last august. the numbers, 2, 18, 37, 49, 32, 12. if you had, $460 million richer. most-watched, most trusted, most grateful you joined us tonight. good night from washington, i am shannon bream. ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." the president of the united states wound up in a very public brawl today with a man who was once one of his closest advisors. steve bannon was a senior figure in the 2016 trump effort, and for the first several months of the administration until august, he was one of the top staffers in the white house. now he appears to be at odds with his former boss, to put it mildly. in an upcoming book, bannon is quoted as saying that a meeting between the trump campaign, its officials and the russian lawyer back in 2015 may have been "treason and unpatriotic." the president responded almost immediately with a statement as pungent as it was direct. here are a few selected

passages. "steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. steve was a staffer who workedis for me after i had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates. now that he's on his own, steve is learning that winning is not as easy as i make it look. steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country, yet steve had everything to do withn the loss of a senate seat in alabama held for more than 30 years by republicans.a steve does not represent my base, he's only in it for himself. we have many great republican numbers of congress and candidates who were very supportive of them make america great again agenda. like me, they love theve united states of america and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up rather than simply seeking to more than all down." pretty amusing. and there's some truth in there for sure, but don't let that obscure the larger truth.

the ideological gulf between the president and steve bannon is small. this is not a fight over ideas,t it's a fight over who deserves credit for an election win. talk about missing the point. the legacy of 2016 is not a single person, any person, it's a set of ideas, the ones that reflect the hopes and the needs and the fears and the aspirations of a badly mistreated american middle-class. those voters came to the polls because they wanted real borders, higher wages, dignified they were dispirited by the opioid epidemic, why wouldn't they be. they were sick of being lectured by political class of washington that despises them and holds them in contempt. they revere their country, but they had come to recognize that it is hard to make the rest ofor the world better and very easy to make it worse. above all, they voted for leadership that promised to put americans first above any foreign nation or domestic interest group. that is the real legacy of 2016. that agenda. getting it done is the central duty of this administration. regardless of who staffs it.

matt schlapp is the chairman of the american conservative union and he joins us tonight, good to see you. >> good to see you. >> tucker: we had a lot of different lead segments in mind because there's a lot going on. this statement sort of overtook the entire news cycle here in washington and i'm still trying all these hours later to figure out exactly what this is all about. who's served by this argument and what does it represent? >> i think the only people that were happy today were the people on other cable news shows that are prosecuting the case against who was a legitimately elected president. #resistance and all the forces that feel a little wind in their sails because of this statement from steve bannon, which is over the line, inappropriate, and he really should take it back because i know that he doesn't believe what he said. >> tucker: which statement are you referring to? >> the idea that jared kushner or don jr. are traitors or actee in a treasonous way. >> tucker: they're unpatriotic.o >> or treasonous, way beyond the pale and he ought to take it

back. that's really not what this is about, because what he said earlier is that this investigation was a canard, that there was no russia collusion, that he saw nothing inappropriate. and i think that's where the american people, who are good-natured and fair, are going to come down on this whole set of questions and this will be a drama that we will have to deal with over the next couple s day. but i think it's a very unfortunate thing. >> tucker: so if you get toward the bottom of the president's statement, very colorful statement, he says this. "steve doesn't represent my base, he's only in it for himself." that seems like the nub of it here, the debate over who represents trump's voters. is it the president or is it his chief strategist steve bannon? what's the answer? >> the conservative movement is not aligned to any one person, but they are head over heels overjoyed with the first year of the trump presidency and the trump agenda. they know that we could be looking at one or two additional supreme court openings potentially in 2018, and they

know that there is going to be a huge election at the end of this year where the majority in the senate and the house are up for grabs. and they believe -- they might have been unsure about trump in the beginning but they are not unsure about him now, tucker. there's no question as to whether or not who their allegiances -- who their allegiance is with, it's the leader of their party. if the president of united states and it's thehe agenda he's pushing. and steve bannon's for that agenda too. so why do anything to help #resistance, which is all about trying to delegitimize trump, and i think that's where steve made a big mistake with his talking to a very left-wing journalist who he shouldn't be talking to. >> tucker: that journalist is not very left wing, by the way. in point of fact. i don't think he is. >> do you think that this journalist is somebody who he should talk to in this manner in order to really try to harm the trump agenda? i i don't think it's smart.

