tomorrow night at 7:00, our friend tucker carlson is about to take over in washington, d.c., have a great night, everybody. we will see you back tomorrow. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening, welcome to "tucker carlson tonight," beto o'rourke's campaign return america to 1995 is off to a surprisingly rough start tonight. instead of telling us more about the skate forward tricks and though we'd hook ups, o'rourke is apologizing for his skin color, truly. we have more than that in just ahead. but the mueller report coming any day now. we don't really know that it is coming any day now, but everybody in washington is saying that. but there are indications that it might be. matthew whitaker for one has said that it is pretty much wrapped up. in any case, all of this will end at some point. and when it does, it will be chaos in the news business.

every interested party will spin it to their own end. before that happens, let's pause to put it in perspective and remember how the russia-hoax began in the first place. throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, hillary clinton and her surrogates in the media attacked donald trump for his role in pushing the birther story. they argued that it was dumb to think that barack obama was born in kenya and it hurt america. it delegitimized him as a leader by casting him as an illegitimate president. those are fair points. if you cannot prove something is true, you should not claim that it is. if you do not like a president's policies, argue against them. offer a better alternative. do not claim that he isn't really the president. that does not help the country. somehow democrats learn the opposite lesson. for three years they push their own former harmful conspiracy, the theory of russia collusion. this was all invented by the clinton campaign for short-term political gain during the race.

showing how fusion gps working on behalf of the clintons work to publicize the steele dossier. it was nothing more than gossip, no respected news agency would publish it. instead it pitch the lies -- glenn simpson met with bruce or at the department of justice. christopher steele met with john boehner at the state department. and he spread the information to his colleagues. and president obama and jim comey were briefed on the dossier. never has opposition research and a presidential campaign reached higher levels of government. meanwhile, the press used this fact as a priestess for publishing the dossier. we cannot prove that it is true, but people are talking about it, so it is news. buzzfeed admitted that that was the thinking on the show. this document to is being fought over and everybody except the public has seen, we have seen. and we do not have any special powers, but at what point does

the audience say, we can see this too and deal with the fact that it is okay labeled as unverified and clearly labeled as something's that are not tru true. >> tucker: so you're saying because famous people are gossiping about it and because -- >> the president of the united states, the president-elect. the garden-variety famous people. >> tucker: and let me know -- >> the document is a public document subject to the freedom of information law. >> tucker: it is gossip because it is unverified, the difference between what you did and what he did is he reported that it was untrue as you said not true. >> tucker: not gossip official briefing, a ploy to the political opponent. everybody knew that. and in fact in the year since no evidence have us emerged to verify the main claims. it was fake then, it is fake now. but it still caused an awful lot of damage. the fraudulent dossier was used

to justify the grotesque civil rights violations perpetrated on carter page. and justified multiple congressional investigations which ground government to a halt and help destroy a relationship with russia that did not need to happen, but it did things to the hoax. and the dossier justified hundreds if not thousands of totally irresponsible remarks by politicians and journalists. you may remember some of them. ted lieu said that there was a "cloud of treason" over the white house. calling trump a russia agent hiding in plain sight. even nancy pelosi who is supposed to be responsible and should know better said it was certain that russia was blackmailing the president. all of these were lies. nobody has apologize for them. when the mueller report does drop, how will they explain to their followers, the npr listeners, the people who read the new yorker, the entire audience at cnn why there is no proof of collusion in the

document? according to one poll, 67% of democrats believe that it is probably or definitely true that russia tampered with vote tallies to help trump win. in washington people know that that is ludicrous. everybody here understands the game. but out there people really believe this stuff. nancy pelosi and schiff and swallowed told them that it was true. and that is the entire lineup. backing them up. will those people be disappointed? or will they assume that putin got to the mueller too. thank you very much for coming on, what do you do if you run a tv network whose entire program is built around the lie of russia collusion and your proved wrong? duplex to screen for a day and penance? how do you respond to that? >> there is one word, tucker, that they can use, you pay for it to something else that may be

