martha is back here tomorrow night at 7:00. on wednesday, don't miss her exclusive with secretary of state mike pompeo that will be on wednesday evening, 7:00 p.m. eastern. i'm ed henry in washington. tucker carlson up next. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to tucker carlson tonight. if you were on social media over the weekend you probably saw this video. it was shot friday afternoon on the steps of the lincoln memorial it seemed to show a group of teenage boys taunting an elderly american indian man who was holding a drum. the young men had come to washington from a catholic school in kentucky to demonstrate in the march for life. some of them wore make america great again hats. they seem menacing. within hours the video is being replayed by virtually every news outlet in america. here's what you may have seen. ♪

[chanting] ♪ >> tucker: the american indian man with the drum you just saw is called nathan phillips. and he described the young men he encountered, the ones in the hats as aggressive and threatening. essentially shock troops for donald trump. watch. >> heard them saying build that wall. build that wall. this is indigenous lands. not supposed to have a wall here. never did. >> tucker: it's hard to remember the last time the great american people machine produced a clearer contrast between good and evil. it was essentially an entire morality play shrunk down to four minutes for facebook. on the one side you had a noble tribal elder weather

beaten calm. you can imagine a singletary sliding down his cheek at the senselessness of it all. and on the other side heedless youngs men from the south drunk on racism and white privilege. the irony was overwhelming. the indigenous man's land stolen by the ancestors of these boys in maga hats and dare to lecture him about walls who look very much like him out of what they were calling out of their country. it was infuriating to a lot of people. at the same time, was also strangely comforting to those who watched it from brooklyn and l.a. the people who run this country have long suspected that middle america is a hive of nativist bigotry and now they had proof of that. a cause for a celebration of outrage a because nothing quite as satisfying as having your own biases confirmed. but did the video really describe what happened? that should have been the first question that jirnlses journalists asked.

checking facts is what journalists are paid to do. first line of the job description. yet, amaysingly. almost noble in the american media did that. and that's a shame because there was a lot to check. the full video of what happened on friday in washington is well over an hour long. the four minutes that made twitter don't tell the story but, instead, distort the story. a longer look shows that the boys from covington catholic in kentucky were not a roving mob looking for a fight. they were, in fact, and it shows it on the tape standing in place waiting to be picked up by a bus. as they waited there. members of a group called the black hebrew israelites black supremacist organization began taunting them with racial epitaphs and then nathan phillips, the now famous indian activist approached them pounding on his drum. the footage seems to suggest the boys were unsure whether phillips was hostile or taking their side against the black hebrew israelites. but, in any case, there is no evidence at all that anybody said build a wall. here's a selection of what

didn't make social media. [shouting] >> tucker: so what really happened on friday? you can watch for yourself and decide. there is plenty of video out there of it. and some of it is fascinating and revealing. what we know for certain at this point is that our cultural leaders are in effect bigots. they understand the reality on the basis of stereotypes. when the facts don't conform to what they think they know, they ignore the fax. they see this country not a group of people or of citizens but as a collection of groups and some of those groups they're convinced are morally interior to other

groups. they know that's true they say it out loud. and that belief shapes almost all of their perceptions of the world. it's not surprising then that when a group of pro-life catholic kids who look like lacrosse players and live in kentucky are accused of wrongdoing the media don't stand for a moment without casting judgment. suggested the boys need to be expelled from school. amy navarro called the boys racist and ass wipes and went after teachers and parents. others call for violence against them. cnn legal analyst suggested one of the boys should be, quote: punched in the face. former cnn contributor agreed. asked on twitter have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid's. kathy griffin seemed to encourage a mob to rise up and hurt these boys. name these kids. i want names. shame them if you think these fers wouldn't docks

new a heart beat. names please and stories from people who can identify them and vouch for their identity. thank you. hollywood film producer jack morsi wanted the boys killed maga kids go screaming head first inthats first into the wod chipper. in case anyone wanted to get started on project. twitter which claims to have a policy against violence stood by silently as this all happened. in case you think. the abuse was bipartisan. it wasn't just left vs. right. it was the people in power attacking those below them. as a group. plenty of republicans in washington were happy to savage the covington kids probably to inoculate themselves from charges of improper thought. bill kristol asked his twitter followers to consider the contrast between the calm dignity and quiet strength plaintiff phillips and the behavior of maga brats who have absorbed the spirit of trumpism.

