♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." if you've been sitting in front of the tv the whole night and watching the unfolding pageant, you know that michael flynn was supposed to be sentenced tonight for the crime of lying to white house agents in his famous interview. at the very beginning of the administration. for a number of reasons you probably already heard about, none of them very significant in the cosmic scheme of things, that sentencing has been postponed until the new year. we will bring you the details when that happens. in the meantime though we thought we would seize this y opportunity to take stock of all that we have learned. michael flynn being the first target of the mueller investigation. that was all the way back at the beginning of last year, 2017.

it has been just about two years almost. the hunt for russian spies on our soil has not slow down. and it's now practically its own agency of government. there could be more about what we could find were a half a dozen separate russian investigations now being conducted by the justice department. that doesn't count the separate congressional increase of four or five, who knows, and then nearly 100% of the attention oft the news agencies in washington. the russians spent a total of, let's check the math. $4,700 on google ads. that was during the 2016 election. we. also had jerome corsi and george papadopoulos, people you had never heard before, that likely did something bad like misremembering dates or emails

although apparently none of them ever spied for anybody. we have also learned that -- and people are not noting this but we thought it would be worth pointing out, virtually every issue that led voters remains as of now unresolved and in some cases not even addressed. that would include the decline of the american middle class, the drop of life expectancy and the opioid crisis, and the global dominance of china, the quagmire in afghanistan, infrastructure, health care costs, you know, the little things. we haven't heard a lot about that lately. the news anchors have not had time to tell you about any of that because they are too busy shouting self righteously about michael flynn, he lied to. he lied to. they come by contrast, never lie. unlike michael flynn, who lied! so there has been a cost to our russia fixation.

years later we may look back and wonder, how did this happen?ea how did everybody in america with an ivy league education simultaneously go insane in the space of a single year? was there some kind of mass poisoning, was erica chisholm? did it happen in medieval france? we will let historians sort that out, but all we know for certain is that the people in charge have lost it, they really have. if you don't believe it, listen to them explain the intricaciesf of the russia conspiracy. they are mesmerized by it. it's so complex and riddled with contradictions, it sounded like a contradiction.ac to them, russia is the touchstone, the comprehensive theory of everything. it really could have been any night on cable news. nbc, cnn, take your pick. we happen to be watching around 11 and we are bringing that.

it's called the 11th hour. it is the most serious news program. up malcolm nance identifies himself as a 35 year veteran of counterintelligence work. whatever that means. his most recent book is called the plot to pack america. the second man you are about to see is brian williams who of course needs no introduction. he was an anchor of the nbc nightly news when that meant something. he is widely regarded as a goodn guy by the people who know him and he is in washington thought of as one of the smartest people in the news business. the point is, these are not kooks on late-night radio, they are considered highly impressive people. keep that in mind as you watch this. williams opens the segment by explaining that russian disinformation teams have been working to t defy america. they comment on that proposition

and nance says that this what russia has done here and where the true brilliance of this intelligence operation comes from is a way back in the early 2000s, the russian military conducted a strategic study and started carrying out a disinformation plan in which they said that instead of tearing out kinetic warfare against your enemies, the best thing we can do is create a disinformation and frame around that nation, to the point where over time as we are constantly tearing them apart and feeding them with false information, they would actually welcome and invasion. >> tucker: wait a second here. this is what we in the news business call, "news." so for years they've been building a disinformation frame around the united states.

what is a dennis information frame an entire population so thoroughly that they welcome a foreign invasion? that's got to be the most powerful mind control device of human history. more details please.th this is a part of the interview where the anchor politely interrupts the guest and asked them to explain what he is talking about. but williams does not do that. he just lets malcolm nance keep talking. >> so russia has done that to the united states, and it began way before 2016. the earliest references i had with relation to donald trump shows that it started back in 2011, with marie abu tina and the nra contacts, contacts with the fundamentalist christian rights. russia was pushing these disinformation teams then, and that was the russian internet search agency which built all of

these memes and tropes which became the cruise missiles of fake news and disinformation designed to do what it did today. take one-third of the united states population and make them refuse to believe what they see before their very eyes and they may have elected a president in the process. >> tucker: holy smokes. this is a tsunami of news. it turns out that donald trump's collusion with russia began years before any of us suspected, way back in 2011. here's the confusing part. in 2011 by all outward appearances,by trump was still a liberal. he endorsed gun control, it was all a cover, a sophisticated ruse, as malcolm nance reveals. trump was in fact busy plotting with the nra, christian fundamentalists and the altar right.