negative towards the president, because and pretend kind of like remember the ninth season of "dallas" where pam walks into the shower and finds bobby in the shower and he is supposed to be dead for a year. pretend it was a dream and it did not happen. you move on at that point. and i think you said it all with the stat around two-thirds of democrats believing that votes were changed by the russians. the dossier and the special counsel has already accomplished the goal in democratic supporters which is that the whole thing was changed, and the attorney general has said and rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general said that not one vote was changed. i cannot believe that christopher steele admitted during a deposition, coming out a day or two that he used a cnn eye report which is basically random people on the internet a comment board, and used parts of that to support details that he gathered for the dossier. so when the president and this first came out called a and phony, it appears to be that if

you are basing it on the cnn eye report and that does not even exist anymore which is basically an internet comment board. that is shocking to me and i cannot believe it is not getting any more coverage. >> tucker: i agree with you. i worked at cnn for many years and in 2001 when gary cohn dent was accused the media of murdering his secretary, but they all accused him of murder, and when it turned out that he did not do it and his career was destroyed, his life was destroyed, i have felt bad about it every sense, and i have nothing in common with him, buto you think anybody in the press will feel bad that they have been lying to their viewers for two years? >> i think that many people have a problem with the media because there is no contrition. that when mistakes are made, people do not say straight up without excuse is that we got it wrong and we are sorry. we will try better next time. think about the last time you ever heard that from any major

media person. i will give you two polls because i find them so interesting, this was monmouth last year, 77% of americans, that is a number to keep in your mind said that television and news outlets report "fake news." that is 14 points higher than the year prior, go to 1976 so that we can put it into context, gallup runs a pole, trust and confidence in the media? 72%, nearly three quarters, same number said yes, we do have trust in the media, so the whole thing has been turned on its head, we totally trust the media to three quarters saying forget bias, we think that fake news is actually being reported. and that is incredible to me, tucker. >> tucker: people make mistakes, people go down rabbit holes, i have done it. i thought that gary cohn it killed his intern, i was wrong. and let me apologize again, i'm sorry. but doesn't enter a story or credibility and in your own interest to be honest and

contrite if you are wrong? >> sure, and i've got things wrong as well, and i will go on twitter or the platform that i may have made the mistake and i will say i got this one wrong. i'm sorry, i think that i have learned from it and hopefully you forgive me and continue to read me. the responses that i get are overwhelmingly positive like thank you, that is so refreshing i'm not trying to pat myself on the back, it's just a simple thing to do. people forget about it and they move on, but they will remember the apology. >> tucker: that is exactly right, and not just journalism, but human decency. joe concha, great to see you tonight. thank you. >> good to see you, thank you. >> tucker: beto o'rourke's magical mystery tour is off to a pretty tough start, he is apologizing for his white privilege. nail on the head. ♪ so with xfinity mobile

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in the modern intersectional democratic party. everyone is a threat. beto o'rourke was beta o'rourke and issued an apology and announced his white privilege for good measure. >> it has already made me a better candidate, not only will i not say that -- [laughter] , but i will be much more thoughtful going forward in the way that i talk about our marriage and also the way in which i acknowledge the truth of the criticism that i have enjoyed white privilege. absolutely. undeniable. >> tucker: some would argue that it is not white privilege that beto rourke has enjoyed, but privilege, plain old fashion privilege, growing up in a rich family, marrying a rich woman, going to woodberry forest is privilege, nothing white about that. with 20 different candidates running except expect a lot of this in the coming year helping the middle class is no longer that interesting, the maoist sessions are in, lisa boothe is

a fellow in dependent, and it is great to see you tonight. or did you know that beto rourke has suffered privilege? >> i did not, because what are the two things at the left cares about the most? identity politics and identity political correctness. we saw that as this played out with beto rourke. he was accused of sexism for the joke that he made about his wife that he sometimes helps her out. and also sexism with his announcement video because his wife did not speak and he spent the time talking. so we capitulated to the left to either outcry, and then he pivoted to blaming white privilege which is your identity politics. and we also saw this with cory booker who has recently said that there has to be a woman on the ticket that he will have a female vice president, so we will see a lot of this play out on the left for the 2020 field. >> tucker: i am becoming convinced that cory booker is not real. i think that he may just be a robot or something designed to.

every dome cliche that the left comes up with. but let me ask you as a one-woman focus group, how would you respond if beto had said i like my wife, that's why i married her. it was a joke, dummy. i'm not apologizing and i cannot control the skin color i was born with, i will not apologize for that. buzz off, how would you have responded? >> positively, i thought his joke was funny because i have a sense of humor. i do not live my life constantly offended by everything. that is an exhausting way to live your life. i understand a joke. i thought he was joking. he is not the only democrat that has been in the headlines as well. we have chelsea clinton, and wants you to watch the video. it is a little bit disturbing. >> this right here is the result of a massacre, people like you and the words that you put out. i don't want you to know that and i want you to feel that deep inside you. 49 people died because of the rhetoric out here.