>> tucker: i'm not saying that, i'm just saying i have confidence that that journalist, michael wolff, is accurately representing the clip he heard because i think is an honest journalist. i don't think he has an ideological agenda here. what i'm struck by is the fact that it was said in the first place by steve bannon.ac >> exactly! >> tucker: that's the question, why? what's the point of this? >> i think the point of this is when you are a staffer at the white house, you are a staffer. by the way, he did this as a staffer. you serve a president, i served a president, right, and you don't talk to journalist whether on the record or off the record in any way to try to harm the agenda. if you're trying to harm the agenda, who's disloyal? >> tucker: this is not the first time. >> it doesn't matter. >> tucker: i'm just saying.. in five different interviews in the past couple of months, you have seen direct attacks on trump by bannon or attacks that clearly came from bannon and i'm just wondering, is there a point, where is this going? you are one of the leaders of the institutional conservative movement in washington. do you see steve bannon leading

part of it five years from now? >> i think steve bannon is an important voice but i think he's greatly marginalized his voice because this looks personal, this looks petty. it's about who did the most toto help donald trump win. it's about revision and it helps the left. i think activists around this country, conservative activists, see this for what it is. it's a distraction on president trump and conservative republicans pushing this greaton agenda. anything that gets in the way of that agenda, certainly when it's about ego, claiming credit is a distraction. i think he hurts himself unless he comes out and says, look, i might have disagreements with jared kushner or donald trump jr., but i don't think there's anything to this investigation, because that's what all his other -- >> tucker: very quickly, there have been reports that he is considering running for president in 2020, is that true, does he have a shot, do you think? >> he does not have a shot, period, and he certainly doesn't have a shot in the republican primary.

no one will run to the right of donald trump. he has captured that by making his commitment to conservatives with his agenda and delivering on the agenda. m it's ironclad. >> tucker: matt schlapp. thank you. keith koffler has spent a lot of time thinking about steve bannon. he's the author of the book "bannon: always the rebel." some would say the definitive biography. keith, great to see you. >> i would say that, too. thank you, tucker. >> tucker: you know bannon well, you wrote a book about him. what's the point of this? p he doesn't do things presumably for no reason. >> i think that he was angry. i think that at the time he said that it could have been either july or right after because they said it was soon after a july story in "the new york times." it didn't have to be while he wo was still a staffer. it might've come in august right after he left the white house. i'm not sure. bwa either way, he was involved in these vicious struggles within the white house. i don't think there's necessarily a point to this.s i think he might roll it back

if he could at this point. a i doubt he will. i differ a little bit on the results of this, because i think that -- what happened here is that the president issued a statement condemning an individual. i've covered the white house for 20 years. i've never seen that. maybe osama bin laden. other than that, i've never seen an official presidential statement condemning an individual. bannon is not going to react well to this. he probably already has had some trouble with trump's flirtations with a daca deal, maybe even a little bit with the tax cut. the problem for trump is this, he has basically declared war on steve bannon. steve bannon likes wars and i think is going to go for it. he may not come out in, you know, immediately against trump, but little by little, he may end up picking apart trump.ly and the problem for trump is that bannon is his conduit to the base, his best conduit to the base.

if he loses bannon, he cannot afford to lose a lot of the base. he may think he won the popular vote, but he didn't. the base is what elected him and he needs bannon to support him. >> tucker: you think that trump voters trust steve bannon more than they trust donald trump? >> i'm not saying that although bannon is a rock star among the populist voters that elected trump. what i'm saying is that if bannon does even a little damage to trump, which he could do. let's say trump wins the war, if there is a war, against bannon. if bannon damages and even a little bit, trump cannot afford that. breitbart news and bannon himself is the most important conduit to the base that trump has, other than trump himself. let's be clear, trump is the best person for that. he won by 60,000 votes turned in the election, he loses it. if it's another type of election like that and he's got one of his premier spokesman -- he's also been a spokesman for bannon for many months -- against him, then trump can have a problem. >> tucker: since you know his mind, let me ask you themp question i asked matt schlapp, which is, clearly this is not an isolated occurrence of him