keep in mind this was years before there was such a thing as the alt right, but this is how stealthy this operation was. malcolm nance has explained things to russian brainwashing, one-third of the u.s. population can no longer perceive reality. that is his position. now what would you do if somebody repeated those exact same words to you on a city bus? he would likely be worried and at the very least would probably switch seats. not brian williams, he would move closer. williams didn't seem to consider, and williams asked how the russians could've pulled off an operation this extensive without the willing help of american -- this aired verbatim last night on msnbc. watch. >> they have played on the themes of far right conspiracy

theorists, and the john birch society, a sideline group. the farthest extremes of the libertarian parties. they have amplified racism to the point where the altar right, steve bannon's own creation of gamers, is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the trump campaign and our believers in david duke, the ku klux klan, david spencer, the neo-nazi and robert spencer the islamaphobe, to the point -- and this report shows how they went after to suppress the african-american vote and there was no doubt in my mind or anybody else's in the intelligence committee that doesn't believe that it took american citizens to assist them and really getting down to where these voters were needed to be t suppressed. >> tucker: in case you weren't transcribing that as we watched,

let me boil that down. it includes a bewildering array of figures including the john birch society, kkk, david duke, people who play online video games, steve bannon, a religious blogger named robert spencer, and others. collectively their goal was not to select donald trump but to hurt african-americans. why would russian intelligence do that? if you have to ask, you are probably working for vladimir putin, too. so shut up. it goes without saying that all of this is completely insane and there is no evidence to support any of it. it is not true. worse than that, it's irresponsible. some large number of people, they go to sleep worried about the invisible disinformation that surrounds our country and they will wake up a little more convinced that anyone who disagrees with them is a tool of a foreign power. because that is the real message

here, there is no other side of the debate. his only russian propaganda. a certain sort of fragile liberal, that is probably comforting to know but it is a law, a lie. news anchors exist to push back against nutty claims like these. here, there is no other side of the debate. his only russian propaganda. wif a certain sort of fragile liberal, that is probably comforting to know but it is a law, a lie. it is its own form of propaganda. news anchors exist to push back against nutty claims like these. brian williams bought them completely. >> malcolm nance, this is why we ask you all the time to come on this broadcast. scary stuff, but it needs to be said and needs to be heard. thank you sir, so much, for joining us. >> tucker: this is why we asked you to come on this broadcast. save that video. future generations will not believe it. now to the actual monetary cost of all this russian nonsense, what is it costing us? trace gallagher joins us. >> if you backup the clock to

june, robert mueller blasted president trump on twitter saying the russia hoax has no costs our government over 17 million and growing up fast. it turns out the president was right, brand-new filings by thed department of justice so that $17 million number has now risen to 25 million and counting, and that does not include an additional 5.5 million spent by the department of justice on other expenses related to the russian investigation. here's a quick rundown of how mr. mueller has spent the money. this is over the past six months. 2.9 million went to the salaries and benefits of special counsel employees and department of justice employees. 942 plus thousand was spent on rent, communication and utilities. 60,000 for printing supplies and materials. that is a lot of copies of something. 80,000 on transportation and travel and then i.t. services. the bottom line, trying to find collusion between the trump campaign and russia is a expensive, and working in i.t.

for the special counsel was apparently lucrative.pe tucker. >> tucker: thanks for keeping track.k. james hansen is a historian. he f is a senior fellow at the cooper institution. thank you very much for coming on. so calculate if you would in nonmonetary terms what you think the cost of these various russian investigations have been to the country. >> well, i think there are sins of commission and omission because while this is all going on, we have cracked 3% gdp. we haven't done that in ten years. that is not an abstract number. that means millions of people who were not working now have an opportunity. i really see it where i live in southwestern fresno county, it's a human story. the unemployment is 3.7. two years ago larry summers said, this was the stuff of fairy stories and barack obama said you need a magic wand. we are increasing oil production

at 1.5 million barrels per year and we are the largest oil producerg in the world. nothing hurts russia more than that fact alone. there is such word in the english vocabulary for peak oil anymore. so this is not even talking about progress overseas, we are just completely uninterested in it. i don't know why, a lot of very poor people have leverage over employers that they have never had before. there is inequality of the law, and andrew mccabe was fired for lying to investigators. we don't know what will happen to him. so far, he hasn't faced criminal charges but the inspector general said he was fine. james comey's statements about the pfizer court and the role of the dossier are not true. james clapper lied under oath to congress, john brennan lied under oath to congress.