>> i'm sorry that you feel that way. >> you see that chelsea clinton was attending a vigil to honor the lives of the individuals who were massacred at the christchurch shooting, she was there to honor their lives and she is being berated because of the comments that she made an condemnation of congresswoman omar that she viewed as anti-semitism, which mind you, a lot of people in the country view the comments that way as well which is why the house ended up voting on a resolution to condemn her. they watered it down which also received criticism for some individuals on the left like congressman deutsch who did not think that it went far enough, but there she gives being berated for just something that she had said when she did not have anything to do with the shooting. >> tucker: it is a society that is hard to live in the end it will get worse until somebody stands up and says, you're boring, go away. i do not care what you say, actually. that is the answer i think.

and i wish that people were brave enough to do that. lisa, you are brave. >> have a great night. >> tucker: issuing sad apologies for their own skin color, warning that if you do not give them full control of the u.s. economy right now, the world will literally be destroyed. >> the world is going to an end 12 years if we do not address climate change. and your biggest issue is -- [applause] your biggest issue is how are we going to pay for it? and like this is the war, this is our world war ii. >> this is our final chance. the scientists are absolutely unanimous on this. that we have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis. >> tucker: that is just pathetic. but the show cares about science. we want to assess the claim critically and scientifically. do we really have 12 years left? that is what they are saying. is it true.

daniel turning, executive director at power the future, thank you for coming on. do we have 12 years left? is there science that shows that? >> the associated press debunked to that which is fascinating for somebody who studies energy and environmental issues to see the associated press walk that back and say that we have never said there are 12 years left to fix climate change, alexandria ocasio-cortez has said it, and the scientists who write the report have said that that is a made-up statistic that you all have extrapolated. it is interesting that they finally -- >> tucker: hold on, that is the party of science, we know that. they had a march for science after president trump got elected, they believe in science, we don't and we believe obviously in snake handling. >> kids marched out of class on friday for science. >> this does not sound like science. to speak of the 12 years number is what scientist said based one climate accord. this is where we would like to get by 2030, this happened in

2018, so by 2030 we want to be here. somehow that number became if we don't do it in 12 years the end of the world is imminent, and beto o'rourke has said that, numerous democrats have run on the issue. when beto announced the clip that you just showed, he said that there was unanimous consensus among scientists that we had 12 years left to fix this. it is nonsense that they have repeated this over and over again and it never gets as you setting your first segment, and never gets corrected and nobody apologizes. >> tucker: these are people that are saying that bill nye is actually a science guy, not just a buffoon created by television. >> i would love to ask these folks, i remember a report in 1989 and i was a freshman in high school that said that we had ten years left by the year 2,000 and we had a fixed climate change. what did they get wrong then? what did they get wrong then that they are so certain that they have now that we have two fixed climate change? >> tucker: it sounds like a lot of what they say is just an

effort to immediately take the moral high ground and holding the moral high ground do whatever they want to the country. >> when you do things under the guise of protecting mother earth or for the planet, or for their children, remember the kids who stormed dianne feinstein's office a little while ago when you do things for the planet you are given a really wide berth. so it is taking over the health care industry and all employment. it is putting out of work millions of people who work in the energy industry. it's funny that better was not talking about these things when he was running against ted cruz a couple of months ago. >> >> tucker: i think of my myself as somebody who loves the outdoors, wire the city is filthy that they run, they are cesspools. >> and why don't people dictate what they want to mandate, bernie sanders applied on private jets, alexandria ocasio-cortez prefers to take the shuttle on american islands to amtrak. i don't blame her.

