest only really available way to too it. Do they explain why they are against that?

PERINO: No, it's a 14-page document that is light on the details, right? So that's something that they can say like all of these Democrats who have signed on today as you said like all the presidential candidates, like, we're so excited about that. It's an idea, it's a goal. It's not really real. But, here's another thing. The other co-sponsor for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was Ed Markey, the senator from Massachusetts.

CARLSON: Right.

PERINO: Back in 2009, in the Obama era when they passed this cap and trade deal, that's actually what helped lead to them losing seats in that first midterm for President Obama, that and Obamacare. Those two things. What's in this Green New Deal? Well, more of the same, plus you will get free healthcare. You're also going to be able to get free college tuition and you will be able to provide a living for anyone that is unable or unwilling to work. It says that in the document unwilling to work.

So that's why I said I'm trying not to laugh, but it is a little bit preposterous that even today, obviously, it's blanketing the airwaves, we are covering it here. It's going to get a lot of attention and that's a good thing because we should have these debates.

CARLSON: And t's also, if I can say a little bit cynical and pretty insulting to those of us who actually care about the physical environment like the land and the water and the air, which is getting dirtier, walk through downtown San Francisco, it's filthy; Los Angeles is filthy. Environmentalists like me would like to see that cleaned up and for them to use this stuff and call it environmentalism is, right, a little insulting.

PERINO: It also ignores the reality that it is actually -- who is putting in the most money for R&D and reinvesting to try to find new technologies, it is the government and then also the power companies. If you look at the power companies, they are actually trying to do it. They want more win, more solar, but here is another thing that this document totally ignores, which is energy reliability. That is about our national security and this document is really -- it is light on the details. I don't think it will be going too far.

But it could be a real problem for those who signed on to it today.

CARLSON: I hope it is because it is reckless and dumb. Dana, thank you very much.

PERINO: Thank you. See you.

CARLSON: So what would happen to the United States if we abruptly got rid of fossil fuels? Mark Steyn lives in a cold place, and in fact, he eats with wood, so he has thought about this and he joins us tonight. So we enact the AOC plan. What happens?

MARK STEYN, AUTHOR: Well, the AOC plan strikingly pledges to get rid of most forms of transportation and, indeed, cows. So, you can give up your Chevy Suburban.

CARLSON: Come on.

STEYN: And take your cow to work. The cow actually is more devastating to the environment than the Chevy Suburban. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's document actually says that she is committed to ridding America of flatulent cows and airplanes.

I always take flatulent cow on an airplane as my emotional support animal. It means that 20 minutes out of LAX, you've got the whole first class compartment all to yourself and nobody is in there, but the Europeans actually tried this and they basically -- the Irish were going to impose a tax of 13 euros per cow and the Danes were going to impose a tax of 80 euros per cow because apparently, a Danish Holstein is six times as flatulent as an Irish Hereford.

So in theory, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on to something that you could, as the Europeans considered actually have a flatulence offset regime. Obviously, you would need a Secretary of Flatulence in the Cabinet that you would actually -- Vermont, for example has a lot of Holsteins there, the black and white cows that look like the Governor of Virginia with only half his makeup on and you can take -- you could take those -- Vermont would be able to trade its flatulence to Washington, D.C. where it could hang like a giant cloud over Congress.

I have read this document in some detail. I think there are a lot of very interesting ideas in here.

CARLSON: One of them -- I just want to reassure our viewers, you are not joking, you have read it. And it does say that she would like to get rid of airplanes and replace them with trains that doesn't seem like a giant leap forward to me.

STEYN: No. Well, everybody -- for example, the railroads were wood fired. You couldn't actually -- when they started, you couldn't actually do that now. The whole point of this is that if light rail was effective, Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would -- what they actually want is to cease movement of people. And it's amazing.

Even supposedly conservative parties like the U.K. Conservative Party actually considered giving citizens a carbon allowance to prevent them, for example, taking long haul flights to vacations in Florida. Now, when the Soviets tried to do it, we called that totalitarianism. Suddenly, all you have to put do is put an environmental label on it and everyone is in favor of restricting freedom of movement. I mean, that's where this is headed.

CARLSON: They are more self-righteous than the Soviets ever where she is, that's for sure.

STEYN: That's true.

CARLSON: Mark Steyn, great to see you. Thank you and your emotional support cow.