susan rice lied when she said she did not request surveilled transcripts. we know that huma abedin lied. they said they did not have knowledge of the email server of their boss, hillary clinton. that's not even getting into the deception of the pfizer court or the way the investigations went on the email scandal, or putting informants in the presidential campaign.f we had lots of wrongdoing by elites and there has been no consequences, so the american people are not paranoid, they are saying, the mueller investigation is going here but they are going after misdemeanors or nothing. then finally, this mueller investigation is not in isolation.meg we had if you remember the day trump was elected, we were told that the voting machines were fraudulent. then you remember the electoral

college, we had to overturn to the elect and then we went to the 25th amendment that trump was unbalanced. and then we have gone to mueller. there's a slow-motion coup, and we do not want to destroy to -- because we know historically tucker, when there are successful systems like ours or the greek city where the state of the fourth century or roman fifth century a.d. or the byzantines in the sixth century or the ancient regime in rome, what did they fall apart? we have a whole bunch of people on questions of global warming

as we have seen in europe and immigration, and they can dictate to people and that's never subject to the ramifications of their own ideology and, there is a surprise that trump one. it is like the emperor has no clothes. what did they think was going to happen? >> if they were wise and made good decisions, it wouldn't bother me. but they are none of those things, certainly as you know. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> tucker: for you two years the fusion gps dossier has dominated our conversation.. it is driven political events more than any other fact. what parts of the dossier have proved true in the past two years? mollie hemingway has been keeping track and everybody should be keeping track, but she's one of the rare people who is. she will join us after the break and tell us what she has found.

♪ ♪ there's no place like home ♪

argh! i'm trying... ♪

yippiekiyay. ♪ mom. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> tucker: at the center of the two-year russian investigation is the fusion gps dossier, which is hard to remember now but it was originally compiled as opposition research by the hillary clinton for president campaign and has been passed around to thein journalis and lawmakers and was finally released on buzzfeed without its contents being verified. despite that, the dossier and its allegations have become more important than the entire middle class. so the question is, with two years of thinking about it and poking around and the efforts of every news or at the mic organization in washington to

verify it or not, how much the dossier wound up being true. mollie hemingway has been following this and we are happy to have her tonight. molly, i want to go through a couple of the big claims in this and you tell me if this happened or not. the first was, michael cohen's trip to prague. >> that's absolutely key. we are told that donald trump's personal attorney had a meeting and discuss the collusion arrangement. and it went -- and this was a really important thing. in fact, not only to that meeting not take place, there is no evidence that the meetinghi took place but there is no evidence that michael cohen has ever been to prague. >> tucker: but that was repeated. >> there is evidence that the secret meeting had taken place. it's interesting to note that we were in the sentencing phase and it wasn't even mentioned by bob mueller or anyone else.

>> one of the things that always struck me about the dossier is -- carter page was talked about as a russian spy. >> it was so important, the dossier was viewed so favorably that they use this to secure a wiretap against him. they portrayed him as a mastermind spy who was setting up all sorts of different meetings and range and collusion. we were told that he he had a stake in a large of had a stake in a large russian oil company in exchange for the collusion. these meetings that we were tols took place, there's no evidence that they ever did. t he was surveyed by our government for anth entire year and has not been charged with any crime. >> tucker: i do think it destroyed his life, there is that. so at the very center of this where the salacious claims that trump was caught doing things

with hookers and he was subject to blackmail as a result of this. did that happen? >> this is what made it so interesting and what made them so excited when the dossier was first published. not just the portrayal but russia had all sorts of information on donald trump and that he would be compromised and blackmailed by this. if you look at his history, they should have deployed it while he was going after them in such an aggressive fashion. they haven't done anything of the kind. there is no evidence to support this but a lot of people are ino fact truth on this. the trump towers in moscow, you hear that to this day. >> you need to have business interests in order to have this collision theory makes sense. the dossier said some contradictory things that trump was very interested in a business deal in russia and also that he had been offered a sweetheart deal. if he had been offered

sweetheart deals, i think we caa reasonably assume that he would have taken them. there was no evidence that he had accomplished any business relationship in russia. >> tucker: and finally, this claim persist to this day that manafort -- is it true, do we know that's true? >> the dossier claims that paul manafort was the one in charge of the theory. there is no evidence that they even met, we were told that manafort was the one who came up with the wikileaks idea. there's no evidence. if there was evidence of this, you know darn well that it was mentioned in these filings. w the whole genius of this dossier, it has a bunch of allegations that are impossible to disprove.mp that is not the way justice is supposed to be done in this country. if you're innocent then you have to prove that these things never happened. we are now years into this. >> that's the standard that we supply to supreme court justices. >> thank you for your look at

that. anti-rush of panic as driven us apart from russia, but is not good for american interests? that's next. that's