i would watch more take the shuttle as well. >> tucker: you don't want to go to penn station because it is disgusting. and there is human waste and hyperbolic beetles. or should i take nobody seriously if they do not pick up the trash in front of their own building? >> what they are unable to run their cities, but if they give more power to employ the entire nation including those unwilling to work, somehow they will fix things? they can't run amtrak well now, what makes us think that they will build a national automotive grade or train railroads. >> tucker: people are on the defense as soon as they start talking and they say, climate is a problem. instead of saying that you have no idea what you are talking about and there is no reference or science to what you're saying, you're a demagogue and a liar? why does nobody say that? >> i wish that they would point out what fossil fuels just for our country and the quality of life, the kids that were

marching on saturday were all with smartphones. there was a girl who had a plastic fiji water bottle, does she not know, stop fossil fuels, does she not know where they come from? >> tucker: what plastic is made of? thank you for that perspective. to the democratic party has a brand-new plan, we will figure out how smart it is. lower the voting age to 16. it would be the justification for that? would you give your 16-year-old the power to choose their government as much as you love them? ponder that as we go to commercial. ♪

>> tucker: new zealand mass shooters said in his manifesto that his goal explicitly said this was to get the u.s. government to crack down on the rights of american citizens. he believes that if the u.s. government overreached, he by committing mass murder could defy and destroy american

society. what is amazing is that many people here seem inclined to do exactly that. the christchurch shooting has sparked new demands to curtail gun rights and suppress freedom of speech. of course the gun in your closet and your personal opinions are not important to anybody except for authoritarians and that's why they want to take them away from you, mark steyn joins us tonight. do you find it a little bit striking that this guy, this monster wrote plainly in his manifesto that the point of this was to get liberals in the united states to crack down on the first and second amendment, and they are doing it. >> yes, it is weird, he actually put down in paper what is the reaction of liberals in the united states and around the western world. you don't have to be a genius to do that, because this is something of a reaction to a particular kind of atrocity.

i mentioned earlier today that for example 49 people died in a gay nightclub at the hands of a muslim of afghan dissent, and it is saying that all is local, it is a parody now. police profess themselves to be baffled by the motive. we just had another one today, and a minor, three people died in the netherlands. and that is supposed to be what the mayor of london calls part and parcel of life in a big city. but when you have an attack like this where someone attacks a mosque, that is not parsed and parcel of life in a big city and the only prudent reaction to that is that all of us should surrender our individual liberties, whether that is the first amendment or the second amendment. and i think that that actually tells you something about the world that they are building for us.

they are actually very eager to constrain call liberties whether in terms of personal ownership of firearms or in something like free speech. >> tucker: it is not reassuring, i am sure that there are a lot of americans, i am definitely one of them who are so horrified by these mass shootings that they want to do something. when the people in this country leading the call for gun control are sewed clearly dishonest and disingenuous when they demand that you disarm has nothing to do with keeping you safe. it would be kind of foolish to take them at face value and disarm, when ended? >> yes, it would, and i find it interesting that in new zealand where the prime minister did say that the gun laws have to change, new zealand is not america, but 20% of households in the country own guns. which is about twice the rate of australia and actually higher than france, germany, most european countries.

it has a saying and rather old-fashioned attitude to gun ownership. people own guns and the policeman like the english policeman and the mother country are unarmed. the idea that they should change because of one freakish outrage, the idea, and that is accompanied by saying, not only can you not have weapons, but you can't actually debate and argue anymore, in other words the reaction to more violence is to have less to speech. which will inevitably mean more violence. >> tucker: inevitably. >> this is the reflex reaction to the atrocities. a particular kind of atrocity. not like the guy in the netherlands. >> tucker: in new zealand, and i understand that the country is traumatized, and i feel for the country, that goes without saying, but for punishing people leaving them there with no bail, you would think that somebody in

the united states on the civil literary and left would say something about that. what does that tell you? >> i think that they are applauding it because it goes back to what you and lisa were talking about earlier. i think identity politics presupposes an ever more powerful state to mediate relations between all of the different identity groups. and this is one of the things that we should be allowed to talk about. as we saw, i mean, it is actually hilarious. you laughed at the chelsea clinton clip. it is fantastic that chelsea clinton is being blamed for a mass murderer in new zealand for issuing what even by chelsea's standards was one of the blandness to hand most insipid and anodyne statements. it tells you how serious the anti-free-speech left is now about steamrolling anyone who gets in their path. >> tucker: of chelsea clinton is offensive, you and i are in