STEYN: Thanks a lot, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, socialism has been tried in Venezuela. It brought that country right to the brink of starvation, literally eating zoo animals. Could that happen here? Mark Penn has thought it through. He joins us after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela are continuing to deteriorate tonight. The U.S. no longer recognizes Nicolas Maduro as President of that country. In response to that, Venezuela has ordered American diplomats to leave Venezuela. The U.S. has not complied.

The Trump administration has now says, quote, '"All options are on the table regarding Venezuela." Could this lead to a military conflict of some kind with that country? Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge has been following this situation in Venezuela very closely and joins us tonight with a report -- Catherine.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Tucker and good evening. Venezuela is much more than a regional conflict with Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo confirming that Iran has a significant footprint in Venezuela and other Latin American nations to the terrorist group Hezbollah.

The FBI is seeking information about an operative, Ghai Nasr al-Din who is tied to Hezbollah and has Syrian and Venezuelan passports. Based on recent intelligence, Nasr al-Din was operating from Venezuela.

Sanctioned by the Treasury Department, he has at least 10 aliases and he is linked to clandestine networks in Syria that amplified the violence and fueled the Syrian refugee crisis, eventually drawing in the U.S., Russia and Iran.

National Security experts said a similar scenario maybe playing out in Venezuela. The latest projections from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank are 8.2 million refugees and migrants may leave Venezuela that is 25% of the current population. Now, Russia, China and Cuba are backing the Maduro regime.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are fighting against external and extra-regional powers that ae using these countries as proxy conflicts because they would rather fight the United States in a proxy battle than they would fight the United States in any kind of conventional battle in their home countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HERRIGAN: In his most recent interview, President Trump left the military option open, but significantly made no commitments, Tucker.

CARLSON: Catherine Herridge, a story we will continue to follow. Thank you very much for that.

Venezuela was once the richest nation in South America. Caracas, basically a first world city. Huge middle class, obviously massive oil reserves, and then that country got socialism. Now, people are starving in Venezuela. Millions as you just heard have fled. The crime rate there is among the richest in the world.

The income inequality also among the most profound globally, a small group of leaders have become even richer, everyone else impoverished. In other words it didn't work. The President pointed this out in the State of the Union on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair. We are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country.

Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.

(Cheering and Applause)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Some of the Congress scowled when the President said that, but it remains to be asked - are there lessons from Venezuela that we should pay attention to? Mark Penn thinks there are. He was a pollster for President Clinton. He joins us tonight. Mark, thanks for coming on tonight. So what can the United States learn from what has happened to Venezuela?

MARK PENN, FORMER POLLSTER FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, if you go back a little bit in history, Venezuela had a vibrant democracy with two parties. I actually worked for two Presidents bringing polling to them, and the presidency went back and forth. The DeCo's the and the Copei-anos, but neither party really delivered for the people.

So they decided to try socialism, but once the socialists got in, he dismembered all of the safeguards like no re-election that were preventing the return of basically the kind of strong man dictatorship that they had overthrown to have democracy and then the economy went downhill and then there were medicine, food shortages, and now there is a huge humanitarian crisis involving 30 million people right here in our hemisphere and I think the administration's policy is just and right.

CARLSON: So you just uttered a phrase that made the hair on my arms go up. You said, the problem was neither party delivered for the people. Neither party made ordinary people's lives better so they elected a crazy person who broke everything. I mean, should both parties be thinking about how to deliver for people? Not abstractions, but results? So we can avoid that?

PENN: Well, on the day that the green deal that might as well be called the red deal, the way that it's really structured is released, it is a warning that if the parties don't get together, compromise and start delivering. The Congress has about 13% approval rating. This is what happened in Venezuela.

Their enormous riches, enormous capability of moving that country forward that could have been a model of Latin America. But, instead, both failed, they made a bad choice and once you make that bad choice, once you get someone in here who doesn't really believe in democracy, who believes in socialism instead, they get rid of the institutions like free press, like the idea of re-election, like a Supreme Court with real judges.

And that's what happened in Turkey. That's what we see happening here. That's what happens every time the people cross the line from democracy.

CARLSON: I mean, once you elect someone and give them control over the Army and the National Police, once all the guns are in the hands of one person, like what can you do to stop a dictatorship at that point?