>> tucker: at the center of the rush of panic as an accusation that bears a question on all of us, by colluding with russia donald trump and his team agreed to sell out america's interest by aligning with vladimir putin's government, or that's what they are saying. in real life, the opposite has happened and it has deteriorated to historically bad levels even worse than the cuban missile crisis. the question is has not helped america? and what is wrong with improving relations with russia? donald trump ran on improving relations with russia and got

elected as you remember. >> wouldn't it be actually wonderful if we w could get alog with freshlo oakwood? if we get along with russia, we got to gather with others and we knock the hill out of isis. would that be great? >> tucker: steve: is a former professor, author of the new book "war with russia."r: >> you have quite a list of skeptics tonight. at the heart of this is a real foreign policy question. >> that question is, does the united states benefit in some way from demonizing russia? should we be enemies with russia or quickly benefit more fromg

some kind of loose alliance with russia. i'm starting to suspected that he was so unpopular that it is driving the russia investigation, at least in part. what do you think? >> it's a mystery of our time, and i promise you that your kids and my grandkids and the historians of my generation will look back on this terrible era. this russia era. they will ask, who started this? and why it's done the damage it's done. now one explanation, and i'm not sure it's a complete explanation, is that trump said during the campaign it would bep great to cooperate with russia. the enemies of such cooperation saw in trump an enemy and they began this literally unproveny allegation that he was somehow under the control of the kremlin. but the damage it has done to our national security and to our institution, you may be the only person who has asked the question. but i guarantee you that

historians will ask it. what has been the cost of these two years of russia gate?ed victor hansen pointed out the corruption of our elite. what about the corruption of our institutions? the presidency, elections, suspicions, doubts, casting all of these basic american institutions. then i come to the thing that concerns me the most. i think it's a possibility that trump is not free to do crisis negotiation with russia and there it was going to be a crisis soon, for sure, the way every president since eisenhower has been. i have said that on your show. it is the existential, constitutional duty of the american president. in the to be free and, i can't imagine what is going to happen if we have such a crisis. the way john f. kennedy was. trump is shackled.

remember what happened in july, trump went to helsinki for a perfectly ritualistic normal summit meeting with putin and he comes home and he's accused of treason. >> tucker: i was there. can i ask you, we only have a minute left but i'm so interested in this question. i don't know the answer. what was the motive? there are political motivesst obviously but there is part of our foreign policy establishmenc believes that we ought to be in some sort of adversarial posture against russia. why? >> i don't know.w. when you don't know, you have to say it. but here's a theory, kind of that some people might offer you if asked that question.s when the soviet union ended in 1991, the washington elites who controlled the foreign policy saw a world dominated or governed by or run by the united states. and that seemed to be a reality in the 1990s when russia had a president who was ill, often drunk, and very compliant to washington.

and we got used to that. russia is kind of a junior subservient partner. and then came putin and it was a shock. they've been reacting to the shock ever since. i will give you one quote. a very influential "new york times" columnist who in print that putin did not turn out to be what he expected, namely, a sober yeltsin. yeltsin having been the president of russia in the 1990s. >> tucker: the arrogance and dumbness of people who make our policy really will be the title of all the history. professor, thank you. it is great to see you. congratulations on the new book. first it was rudolph and bullying. now, the left war on christmas which is not real but still continues unabated, is targeting gingerbread men. that's next.

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♪ >> tucker: recently way interviewed as senator and parker is sponsoring a law in new york to give the state the passwords to the social media accounts. if they are buying a gun.

so politicians can maket sure they didn't say anything naughty that they disagree with. when you say violent things online according to kevin parker, you shouldn't have a firearm. >> this law simply says, let's look at what people are putting at on social media as part of set of criteria. >> tucker: do you think people have a right to say outrageous things? maybe even things you disagree with in public? >> they certainly can say whatever they want to say. we also have the right -- we also have the right to deny them at a gun permit if we believe that the things they are saying aren't ensuring the people in the state of new york. >> if you say something threatening online, he doesn't think you should have a gun. as we have chronicled exhaustively on this show, do something called projection, and that is what you accuse people you don't like of doing precisely the thing that you were doing. freud wrote a book about that i think.k.