trouble, mark. >> we are long gone. >> tucker: it is great to hear you while we are still allowed to talk. thank you for coming on. >> thank you a lot, tucker. great to be with you. >> tucker: 16-year-olds cannot join the military or smoke cigarettes, they cannot independently consent to medical procedures. they can even see r rated movies without their parents approval. why? because they are children. they are not adults. all of our laws reflect that reality. and yet suddenly democrats are deeply interested in giving these children the vote. house speaker nancy per lucy endorsed that idea last week. watch. >> i myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16. i think it is important to capture kids when they are in high school and interested in all of this when they are learning about government to be able to vote. >> tucker: it is really important to capture kids while they are in high school, she said, let me repeat that. it's really important to capture

kids when they are in high school. it tells you everything, doesn't it. why stop at 16? how about 14? how about 12? how come we don't give toddlers a ballot and let them vote with finger paint. as long as we are rethinking the norms, why not? critical director of the democratic party of georgia, joining us. thank you for coming on. >> thank you for having me. it is a fair question, why 16, why 13, why not eight? >> let me go back to your original point, you said this is a democratic issue, a nancy pelosi driven agenda, that would be news to republicans like mike burgess, a republican congressman out of the state of texas, in addition to that let's talk about what 16 -- >> tucker: i don't want to interrupt, but i'm confused. i've never heard of mike burgess, no offense, but you are setting a republican member of congress who want 16-year-olds to vote?

>> mike burgess. >> tucker: i'm not a partisan guy, i like to assess the ideas on their own terms and the idea isn't same no matter who is for it. >> let's talk about the idea, 16-year-olds have the right to drive, they have the ability to work. and they pay taxes. in 1971, tucker, we had this discussion in 1971 as a country. we changed the age then from 21 to 18, that was actually a very popular republican agenda. >> tucker: whatever. >> even by nixon ceremonial. >> tucker: so you are for nixon now? >> say that again? >> tucker: you are for nixon now? >> no, and for the idea in the discussion that we moved 21 to 18 for a reason. can you tell me the reason that we moved it to 18? >> i am familiar with it, i'm just wondering, 18 is not 16, we do not go to 16. >> let's give me the opportunity

to actually talk about it. >> tucker: hit me with the core argument. >> we did it for 18-year-olds because i could pay taxes, work, and that was illegal working status or age in the united states of america, now the legal working status or age in the united states at 16 years old. they actually pay taxes. this is literally taxation with zero representation. and we already allow 16-year-olds to vote in places like takoma park maryland. >> tucker: that is a sad little lunatic place. i live near takoma park maryland. >> you are calling them lunatics? >> tucker: yes, they let illegal aliens vote. it is a boutique town. >> they do not allow illegal aliens to vote. >> tucker: i live here, trust me, they do. if they can vote, which i think it's the most important civic duty there is, why are they serving in wars? why can't they buy guns? >> they don't have the right to do so. and most of our allied nations,

because they do not have the right to do so. >> tucker: why? >> i am giving you the answer, we roll in the rights, tucker. at 16 years old do you do not have the right to bear arms. >> tucker: i am aware of that. >> they can allow you to bear it at 21. >> tucker: you are filibustering mean, but you're not answering the question. how can you -- >> this is about an obvious debate. >> tucker: how can you advocate for 16-year-olds choosing the president and the government that we live under and not being allowed to buy guns or serve in the military? >> because i can advocate for the fact that they can pay taxes in the united states of america. >> tucker: why can't they buy guns? >> that is a law issue per state. >> tucker: should they be allowed to buy guns? >> i think a 16-year-old should be allowed to vote, period. because they pay taxes. >> tucker: okay, so you pay taxes, why can't you buy a gun?

>> i just answered your question, tucker. they should have the right to vote, not to buy a gun. we are not talking about it running around with guns. >> tucker: but you let people run around with boats, not guns. >> for a 16-year-old to participate in the civic process, also, tucker, if you look at the research that has been done, 16 -- >> tucker: you are acknowledging the hilarious conversation. >> let's anchor yourself. 16-21-year-olds according to the research have the same body of civic information. so if you are saying -- >> tucker: but they cannot have guns. >> tucker, i am really not for 18 or 21-year-olds having guns they don't know how to use them. so that it is just a deflected argument. >> tucker: it would be hard to overstate how much i am enjoying this, but you know the rules of tv, they are telling me that i have to go. it's great to see you tonight, thank you very much for that. >> same here, thank you, tucker.

