early tomorrow morning 9:00 a.m. "america's newsroom" #from 9:00 to noon. martha returns tomorrow night. until then, tucker carlson is up next. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." happy new year, newly elected utah senator mitt romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the "the washington post" that savaged donald trump's character and leadership. romney's attack and trump's response this morning on twitter are the latest salvos in the long standing personal feud between the two men. it's even possible that romney is planning to challenge trump for the republican nomination in 2020. we'll see. but, for now, romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. and well-worth reading. it's a window how the people in charge in both parties see our country. romney's main complaint in the piece is that donald

trump is a divisive leader. that's true, of course. beneath the personal slice romney has a policy critique of trump. he seems generally angry that trump might pull troops out of the syrian civil war. romney doesn't explain how staying in syria would benefit america. he doesn't consider that a relevant question. more policing in the middle east is always better. we know that. virtually everyone in washington agrees. corporate tax cuts are also popular in washington and romney is strongly on board with those, two. his piece throw as rare compliment to trump for cutting the corporate rate a year ago. that's not surprising romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called bain capitol. it invented what is a familiar business strategy taking over existing company short pert period of time. cut costs by cutting employees, debt and move on. he became fantastically rich while doing.

this meanwhile a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. this is the private he can at this time model a ruling class sees nothing wrong with it that's how they rule the country. mitt romney refers to unwavering support for a financed based economy and international foreignist policy as the mainstream republican view. is he right about that. for generations republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. modern democrats generally support those goals enthusiastically. there are signs, however that most people do not support this agenda and not just here in america. in countries around the world, france, brazil, sweden, the philippines, germany, many others, voters suddenly are backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. these are not isolated events. what you are watching are entire populations revolting against leaders who refuse to improve their lives. something like this has been happening in our country for the past three years.

donald trump rode a surge of popular discontent all the way to the white house. does he understand the political revolution that he harnessed? can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are destroying america? those are open questions. they are less relevant than we think. at some point donald trump will be gone. the rest of us will be gone, too. the country will remain. what kind of country will it be then? how do we want our grandchildren to live? those are the only questions that matter. the answer to them used to be obvious. the overriding for america is prosperity. meaning cheaper consumer goods. is that still true? does anyone still believe that cheaper iphones or more amazon deliveries are of plastic garbage from china are going to make us happy? they haven't so far. a lot of americans are drowning in stuff. yet drug addiction and suicide are depopulating large parts of the country. anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be summed up in g.d.p. is an idiot. the goal for america is both simpler and more allusive

than mere prosperity. it's happiness. there are a lot of ingredients in being happy. dignity, purpose, self-control, independence, above all deep relationships with other people. those are the things that you want for your children. they are what our leaders should want for us and would want if they cared. but our leaders don't care. we have ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule. they are day traders. substitute teachers. they are just passing through. they have no skin in this game and it shows. they can't solve our problems. they don't even bother to understand our problems. one the biggest lies our leaders tell us is that you can separate economics from everything else that matters. economics is a topic for public debate. family, personal matters. both parties believe this. members of our educated you werupper middle class usually subscribe them as as fiscally responsible and socially moderate.

functionally libertarian. they don't care how you live as long as the bills are paid and the markets function. somehow they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the health of our economy or for that matter the country's ability to pay its bills. as far as they are concerned, these are two totally separate categories. social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective. and, yet reach a strikingly similar conclusion. the real probable you will hear them say is that the american family is collapsing. nothing can be fixed before we fix that. like the libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct. the idea that families are being crushed by market forces never seems to occur to them. they refuse to consider it considering markets seems like hypocrisy. both sides of this miss the obvious points. culture and economics are inseparatably intertwined certain economic systems allow families to thrive. thriving families make

economies possible. you can't separate the two. it used to be possible to deny this but it's not anymore. the secretary of defense now overwhelming. how do we know? consider the inner cities, 30 years ago conservatives looked at detroit and new york and many other places and horrified by what they saw conventional families had all about disappeared in poor neighborhoods. majority of children born out of wedlock. single mothers were the rule. crime and drugs and disorder became universal. what caused this nightmare? liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. they were benefiting from the disaster in the form of reliable votes conservatives though had an explanation for inner city dysfunction and it made sense. big government. decades of badly designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives called a culture of poverty to trap people in generational decline. well, there was truth in this. but it wasn't the whole story. how do we know? well, because virtually the same thing has happened decades later to annual entirely different population. in many ways rural america

now looks like detroit. this is striking because rural americans wouldn't seem to have very much in common with anyone from the inner city. the groups have different cultures, different that dilingses, different political beliefs. usually they have different skin colors. rural people are white conservatives, mostly. yet the pathologies of modern rural america are familiar to anyone who visited downtown baltimore in the 180s, stunning out-of-wedlock birth rates, high male unemployment. a terrifying drug epidemic. two different worlds, similar outcomes. how did this happen? you think our ruling class would be deeply interested in knowing the answer, but mostly they are not. they don't have to be interested. it's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of native born americans who are slipping behind. now republicans now represent rural voters. they ought to be interested. here's a big part of the answer. male wages decline. manufacturing and male dominated industry all but disappeared over the course of a generation. all that remained in many places were the schools and the hospitals and both of

them are traditional employers of women in many areas women suddenlinely made more than men. before you applaud that as a victory for feminism consider the effects. study after study show when men make less than women they don't want to marry them. maybe they should but they don't. over big populations this causes a big drop in marriage. spike in out-of-wedlock births and all the disasters that inevitably follow. more alcohol and drug abuse. fewer families formed in the next generation. this is not speculation or propaganda from evangelicals. it's social science. we know it's true. rich people know it best of all. that's why they get married before they have kids. that model works. increasingly marriage is a luxury only the affluent in america can afford. and, yet, and here is the bewildering and infuriating part. those very same affluent married people the ones who make virtually all the decisions in our society are

doing pretty much nothing to help the people below them to help and stay married. rich people are happy to fight malaria in congo but working to raise men's wages in dayton or detroit that's crazy. this is negligence on a massive scale. both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. our mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961 and the biggest problem american families face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or facebook executives. for our ruling class, more investment banking is almost always the answer. they teach us it's more virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own kids. sheryl sandberg of facebook wrote an entire book about this. sandberg explained our first duty is to shareholders above our own children. no surprise there. sandberg herself is one of america's biggest shareholders. >> pro propaganda like this has made her rich. what's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. we didn't question why

sandberg was saying. this we didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it our corporate media celebrated sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. book became a best seller "lean in" as if putting a corporation first is empowerment it is not it is bondage. republicans should say so. they also should speak out against our financial system not all commerce is good. why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? or charge them interest that impoverishes them. payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect 400 percent annual interest. are we okay with that? we should not be. libertarians tell us that's how markets work consenting adults making voluntary decisions how to live their lives. okay, but it's also disgusting. if you care about america you ought to owe poise the exploitation of americans whether it's happening in the inner city or wall street. by the way if you really loved your fellow americans as our leaders should, it would break your heart to

see them high all the time, which they are. a huge number of our kids, especially our boys are smoking weed constantly. you may not realize that because new technology has made it all but odorless, but it's everywhere. that's not an accident. once our leaders understood they could get rich from main, maimarijuana became ubiqu. many places legalized or decriminalized it speaker of the house john boehner now lobbies for the marijuana industry. fellow republicans. better than alcohol, they tell us. maybe, who cares? talk about missing the point. try having dinner with a 19-year-old who has been smoking weed in the life is gone. passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. do you want that for your kids. of course not. then why are our leaders pushing it on us? you know the reason. because they don't care about us. when you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. our leaders don't even try. they hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships

and slots to prestigious universities based purely on how we look. there is nothing less fair than that though our tax code does come close. under our current system an american works ho works for salary pays twice the tax rate as somebody living off inherited. half the rate we tax labor. sweet deal if you work in finance as many of our richest people do. in 2010, for example, mitt romney made about $22 million in investment income. he paid an effective federal tax rate of 14%. for normal upper middle class wage ownerrers the tax rate is nearly 40%. no wonder mitt romney supports the status quo. but, for everyone else, it's infuriating. our leaders rarely mention any of this. our multitiered tax code is based on free market. please, it's based on laws that the congress passed. laws that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. it worked well for those people, they did increase their economic advantage.

for everyone else there was a big cost. unfairness is profoundly decisive. when you favor one child over another, your kids don't hate you, they hate each other. that happens in countries, too. it's happening in our country. probably by design. divided countries are easier to rule. nothing divides us than the perception some people are getting special treatment. in our country some people definitely are getting special treatment. republicans should oppose that with everything that they have. so the question is what kind of country do you want to live in? well, a fair country, a decent country. a cohesive country. a country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement. a country you might recognize when you're old. a country that listens to young people who don't live in brooklyn. a country where you can make a solid living outside of the big cities a country where lewiston, maine, seems almost as important as the west side of los angeles. a country where

environmentalism means getting outside and picking up the trash. a clean, orderly stable country that respects itself and above all a country where normal people who grew up no place special can get married and have heach kids and repeat unto the generations. a country that actually cares about families, building block of everything. what would it take to get a country like that? leaders who want it. for now those leaders will have to be republicans, there's no option at this point. but, first, republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. you would have to be a fool to worship it our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. we do not exist to serve markets. just the opposite. any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. a system like that is the enemy of a healthy society. internalizing all of this will not be easy for republican leaders. they have town learn decades

of bumper sticker talking points and corporate propaganda: they will likely lose donors in the process. they will be criticized. libertarians are certainly to call any deviation from market a form of socialism. that's a lifetime achievement socialism is a disaster. it does not work. in fact, it's what we should be working desprofitly to avoid. but socialism is exactly what we are going to get and very soon unless a group of responsible people in our political system reforms the american economy in a way that protects normal people. if you want to put america first, you've got to put its families first. >> tucker: well, the battle over the border continues tonight in washington. big tech is doing its part by suppressing any dissent at all. our investigation into that is after the break. ♪ ♪

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so you can do more of what you love. my name is tito, and i'm a tech-house manager at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. ♪ >> tucker: the government remains shut down tonight as the white house and the newly elected congress argue about whether to fund a border wall. the borders as of right now as you know remains porous. and yet, instead of fighting illegal immigration and effects in the labor market. the corporate left is trying to crush anyone who dares name the problem. >> first of all, he calls them illegal immigrants. there is no such thing as illegal immigrant, sir. no illegal human being in the planet. >> put the camera on maria. [laughter] >> there we go. general kelly, there is no such thing as an illegal human being. how many times do we have to say this. get your grammar correct.

>> what you are watching is the guard for the ruling class. meanwhile facebook speaking of, has been warning users not to refer to suspected california cop killer gustavo perez arriaga as quote an illegal immigrant. though, of course, that's exactly what he is. the company says using the term is a form of hate speech. a former congressional candidate joins us tonight. thanks for coming on. why do you think the debate almost immediately moves to what language we are allowed to use and away from the core question about what the border should look like. >> what both parties are trying to do is divert the attention. what i would like to tell you i don't care how they are called, our care is how they are treated. i live in miami, florida. there are i would say half a million illegals. i know them very well. i can call them undocumented. i can call them illegal. they are people.

most of them are wonderful people. not every illegal is a criminal. those who are criminals have nothing to do among us. they should being kicked out immediately. that's my fear that sometimes the cleaning ladies, the good hombres, noted bad hombres and gang bangers like this guy arriaga they are all bundled together and that is where the problem comes. >> tucker: who gets to decide who gets to stay and who has to leave? who gets to decide which laws get to be ignored? does the public have a role in that? >> well, i think the public and hispanics. and that is thank you very much for allowing me to come to your show and tell you what millions of hispanics think. and we are -- we are a diverse community but i assure you that what i'm telling you right now is that many millions of hispanics think the way i am saying. and i'm expressing myself. in reality is hispanics don't want to be illegal. hispanics don't care if we have a wall or not. we can have a wall, which is why we have the shutdown

right now with very big gates because illegals do not want to be illegal. who wants to have that stigma and raise kids in darkness. illegals want a piece of paper, not citizenship. legality legality that would allow them to buy homes, pay taxes, raise their kids, be able to go back home and then come back if they are needed. >> tucker: why wouldn't they will want that? i guess what i'm say something what about everyone else? what about the american citizens who already live here of all races? shouldn't they have the determining decision on this like why isn't up to them what happens. why do other countries here from other countries get a say at all? i'm confused. >> that's why we have a government. >> tucker: right, exactly. >> the country elected president trump whom i think is not a racist. whom i think has dared to do what other presidents, republicans and democrats did not dare in the last 30 years. to say enough is enough. let's do something, whether

it's a wall or steel slats, right? that's the new word or drones or satellites or more border patrol. and that is fine. because i repeat. we do not want to come in illegally. we want to come in legally and do the job that the markemarketplace requires. that's why i'm saying. those who are here and have been here for more than, let's say, 15 years and that is 7.7 million people out of the 11, i believe just because we are very benevolent country should give them some type of legality so they can continue doing the job that they have been doing for the last 14 years. they do not have a criminal record. >> tucker: since we don't know if those numbers are real or not because we have no idea how many people are here illegally, why wouldn't we have a nationwide effort to figure out at least what the number is? why not ask that on the census and dispatch some kind of federal record keeping force how to figure out how many people are living here illegally?

why is that wrong to know that? >> who says that it's wrong? >> tucker: democrats do. >> you know, the democrats have played political football with hispanics for 30 years. >> tucker: i noticed. >> i was a congressional candidate and there sim picture call evidence it's not that i am a republican and i don't like them. there is impier call evidence that demonstrates to you and your audience that hispanics have, i'm sorry, that democrats have played political football with my community. >> tucker: yeah, i have got it. >> there are two very important examples i need to point out. >> tucker: super quick. you don't need to sell me at all but hit me with them fast. >> 2009, president obama said to spanish television i worked there for 35 years. then the first year of his presidency he was going to give us immigration reform law. he invested that political capital in obamacare. first lie. second lie 1996 president clinton signed one of the strictest immigration laws on paper today. >> tucker: all right. interesting. elvira, thanks very much.

i appreciate it. >> thanks. >> tucker: elizabeth warren became the first democrat to enter the 2020 race officially. does anyone want her to be president of the united states? that's a real question. we will ask it ahead. plus, new documents suggest the steel dossier may have been synthetic from day one. support of a fly trap that apparently worked. that's next. ♪ ♪

>> tucker: well, from the very first days from this president's term in office

the steele dossier has loomed over this country and its politics. justified a wave of investigations, criminal investigations, completely distracted congress. it's hurt our relations with russia. that's not a small thing and a lot more. the effects that american politics has been destructive and really if you think about wholly negative. what was the point? well now new documents suggest that the steele dossier may have been a setup from the very beginning meant to hobble and sabotage the new administration. lee smith is a writer at tablet magazine and he joins us tonight. thanks for coming on a great piece you wrote on this. what do these new documents suggest? >> i think it suggests what we have known for about the last two years. it just keeps solidifying the case. and i want to say, of course, we are nearing the two year anniversary of when james comey briefed the president and then cnn had that story and then buzzfeed published it. now nearly two years of this has gone on and it's damaged the political system. it's damaged the public sphere and it appears that we're not moving any closer

to the kind of resolution that i think a lot of the public would like to see right now. >> tucker: but the ideas that this was intentional, this wasn't what it purports to be, which is an effort to gather facts about what or did or did not happen but it was a trap. >> yeah. i think a very important thing to remember as try to remind people and i do in this piece in the federalist that the dossier itself was produced by an opposition research firm. >> tucker: yes. >> fusion gps. even though they had a spy. they had a spy out there doing it, this was not the product of an intelligence bureaucracy. it was done by people who deal in documents. it was done by people who download stuff off the internet, who use google and who typically in the stuff they hand out to journalist do have links and footnotes to these different things. that's an important way to read the dossier. >> tucker: that's an important point. how strange that our intel agencies would use this as a

source for investigation and fisa warrants and the rest. >> right. i think the question is very leading. why would they use this? why did they do it? so it brings us back again to the idea the entire thing was set up and cooked from the outset. and if you look at how they are targeting carter page this is what they appeared to have -- how they appear to have weaponize the dossier. >> tucker: unbelievable. i would recommend for those of you who haven't read it to read it? >> thank you, tucker. >> tucker: senator elizabeth warren has become become the first democrat to announce rubbing for the 2020 race. releasing a video touting her virtually nonexistent indian heritage. >> now, the president likes to call my mom a liar. what do the facts say? >> the facts suggest that you absolutely have native american ancestry in your pedigree. >> i'm not enrolled in a tribe and only tribes

determine tribal citizenship. i understanding and respect that distinction but my family history is my family history. >> tucker: one of the greatest pieces of video ever up there with dukakis in the tank. elizabeth warren bragging having less than 1% native american heritage enough to get tenured position at harvard. not enough to pass the smell test. who is her constituency? tammy bruce radio host independent women's voice she joins us tonight. thanks very much for coming on. who is she speaking to in her announcement? does she have a site picture of who elizabeth warren warren voters might be? >> she seems to be trying to channel alexandria ocasio-cortez. so i think she believes that certainly she is running as a progressive. she is targeting young people. the individuals she imagines in 2020 and perhaps even 2024 deciding. but this is the problem with that the video, the instagram post of her drinking the beer has been

widely mocked because it clearly seems like a person trying very hard to not look like they are trying very hard. who is pretending to not be a fakeer. when alexandria ocasio-cortez, look she does videos where she talks to people and making her dinner. that's really her, right? like trump is really himself. this is a new concept for politicians. they think it's like a construct but it's not. and americans can tell trying to fool them very much like the hillary i have got hot sauce in my purse moment. do you remember that? when she was trying -- doing a radio show and thinking that was the thing which can you connect with african-americans in this country. obviously patronizing and insulting to many people. she then, her husband comes by and she thanks him for being there. you know, it's his house and his kitchen, too. it was a very strange event but it shows you that she really doesn't quite know

how to appeal to people as an individual, as herself. i would also assert, tucker, all kidding aside that i think she is actually running to split the bernie sanders vote she knows she is not going to be the nominee. what she is doing for someone is splitting that progressive vote that is on the left. the question becomes who is she helping? we might see this in the months to come and of course she expects some favors to be done in the future. that's what's happening here. all bernie sanders supporters who would include someone like ms. alexandria ocasio-cortez and her fans should be doubly insulted that she is trying to co-opt that kind of style and message. >> tucker: interesting. i'm not clever enough to have thought of that ocasio, cortez being too young to run for president constitutionally. who do you think it is elizabeth warren might be helping secretly in this race? >> well, look, you have to think about, of course, bernie sanders appeal. very popular among millennials. the west coast of the united

states. i think kamala harris might think that that block might be a threat to her block of that liberal west coast framework. so, it should be interesting. i think it will become apparent when it comes to nsdends up getting chummy in the new senate. young people are smart enough to recognize when somebody is trying to take them to the cleaners and negate their vote. because, of course, the democrats and some republicans have been trying to negate the last presidential election. >> tucker: exactly. >> i think americans are tired of this kind of nonsense. >> tucker: falseness like hall tofs, you can smell it immediately. tammy bruce, thank you for being here. >> thank you, dear for having me. >> tucker: staying up late trying to keep america involved in the syrian civil war. why are they doing that? and are america's wars ever allowed to end? speak to one of the wisest colonels we know about that after the break. ♪ ♪

>> tucker: war on terror has been going on for more than 17 years now. america seems to interin another country. never allowed to declare victory and go home. take america's involvement in syria. new documents from the obama administration show that the roots of america's involvement there were caused directly by our intervention in libya. the one that destroyed the regime for no obvious reason of mommy marc muammar qaddafi. this is one piece i have been waiting for for a long time. why are they in benghazi in the first place looked like they were part of or witness to arms movements from qaddafi stockpiles to rebels in syria, am i misstating this.

>> no, you north not misstating it dia documents in 2015 showing in 2012 our defense establishment was telling everyone else in the obama administration that weapons were flowing from benghazi into syria, that we were supporting the terrorists in syria also warning border syria and iraq armies pulling back in that gap they warned isis might emerge and establish a caliphate and have dire consequences for the region. everything was on the table and looked like started because of the collapse of the qaddafi regime. >> tucker: we precipitated. >> benghazi, our compound we knew arms were flowing out. we knew it counsel to the number of shells, sniper rifles and such going out. so, we had enough information to know that level of detail. you can bet we had enough information to stop it.

>> tucker: speaking for myself i had no information as an american citizen that's what bothers me. we killed or helped qaddafi get overthrone, oversaw his death and then helped move arms from his country to the next country and fed this horrible civil war and went into the hands of politics. our money in our name and we had no idea this was going on, why? >> exactly right. this is why it was important to talk about these documents again as the president is making these decisions about syria. it shows that he had quite the nest that was left to him by the obama administration. an administration that evidently did not exist according to the major media because they didn't want to report on any of its policy choices in the middle eastern region and it looks like benghazi and the libyan mess caused the syrian war. >> tucker: i remember asking congressman about this at the time are we overseeing arm shipments from libya to

syria? and they were like -- they were lying. >> hillary clinton was told about them. we were warned about the fact that you had the isis emerging in the middle east. we were supporting a terrorist in syria. and we're not allowed to talk about it anymore because the president trump is making decisions. >> tucker: unbelievable. thank you for tieing that piece up. >> quickly do you know who ran the iea at the time general nike flynn. >> tucker: we are going to learn more. >> you are welcome. >> tucker: end america's troop presence in syria. mission was to defeat isis, isis has been crushed. time to declare victory and go home. make sense? no. not in washington. people here lost control. america is not allowed to withdraw from any place ever, wherever american troops go. they must remain until the end, whenever that is. >> well, there are so many foolish things this man has done. but this ranks pretty high. >> a decision that is

dangerous. and a decision that is a christmas present to vladimir putin. >> giving a huge christmas present to putin and to iran. >> i couldn't disagree more with his decision. it is a terrible decision. >> i think this will be considered one of the worst foreign policy blunders of this century. >> tucker: these people are too dumb to govern. they are governing nonetheless. they will get their way potentially despite the fact that none of them is president. only president the decides what our troops do but they may win. recently senator lindsey graham of south carolina boasted that the president had been convinced to withdraw troops from syria. no doubt the next objective is making that pause permanent. what next? douglas mcgregor watches closely. march to the victory he joins us tonight. thank you very much for coming on. if you believe in civilian control the military it, should be as simple as the president saying this is what we are going to do. it doesn't seem to be that simple. >> no. i think there is a problem you got to remember that

most of your senior officers are products of the clinton, bush, obama area. they have a lot invested in this. remember, that the people who live in the seven zip codes in and around washington, d.c. have all become millionaires as a result of their investment in these failed operations. >> tucker: that's not a talking point. that's literally true. >> yes, of course. you put the two together, you have a lot of resistance to ending something that's profitable for them. it hasn't been profitable for the american people. it's been a disaster. trillions of dollars in debt in the last 17 years. thousands of people killed and wounded and for what in the answer is not much. >> tucker: it just seems like if you are looking for a crisis, constitutional crisis or something that would undermine democracy as we practiced for 240 years, it's the idea of unelected, the unelected subverting the power of the elected, right? isn't that democratic by definition. >> supported by many of the elected to support decision

to lead. there is another problem with this. historically when we leave as we did when we leave vietnam why are out permanently. people know once we leave syria. once we get completely out of iraq. once we get completely out of afghanistan, it's over and president trump is going to do that, it is clear. this pause is just that it is a pause we had to get out of northern syria quickly. they were poised attack the kurds. attacking in northern syria. we got the syrian government to go in there and we got out. now we have created an enormous problem for mr. putin. mr. putin has cultivated the turks and cultivated his iranian and syrian allies. he has to make a choice. does he allow the tuckers into syria? then he loses his positions with the syrians and iranians. so the notion that mr. putin has somehow another won something is absurd.

this has been a very clever move on the part of the president. >> tucker: if you see like six or seven senators and talking heads in a row repeelgt the same talking point like robots. this is a christmas present for putin. that's like prima facie evidence that they are dumb, right? >> you could say stupid. but obviously they are briefed by only one side and that side has no interest in the truth. the truth is by getting out of way, we have eliminated the consensus that was holding these various diverse partners together. there is no reasons why the turks, the russians, the iranians should cooperate at all. that's a good thing. >> tucker: that is a good thing. colonel, thank you very much. >> sure. thank you. >> tucker: great to see you. great news, washington, d.c. just banned plastic straws. you can breathe easy. unlock the back door. we are safe from straws. the question is how does this happen exactly? it came out of nowhere. we got to the bottom of it and we will bring that to you after the break. ♪ coaching means making tough choices.

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♪ >> tucker: for residents of the nation's capital 2019 is the beginning of a brand new era, it's the straw-free era. as of today plastic drinking straws are banned here in washington, d.c. from now on, the capital of the western world will make you use straws made of paper or hay. these straws are five or six times more expensive than

conventional straws and anyone who has used them can tell you they are not very effective. they don't work. we have to get used to them because across the country plastic straws are disappearing. in addition to washington, d.c. seattle has banned them as well. starbucks planned to ban nationwide and worldwide. many other nation also follow suit. and so as so often happens life for ordinary people gets a little bit worse. this one time, let's pause and ask how exactly did this happen? well, like countless other modern trends, this is a moral panic. activist also tell you americans use about 500 million plastic straws every day. but is that number real? well it, turns out we checked the figure is based on the uncorroborated work of a 9-year-old boy. no adult researcher has produced the number anywhere near that. but let's just say it's true for the sake of argument. let's say americans use hundreds of billions of drinking straws every year? what does that mean? well, not much. even then drinking straws

are an irrelevant part of america's very real garbage epidemic. a recent clean up of the river found 36 tons of trash. now, within that 36 tons were 4,000 drinking straws. that's about 4 pounds of straws total or 1/18,000th of the total waste. when it comes to plastic waste that is hurting the environment and there is an awful lot of it and yes it is hurting the environment. drinking straws from this country are irrelevant. what is relevant? where is all this litter coming from, litter that's hurting the environment? well, millions of tons of plastics enter the world's oceans every year and not from america. instead the vast majority of this garbage is toxic garbage comes from asia in particular china. so ask yourself is anyone on the left launching a boycott of china? until they stop dumping their toxic garbage into the world's oceans. well, don't hold your breath, of course they are not planning to boycott

china that would never even occur to them. so america's environmentalists, america is the villain. china is not. ever. so the obsession over plastic straws as you can see a microcosm of how our rulers view the world at large. for them, problems are always solved by making life a little worse for ordinary people while ignoring the actual problems that in many cases they caused. regular people have worse straws now. business owners are paying more to buy those straws, the left doesn't care. the supposed purpose of this campaign was to prevent garbage from ruining america's parks, rivers and wildlife that's a goal all of us share or should share. and, yet, this won't do it. in fact, even if they scold regular americans environmentalists in this country seem to care less and less about actual environmental degradation littering. >> the national park service recently removed trash cans from parks all over the country the purpose was to beauty phi natural areas.

the result was more litter. in san francisco's iconic delores park, massive amounts, mountains of litter have piled up but city officials almost never issue fines for litter. they don't enforce the law. when lawmakers propose tougher penalties for littering it was rejected, why? part on the grounds banning littering would be discriminatory against the poor and homeless and many other groups. city task force on fines warned financial penalties can make government a driver of inequality not an equalizer. okay. but what about the environment you claim to care about? well, they don't care, it turns out. for the left moral scolding an abstract social justice agenda have completely replaced actual concerns about the physical world about the communities we live. in they don't care. meanwhile, they are taking your straws. well, at the beginning of tonight's show we issued a call to our nation's leaders to focus left on g.d.p. and more on fixing our pressing social ills. creating a cohesive society

here in america. a place where people don't hate each other but are united in some common sense of citizenship. how do you that exactly? we want to talk to dave, radio producer founder of story core, one of the coolest things in this country. a man who might know the answer. he joins us tonight. thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me here. >> tucker: run of the reasons i like you so much you aren't political you are interested in bringing people together. how do you think we begin that mission in a country that's divided right now? >> well, story core is a real simple idea. we started 15 years ago. we have a booth where you come with your grandmother or grandfather and friend and sit with 40 minutes for are w. a facilitator and ask him about his or her life. most people think of this if i had 40 minutes left to live what why say to this person who means so much to me. at the end of the interview you get a copy and another stays with us so your great, great, great grand kids can

get to know your grandmother through her voice and story. it started out as crazy idea. had you half a million americans participate to date. so it's the largest collections of human voices by far ever gathered. to your question, you know a year and a half, two years ago, seeing the fracturing of the country we decided to try something new with story corps to test something new that we just launch you had calling it one small step. basically what we are doing is every one of these 500,000 participants have known and loved each other. what we are doing now is putting people across the political divides inside story corps with strangers just to get them to know each other as human beings and realize you actually don't want that person dead. [laughter] >> tucker: good. that's a start. >> well, you know, look, it's the hardest thing we have ever done. we believe obviously what's happening the fracturing of the country existential crisis. and we have to remember mother teresa used to say we have forgotten we belong to one another and we hope to remind the country that indeed we do. >> tucker: and we do. as americans we do.

and what do people learn when they do this? >> well, pretty much that everybody is basically the same. you know, that's what the facilitators who travel the booth for story corps collecting the wisdom of humanity. we have hundreds of them. they go out and record thousands of stories and come back to new york. if you ask them what they have learned, every one of them will give the same variation of an answer and anne frank quote that people are basically good. what you are going to find out that people across the divides are just people. and they love their families and they love their country and they want the best for their children. and they have stories that matter and are important, you know, every story is equally important and should be honored and listened to. and, i think in this country, i hope, people would feel like maybe we have had enough. enough of this and time to listen to each other.

>> tucker: two quick questions, one, how do you participate pavement in this you don't know what story corps is, how can you experience it. >> we just launched one small step. we will be spreading it across the country. come to our website story corps.org back slash one small step one word. we will get in touch with you. we will set up video kiosks across the country. we will connect people remotely which we have never done before. a grand mother in alabama can get to know a grandmother in minnesota. we have beets travel across the country and start talking to each other again. >> tucker: have you heard maybe more human stories than anybody i have ever met in my life. >> yeah. >> tucker: has it made you darker or sunnier as a person. >> oh my gosh, completely changed you. >> sadder view of human nature. >> story corps has made me so much more hopeful. when we started story core, cor, you could say selection bias

about the goodness of people. over half a million people of every political stripe, every part of the country, small towns, big towns, you know, there is just -- there has got to be truth to this idea of the basic goodness of people. and the fact that we are so much more alike than we are different. >> tucker: wow,. >> it's just true. >> tucker: how many stories do you think have you heard? >> i have heard many thousands. i am not in the booth. i have heard thousands and thousands and thousands. >> tucker: it's such a cool thing. dave issa, thank you very much for coming on tonight. great to see you. >> thank you. great to see you. >> tucker: that's it for us tonight. glad to be back. we will be back tomorrow morning and every week night in to the foreseeable future 8:00 p.m. it's the show that the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think. and as part of our mission in a small way maybe to bridge the divide a little bit anyway. that's it for us tonight. good night from washington.

sean hannity live from new york standing by. >> sean: amazing start the year with 14 extra seconds for hannity. >> tucker: that's my gift to you, sean. i will give that man some seconds. >> sean: happy new year and happy new year to all of you. america is at a tipping point. i will explain all of this. i start the year with a promise. over the next 12 months, we are going to, on this program fight harder than ever to protect what makes this country great. our constitution, our values. yes, the forgotten men and women. the people that get up every day, pay their taxes, work hard. you, the american people, you're the people that make this country great. and, in a few moments, i'm going to introduce what is a new mission statement for this program, which will serve as a guiding light all throughout 2019. plus, we're going to reveal a brand new segment tonight that we are calling hannity watch. and it's going to help us look out