and then when the actual facts emerged kristol quietly deleted his tweet. he never apologized of course. he hasn't apologized for the iraq war either. no need people keep giving him money. the covington students might as well have spit on the cross that story has sense been pulled, too. the author admitted he never even bothered to watch all of the videos. he knew what he knew and that was enough. what's so interesting about the coverage of friday's videos is how much of it mentioned something called privilege. alex controlled substance an editor wrote this from empty school through college i went to school with shelter terred middle class white boys who could devastate with a smirk. a facial gesture that weaponized their privilege. infuriatingly you can't fight that f'ing smirk with a punch or words. we saw that as trump smirked his way through the election and see it as that boy's family and schools protect hiihate that smirk it says i'm

richer, i'm white and i'm a guy: these are high school kids from kentucky. do they really have more privilege an alex controlled substance from giz moto? probably not. in fact probably much less. far less privileged in fact than everyone who has called for them to be destroyed on the basis they have too much privilege. consider kara swisher an opinion columnist for the "new york times." swisher went to day school and georgetown and graduate degree at columbia. rich and famous by billionaire tech ceo hand maiden. nobody considers her very talented and somewhat highly influential in our society. she more privileged than the boys of covington catholic at kentucky? of course she is. maybe that's why she feels the need to call them nazis which she did repeatedly. what's actually going on here? well, it's not really about race. in fact, most of the stories about race aren't really

about race this so no different. this is about the people in fox alpower protecting their por and destroying those and mocking those weaker than they are. the reason simple the leaders have not improved the lives of most people in america. they can't admit that because it was discredit them. instead they attack the very people they have failed. the problem they will tell us with kentucky isn't that the policies have hurt the people who live there it's that the people who live there are immoral because they are bigots. they deserve their poverty and their opioid addiction. they deserve to die young. that's what our leaders tell themselves. and now that's what they are telling us. just remember, they are lying when they do. robby an associator at reed and unlike most he decided to take a look before passing judgment. author of forthcoming book panic attack young radicals in the age of trump. robby, thanks for coming on. your connection to this and i should say your hardly a trump partisan. you are the opposite,

exactly. it's not like you were defending trump. you are actually one of the very first maybe the first reporter to note that the uva story in rolling stone was clearly a hoax, which it was. you were among the first to say that this story was more complicated than it seemed. what did you do that other reporters didn't do? >> i didn't do anything other reporters couldn't have done. i just looked much more closely and much more elaborately at the facts. what i think caused so many people to miss the real story in both of thieves case was is that when you are reporting something that confirms all of your biases is that like all of your worst kind of thoughts about some bad person you are talking about you have to be really sure and consider evidence that conflicts with that there is a special burden to go above and beyond to make sure you are not seeing what you want to see in rolling stone, the author wanted to see the very, very worst in campus and have this outrageous story about sexual abuse and it completely fell apart. i think here in this case so many people were willing to believe, you know, this all my preconceived notion about

young white maga hat-wearing people who are here in d.c. for explicitly conservative or political cause and they were perfectly willing to believe, without considering much further that these were the villains of the story and oh my god look what they are doing it's so terrible. >> tucker: i will confess. when the harvey weinstein story happened. i don't share his politics. i always thought he was creepy. i thought boy i better be sure i wanted to belief it's true in a sense because it comported what i thought of him ahead of time and i think it was mostly true. i do think honest people when they see a story that confirms their biases, pause before jumping on board, tonight they? and shouldn't our journalists be more honest than they are. >> absolutely. in this case it was all there. had to watch the almost two hours of footage revealing like you explained there was this crazy hate group yelling obscenity, horrible language at these kids for like an hour and goading them to attack and the kids didn't attack. they did their sort of pep rally cheer thing. it wasn't offensive or

mean-spirited even. and they would have been within their rights to be meaner to this group. they didn't fall for the bait at all. and it was at this moment that this guy nathan phillips injected himself into the moment. he really misrepresented what happened when he talked to the media. to some extent this is a media bice story. if you have a source prepared to mislead you, possibly lie to you about what happened. i mean, that's to some degree just bad luck. >> tucker: be more specific to our viewers that haven't seen it what he looked to misrepresent. >> he said these exact words, he said the boys were beats and the black nationalist cult group were the prey. and he was -- that's why he went up to the boys and not the crazy people with the drums. he thought they were going to attack. that's a complete, complete misreading of the situation. that's exactly backwards. the boys weren't really doing anything wrong that i could tell from what i saw and the other people were

