back to the battle on monday. see you then s s s s soon. dr. carlson is up next. >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight" ." by the time we landed, things changed dramatically in washington. this is at least the fourth day in the road that is happened. everything we thought we knew about politics changed in just an instant. reince priebus was out to be replaced by general kelly. president trump tweeted out that i am pleased to inform you that

general kelly will be replacing reince priebus. he also said that reince priebus is a good man and john kelly will do a fantastic job. general kelly has been a star and respected by everybody. a great american and reince priebus a good man. thank you very much. >> tucker: will he make an effective chief of staff? the most powerful branch of the world's most powerful government seemed to be devolved this week to a state of nature four against all against all. and they believe the world they wake up tomorrow where they some

resemblance to the one they know now. it's seen all over the world and that's the last thing we need here. let's hope the upswing begins with general kelly this afternoon. for more that's going on, fox news anchor and special reporter, brett how did this happen? >> i think it happened over a number of days. reince priebus was on yesterday and the tweet took everybody by surprise. apparently general kelly was being talked to over a number of weeks to take over chief of staff. general kelly has a history of doing that. kelly was the aid at the

pentagon, a senior aide. and he's comforted by this choice. >> tucker: assume he can get all of the fire going the same direction like outside of the building. what extent does he have command of the white house staff? >> that is the question. will anthony scaramucci report to the chief of staff or have a direct line to president trump. also how does jared kushner factor in. will he go to general kelly or ivanka trump. i think there are still questions about the order but we are hearing senior officials saying he has the authority and trust of the president to straighten out the white house.

>> tucker: the general is regarded as successful and confident, has taken a job with assurances that he could do that, right? >> yeah, he was in a job that he was succeeding at. he fell on a sword in the beginning when that executive order backfired. he went out in front of the present said i can do better. i do think there was this loyalty factor and i think we'll see what happens. in 1973, president nixon turn it to a new chief of staff after watergate. former general, to star and promoted to four-star took over

that white house. >> tucker: the only criticism i've seen was from barbara lee from california. she said this is terrifying indicator of the militaristic direction of the white house. was there any other opposition? >> not really, think about what we've been through. it was monday that sean spicer left. then we had a new white house communications director. then we had this health care bill that falls apart. we also had a number of events during the week including north korea launching a missile today, i , and has been quite a journey this week.

>> tucker: the president also attacked his own attorney general repeatedly. i was talking to someone at the white house who said there was concern among the people who came over from the rnc, and they believe this suggests a move away from the conventional washington republican way of doing something else. >> i think this health care situation with his boat going down was tremendously disappointing. and if you believe that reince priebus retired yesterday, that was before the health care bill fell apart. you have a republican establishment in the white house, this president probably said let's try it from the outside.

now is a lot of outsiders. now will john kelly be a political insider or will kellyanne conway or kirchner take backtrack. >> tucker: do we know what he believes in where he would naturally align in the white house? >> he's worked with both sides of the aisles, he was a marine, general, three tours in iraq, lost his son in afghanistan, and his eye ideology has never reay came up. the white house wants to restore order. >> tucker: thank you a lot for

that. reince priebus himself spoke with hannity tonight. >> we had a good talk yesterday, i resigned and he accepted it. then we talked quite a few times on who would be a great pick to come in here and be the chief of staff and i couldn't think of anyone better than john kelly. that whole interview tonight at ten on sean hannity. we are joined by writer, columnist. what does this mean? was the obvious take away? >> this was a white house and kayla's.

in chaos. it had to go. reince priebus is a good man. he was not a confidant of the president he did not have the authority that he needed. i think the reason you haven't had democratic criticism because you needed somebody who would be the gatekeeper and restore some kind of order. i think we talked about this earlier tonight, the test case will be, everybody will have to go through the chief of staff.

if scaramucci has a direct line, we will have parallel governments. if it goes through kelly, then it will resemble a chain of command. >> tucker: is it even possible that general kelly would leave a good job to take a job where he didn't have authority? >> i think you're right. i think that would be a condition. i think scaramucci will have to go through kelly. the question will be the president's daughter and son-in-law. we elected a president that knowingly or not a royal family. that's a different order of magnitude. i suspect they will have their own access.