>> tucker: young people in america don't according to the numbers have the opportunity that their parents had one of the biggest reasons that they don't is because of student loans, which are crushing an entire generation. but there is a fix for it. we will tell you what it is after the break. ♪ being a usaa member, because of my service in the military, you pass that on to my kids. something that makes me happy. being able to pass down usaa to my girls means a lot to both of us. he's passing part of his heritage of being in the military. we're the edsons. my name is roger zapata. we're the tinch family, and we are usaa members for life. to begin your legacy, get an insurance quote today.

>> tucker: america's collective student loan debt stands at $1.5 trillion, that is more than the entire gdp of spain. or sweden, or any of the 54 countries in africa. apart from mortgages, student loans are the biggest source of personal debt in the country. more than car loans and credit card bills. that is a staggering amount of debt, enough to distort and cripple the u.s. economy. enough to stomp to the lice prospects of an entire generation of young people. if you are wondering why the majority of americans under 30 say that they prefer socialism, debt is a major reason. a student loans are killing them. and they never go away. thanks to extensive lobbying efforts in washington, student loans unlike other forms of debt cannot be erased by bankruptcy. hawkins came on the show and explain the consequences of that. >> these guys start to default, who is going to be left holding the bag?

one of the challenges is you cannot actually get through bankruptcy, you cannot remove this data, where you can with everything else. so what are you going to do? you are not going to pay your credit card bill. you are not going to pay your mortgage, you're not going to pay her home loan, because he did not have a choice even when you go to bankruptcy to not pay your student debt. >> tucker: the student loan crisis is a modern problem, just 13 years ago the average new college graduate owed $20,000 in student loans, today that number has jumped to 37,000. a student debt is rising far faster than the earnings of american workers. the very earnings that are supposed to justify student loans in the first place. for professional degrees the number goes far higher than that. the average law school graduate carries more than $110,000 in student loan debt. for new doctors the bird in his nearly $200,000 by the time they finish medical school. 2 million americans owe more than 100 grand in student loans.

imagine starting life that far behind. many of the people paying off college loan debt to never even earned a degree. they tried to improve their lives by attending college and ended up poor and in bondage. not just a few of them, millions and millions of them. what are the effects of this? the damage is far more profound than anything caused by climate change. young people are broke, as a result they are delaying the vital life transitions that were automatic for earlier generations. in 1998 quarter of american adults live with their parents. today the number has risen to 35%. homeownership rate for millennials dropped eight points from the year before. unable to afford homes of millennials are getting married later and less often. also having fewer kids. not because they don't want children, according to gallup the percentage of americans who want children has not changed in 25 years. and yet fewer children are being born. thanks in part to rising debt levels, america's middle class cannot replace itself.

that's what we are told we must import millions of new workers from abroad. americans won homes and families, helping get those things should be the top priority as a country. we cannot begin until we perform the student loan system. why have we not done that yet? a powerful lobby stands in the way. colleges and universities. the lobbyist swarm washington. not surprising, these are the people who benefit from student loan debt. drive to rural america and you see how well they have done in a sea of poverty and despair you will notice gated islands of affluence. these are colleges. outside the gates people are unemployed and dying of opioid overdoses. inside the gates it is like the ritz on south beach. if you have not been to an american university lately, see it for yourself. everything is new. there's been a building boom underway for decades on campuses, all of it funded by debt that is destroying a generation of american kids. 100 schools now have been

damaged by over $1 billion paid hedge funds with schools attached. what if colleges done with the money? they have hired massive staffs of like-minded people for one thing. from 1987-2012, the number of administrators on college campuses more than doubled. that is far bigger than the increase of actual students is going to college. they routinely make six figures. what do they do for the money? not a single thing that makes this a better country. college presidents often get seven-figure salaries part of their pay is probably the only thing in america rising as fast as a tuition cost. academic publishers are getting rich from the dead to boom, prices of textbooks have tripled in the past 20 years. printing has not gotten more expensive. nonacademic books are cheaper now than they were two decades ago. but students are a captive market and are being exploited ruthlessly. nobody says a word about it. so to sum up coming young people in the country get poorer every year, college administrators

probably the least impressive group in the country are getting richer at their expense. it is not a law of the universe that this has to happen. it is a product of policy and the incentives of the society has created over time. of the federal government allows people to take out an unlimited amount in student loans. colleges know this and they hike their tuition to capture as much of the money as they can. young people have little choice but to go along with it. colleges control access to the credentials that we are all convinced are necessary, mandatory to achieve success in the modern economy. it is a racket. these are the gatekeepers of modern society and they are ripping off every kid who passes through those gates. what is the solution? here is one. have colleges cosign the loans. and why should they not? if you and i enter into a partnership in business and we succeed, we share the rewards. but we also share the risk. if we fail, we are both on the hook for that, that's how honest arrangements work. college loans do not work that way. they get rich no matter what happens to the kids.