attacking trump. he's been doing this through in effect cut outs. he's been doing this for months. what's the point? what's he trying to get out of that? o >> mostly he's been supportive of trump. the people that he is angry with are the people around trump. ivanka trump, jared kushner, who he calls "jivanka." he's been doing that without severe penalty for a while now. you can understand that he's upset that his son is being called treasonous.'s what he's trying to do is marginalize people within the white house who have a more establishment republican agenda and keep trump's ear and keep trump focused on the things that he was elected on, not -- trump, it's family over everything. he loves his family. in terms of his personality and political beliefs, he's actually a lot closer to steve bannon than he is to ivanka trump.r t >> tucker: it seems that way. keith koffler, thank you.ru on the left, it suddenly has become acceptable to attack

people on the basis of their skin color. how did that happen and what isl it doing to our country? we will tell you in sad and thorough detail next. ♪ next time, i want you on my bowling team. [ laughs ] rodney. bowling. classic. can i help you? it's me. jamie. i'm not good with names. celeste! i trained you. we share a locker. -moose man! -yo. he gets two name your price tools. he gets two? i literally coined the phrase, "we give you coverage options based on your budget." -that's me. -jamie! -yeah. -you're back from italy. [ both smooch ] ciao bella.

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abilities on the things they can control. attacking people on the basis of their race is wrong. that was the standard and for a long time almost everybody in america believed it, or claimedi to believe it. not anymore. now in the left it's acceptable, even encouraged, to attack and discriminate againstd people based solely on their skin color. you are not supposed to say the thing about ityw but suddenly is everywhere.ne the root, an online magazine owned by the media company univision. it's not some obscure hate site looking on the dark corners of the internet. a it's considered a mainstream destination. it's got 8 million visitors a month supported by huget advertisers like toyota. here are some recent stories that were just published. "white people need to be better people." "five life hacks who want to make white people uncomfortable at work." something for white people." "we need a reset button for something for white people." there are plenty more just like that, you can google it if you want. the a pretty clear intent to attack and ridicule an entire race for the crime of being born with certain genes. imagine a news website that

tried to rank the most useless types of fill in the blank people. would you be embarrassed to read something like that? we hope you would be. would toyota advertise on a site that ran a piece like that? come on, of course not. but it advertises on the root, and it's not even close to alone.e take a look at buzzfeed, one of the most popular websites in america. in 2016 that company was valued at 1.5 billion. that's six times what jeff bezos paid for "the washington post" a couple of years ago.on just last week, just last week buzzfeed published a piece entitled "37 things white people need to stop ruining in 2018."k one of the items on the list, america. that's not just wrong, it's nuts. it's actually suicidal. as liberals are always correctly reminding us, america is a multiracial society, which is great. multiracial societies are great. but they are fragile, always. they only survive when people of different races decide to treat each other as human beings with equal dignity. when they square off into warring tribes, it's over. liberals say they abhor white

nationalism and they should, but at the same time they are promoting it with crap like this. when liberals pull up buzzfeed for the latest listicle of why white people are wrecking america, they are happy to last long because they are saved safe in the knowledge that it doesn't affect them. the joke looks a lot different when you are not rich. you've lost family friends to heroin, you haven't painted your house in 20 years. everybody you know is being crushed by the rising cost of education and health care. you're fairly certain your kids are going to make even less than you do, assuming jobs will even exist when the robots get here. you are worried, and you shouldr be. and now some smug private school kid from brooklyn is lecturing you about how you are the problem because the color of your skin and the privilege it conveys. how much of that are you going to take before you explode at the unfairness of it all? at that point, why wouldn't you embrace a racial identity? a everybody else seems to be doing it. that's a disaster, and it's not theoretical, by the way. that's what's going to happen ig

this country unless people start deciding they're going to treat one another as individuals, rather than as members of groups. jason nichols is a professor of african-american studies at the university of maryland and he joins us now. thanks for coming on. >> thank you. >> tucker: my concern here is that pieces like this, attitudee like this, which are ubiquitous on the affluent left, the privileged left, are driving the country apart along racial lines to an even greater extent that than we are already divided by racial lines, and you will wind up with a totally balkanized society. i don't know why people do this and i don't know when it became okay to do this. >> so when we talk about what drives us apart as a society, let's talk about the fact that black people are three timesie more likely to be denied for a home loan. that you have a better chance of getting employment with a high school diploma than i do with a college degree. let's talk about many other structural issues that we have.