PENN: Well, look, right now, I think we have a really good chance of returning Venezuela to the people of Venezuela and breaking this which has gone on since 2002. Now that I think Colombia and Brazil and the other countries in Europe is actually supporting us. So I hope we get Venezuela back to the Venezuelans. It is a just and fair cause and we take the lesson that democracy is fragile no matter how strong you think it is.

And I used to go to rallies where a million people would show up. They would have universal voting that it is fragile if we don't serve the needs of the people and both parties listen to that.

CARLSON: That is totally right. I couldn't agree more vehemently. Mark Penn, thank you very much for that.

PENN: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, it was 10 years ago that the Federal government, you and me and everyone else bailed out General Motors. And in return for that, GM made many promises. Has that company kept their promises? We have investigated it and we will bring it to you after the break.

But, first, a brand new edition of "Final Exam." Can you beat the experts at remembering what has happened over the past seven days? The power house of Lauren Blanchard back tonight. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: A break in the clouds. It's time for "Final Exam" where news professionals compete against one another to determine who has paid the closest attention to what's happened this week. Tonight Fox correspondent Lauren Blanchard well on her way to becoming our all-time champion.

HENRY: Okay, let's just pile it on.

CARLSON: Contestants in a row have been buried by Blanchard. That list includes Fox's Peter Doocy, Griff Jenkins, former Congressman, Jason Chaffetz, incumbent Congressman Sean Duffy, former White House spokesman Sean Spicer and Fox contributor, Lawrence Jones. Now, Lauren faces perhaps the toughest test of all, Fox News colleague, Ed Henry.

LAUREN BLANCHARD, CORRESPONDENT: Okay.

HENRY: She is taking out not just Fox, but now it has spread to Congress.

CARLSON: It's basically a coup.

HENRY: Yes, the whole city is on lock down, Lauren. Look at her.

CARLSON: It's unbelievable. If anyone can stop this streak, it is Ed Henry. The fastest man in television. All right, you know the rules, but I am going to read them for the benefit of --

HENRY: Good luck.

CARLSON: Oh, bad luck.

BLANCHARD: Okay, now I'm mad.

CARLSON: Hands on buzzers. I ask the questions. The first one to buzz in gets to answer the question. You must wait until I finish asking the question until you answer it. You can answer once I acknowledge by saying your name. Each correct answer worth one point. Lose an answer and you lose a point. Best of five wins. Are you ready?

HENRY: Yes.

BLANCHARD: Just relax.

CARLSON: Here is a straightforward one. Which former governor caused chaos in an Alaska Airlines flight when he stole someone's seat in first class and refused to move back to his actual seat in economy? Lauren Blanchard.

BLANCHARD: Ohio's John Kasich?

CARLSON: Whoa, I don't think -- you know, he is such a good person, he says that a lot. I don't think he would do this. Was it John Kasich?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, ANCHOR: I love that animation. "Villain of the Day." Prominent Republican, actually he is a former friend of mine in many ways, multiple times on the show. Now he is accused of some very rude in- flight antics.

According to passenger an Alaska Airlines on a flight, former Ohio Governor Kasich, she says stole his first class seat after refusing to be downgraded to premium economy when he was bumped out of first class to make room for a pilot. She had to take another flight. It's kind of mean. I expect more out of you, John.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: I was kidding before.

CARLSON: Nobody expects that from Governor John Kasich.

HENRY: She's already got the beat down. She had it going.

CARLSON: The good news is, there is no shame in it. Question two, CNN says that one of the 2020 Democrats has an advantage because of what that channel calls a unique quality. That quality being that he or she is a, quote, "unmarried vegan." Which presidential candidate was CNN talking about? Ed Henry.

HENRY: Cory Booker.

CARLSON: Cory Booker. An unmarried vegan. Roll the tape, please.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REBECCA BUCK, POLITICAL REPORTER, CNN: He is the youngest senator that is going to be running. In his video, he also mentioned he is the only senator that lives in the inner city and he is an unmarried vegan, so a lot of very unique qualities, Cory Booker brings to the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: How do you deal with Iowa? She is right.

BLANCHARD: Bacon. I've lived -- I went to Iowa as a vegetarian, I moved back as not.

CARLSON: As a carnivore.

BLANCHARD: Yes.

CARLSON: That's exactly right. Also, can something be very unique? CNN says that. I think, it's either unique or not, right?

HENRY: Also, a reason why Pete Hegseth can't run for President. He loves meat.

CARLSON: Of course he does. And America loves meat. He could win. Question three, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is a very wealthy man, but he prefers you don't call him a billionaire. Which expression does Howard Schultz prefer you use instead? Lauren Blanchard?

BLANCHARD: People of means.

CARLSON: People of --

HENRY: How do you know that?

CARLSON: It's hard to believe that's true. Is it true? People of means.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD SCHULTZ, FORMER STARBUCKS CEO: The moniker billionaire now has become the catchphrase. I would rephrase that and I would say that "people of means" have been able to leverage their wealth and their interest in ways that are unfair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: I don't know what's wilder, that you know that or that he said that.

CARLSON: That he said that. Only people of low IQ would say something like that, I would say. Question four concerning one of our friends, Dana Perino, the single nicest person on television was skewered by some grouchy people on Twitter after she tweeted a photo of a Super Bowl queso dish she made. Critics said it didn't look very appetizing. What kind of cheese did Dana, a real American, use to make her case queso? Ed.

HENRY: American cheese.

CARLSON: American cheese. Is it American cheese, ladies and gentlemen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: So yesterday, I made queso for the Super Bowl and then I maybe mistakenly posted a photo online with the caption, "I made queso."

GREG GUTFELD, HOST: Oh, that deserved to go viral because it seems like it might be diseased.

PERINO: Velveeta cheese and then some spices and stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: And actually to correct both you and Dana, I don't believe Velveeta is technically cheese. I think it's a cheese product.

HENRY: That's why I think I should get the point because Velveeta is not cheese. The whole question is flawed. I could have sworn, I heard her say American cheese on "The Five."

CARLSON: Final question is now worth two points. It's the Chinese New Year, an animal on Chinese zodiac represents each upcoming year. Which animal represents 2019? Lauren Blanchard.

BLANCHARD: It is the pig. It is the year of the pig.

CARLSON: Is there anything you don't know? That's the real --

HENRY: I thought it was the pig.

CARLSON: Is it a pig?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, AMERICAN ACTRESS: Happy Chinese New Year. According to the calendar - the Chinese calendar, it is the year of the pig. It starts today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: See, I thought maybe -- she was like, yes.

CARLSON: You know what, Ed, did you better than most.

HENRY: Meaning, like I did horrible.

CARLSON: No, you did.

HENRY: I thought it was close.

CARLSON: You weren't in the negative category.

HENRY: Congratulations. Nice job.

BLANCHARD: Nice job.

CARLSON: And Lauren, you get the seventh Eric Wemple mug and at some point, you actually get to have Eric Wemple serve you coffee. We are going to talk to Jeff Bezos about having his employee, Eric Wemple come over and do that. In the meantime, there is the mug.

BLANCHARD: Thank you, I appreciate it.

CARLSON: Unbelievable, Lauren Blanchard. Thanks, Ed.

HENRY: Thank you.

CARLSON: That's it for this week's "Final Exam." Predictable outcome, but thrilling anyway. Pay attention to the news every week. Tune in next Thursday to see if you can beat our experts. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the tenth anniversary of the taxpayer bailout of General Motors just passed. Did you celebrate? General Motors did. They celebrated by shutting down five factories across the U.S. and Canada right before Christmas. They put out of work thousands of blue-collar workers and they hurt small-town economies across the region. GM had promised to transfer some of those workers to a factory in Indiana, but they didn't. The company hired temps instead.

GM has now decided to fire more than 4,000 white-collar workers and they are doing it in the most humiliating way possible. Why not? They can. The "Detroit Free Press" reports that GM's Human Resources Department e- mailed employees at a facility in Austin, Texas and invited them to a meeting in the conference room.

Once there, HR read the soon-to-be-fired employees a prewritten script and then escorted them out the front door, in front of their colleagues. The employees who survived those cuts stood in their cubicles watching in horror.

Workers who had fewer than three years of seniority received just a few weeks of severance pay. Taxicabs were lined up outside the GM facility in Warren, Michigan, so employees could make it home after the company confiscated their corporate cars. Why did GM do all of this? Well, we don't really know.