this morning, parker the guy you just saw tweeted this. kill yourself. [laughs] i don't know why i'm laughing, it is just hilarious, it is so grotesque. republican spokesperson candace geo, parker turns out was mad at improperly parking on the streets of manhattan. i am sure that didn't happen. shere was shocked and she tweetd this, did he just write this to me? the answer is yes. kill yourself, he said. unbelievable. that really does go in the hypocrisy hall of fame. we hope you'll come back and explain this. we hope you will. the war on christmas is not real, they tell you that all the time. and if you believe in it, you are dumb. you watch fox news of course, it is also going on. it is happening here in america. and the one on christmas is a global struggle. in the parliament of scotland, they have coffee shop that stop selling gingerbread men. why?

they are gender specific. they are now called gingerbread people. you don't even want to know how many bathrooms there are in gingerbread houses now, a lot.t. tammy bruce joins us. she is a radio host and the president of independent woman's voice. so i have a sneaking suspicion, and, it's very funny, but now i'm starting to think about the complicated structure of gingerbread houses. i am wondering how many bathrooms can they get here is the problem. into one house? it just proves of course our point in general. the left has worked out for a couple of generations to condition us to ahead of time worry about what we are going to say. even your last segment is of course about that little bit of challenging people and threatening them and making sure

that they know that there is danger inn those thoughts. so this baker, she said it was a whim. for no good reason, she should not call them gingerbread man, clothed in a gingerbread person. i couldn't tell because they are obviously not wearing clothes, so it is difficult to say what they're doing and what they are not doing. she was also shocked by the response, this is again scotland, the united kingdom, the backlash, she was apparently shocked that people were really upset about this. i contend after a series of living your entire life, and being bullied, it can be the smallest thing that tips you that's the tipping point. over the edge. in this case, it's calling gingerbread men a gingerbread person when obviously they are men.

>> tucker: so maybe the lesson is that the rest of us shouldn't participate in our own spiritual neutering, and at every step o along the way say, i'm not doing it. >> this kentucky radio station is a primary example of that. >>"baby, it's cold outside" has come under fire for being inappropriate and a station in ohio cut it off of their list. while a kentucky radio station and put it on a loop, five different versions, and played it continuously for two hours. obviously, kentucky on sunday, it was nirvana. everybody loved it, and they said it, we stand behind us, we are going to play it, we are not afraid. and that's a very good idea, this is one way to stop it, to a do the thing that the bullies and the establishment tell you that you are not allowed to do in an effort to control you. as a statement, i think sometimes that is important. >> i agree.

and i think sometimes an independent conformity pays off. >> thank you. i will get my gingerbread now. apple, the company that makes your phone and your tablet and your laptop as one of the most profitable companies in the world, it may still. and yet american taxpayers are still subsidizing apple. why is that? our investigation continues. ♪ investigation

♪ >> tucker: for several years running, the tech giant apple has been the country's most lucrative company and regularly earns tens and billions of profit each year. t despite that for reasons that are clear, lawmakers give apple tax breaks, that you aren't getting and will never get

because you are not apple. for example, in return for expanding its campus in austin, texas, williamson county is prepared to give apple a tax break more than $20 million. are you getting anything like that? probably not. why are they getting it? this is that the congressman elect for the 21st congressional district of texas. thank you for coming on tonightn why in the world would any county give apple a tax break? >> it's a question that i've been asking and i know that there is a popular mode of doing business in this country now to try to pay businesses to move to the state. i don't think you need to pay people to move to texas. but texas is a great state with a low tax rates and good reasons to move so i don't understand why we would give upwards of $50 million to a company that has close to $250 billion ine cash in the bank and a trillion dollars market cap which is bigger than the gdp of about 180 countries.

it's the same corporate corneas that we see at the level. voters are getting tired of it. but i heard on the campaign trail, >> tucker: nobody says people are getting sick of it. anything about it. when amazon did this in new york, and i'm ashamed to say this, alexandria cortez. and everyone else on the other side said amazon is good. why does nobody raise an alarm over this kind of behavior? s >> i think a lot of people n particularly on the republican side of the aisle, the fact of the matter is, they are chasing good money after bad, and, frankly they are not sharing our values. corporations are attacking our values come our core american values. we have tim cook lecturing us about border security and how we are somehow inhumane because we want to have border security. what's inhumane as having cheap labor in china prop up our profits and telling us how we

live our lives. i am frankly kind of sick of it. i think it's inhumane that little girls are getting sold into the trade because we don't have border security. yet we are getting lectured by tim cook on what we need to do. and they have $250 billion in cash in the bank and i don't think that's the way things ought to fly. >> i've been hoping so fervently that the republican party would change and the fact that you just got elected is evidence that it is. so thank you very'v much. congratulations. >> thank you, i look forward to it. >> instead of giving huge tax breaks, what should lawmakers be doing about their growing influence? one person who has been thinking about this for a long time and getting no credit is ralph nader. he joins us tonight.re thank you very much for coming on. the reason i want to talk to you is because i don't think you have gotten credit for being the lone voice on the left. raising concerns about the what happens when you say that concentration of power in the tech sector.

out loud? >> the congress is always ahelo bemused, and it supposedly a clean industry that has horrible pollution coming in and all the rock from when they dismantled theol stuff. they have no tech capability to ask the right question. newt gingrich in 1995 got rid of the technology assessment in congress, that so when they do things like is a professional advisor. ballistic missile defense or facebook or google, they would have the experts right there. so there they are, they haveve these hearings, outrage and admiration came from members of the house and the senate, but went nowhere. so the question coming up in congress are, are they going to regulate them like they regulate cars or pharmacies or are they just going to have quasi-regulation like the federal deposit insurance corporation does for banks, or are they going to create a trade association to regulate them

with standards overseen by some agency.. it doesn't look good. the federal trade commission nailed facebook in 2011. facebook has been letting others, third party or fourth party cambridge analytics violate that consent decree. >> tucker: so you became famous in 1965ish going after general motors and the rightke didn't like you because you are attacking business. but the left loves you. you became a huge hero. you are t saying the same thing now about the big tech companies, why is no one joining your side? >> we don't get into mass media. these kind of tax breaks for apple, instead of going back to the shareholders or the workers or the environment clean up or the pension funds, they want to buy back all that stock to

increase the metrics for the executive compensation packages for tim cook and others, and you can't get on national tv. you can't even get on npr or pbs. now they are talking corporate welfare and the right talks about crony capitalism. we are converging. there are a lot of issues in this country. as i pointed out in my book, it's unstoppable, right conservatives and liberals back home where they work, live and raise their families, never mind of the ideology. they get ripped off the samer way, and there is no publicity given to it at all. i've resorted to a fable, how the rats reform the congress. there's a big rat infestation in d.c. you know. >> tucker: literally. >> and you can imagine the result. trying to suppress a rat

infestation, it wakes people up and they look at 535 men and women in congress who are using their delegated power under the "we the people," right? then they organize a mass of movement. they get control of congress from the wall street you pointed out in your book the and the corporate congress. ruling class, it should share power. otherwise they will lose whatever democratic institutions that we have. so members of congress have called this disgusting, revolting because of the opening pages, but you could back on this, this is the single most devastating document of congress >> tucker: i will read it. on one page. i remember on one point disagreeing with you, but onon this stuff anyway you are an important voice. i am grateful you came on the show. >> go to rats reform congress.is >> tucker: i'm going to and i will probably agree with a lot of it.t

>> >> will get an instruction on how to organize back home. >> fox news alert, the senate has passed criminal justice reform. the bill passed 87-12. wow2.. big margin, and the president is encouraging to act. we will continue to follow the story. we will be right back with an important holiday message for you. ♪

>> tucker: as last hour has demonstrated and last decade has demonstrated, america's ruling class has lost the ability to govern precisely. they are possessed with trifles, like gender politics, or whatever the nonsense is. meanwhile, they ignore a dying middle-class and, they do nothing to counter the main threats to our well-being, china. they directly enable these threats because they are getting rich from them. how did we get to this place? that the subject of a new book called "ship of fools," it tells the long, gory story. it may be worth reading. we recommend it strongly. that's it for us tonight, we will be back tomorrow night at

8:00 p.m. the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink. good night from washington. sean hannity is next. sitting in, though, the most famous america that might judge in america, not judge judy, jud. >> judge jeanine: [laughs] thanks, tucker. welcome to "hannity," i'm jeanine pirro. today lieutenant michael flynn appeared in court where a federal judge was expected to sentence him but that never happened. instead, flynn's attorney attorney requested a delay. joining us now with the full report and newly released transcript from comey's second closed-door meeting is catherine heritage. >> on multiple occasions, flynn was asked whether he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea or challenge the circumstances surrounding his january 2017 fbi