>> tucker: happy to, but you are not answering the question, which is why does this help? we've always been divided along racial lines, it's a tragedy. it's one of the worst things -- it's the worst thing about america. and you don't want it to get worse, which is why you don't attack people on the basis of their race in public. and now all of a sudden the left has decided that's okay. it's crazy to me. >> again, you have to enter in nuance and context here. i think that many of these articles that you brought up are actually lampooning the ridiculousness and absurdity of racism itself. they are trying to turn racism on its head and say look, whitee people do these things, this is absurd. and again, in a society where white people -- >> tucker: so it's a joke? >> i think it's a satire. >> tucker: but you know that nobody -- if you were at buzzfeed. 37 reasons that mexicans are wrecking america.

you would be canned. why is it okay to say that about another race?? if we really believe it's wrong to attack people on the basis of race, why isn't it wrong to attack people on the basis of race? >> if you put out this article or one of those articles and black people or mexican people or whomever said that about white people. let's say 80% of the black outlets and latino outlets said these things about white people. it would not affect white people in terms of their socioeconomic status, their health outcomes, their housing, their education, or incarceration. none of that would be affected. that's the big difference. there are bigger consequences. >> tucker: you are living in a world that doesn't exist anymore. you're living in a world where all the rich people are white and all the poor people are nonwhite. in modern america, the one group of americans whose life expectancy is declining iss working-class white people. i'm not whining about racial -- i'm just saying, if you are one of those people were saying why are you attacking me? i don't have any privilege, why are you doing this to me?eo

and you are pushing -- stuff like this pushes people to be more racially conscious, which is bad, in my opinion, if you see what i'm saying.pe >> again, i think if we want to talk about the way people experience poverty, i think first of all, it's been proven that a black person who makes $100,000 is actually going to live in a poorer neighborhood with fewer resources than a white person that makes less than $25,000. because white property and black poverty are not equivalent. >> tucker: i'm just saying the life expectancy of working-class white people is in decline. that's true for no other group. i'm not saying that it's the toughest road, i'm just saying it's bad. why are rich private school hipsters from brooklyn attacking them like they are all living in palm beach?e why wouldn't that stir resentment? >> i looked at some of those buzzfeed articles and have looked at the root articles. for the most part they are attacking the wealthy people

that move people out of brooklyn, not the working-class person in alabama. >> tucker: you can see where this would lead to resentment. we don't need any more resentment in america from anybody i would think. >> absolutely not. >> tucker: let's just make itme super simple and say probably a bad idea to make generalizations about people based on their skin color, because it's not the most important thing about people, actually. >> again, i think you need to look at these articles where in many cases it's not just about race. class is in there as well and again, if you're looking at it intelligently and with nuance, you will see that they are actually lampooning racism. they're trying to say how ridiculous racism is. people know, they are not. they are attacking a group. of course they are. you can't see about any other group. there's only one group you can attack. o i hate even to say this out loud because it sounds like whining, and i hate whining. i just honestly think you are pushing a whole group of people to become way more racially conscious, and i don't want to live in a country where everyone primarily identifies by race, do you? no, you don't. >> first of all, we live in a

country where race and race consciousness is forced upon all of us. >> tucker: but you want more of it, do you? >> i don't think these articles are doing that. i think they are trying to show how absurd racism is. that's the whole point. >> tucker: but only white racism, as if that's the only kind. that's not true. >> that's the only kind that has systemic consequences on people. >> tucker: that -- i'm tellingha you, it's just not fair to sayic to someone who lives in the middle of the country whose economic prospects have been devastated who really doesn'tt have much of a future, you'ree part of the problem. really? in what part of the world is that person oppressing anybody? >> and i honestly don't think that most of those articles are saying that about that person who's in the middle of the country who is suffering economically -- >> tucker: it just seems like another example of the powerful marking the week in order to

feel virtuous. and i hate that. >> first of all, i would disagree that some writer or staff writer or contract writer for buzzfeed represents the powerful. that guy is making $40,000 a year. >> tucker: name one who went to public school in the midwest? i bet you can't. we are out of time. congressman, thank you. rather, congressman. may be in the future. >> tucker: i hope you will announcece it in the future, professor. journalist in new york city, home of brooklyn and people who write buzzfeed, and he joins us tonight. chadwick, i know i'm painting with a broad brush, but i can kind of picture the staffer in question sneering at the middle of the country and maligning an entire group based on their skin color, which i thought was not allowed. >> right. i don't believe your guest for your former guest when he thinks these articles are meant to be satire, to make fun of racism.ea no, no, no, it's exactly i think how you painted it.it the sort of liberal oberlin kids who graduated and live in brooklyn and for some reasonn want to believe in the sort of "dismantle the wealth" narrative. they think the way to do that is to attack white people.