kids are on their own. if students get a degree in a decent job and repay their loans, that's great. but if they drop out of college or their degree turns out to be worthless as so many are, and they cannot repay what they borrowed, so what? the college does not care. they have no stake in the outcome. the colleges get all the benefit and none of the risk. that is the definition of a scam. it is amazing that it can be legal. it should not be legal. maybe congress could take 20 minutes from the russia hoax and posturing about climate change and fix one of the actual problems, one of the biggest problems that the country faces. pass a law forcing colleges to share the liability on defaulting student loans. what would be the argument against that? the colleges cannot afford it? the taxpayer should shoulder all the risk so that wesley and brown can build another diversity and inclusion center and higher more useless overpaid deans of sensitivity? it is hard to make that case out loud. it is too stupid. congress should act now.

the student loan system is going to collapse. that is inevitable. before he does, let's be very clear about who is profiting from it. we taken out to texas and something called drag queen story time. it is a real thing. the houston public library system is apologizing tonight after a mishap with the regular scheduled drag queen story time. it is exactly what it sounds like pretty drag queens dressing up as parodies of women reading books to young children. how does that go wrong? one of the drag queens employed turned out to be a sex offender. not an alleged sex offender, a registered one. a man who sexually assaulted an 8-year-old boy, the library did not know that because they had not bothered to do a background check before putting him around children. why bother? it's not like the point of this was to help children in the first place. the program will continue, of course, in houston and many other places. but the much bigger question is why are we putting up a drag queen story time in public

libraries in the first place? let's say library sponsored an ar-15 cleaning class with the backing of the nra. how would that go over? every big protest, it would be canceled. what happen at the library hosted mormon missionaries who came into the profit ties to children? or how about a class speaking in tongues by the evangelical community, what would happen if they tried that? the new yorker would -- it would be shut down. because it is not the place to push politics or religion. but there is one religion that has no problem getting taxpayer funds, it is this a clear religion of the left, and it is going strong. last week we told you about the morally flexible founder of the law center, he has been fired from his own organization for misconduct. the press promptly forgot that that happened just like they repeatedly forgot about the splc behavior for the past 40 years. the scams, the endowment. we are not forgetting, the splc

occupies a central place in american life. if they are the place that classifies you as a hate-group and gets you to deleted from public life or causes some wacko to show up with a gun. it happened in one of the group said they slandered that way. what is going on? the splc is not responding why he got fired paid he does not know why he was fired. in an internal letter obtained by the "los angeles times" hinting at the organization that the splc is. the letter that is signed by two dozen employees warns that "allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it." yale law professor stephen bright says that these are no surprise. he told the times that he has been hearing about discrimination at the southern poverty law center for years. added that splc's fund-raising is "fraudulent." something that the rest of the people have known for a long

time. but they treat splc like a legitimate organization paired what happened inside the personal fiefdom? we will try to find out. we invite the rest of the press to do the same. one of the poorest cities has an idea for fixing poverty, give everybody money. how will that work? that is next. ♪ woman: my reputation was trashed online,

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call reputation defender at 1-877-492-6705. >> tucker: andrew young running for the democratic nomination for president and doing surprisingly well. one of the signature proposals is the idea of giving every american a thousand dollars a month. he calls it the freedom dividend. but yang says it got a test run in newark, new jersey. the mayor proposed simply giving every resident there a regular stipend. >> we believe in universal basic income. martin luther king believed in

universal basic income. especially in a time where studies have shown that camilli families have a crisis in the month they experience a setback that may be difficult, even impossible to recover from. or a third of our city still lives in poverty. we have to have a mind to build, mind to build, and all we are asking for you is to help us work and build the city. >> this idea has gotten very popular. more popular than you may know, but it does come with a number of questions, beginning for who pays for it, exactly. and if you are getting the money every month, why would you work. isn't this just giving up on people? clinton james is the founder of collective pac. thank you for coming on. i guess that's my core feeling. first of all, i applaud the james deming attention that people are paying attention to the poor, the working poor in particular that's laudable.