insane. now he either got that really wrong or misrepresented it intentionally. he had an entourage there taking video. if you listen to. so video. it seemed like they were possibly trying to -- it was stunt there. someone said we got what we need. something like that. i don't know for sure but he was very wrong. >> tucker: this is a story about race, we're being told. every story is about race. it's absurd. but we're told that there are racist national weather service this video. and here you have a group literally screaming racial epitaphs and anti-gay epitaphs and bigoted remarks and somehow nobody notices that but it's the high school kids who don't really say anything who are the bigots like you are lying if you reach that conclusion, aren't you? >> right. and everyone is saying they need to be sorry or we need to punish them. if i'm trying to sort out who did the most wrong or who was most at fault in this situation, it's obviously the crazy people who were screaming viral obscene things for an hour, right? and then i think it's this

man hot most charitable i will be got it totally wrong and less charitiably lied to the media. bill does toll said he was calm and noble and we should learn a lesson. he like ironized cody, no? you don't think he was? >> no. and they are not engaging in targeted racial harassment. they are just not. they are confused. they are like is this guy on my side and they are joining in with them. it's not perfect. i don't know. maybe they should have done something about it differently. it wasn't -- it wasn't malicious toward him. until then they get confused maybe he is not on their side. maybe he is with these crazy people. >> tucker: next time you write a piece hey, i don't think that story sounds right. all of us should pay close attention to it i'm serious, have you quite a track record. great to see you. author and columnist mark steyn has been watching august of this over the past two days and he joins us tonight. mark, i'm just struck by the amount of hostility. i mean, robby just pointed out that the people commenting on this didn't really know anything about

it and they got it wrong. just because they got it wrong didn't prevent them from like threatening to kill the people involved. where is all the rage coming from, do you think? >> well, to look as it as you like to say sometimes from 30,000 feet, tucker, when i was a kid, i wasn't in to science fiction. i was never really interested in the distaupian society with people living atom mizeed, dehumanized lives. police by cam caesars tin foil suits. what always interested in me how you got from chance from sports jackets motoring down suburban main streets to the distopiaen society. how did you get there? and i think we are actually in the how did you get there phase right now. we have two or three big social media companies, essentially controlling human knowledge across the planet.

and we have a system whereby cyber jackals are basically loosed fairly randomly to destroy people's lives in looking flat liker wellian hate. now it can be 2 second hate. in 20 years time this kid sam will be applying for job in accountancy firm in press tile maine and they will google him and all the stuff how is he a clansman and nazi and all the rest will still come up. this is evil. actually, if this is the cure for racism or sexism or transphobia or islamophobeia, the cure is worse than the louise, powerful people like business kristol and kathy griffin and alyssa morrone know being willing to you destroy through social media frenzy is actually evil.

>> tucker: why wouldn't some public interest law firm fix this on behalf the injured parties. the kids whose lives if it can be proved okay that their lives were hurt by lies. why wouldn't they seek some remedy? why is this the only country in the world where people can crush you and have you no recourse. i don't understand. >> we have supposedly a very wide bounds of freedom of expression thanks to the first amendment. amendment.steve. >> tucker: right. >> just to take my country, if you look at the canadian coverage on the cbc. i actually reckon these kids if they wanted to get together and sue the canadian broadcasting corporation they would have a pretty good case under canadian defamation law. at some point what disturbed me about this, you mentioned bill kristol, you mentioned national review. there is something actually -- these kids worth maga hats. do you think they will ever

want to read national review after you look at the way national review simply accepted all the left's premises? the bassian of conservatism turns out to be kathy griffin with a few more syllable words. what's the use if they accept the left's premises when it comes to evil twitter feasting. >> tucker: i believe you wrote for national review for a long time. >> wasn't just national review interesting because you used to work there why do you think they and other republicans in washington were so quick to jump on this train? >> well, i think they call it virtue signaling. that's the expression. except, of course, it's not in the least bit virtuest. you are destroying people you don't know on the evidence of 90 seconds of video. nothing conservative about that. i also think it gets to a kind of crisis in what we might loosely call