it's marxism, it's socialism. it has the mainstream media's ear, it has mainstream society's ear. when you see these people who obsess over victimhood so much, it's so fascinating because if you want to see racism everywhere, if your brain wants to see racism everywhere, or homophobia everywhere, then you will. that's the world you will live in. i was having a conversation with a woman not too long ago about this, a young upper middle-class black woman and she was talking about how badly she gets treated on the street here in new yorkad and i said to her, what if you live for one day as a white woman and you were treated the exact same way? people were just as rude to you, what then? >> tucker: it doesn't make anybody happier to see everything through that lens. let me ask you about something that happened yesterday. i personally missed it but it's in the tape, maybe you saw it, cohost joy behar reacted to the ongoing protest we've been seeing in iran by saying the u.s. is on the very brink of executing gay people in the street. watch this. >> it's not apples and apples,

it's not equal, but we are on a very slippery slope in this country towards throwing democracy out the window. >> we have to defend the freedom of the price and civil rights. >> we do, but not being stoned in the streets for being gay. >> tucker: how close do young think we are to a country where people are stoned in the streets for being gay, as joy behar suggests? >> i have to tell people this all the time, we can't even get funding for the wall, so the gay death camps are definitely not happening until the second term. we really have some time to battle this. she is completely ridiculous. this narrative that they want to push is so absurd.s. there's no proof to it. it's such a load of bull. in that same discussion she was sort of ironically saying that the protesters in iran and the so-called women's marchers here, the resist protesters, she called them protesters, are basically fighting for the same thing. she said the details arere different about what they are

fighting against, but the general thing, they want democracy and freedom and ours is deeply under attack in this country. firstly, let's talk about that. in iran, young women tearing off their headscarves and their hijabs and here in new york and washington, women and men putting them on as a symbol of liberation.ue and when she says -- it's so t funny to see her saying our democracy is under attack. >> tucker: it such grotesque overstatement. i know what it's like to get mad on television, but part of your brain says pull back a little bit, don't say more than you mean, don't overstate things grotesquely, because if you do you will be called on it.dy you shouldn't say things that aren't true. no one ever calls anybody on the left when they say ludicrous things like gays are about to be stoned in the streets. what? >> yeah, yeah, exactly. it's just this hysteria and they have no evidence for it. they have absolutely no evidence for it and it's exactly -- they are just showing what they are, they have no arguments. >> tucker: childish. chadwick moore, great to see you.

>> thank you. >> tucker: thanks. congressional investigators say they have found evidence the fbi rigged its investigation of hillary clinton. you don't want to believe that. a't former fbi official joins us next. he has an informed view of that, stay tuned. ♪ constipated? trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes. and dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax. designed for dependable relief.

>> tucker: congressional investigators said that they have found troubling irregularities in the fbi's investigation of hillary clinton and her email server.th

according to a report in "the hill," fbi agents had their investigation micromanaged by higher level officials in contrast to ordinary practice. you know what that means. the investigators also told the hill they found evidence the fbi began drafting and exoneration of hillary clinton before it had even gathered all the relevant evidence or interviewed more than a dozen key witnesses. chris swecker is a former assistant director of the fbi and he joins us tonight. thanks for coming on, mr. swecker. >> good evening, tucker. >> tucker: you've seen this report. i don't think any american wants to believe the fbi isn't on thei level and subject to political manipulation, but that's the conclusion i'm reluctantly reaching. what's your conclusion?n? >> as an experienced investigator, it doesn't take a congressional investigation to tell me that nothing about that investigation was right. those of us that have conducted federal criminal investigations know that you use the grand jury, you use search warrants, you don't hand out immunities like candy. everything in that investigation