The company issued a press release so riddled with corporate double speak that it barely qualifies as English, quote, "General Motors accelerates transformation." That's the title of the press release. That might give you a flavor of it.

The company described the mass firings as a way to quote, "Drive significant cost efficiencies." The plants weren't closed according to GM, they were unallocated. Whatever that means. The word "layoff" did not appear in the release.

It may seem hard to believe now, but mass firings like this are a modern phenomenon. In a fascinating piece in the "Week" magazine, Matthew Walter points out that before the 1970's, American corporations didn't fire workers in order to improve corporate profits.

Walter quotes no less than Henry Ford. Ford explains why he built his company, quote, "My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this, we're putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business." And he did that. Ford felt a responsibility to the people who worked for him.

Mary Barra clearly does not feel that responsibility. She is now the CEO of General Motors. She decided to shut down factories and fire thousands of people even as her company was generating billions of dollars in profit.

GM is now the largest car producer in Mexico. The company has plans to expand production in China. Barra herself is getting rich from all of this. She makes $22 million a year. Now for some perspective, that is more than five times what Toyota's far more competent CEO currently makes.

Virtually nobody says anything about any of this. The left is too distracted by global warming or the lack of transgender SEAL teams to pay any attention. Libertarians don't care. This is what they think the market is.

But the rest of us should be honest about it. What Mary Barra just did is disgusting. Just because it's common, doesn't make it all right. It's not.

Well, Virgnia Governor Northam endorsed a bill that would allow women an abortion all the way up until the moment they delivered the child. Democrats in other states have advanced similar legislation -- Vermont, Rhode Island and New York. President Trump condemned those efforts during the National Prayer Breakfast this morning. Here's part of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We must build a culture that cherishes the dignity and sanctity of innocent human life.

(Applause)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Eric Metaxas is the author of many great books, "Martin Luther," "Dietrich Bonhoeffer," et cetera. He just has written a book called, "Donald Drains the Swamp." He was at the Prayer Breakfast this morning and we are happy to have him. Eric, thanks for coming on. What is the significance of prayer in a moment like this?

ERIC METAXAS, AUTHOR: I don't know how anybody can survive without prayer. Life is hard. You know that, I know that. I think the issue though, is that in the United States of America, all of the founders, without any exception, understood that without a virtuous and moral populace, which to them basically meant a religious populace, the kind of freedom that we know cannot exist.

And so, for us as a nation once a year, to have an event like this, I mean, it's sort of the least we could do. But I would say that prayer is the great humbler, right? We are all humble before God. You can't be puffed up in the presence of Almighty God, and I think the fact that we do this once a year at the National Prayer Breakfast is a very healthy thing, and I also think it reminds us that we have - just as you were talking about GM, we have moral responsibilities.

It's not all about the bottom line. We're not fiscal conservatives. We're human beings who have to care about workers. We have to care about the unborn. God ultimately wants to remind us of that so we can lead the lives he created us to lead, and I think that Trump saying that, it's shocking and wonderful that this President is being bolder than any President I've ever seen in talking about this issue, which most Americans are very, very sick over the late-term abortion edicts from Cuomo and Northam and others. It's very disturbing. So we need God. We need prayer, and I'm happy to say that on your show.

CARLSON: So much of the bad decision-making grows out of, in my view, hubris, human beings thinking they have more power to control events than they actually have. People thinking they're god. I'm interested in what you said, that prayer is the antidote to that. It keeps you from believing that you're in charge.

METAXAS: Well, that's exactly right. And I think, look, there are many people, usually very competent, intelligent people, who are tempted to think they're in charge. You're not in charge. You can get hit by a bus or a meteor -- things happen. If you have children, you get humbled by that. If you try to have a good marriage, it's humbling.

We need to live there. We need to understand that without God and without His guidance, we can't love people the way we're supposed to love people. We cannot be the people we're supposed to be and I think that's very hard for the most powerful among us.

So the National Prayer Breakfast is a great way to remind them.

CARLSON: Eric Metaxas, one of the great writers. "Donald Drains the Swamp," his book. Great to see you. Thank you.

METAXAS: Thank you.

CARLSON: We'll be back tomorrow night. The show that the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think and also, of hubris. Don't forget to DVR if you're smarter than we are, but more than anything, stay tuned because we have a surprise for you.

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