that's giving up on them. in effect, you are losers principate, we'll pay you off. people want meaning. they want to feel like their lives are purposeful. isn't this acknowledging they are never going to be meaningful? >> not at all, tucker. that is exactly the opposite. what we know is that income inequality in this country has gotten out of control. what we see in places like ohio and across the midwest, companies are laying off workers and leaving them to fend for themselves. all the while, corporations like netflix, amazon, are paying $0 in federal income tax. as taxpayers, as citizens in this country, yes, i think is very important for us to consider universal basic income to take care of our own had to make sure some folks are given a little something to help them get by. we know too many folks around the country are working 2-3 jobs just to make basic ends meet. unfortunately, it's got out of

hand. >> tucker: the first part, i agree with you completely. i absolutely do. one of the key parts is that big companies don't feel any obligation to the country that made them possible. i think we completely agree. but handouts are depressing and degrading. people who inherit tons of money don't tend to thrive. they tend to become drawings. we know handing people stuff is not good for them and it hasn't been good for the very rich. it's never good. so why wouldn't -- >> tucker, i would agree with you that many of our social welfare programs are not keeping people out of poverty. or preventing them from getting out of poverty. i think we are saying with universal basic income, why don't we lift some restrictions, give folks the means with what they want to with some basic level of funding, and let's see what happens. we are very much in a test case now. the program in newark, the program out in stockton, they

are pilots to see what this can mean for families soon who are struggling. >> tucker: nobody is approaching this empirically but headstart has been evaluated for over 50 years. it doesn't work. we still find it. no program ever goes away, but here's what we do know. do you disagree with the proposition that giving people something for nothing, whether they are poor or rich, it's a human thing, is bad for them? it doesn't make them feel good about themselves? >> we are talking about poor people. i actually believe when you give poor people additional money, it increases their responsibility. i think people, when they are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to determine how they keep their lights on and pay their mortgage every month, that increases their -- what it does is it decreases their ability to make better decisions. >> tucker: like pay their mortgage? i thought it was for poor people. >> pay their rent. >> tucker: is there an income

threshold? can you get this ubi if you are working? >> these are pilot studies -- >> tucker: what do you think? >> i don't think everyone, in my opinion. what we are seeing right now, it's your point, right, around the rich? donald trump has been giving tax breaks to the top 1% -- i don't want to have -- >> tucker: i'm just going to ask you one more time because i think this is the core question. do you really believe that giving people something they haven't earned to make them feel good about themselves, it increases the dignity? do you really believe that? is there any evidence at all? >> but in your question, there seems to be an assumption that people aren't working, right? >> tucker: not saying they aren't working, it's money they haven't earned. >> they are valued -- what do we, as a society, actually value? how do we determine were? we know that automation is going

to take -- >> tucker: i agree. i'm with you wanted 2% -- >> how do we define where? >> tucker: what you're saying is you don't care. i hope you come back -- >> i would love to, tucker. >> tucker: we want to end to that with great news. don't have a lot of it, but this is great. this is kelly mcnally. whenever you see people on their show and wonder who convinced them the coming year, it was likely cappy kelly mcnally. she's that nice. she married her match. she's also universally love here. kelly and ray were married at the church of the epiphany in miami, so we headed down to cheer them on. is there anything better than seeing good people marry each other? can't think of anything. it was wonderful. congratulations to kelly and ray. you are making the world better and the only way that matters. you want to improve this world? marry someone decent. that is true. that's it for us. we are out of time it will be back tomorrow night.

8:00 p.m. the show that's the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, and groupthink. will be back. but in the meantime, don't go away. we've got a surprise from you. live from new york, sean hannity -- >> sean: it's not a surprise every night! by the way, congratulations to all of them. we send them all of god's blessings be tucker, thank you. buckle up, welcome to "hannity." exposing the deep state, we'll get to all of this momentarily. complicated, but simple on the other hand. glenn beck is here tonight. going to weigh in on the dire dangers of socialism and how it's real. but we begin with the presidential campaign season in the democratic party. it is now off to a disastrous, pathetic start. socialism, oppressive taxes, open borders. oh, and post birth abortions. a party that's become even more