runs contrary to the way a real credible, thorough fbi investigation is conducted. >> tucker: as you are watching this, give us the specific examples that this tipped you off that this was not unfolding as it ought to have been. >> first and foremost, in any complicated federal investigation, the basic tool of the trade is a grand jury. use of the grand jury to obtain records. you don't go to witnesses and say, mother, may i have that computer hard drive? may i have those emails? you use subpoenas and process and grand jury and search warrants and that sort of process.s. that was the tip off from the beginning. so many deals were made with people not knowing what kind of information they had and the deals being made simply because they lawyered up and didn't want to talk to fbi agents. that's when you throw them in front of a grand jury. >> tucker: a lot of subjects, most subjects i would think, lawyer up and nobody wants to talk to the fbi, of course. but the fbi doesn't normally cave to that, does it? >> no.

when jim comey was the deputy attorney general running the corporate fraud tax force and i was running the criminal division, we played hardball in those investigations. you use grand jury process. you didn't just ask for records and you didn't give them an opportunity to hand over what they wanted to hand over. and if they did lawyer up, you went through the trouble of o throwing them in front of the grand jury to put their statement on the record, or they can take the fifth and then you can make a decision as to whether to grant them immunity at that time. but none of that was done in this case. >> tucker: why? >> this was like driving a car with the brakes on. >> tucker: why wasn't it done do you think? >> that's what puzzles myself and all of my former colleagues, people who have retired from the fbi, from executive level positions on down to the street level. the only thing i can come up with is that director comey placed the investigation in the hands of his inner circle and they had their own agenda, obviously.

we've seen that from some of the information that has since come out, the texts, et cetera. >> tucker: so you think it was political? >> i think that there were people inside that inner circle in the comey inner circle, that had their own predetermined opinions about trump -- excuse me, about hillary clinton and the president, what then was a president-elect or someone running for president. >> tucker: let me ask you about something that i found really striking, tell me if you had the same reaction. we now have documents that came out in a lawsuit that show,av internal documents from the fbi, that when the then attorney general loretta lynch had the famous meeting on the tarmac with bill clinton, whose wife was being investigated at the time, the fbi's first reaction was not to figure out how did that happen, the first reaction was to find out how the news of it leaked. that seemed like a very weird reaction to me. >> that's not the fbi that i know and as i've said, my former

colleagues that i compared notes with all the time, that's not how things were handled. former director comey's rationale, shall we say, for making this prosecutor decisiona that the fbi director has no business making, that she was not to be prosecuted. that was based on that tarmac meeting. if that were the case, all he had to do is hand the investigation to the attorney general's office, let her recuse herself from making that decision, knock it down to her number two level person and then if that didn't happen, then maybe raise the issue publicly. >> tucker: it's really distressing to watch this. thank you for your perspective on that, i appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> tucker: in order to get the federal government funded, democrats are demanding that daca recipients be given amnesty. they may try to shut down the government if they don't get it. that story next. ♪

♪ ♪ >> tucker: with each passing day the possibility grows that daca will force a shutdown off the federal government because, of course, legalizing people who are here illegally is the single most important thing our government could do. president trump says amnesty for daca beneficiaries is a possibility but should be tied to long-term immigration.mp like a border wallng and an endo chain migration, abolition of the diversity lottery, et cetera. democrats argue there should be no concessions in return for amnesty. some are willing to shutdown the government during budget negotiations to get their way. one who is willing to compromise, still a democrat though, congressman, thanks for coming on. >> good evening, tucker. happy new year to you. and all the rest of the world. >> tucker: happy new year! this is one of those rare

negotiations where one side has already set i'm willing to compromise. the president has said look i'm willing to support s legalization amnesty for these people for these people here illegally. but you gotta reassure us they will not bring all of their relatives with them and being able to prevent people in the future for coming with them like border security like a wall. why would democrats be against that? >> certainly the democrats do not want the government to shut down, period. that's our position, frankly we were not responsible for the shutdowns of the past. however, going forward, what are we to do? we did -- we did, or the republicans put a 150 some billion dollar hole in the money that we need to fund all government programs for the next year. that was the tax cut that we just passed last december. so we start off with a very, very difficult financial situation in which $150 billion that we were counting on to

solve some of the financial issues, some of the funding problems, disappeared in that tax cut. >> tucker: i actually would agree with you on that. that's a kind of legitimate argument to have. do we have enough money, where do we get the money, but why are we having an argument about people who aren't even citizens? i feel sorry for them, but that's like number 111 on the list of priorities for most americans, why is it number one for democrats? >> unless you happen to be one of the 800, or 800,000 that are daca -- of which 160,000 have actually graduated from one or another of our universities.s. >> tucker: they are great, but there are also 325 million actual americans here and theirr concerns are going down the list so the concerns of illegal aliens can take the top spot, why? i >> there's also a host of other problems that are in that funding question and keeping the government open. the military wants more moneyy and frankly needs more money.