conservative inc. that the great suspicion of much of the base is that these guys don't really believe in it. and the fact this they are so eager to just because these kids are wearing donald trump hats and the guy they are up against is a called tribal elder. i mean, he is not that old, actually. i think he was born in 1955. he is like early 60's. kind of like tribal middle age rather than tribal elder. the fact that they can only accept the same identity politics cliches that the left has imposed guess to the heart of the problem. >> tucker: they have absorbed all the lies. it's amazing. mark steyn so wise as always. thank you. >> thanks a lot, tucker. >> tucker: well, the covington story wasn't the only story they got wrong last week. last week they telling you about a buzzfeed story that the special counsel then declared false.

what is going on? we will have details after the break. ♪ ♪ lephone ringing ] -whoa. [ indistinct talking ] -deductible? -definitely speaking insurance. -additional interest on umbrella policy? -can you translate? -damage minimization of civil commotion. -when insurance needs translating, get answers in plain english at progressiveanswers.com. ♪ -he wants you to sign karen's birthday card. it's a high honor.

♪ >> tucker: well, the coverage of the covington high school boys and whether or not they should be killed which have you seen unfold for the last few days was pretty bad. but it may not be the worse thing, the most embarrassing the thing the press has done the last five days which tells you a lot. last friday news outlets really humiliated themselves of coverage of a buzzfeed report cat website a story that claimed that the president had ordered his attorney michael cohen to

lie to congress. now, if you were a normal editor or reporter you might pause before repeating this because buzzfeed is a joke. this is the outlet that gives us stories like 19 husbands who sent the most hilariously random texts ever and 10 signs your cat is a wizard. so, you might have thought how can buzzfeed have gotten the one story that nobody else can replicate but that everybody else has been searching for? you might have asked yourself that question before repeating the key assertions in the story mindlessly and as if they were true. but, no. nobody about. everybody assumed buzzfeed had landed in exclusive scoop that would bring down the president that was so thrilling they couldn't hold back. if you are playing a drinking game last friday and took a shot every time you heard the word bombshell you would have wound up dead. watch. >> this would be certainly a bombshell information. >> buzzfeed's latest bombshell report. >> slamming a bombshell

report by buzzfeed. >> a bombshell report from buzzfeed. >> it's the buzzfeed bombshell is triewnchts the bombshell report that president trump told his to lie under oath. >> buzzfeed reporting the bombshell reports. >> no response to the bombshell report deeply disturbing. >> tucker: bombshell. dumb people with small vocabularies. there was a problem though with buzzfeed's reporting, none of it had been confirmed at all. even the author suggested they hadn't seen the documents in question. actually, there were two authors, co-by lined and one said he had seen the documents and another said he hadn't. that was never really resolved. it didn't matter because the dumb people on tv so badly wanted it to be true that they repeated it. >> the story, if true, could lead to his impeachment. >> if true, it could be a really big deal. >> if true, obviously we ourselves have not corroborated any of this. >> but if it is true, it's a big if, this would be a

smoking gun. >> if true, important caveat, if true. >> if this is true, if this buzzfeed story is true, this is absolutely impeachable. >> if true, the two most important words in washington today. >> if this report is true, it appears to be the clearest evidence yet of obstruction of justice. >> if true, could very well put in motion donald trump's impeachment. >> tucker: if true, if true, that's actually a pretty tricky rhetorical stunt. think about it preface any statement if true and then go ahead and accuse nibble of anything without any evidence at all. of course you would just be speculating but wild speculation is exactly what the press did all day last friday. between them, cnn, msnbc mentioned the word impeachment nearly 200 times in one day. in the end, if true, turned out to be not true. at all. we know this because late friday the mueller investigation itself issued

a rare statement calling buzzfeed's reporting inaccurate. talk about a bombshell. [laughter] you might say. the mueller team almost always refuses to comment publicly about things it is doing. it was a humbling moment for the press. they were not humbled though. how do we know? on meet the press, chuck todd the host said the problem wasn't that the press was foolish and reckless and bad at their job of reporting. and the story wound up being untrue. that wasn't the real problem. no. the real problem was that having an untrue story exposed might help conservatives. >> the problem is the fake news problem any time -- any time that somebody gets something so spectacularly wrong and everybody piles on it furthers the narrative this is another american institution that the people of our country can't trust, that's the problem with the buzzfeed story. >> no, it is and got to remind people there are people who want to exploit.