i think for discipline in the staff, scaramucci will be the test case. >> tucker: if a marine general can pull it off, it can be done. if there is a soft nationalist represented by steve bannon, is kelly aligned with either one of those sides? >> i think he's the arbiter and the guy who is neutral. he is the gatekeeper and bounce bouncer. that's his job. >> tucker: do you think you will be able to do it? >> i think he will. i think in the end it will depend on trump. the success of chief of staff is

90% on the president. if anybody can do it it will be kelly. >> tucker: about health care, is health care over for the moment? >> i think so and it should be. they ran into a dead end. i'm rather critical of mccain's vote. and move it to conference but this is really a dead end. they're going to have to regroup and do this with democrats. the key here will be semantics. the democrats want their pound of flesh, the republicans will have to take away the word repeal. if they talk about repair, then

that will be middle ground. that's where we are headed, repaired. >> tucker: the improved obamacare act next year. you very much. and some big stories going on. we will discuss them next and give you some details on what's going on. also the white house promising a crackdown on ms-13. and some saying an attack on ms-13 is an attack on all

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>> tucker: yesterday 20 republicans on the house judiciary sent a letter to jeff sessions requesting a second counsel to investigate wrongdoing by hillary clinton. and loretto lynch. and the rest of us has been memorized by staff problems with the white house. was the substance of this? >> this stems from former fbi director's james comey testimony, he was told by lynch not to refer to the clinton email investigation as a matter.

he complied with that request and a misleading way to the american public. it also talks about the meeting of lynch's and clinton's meeting on the tarmac. and them making the declaration that hillary's email server was reckless but it wasn't a crime. and no reasonable prosecutor would ever bring charges. he lost credibility with the american people without meeting with bill clinton. >> tucker: lynch said she would recuse herself from matters pertaining to hillary clinton and there the story kind of ended. i don't remember any news

organizations pushing to find out what that meeting was about in the first place. do you think we will find out? >> i don't think we will find out ever unless there is a special counsel investigation. clearly something shady went on on the tarmac. this was a strange decision for james comey to make. he is not somebody previously in his career to shy away from these cases. to him to come out and say hillary clinton did nothing wrong, it's an odd thing for him to say. i don't think we'll ever get to the bottom of this without some kind of investigation to clear up the questions. >> tucker: this is the guy who sent martha stewart to prison because she was a danger to the

public. so this is not the only group going after the obama administration yesterday. the obama administration ordered the unmasking of hundreds of american names during and after the 2016 election. nunez said that the unmasking could have been for partisan purposes. is this a big deal? >> it is because a lot of officials asking for the unmasking's, which means asking to identify a u.s. citizen, but apparently a lot of these requests had no apparent intelligence value at all. and the people requesting them to and say why they want the unmasking done.

we know former cia director and head of state, and u.n. ambassador susan rice both requested unmasking in the role roles. we don't know about other officials who asked for that and why. and also for any explanation why she would need anyone to be unmasked. why were there so many people asked to be unmasked? >> tucker: our intelligence agencies should not be spying on american citizens. when you uncover names, it's a big step. do we know how common that is,

are hundreds of americans names being unmasked by political appointees, is that normal? >> know that is not normal. it's not as much like "game of thrones" as like with the white house. in a relatively short period of time, and all of the requests that came in after the election before trump was sworn in. >> tucker: exactly, anthony scaramucci may say foolish things, but he has no real powe power. we have to be assured that those powers are not being abused. thanks a lot for joining us. even as shaking up the white house, president trump is

starting a national crusade against ms-13 and other gangs. we will discuss that right after this. and some people are saying this is just an attack on people from otheroooo. i enjoy the fresher things in life. fresh towels. fresh soaps. and of course, tripadvisor's freshest, lowest prices. so if you're anything like me... ...you'll want to check tripadvisor. we now instantly compare prices from over 200 booking sites... ...to find you the lowest price... ...on the hotel you want. go on, try something fresh. tripadvisor. the latest reviews. the lowest prices.

>> tucker: we just came back from el salvador the homeland of an

ms-13. all next week we will show you was causing the problems with ms-13. the gang isn't just a problem in central america, the department of justice estimates there are more than 10,000 members in the united states. the trumps administration has made eradication of this gaining a priority. and he spoke to law enforcement in long island today. >> together we are going to restore safety in our streets and we are going to destroy the violent criminal cartel ms-13 and other gangs. what ms-13 is particularly violent, they don't like shooting people because it's too quick and fast.

they like to knife and cut people and let them die slowly. and they enjoy watching that, these our animals. and they are threatening so violently our people. we will find you, arrest you, glu, and we will deport you. >> tucker: and we have a guest joining us now. i don't know over mischaracterizing your position, you believe there is something wrong on cracking down on ms-13. >> what happened today is that there are people standing up to the hate of this administration

and rejecting one horrible act to score points for a political administration and agenda. this is a president who called immigrants criminals and and try to paint them with a broad brus brush. that's unacceptable. >> tucker: i think today the president was coming out against ms-13 who turned el salvador upside down. everybody agrees that they are a massive problem, why is that bad? >> we have to understand this in context of all immigrants. this is about tearing apart immigrant families. >> tucker: spare me the dumb

rhetoric and answer my question. stop with the slogans. >> this is hard data. if you look at the data, being arrested, is people with no record of interactions in the department system. the president would like to paint immigrants as criminals. immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than nativeborn americans. >> tucker: i don't want to hear your speech. if you don't like the trump administration's view on immigration, i get it. there's a reality at the bottom

of this. ms-13 praise upon immigrants, they're not going after me are you whether going after el salvador immigrants. it's happening in el salvador and is happening here. why is your position that is bad to crack down on people were tormenting immigrants. why are you confused? >> there is a public safety issue. and i have talked and worked with immigrant families on an weekly basis. if we want to understand this public safety issue just as if we want to understand it with other gangs, we have to understand decades of systematic neglect of these communities.

>> tucker: where did you go to college? of course he did. only someone who went to an overpriced college could reach a conclusion so theoretical that is utterly divorced from realit reality. immigrants in america are actually being terrorized by this group. the president wants to stop a group that's hurting people. >> what he wants to do is tear apart immigrant families. what we have seen is that he's actually focused that is tearing a mother from their children. >> tucker: who's a bigger threat to immigrant families, the president or ms-13 russian mark >> ?

>> the president. the president is bowing to separate families of immigrants. >> tucker: we know for a fact that ms-13 members are hurting immigrants. you're making the case that if a drunk driver killed someone, we shouldn't attack him because we would be vilifying all drivers. you believe that the president who is not killed anybody with a screwdriver, you say he is a bigger threat than ms-13? >> if you understand the threat to immigrant communities you have to understand the context.

you have to understand that the agency is a rogue and out-of-control agency. ten immigrants have died in detention because of actions by immigration enforcement. this is a rogue agency that the president is seeking to empower. what we are saying is that we refuse and refute the criminalization of immigrant communities. >> tucker: i think they look at you in total confusion. because we should put up with ms-13 because it's systemic racism. they kill people with screwdrivers and they should go to jail. but this guy says we don't understand the power structure of the president. >> we were out there with folks in the community. we were in brentwood, if you do

go there, what you will hear from community members is they are working together to address these issues. >> tucker: what are they doing doing? i came from el salvador just recently. let me ask you for some specifics. what are these community members doing to fight against ms-13 then was more effective than with the president is doing? legal we are >> we are workingh communities and other gang prevention groups to show young people a brighter future and investment in our communities.

>> tucker: i am applauding you, you are offering young people something to do over the summer. but you can acknowledge there are bad criminals out there, and they ought to be put in jail and sent out of the country. is that a bigoted thing to say? >> i appreciate that you're saying we do good works, i spoke with an immigrant parent today saying they need more resources for their kids for opportunitie opportunities. one of the things the president is going to use this to advance his agenda, what the president wants to do is spend billions of

dollars in investing in thousands of i.c.e. agents, and building a wall while cutting massively public education funding, affordable housing, environment protection funding. >> tucker: this is not a serious conversation. i bet your constituents describe you as crazy. you are making excuses for ms-13, i don't they appreciate that. >> you are wrong actually. we work very closely with community members. if you want to discuss data with me any time, i would be happy to do that with you. >> tucker: where did you get

that phd? >> oxford. >> tucker: thanks for joining us, i appreciate it. more next week on ms-13. and more coming up next. we will talk with reporters, stay

>> tucker: president trump and the other day barred transgender soldiers from serving. the press jumped on him saying that's not true at all. and it was found that was not expensive at all. what is the truth of all of thi

this? thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> tucker: was the truth here and what would this cost? >> it striking because there's a small portion of the military that is transgender. and the cost would be billions of dollars. i think that provides a better picture. and there were very low numbers in the amount of transgender people. they only assumed that 5% would get transgender surgery. the more accurate number is 30%

which is a conservative estimat estimate. a much higher number of transgender people express they want to get that surgery someda someday. and changes are not cheap and if they paid by taxes, it would be expensive. >> tucker: is there any suggestion, whatever the cost, will improve military readiness? >> no, even every transgender soldier that goes through transition will be out 238 days. that's 238 days they will not be deployed overseas and someone else will have to go in their place. so when it's about cost and

readiness, the white house is actually right. and then they are not available to be deployed. these surgeries are expensive and that's most overfull year. >> tucker: i'm confused, i'm not singling anyone out. hear people say that the president's ban will make our country less safe, how would that work? >> the military is not in place for political correctness. they discriminate every day for a variety of medical reasons. there's a tremendous amount of cost involved with transgender individuals.

that doesn't even include hormone therapy. there is a tremendous amount of costs and i don't think there are many qualified people that can serve. disqualifying transgender people for these practical reasons shouldn't get in front of our strong military force. >> tucker: thank you very much to add it to this debate. north korea just lost another missile which could be used to launch nuclear bombs at america and our allies. why isn't that story getting more attention? scott adams will be with us in a minute. myou always pay your insurance on time.

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>> tucker: washington is consumed with the power struggles in the west wing but actual events keep which occurring around the world. today north korea launched a second ic bm. and it traveled nearly 600 miles. north korea is our most belligerent enemy so why is america obsessed with vladimir putin in russia.

north korea, russia, it's not even a close contest. >> north korea has the tragic problem of being a boring story but the biggest one. the russia story has all sorts of characters. north korea has one character and is literally hiding. stories about hardware, it sounds like we've artie heard the story. it's like groundhog's day. on the russia side, you have the perfect story, characters,

mystery. we think this new thing will happen. but it has one important element for a story, a lot of people that see the story look at and say that couldn't possibly be true. the less truly story is, and the more the public is onto it, the more energy it gets. that's how you get people talking about it. there is also confirmation bias because it's a sketchy russian thing. >> tucker: isn't the role of the press to discern between stories that are interesting end

of the ones that matter more. a country that is actively threatening to kill us is more important than a country that isn't. shouldn't we be tried to herd the public into a more important direction. >> nobody is missing the fact that north korea has launched another missile. it is not a lot we can do about it or talk about it. with the russia stuff, there are levels in hearings and leaks. it just has everything you need in a story except credibility. >> tucker: it really is like one of those russian dolls and you open it up and is nothing in it. >> the credibility problem is

that the cia is confident that russia interfered. i don't use the word confident unless i know it's true. >> tucker: and certainly not as the basis of threatening our country. we will be right back.

>> tucker: that's it for us tonight. starting monday we begin a weeklong series on ms-13. also we will talk about jeff sessions and a prison where ms-13 detainees are being held. and the threat looming in the united states because of our broken immigration system.

we will have lots of details all next week, we hope you tune in. we will now go over to our friends at "the five" ." >> jesse: hello everybody, this is "the five." another night of breaking news in washington. the president ousted chief of staff reince priebus and replaced him with john kelly. and a new communications director anthony