we also need to provide money for the children's health insurance programs and on and on.ro infrastructure, anybodyan mentioned the trillion dollar infrastructure and where's the money for that? well, it mostly disappeared in the tax cut. >> tucker: i'm not disagreeing with you. can we just get past the daca thing? we are spending an awful lot off time on other country's citizens when our citizens are waiting for congress to do something, sa why not just say, look, that's fine. we will build a wall, why not build a wall? why not sneak in and bring your relatives? what? you sneak in and then your relatives get to come, why is that fair? >> i think that there is a reasonable solution to all of this. the dream act, which has been around five years now, deals with most of that issue. the chain migration issue that you talked about, chain immigration issue. that needs to be addressed. it can be a serious problem.

certainly these daca students, or daca individuals, i think are more interested in their own circumstances, the issue ofei their parents and relatives, yes, that should be dealt with. going beyond that, a wall. it's been pretty well determined that there are far better ways to spend tens of billions of dollars than to build a wall. certainly we could use new technology.. the coast guard, for example, needs money to patrol the oceans, which happened to be the major way in which drugs enter the nation. >> tucker: i think most people would be totally for that. under our current system we give out, in effect, green cards, which become citizenship on the basis of a lottery, the diversity lottery. why in the world, if citizenship mattered, if we cared about our country, would we just randomly give green cards to people on the basis of chance, of bingo? why do we have that program? why can't we get rid of it? >> well, there certainly needs to be comprehensive immigration reform. and that needs to be one of the pieces of that.re

border security absolutely essential. how do you spend the money for border security? a wall, is that the best way? many of us think that is not the best way. we also need to deal with the agricultural guest worker program, which is a major problem here in california. >> tucker: i know your growers want as cheap labor as they can get. i would like cheap labor at my house, too, but can we just agree that we should stop letting people in randomly under the diversity lottery, and it's not fair to let illegal aliens bring all their relatives? can we agree on those two things?? >> i think we can. let's write a law. >> tucker: good! you should have no problem getting the government funded! good luck, thank you, congressman. i appreciate it. >> you got it, thank you. >> tucker: iran has been wracked by antigovernment protests. the american media seem weirdly unenthusiastic about them. is that our imagination or are they trying to hide something? what is it? very confusing. mollie hemingway will sort it

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♪ ♪ >> tucker: there has been a wave of protests in iran against the authoritarian government there. americans are of course freedom

loving people so surely you would think our press would bebe excited to see these protests in progress. it doesn't seem so for some reason. the past couple of days theo impulse of the press has seemedf to be to downplay or even criticize those protests. nbc, cbs, cnn all minimized the articles about the protests f made in response to it "rare antigovernment protest." "the new york times" tweeted that the protesters "ignored calls for calm from iran's president." are we imagining it or is there something we are going on here? mollie hemingway is the senior editor of "the federalist,' she joins us tonight. what is this about? >> i think there are good reasons why you're not seeing a lot of coverage and a lot of bad reasons. the good reason is that iran is a very oppressive regime, they kidnap foreign tourists. they do not have a free press. we don't have good lines of communication and it's very difficult to cover what's happening there. then there are a lot of bad reasons why you are seeing a lot of coverage, and that could be everything from how these waves of protests completely undercut

the narrative that we heard throughout the obama administration. and i think that our media tend to want to protect and defend president obama. >> tucker: how do these protests undercut that story line? >> president obama and his administration subverted everything to get the iran nuclear deal. they placed these bets with this mullahs, who they pitched as very moderate. they used people in the media to help sell this deal. when we see these protests, very different from what we were told. we were just told byry "the new york times" very recently that iran was a very unified country. they were unified behind their regime. they were united in their opposition to donald trump. obviously that's not true when you look at these protests, however big they are, that thera is at least some coalition of people who are extremely upset with their regime and the corruption of the regime and the economic consequences of that. some of the signs talk about hou that they don't like that they are involved in all these foreign conflicts and how they are supporting terror in the region.es that's completely different than what we've been told and i don't think journalists like to come clean when they are shown not to be telling the truth.