they want to see us be put this way and they're doing it for exploitation purposes let's not give them the ammunition. >> tucker: that's unbelievable. that's by the way not neutral thinking and not clear thinking. it's not the way that journalists think. it's the way that political operatives think. their first concern is always how will the other side benefit from this? how can we win the next campaign? that's how they think because that's exactly what they are doing. joe concha covers media for the hill and he joins us tonight. joy, do you think thajoe, do yok the real problem with buzzfeed given segments to this where mean commentators on fox news give segue to stories like this. >> let me address chuck todd there people don't realize. this is he not only the moderator of meet the press. he is also the political director of nbc news. here's the thing. everybody all those anchors and pundits you just show had ample warning there was a serious problem with this story. on friday morning, before

all the impeached and if trues came out. as you mentioned you had anthony come yea, one of the authors in this piece on cnn saying he hadn't seen the evidence that was used as a foundation for the story. then minutes later on msnbc the other author said he had seen the evidence. that is your red flag right there where chuck todd as a political director then needs to get the troops together and say guys, look, our onus organization, nbc news could not verify this report independently and therefore we should go about this with extreme caution. instead, you mentioned the number, nearly 200 times. on nbc alone the word impeach or impeachment was said 97 times. that falls at chuck todd's feet as a political director when in the morning editorial meeting he should have made sure that didn't happen. on cnn same thing. they didn't verify the report independently and it was said on there 82 times. now, look, where are we at now? jason leopold, the other

reporter in the story said he saw the evidence is like edward snowden. you can't find him. he hasn't tweeted for three days hasn't written any tweets anyway and he isn't doing any interviews. you see -- >> tucker: may i clarify? so, always struck me as a real reporter just to be honest about it but it leopold kid has like a long history of really reckless behavior. he is the one who publicly reported and turned out to be false that karl rove had been indicted. he was fired for plagiarism. the guy is a political activist. why would you ever put someone like that on a story of this magnitude? >> precisely. and it's funny because with leopold and so many in the media, the mistakes only seem to go one way toward republicans or conservatives or trump in this case. i mean, ask yourself this question. when was the last time you saw a major media outlet make a mistake or a major error in a story about a democratic lawmaker? you know, i'm racking my

brain. >> tucker: that's such a good point. >> tucker: been watching for 30 years never seen that happen not one time. will you keep a list? i want to be honest about it. you know, if you see nancy pelosi unfairly impound by chuck todd will you let me know and we will do a segment on it. >> i will be all over it by the way glen greenawalt has a great piece today in the intercept. he lists 10 major stories that the media has gotten wrong on russia. this isn't a one off betrayed by someone just an excuse to attack the media. we have seen this over and over and over again and as i mentioned going in the same direction. >> tucker: i don't think there is anyone braver than greenawalt. >> thank you. >> tucker: more on that buzzfeed report ahead. saying it's true. that's weird. some democrats want to investigate it even though it's pretty conclusively shown to be false. how does that work? we'll tell you after the break. ♪ ♪

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since you're heading off to dad... i just got a zerowater. but we've always used brita. it's two stage-filter... doesn't compare to zerowater's 5-stage. this meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. our tap water is 220. brita? 110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero? yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do. >> democrats control the house again for the first time in eight years. with their return they have the right to launch investigations which they are very anxious to do. the question is about what? house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff says even though the mueller investigation itself has disputed the absurd report by the absurd website buzzfeed that ran on friday, bill wants his own

investigation of that story. watch. >> are you going to investigate the claims? >> absolutely. absolutely. congress has a fundamental interest in two things. first, in getting to the bottom of why this came before us and who else was knowledgeable that this was a lie? >> tucker: meanwhile over in the house judiciary committee democrat says he wants to investigate supreme court justice brett kavanaugh for perjury despite the lack of any actual known lies in kavanaugh's testimony. that will be interesting. richard good stein a reporter a former advisor of bill and hillary clinton joins us tonight. they won the house and they have subpoena power and they can go crazy if they want. i'm just wondering of all the things can you investigate why would you investigate a buzzfeed story that the independent counsel himself says is untrue unless and here's the twist because they have a conspiracy maybe mueller is secretly working for trump. >> no, i think what shift is saying not i'm going to

investigate the buzzfeed story. he is saying i want to investigate whether michael cohen lied and who knew about it. that's not an easy thing to get to the bottom of because have you got presumably a client and his lawyer. that's a hard thing to pierce. there is the suggestion buzzfeed was there is documentary evidence to support it we will see. and that's where schiff can come in handy because he has the ability to show to the public what's real. the whole thing about the russia investigation. we will see public testimony from people who were in the trump tower meeting. people who dealt with russians. manafort maybe. for sure don jr. if he doesn't take the fifth. jared, same thing. roger stone, same thing who dealt, we know were dealing with russians. >> tucker: okay. i just con der and we haven't seen them yet. man, it's been so many years now. shouldn't we pause and acknowledge reality once that a while even in d.c. amazing exchange between martha raddatz and kirsten gillibrand hard to believe a

person of her ability but she is. what do you make of this buzzfeed independent counsel shot it down and she looks into the camera we need to investigate it she has the talking point on tape and she can't adjust to new facts. does that give you pause? >> yeah. for this reason, i always thought the buzzfeed story was overblown because, two things. we will have cohen's public testimony and some of your guests, i would think, like jim jordan, will rake him over the coals as a liar and so forth and we will, you know, whether there is any reason to believe him and then we have mueller want's product back it up whether there is any evidence or not. whether buzzfeed back it up is frankly irrelevant. >> tucker: i agree with you. a whole website is a joke, right? obviously. the fact that it's taken seriously by people and the kind of glee that people showed at the prospect of getting trump, i don't know, that's not really the an

mating spirit. you want people to make the country better to get to the truth. like crushing the guy. getting out of office on any pretext, that's kind of ugly, right? >> why democrats down played impeachment played up things like affordable care. during the of course winning 40 seats in the house elections. i think it is. >> tucker: now they are talking about -- we were dumb enough to vote for them they are like pulling the mask off we are actually going to impeach the mfer. >> pelosi on down. down playing it to the you know, to the discomfort of the real left group who is actually trying to foment it. >> tucker: six old people who still run the party. their hold on power is tenuous. how can they hold the crazies back who just want blood? they say that we are going to impeach the mfer, really? >> again, have you people, look at what steven king said. we are not impugning that to the republican party, right? >> these are people who were just elected the other day and their first order of

business. and the press joins them in this. shouldn't the democrats stand back and say we want the best for the country? >> absolutely. >> tucker: but i don't think i have ever heard any of them say that. >> what they think the country is at risk if there is a president who might be in position to be compromised because of the saudis or the russians. and we have some basis to believe that there may have been sort of dealings that he had. >> tucker: really? >> absolutely. afternoon even the fact that there is some indication that if it was not outright money laundering. >> tucker: saudis, who has taken more from the saudis, would you say, trump or hillary clinton? >> i would say that the notion that hillary clinton was compromised by the saudis is laughable. >> tucker: nobody is -- who took millions from the saudis? was it donald trump -- no, actually i think it was hillary clinton. now that that is like a standard. >> deal with malaria and climate change. she a good person. >> tucker: she is a good person. combating childhood obesity

did that work by the way? i don't think it's a joke. did she help? >> you know, the fact is that foundation has helped with countless issues across the board. [ laughter ] >> tucker: i have never seen evidence. kids seem pretty happy. whatever, richard, good to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> tucker: america's worst drug epidemic is in progress now. people rarely talking about it killing them by the thousands. how did this happen? not by accident. turns out it was engineered by a small group to get rich. they did. then they tried to cut their tracks. new evidence on what they knew as they did that. that's after the break. we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company,

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>> tucker: the current opioid epidemic is the deadliest drug crisis in this country's his industry. every year the number of derts rises. in 2017, 72,000 americans died from ods and the vast majority of those were caused by some sort of opioid drug. there are a lot of causes of this epidemic, declining job prospects of the works class. the collapse of marriage and families. the suffocating loneliness generated by modern life. good old fashioned greed and moral turpitude from big business played a role, too. one of the key drugs behind the opioid tragedy is called oxycontin. it is a powerful and effective prescription pain killer. it's been a miracle for many cancer patients. it's also very addictive. thousands of americans have received prescriptions for oxycontin after surgery or for chronic pain and wound up addicted to it since oxycontin's release in 1996, 200,000 americans have died of overdoses linked to prescription pain killers. that for perspective is

almost twice this country's death toll in world war i. oxycontin is produced by a company called perdue pharmaceutical that company is owned by the sackler it's fee that has made this family one of the richest collectively worth $13 billion. now new filings in a lawsuit in massachusetts against members of the sackler family showed just how far they were willing to go to get rich. prior to the release of oxycontin purdue pharma argued that the less addictive than the other opioids released gradually because of its packaging. they had no proof this was true and of course this turned out not to be true at all. oxycontin was and is again remarkably addictive. it didn't matter. purdue sales rechs were told to claim the drug had an addiction risk of less than 1%. at the drug's launch richard sackler posted how successful the drug would be quote the launch of oxycontin tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury

the competition. the prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense and white. well, he was right. that blizzard came and people began to die. the sacklers didn't appear to care. in 17, richard sackler deduced that doctors were prescribing oxycontin more often because they had the mistaken belief it was weaker than morphine. in fact, oxycontin is stronger than morphine. purdue personnel were told to suppress the fact to keep the prescriptions flowing. in 2001 a federal prosecutor noted that 59 overdose deaths had occurred in his state alone. sackler's response in an internal company memo, quote: this is not too bad. it could have been far worse. the company refused to take responsibility for the people had t. was killing so they went after the addicts themselves. in 2001, richard sackler said this in an internal memo, quote: we have to hammer on abusers in every possible way. they are the culprits and the problem.

they are reckless criminals. unquote. as the crisis worsens, purdue continued to deny the addictiveness of their pills saying the epidemic was simply a matter of immorality on the part of individual users. meanwhile year after year the sacklers kaepernick kept pushing their company to sell more and more pain killers. sales personnel were pressured to market oxycontin to doctors for all kinds of ailments and higher and more addictive doses. if prescriptions didn't rise fast enough sales reps were threatened with termination and of course they got the message. oxycontin salesmen held daily meetings with physicians urging them to prescribe more and more oxycontin. several doctors the company lobbied veend actually lost their license for malpractice for following this advice. when some of the more ethical doctors expressed concerns about addiction the company placated them saying their patients actually suffered from quote pseudo addiction a condition could be treated with, you guessed it, more oxycontin.

meanwhile raymond sackler melted with the company's advertisements didn't portray oxycontin positively enough. purdue only discontinued district sales for oxycontin in february of 2018, less than a year ago. how many lives might have been saved if they had stopped earlier or if he had had ever lied at all. those are pointless questions. they didn't care. they were getting rich. another caravan coming to the u.s.-mexico border that border remains unsecured by a government with a broken immigration system. a lot of things happening there that people in washington are denying. we will talk to someone who was just there. he has the latest and the truth about our southern border after the break. ♪ ♪ one serving... ...once a day... ...with nutrients that support 6 vital functions... ...and one healthy you. that's the power of one a day.

♪ >> tucker: well, the president made a new offer to democrats over the weekend. an effort to seek an end to the government shutdown. meanwhile, another central american caravan headed for our southern border, trace gallagher has more on both of those unfolding stories. trace? >> hi, tucker. now that democrats have dismissed president trump's compromise plan, the president is labeling house speaker nancy pelosi a radical saying she irrational. so on day 31 the partial government shutdown is no closer to ending an the president's attempt at gaining support on the left may have caused a bit of anxiety on the right. mr. trump offered to temporarily extend

protections for daca recipients. those brought to the country illegally as children but now conservatives are accusing the president of embracing amnesty. the president shot back that his offer was temporary, not permanent. quoting here, no amnesty is not part of my offer. amnesty will be used only on a much bigger deal, whether on immigration or something else. and now some g.o.p. senators want to get the president's proposal on the senate floor not that it has the 60 votes necessary to pass but as a way to get debate rolling. meantime thousands of central american migrants continue their trek toward tijuana with hopes of getting into the u.s., thousands of other migrants are taking mexico up on its offer of asylum. mexico says almost 3700 people have now registered for temporary status. and following a series of cartel attacks on mexican police. the u.s. government has now issued a security alert for waziristan, mexicojuarez, mexic.

u.s. government personnel are being told to avoid all police and law enforcement agencies in and around the city of juarez. tucker? >> tucker: amazing. trace gallagher thank you very much for that. >> yep. >> tucker: the administration has warned that dangerous elements from across the world could be sneaking across the mexican border into the u.s. the geniuses in the press corps, of course, scoff at that idea. it's instain. >> he sees on a conservative newspaper report with very vague sourcing that prayer rugs have been found at the border. a racist innuendo that muslims are sneaking across the border, that's literally a plot point from an action movie when he says that muslims are -- what is that saying? oh, terrorists. >> tucker: let the record reflect don lee monday does not believe it he also tells us that islam is a race. rush to your dictionary

after this segment. what's the truth. buck sexton would know an analyst with the hill newspaper. he was just at our southern newspaper. buck, don lemon does not buy this at all. >> when i was at the tijuana, san diego border, i saw a room full of bangladeshys just taken into the custody last 24 hours. explain to them there are no muslims. >> tucker: did you feel guilty when you saw that? like i'm a bad person for seeing this maybe take don lemon's advice and forget you ever saw it? >> shows you how widespread the problem really is exploiting loopholes they all showed up, tucker claiming asylum. they show up at our southern border they turn themselves in at the border but they know they are now entering this process where they will say they have a credible fear. bangladeshys have a credible fear. indians and other people chinese nationals showing up

doing the same thing, spending tens of thousands of dollars because they know once they get processed and let free, they will be in the interior united states and they are going to have to wait two to five years probably for the backlog of cases no judge at that point is going to let them go. other scams and schemes did you go to the border you see just aren't being reported on. >> tucker: it sounds like if you just saw this standing there and mexico border. it's not hidden information, so if you were a producer for like a 10:00 p.m. cable show on cnn you probably should coo have gotten that information yourself, right? >> more fun to call trump and everybody who wants border security a racist. >> tucker: is islam a race? >> no, no. it's not. but the left likes to conflate. islam as a nonwhite religious tradition that's how they usually even though there are people muslim faith are at white. >> tucker: florence of arain yanchts whole bunch of ways we can go on this. also note when you are at the border there is no question. i saw the border fence in action working. you speak to border patrol,

including people who like trump and people who don't like trump on border patrol they will tell you the numbers speak for themselves. and by the way i took this photo. the day we were there. the first day, this walls four actually mexican illegals crossing the fence. it was a double layered fence. i didn't catch them. i was just observing the journalists. border patrol called them as they were finally making landfall here on the u.s. side, but people were saying see this shows you that the fence doesn't work. i said no, they were caught within 30 seconds of crossing because of the sensors and the barriers and the fence but it just goes to show you how widespread the problem still is at the border when you be there for a few hours voyeur likely to see illegals crossing. previous criminal records only reason they didn't just turn themselves in and say i want asylum. had other people show up with a kid that either the way they either rented or recycled. tactic. pass children to people who are actually not family members but policeman rent their children into this process. make money and say this is

my child because then they know they get special treatment when they claim asylum there is a lot of ways that people are gaming the system. if you have a previous criminal record the asylum thing ♪ going to work. >> tucker: that's why thee they try sneak or illegally. if gavel gave gavin newsom promu free healthcare why wouldn't do you that. >> state of california is openlies who toil border enforcement. speak to border patrol about this. guys in california you think they are doing a job people would be supportive of. california made it so you couldn't have any california contractors involved in the upgrades of the very effective border fence by the way. had you to get a texas contractor which costs more money because they had to relocate because california doesn't want anyone to have a hand in securing out border. it's just nuts and people should know what the loopholes and exploitations are. >> tucker: bob sexton thank you. we are out of time, sadly. we could do another hour but we can't. tomorrow night we will be

back 8:00 p.m. >> tucker: tuck three days ago the hate trump media that we telling you about at the beginning of the year was in a state of total complete euphoria. running with wild speculation about a brand new bombshell report from buzzfeed news. story alleging president trump directed his former attorney, michael cohen to commit a crime and fly congress. and from the very second it was published, many so-called journalists and not in the mainstream media immediately rushing breathlessly hysterically to judgment. on fry lone fake news cnn, conspiracy tv msnbc literally mentioned the world impeachment over