>> tucker: could it also be that it's far away and complicated and that is much easier to write about some stupid lunch carter page whatever, or some 26-year-old fake foreign policy advisor had during the campaign. the russian nonsense maybe is closer to the heart of most journalists? >> that's why it's actually so frustrating to read "the new york times" coverage because so many people have just dropped foreign bureaus.d they don't have good resources in these regions. it is very difficult to cover when you don't have people on the ground, but "the new york times" does. a lot of what they've been publishing has been sort of very friendly to the regime and parroting the regime's lines. part of it might be that they are afraid that they are reporting resources there are vulnerable, but you shouldn't subvert journalism to share propaganda. >> tucker: iran seems to be

pretty pro-american, potentially pro-american, and kind of reasonable. not really represented by its regime at all. that's sort of weird that american journalists wouldn't be more sympathetic to the population of the country yearning for a new government. >> particularly a few years ago, many people in our media were so excited by arab spring, c revolutions that they saw were even in some of those cases you are getting rid of bad leaders and replacing with even worse leaders.ad in this case there's no question that iran is completely oppressive country. doing a lot of bad in the region. there are people there who are very frustrated and should be -- at least you should see some sort of vocal support or coverage of what they are trying to accomplish. these are very brave people and their chances are not very good of actually achieving revolution. not just because of the military there, but the secret police and all these other resources that the regime there has. they are doing pretty impressive work. >> tucker: it does seem like a lot of the countries we saw sort of become democratic for about 20 minutes during the arab spring were not ready for some government. iran seems a lot closer to being ready. it seems to have a much more impressive population, if i can be blunt, than some of those

other countries. what a shame that we are not helping more. >> has more of a history and it has been a great empire. >> tucker: only for 3,000 years, not a big deal. mollie hemingway, thank you. californians can't ban guns, the government can't, so they are doing the next best thing. they are basically taking away ammunition to disarm the population. that grim story next. ♪ population. that grim story next. that grim story next. ♪>> tech: at safelite autoglass we know that when you're spending time with the grandkids every minute counts. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why we show you exactly when we'll be there. saving you time, so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪ ♪ ♪ keep it comin' love.

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(keybdear freshpet, tank was overweight and had no energy. until freshpet... put the puppy back in my dog. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: a lot of new laws taking effect in california this week. one of them prevents anyone from buying ammunition in the state, from doing so freely. now you have to pass a government background check and pay a fee. this goes for all ammo, ak-47 ammo as well as relatively

harmless stuff like 20 gauge birdshot or 22 long rifle. all of it, you've got a permit and a background check to buy it. you also can't privately bringgo ammunition into the state anymore either. that is now a crime. for a day, dozens of stores were outright banned from selling any ammunition at all because california's government was behind on granting permits, surprise, surprise. will this make california safer? of course not. criminals ignore the law, they always do.o. the real and the only, indeed, intended fact will be to disarm the law-abiding population.e keep in mind, that same state has declared itself a legalth sanctuary for foreigners who are breaking our most basic laws. f so the nonthreatening activity of american citizens is criminalized and lawbreaking of foreigners is protected. the message? normal people are no longer welcome in the state of california. shouldn't surprise anybody that they are fleeing.

no, it shouldn't. a sad story. that's it for us tonight, tune in every night at 8:00 p.m. to the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink. dvr it if you can figure out how that works. above all have a great night, "hannity" is next.t >> sean: thanks, welcome to "hannity." breaking news tonight, the media is going nuclear, melting down in a way we've never seen before. why? because your president dared to stand up to the north korean dictator kim jong un who was threatening us, and we will explain how hating trump is the media's drug. they are drug addicts, completel addicts. and we will show you the most insane, unhinged examples the latest liberal media freak out. plus, media giddy tonight over the back and president trump and steve bannon, and of course, that's who they are. they love in fighting. my exclusive take on that. all of that and more in our breaking news opening monologue. ♪ >> sn: