>> ed: that's the story on this wednesday. see you tomorrow at 7:00 when martha will be back. meantime tucker is up next. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight," at 11:00 a.m. eastern time this morning special counsel robert mueller made a rare public appearance reading from a prepared statement from behind a podium at the department of justice. mueller explained that he will not testify before congress, why? because he has got nothing more to say. it's all in that 300 page report which can you read online if you feel like it. so why bother giving the speech in the first place? well, robert mueller had a message he wanted to deliver. not a message for you or me or the rest of the audience at home but a message aimed at a very small group of elected officials in washington. years of investigations could not produce a criminal charge against donald trump

but, mueller suggested, congress could still step in. >> the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. >> tucker: a process other than the criminal justice system, end quote. that's how a 74-year-old anglopmile might describe impeachment. it didn't take long for democrats to get that message. those who hadn't been calling for impeachment got on board immediately. kamala harris of california who is running for president tweeted this, quote: what robert mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. now it is up to congress to hold this president account being. we need to start impeachment proceedings. it's our constitutional obligation. but o'rourke took a while from skateboarding to agree there must be consequences, accountability and justice. the only way tone sure that is to begin impeachment proceedings.

and then from their seats on cable news sets across new york city america's opinion generating class applauded heartedly. >> this was vintage bob mueller, no questions, no bull. >> he speaks in measured but clear tones and style. >> that's the man bob mueller is. he is precise. he's factual. he's accurate. >> the man doesn't know the definition of hyperbole. >> this was a serious man making a serious point that the framers gave us a way to address a potentially lawless president. >> i think a lot of us have been very supportive of mueller. he has worked very hard and done a really good job. >> tucker: man, can they suck up when they want. to say a man never stands so tall as when he stoops to kiss a butt. that's their motto. unbelievable. confused listening to all of, this democrats are demanding as you saw the press strongly agrees with that. they love robert mueller, what would the crime be

exactly what would the charges be in impeachment proceedings? russian clothes the core charge as mueller himself conceded there is no evidence that ever happened. >> the first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election. this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. >> tucker: insufficient evidence. in other words, there was no crime. that's how it works. the same is true for obstruction by mueller's own admission after two years he and his subordinates were unable to find a criminal act. >> the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president. if we had had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a

crime. under long standing department policy, a present president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in offers. that is unconstitutional. the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. >> tucker: got that knew that in fact, just to be clear prosecutors in civilized countries don't prove people innocent. they don't need to do it. that's the standing presumption that all of us have by virtue of our citizenship. instead, prosecutors look for evidence of guilt. and if there is no evidence of guilt, the person is declared not guilty. that's how our system works. so when mueller says he couldn't prove the president didn't commit a crime, it was on add striking and bizarre thing to say. the bottom line is that the evidence mueller gathered did not support charges of

collusion or obstruction of justice. yet, mueller would clearly like to seat president impeached anyway. democrats are likely to take him up on that. we are going to assess robert mueller's remarks from a number of different angles tonight. we will begin with impeachment. that was the point -- mollie hemmingway covered this go from the very first day until now and she joins us tonight from phoenix. great to see you. >> great to be here. >> tucker: he stripped away in mueller's remarks down to the he is sense what he is really saying is that congress, please impeachment. why we do that? >> i think the whole idea behind this special counsel was an insurance policy. a way to put forth an impeachment report. that's why we were told for years that there was previous collusion for russia. the bad news for the people who wanted impeach trump for the crime of winning the 2016 elections. there was no collusion with russia to steal the 2016 election. that's when they went to plan b which was to come up with this elabrador brat

theory of obstruction. even on that they were unable to come up with any indictments for obstruction. but that was always sort of the idea. in fact, the failure of the russia hoax means that the media are particularly invested as are democrats who participated in this collusion conspiracy theory of coming up with something that enables them to avoid accountability for perpetuating that hoax. and this is the perfect idea to immediately go on to impeachment, even though there was no crime that we were told there was ample evidence of for many years. treasonous collusion with russia to steal the 2016 election. >> tucker: so i mean not to be, you know, stickler for detail or anything. before we get to impeachment, do you have any idea what the charge would be? >> again, the underlying crime is sort of irrelevant because the used is that -- that this president needs to be removed from office. and so it will be whatever they think that they can come up with. the idea that you would convince the american people that someone who complained

about investigation that turned to be based on a false smear of treason, that complaining about that means that you obstructed or that you were really didn't like this investigation, that's going to be a difficult thing to convince the american people of. but for people who think that the guilt is already apparent because of what happened in 2016, it doesn't really matter. and as i mentioned, there is an effort by people in the media and others who perpetuated the russia hoax to not be held accountable for what they did taking these leaks from people, not asking difficult questions of why they were getting these leaks or what they really meant. and if this enables them to avoid being held accountable, they are all for it. >> tucker: so if you didn't like the president's program, whe what he was elected on in 2016. if you thought, for example, the united states should continue involvement in middle eastern wars and become closer to russia. all the things he ran on, basically. if you wanted to prevent that agenda from being enacted, you would create a distraction like the one we have just seen. do you think this is a

continuation of the distraction? >> i do. and i also think the fact that people who perpetuated this false smear of collusion with russia to steal the 2016 election. they understand that if there is investigation into how that narrative was set, how it was weaponized by our federal government, who engaged in criminal wrongdoing such as the criminal leaks of classified information to uncow doo a democratic election. they understand this is a threat this might be also an effort to make sure that there is some leverage there so that people will not be held accountable who engaged in this wrongdoing. again, you are free to dislike donald trump or dislike that he won the election, but, there is a limit to what you should be able to do in terms of using the leverage of law enforcement or intelligence agencies to throw a fit over what the american people decided. >> tucker: yeah. the whole system falls apart when you do that as you pointed out repeatedly. mollie hemmingway thank you very much. >> thank you. >> tucker: a former doj spokesman he joining us tonight. thanks for coming on.

>> thanks for having me. >> tucker: what was the purpose of today's not really a press conference, say statement, do you think. >> i think you hit the nail on the head. what's really unfortunate as i see it. this reminds me exactly what james comey did in what was july of 2016. he went out and talked about someone that they weren't going to charge with a crime. but then continued to say all kinds of information that was derogatory about hillary clinton. >> tucker: right. >> fast forward to doj when i was there. and that was a big thing. especially with the rod rosenstein. we won't go out there and talk about people that we don't charge. that's exactly what we did today. that's exactly what we did with the report. with a 400 page report that talked about all of this evidence and all these theories on, you know, wire the put possibly committed on destruction but they didn't charge him. so what have we learned from this whole process? apparently nothing. >> tucker: it's interesting though. he comes out and makes a series of contradictory. i'm not going to testify before congress because i have said everything.

if asked i will say what my report found. which is fine. if you have nothing else to say, then why are you doing this months after you concluded your investigation? why now? >> well, you know, i will tell you the piece two pieces of news i got out of today is what he just said. he is not going to evidence it. two, that the attorney general barr acted in good faith with how he handled the report. after that i'm not really sure what the news was because everything he said was in his report. so for the democrats out on the campaign trail saying well now we have the case for impeachment, they are either misleading people, they haven't read the report, or they are too dumb to understand the report. >> tucker: so did mueller add -- he didn't add anything that isn't in the report, correct? >> the only thing he added was him going up there and making a statement which he hadn't done. you recall, or maybe have you seen some of the coverage, after of that statement you have a lot of people on the left saying well, mueller just went and criticized what barr said so barr was clearly lying about what mueller told him. just before this show, doj

put out a joints statement between attorney general barr -- i'm sorry, doj and special counsel's office saying there is no daylight between anything barr said about what mueller told him and what mueller said. >> tucker: it's obvious, you know, the left lives in this airless little world substained by those two cable channels. i think they are not even aware what reality is at this point at all. >> exactly. and, look, i have my theory here is that if you look at that part two of the mueller report, there is two types of acts that they looked at. one was prespecial counsel, two was special counsel. it seems to me from reading it that they didn't think the acts before special counsel came anywhere near obstruction of justice. >> tucker: right. >> afterwards, they seemed like they were leaning that way and maybe that's enough in their minds for probable cause, which is the low bar you need for indictment. but there is no way that they were going to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. so i think that uses opinion as an exit ramp so they didn't have to conclusively say there is not enough evidence to prove that the president committed a crime

and then they left it for congress to continue. >> tucker: congress didn't do anything, so we have known this for quite some time, right? congress didn't -- was not going to impeach the president, i don't believe. before this morning. now i think they will. and so that was not good enough for robert mueller and he had to push the country toward impeachment because he thinks it's good for the country? what's the thinking here? >> i guess that's what it is. it is really unclear. >> tucker: robert mueller really believes. patriotic character and served his country in vietnam. by all accounts a decent man. he believes it's good for america on the eve of another presidential election for the president to be impeached? >> you know, i guess the proof is in the pudding. >> tucker: yes. >> one thing you want to go back to is the russia investigation. the russia investigation for all intents and purposes concluded in july of 2018. when they delivered the indictment to the russian hackers. >> tucker: that's right. >> why wasn't that announced before the election? why wasn't that announced before the midterm election?

if it was done then, why did they have to wait. >> tucker: you know the saddest thing about this moment is all the people you sort of admire from afar and then the more you learn it turns out that they are sleazy and dishonest. and i hate to say robert mueller winds up in that category. and it pain me to say that. >> i think today was disappointing. >> tucker: was disappointing. i agree with that completely. eastbound pryor thanks for joining me. >> thanks for having me. >> tucker: seemed to be shaking after mueller's statement today. here is party of it. >> with respect to impeachment question at this point, all options are on the table and nothing should be ruled out. but special counsel mueller said loud and clear today for the american people is that president trump is lying when he says no collusion, no obstruction. and that he was exonerated. >> tucker: so it looks likely the democrats will move forward with impeachment proceedings. is that a good idea for the country? is it politically wise for

them? dana perino has considered both of these questions carefully. she is the anchor, of course, of the daily brieferring with dana perino and anchor on "the five." our friend and frequent guest of the show. we could go on. she joins us tonight. >> we must get to the topic. >> tucker: am i right in interpreting it this way? it's like at this point i don't understand how the democrats don't impeach. >> well, there were cracks in the impeachment dam last week if you remember when schumer and pelosi go to the white house ostensibly for a meeting about infrastructure. and president trump basically walks out and says no, i'm not going to do this while have you this investigation going on and retrying it is ridiculous. that's when you saw pelosi under some pressure from democrats because there is a drum beat. now, elizabeth warren, until this morning, was one of the only 2020 democrats said the president must be impeached. after the mueller statement today, you had kamala harris imooker, mayor pete, i could go on. everybody jumping on the

treat who didn't? however, joe biden. joe biden who is the long established person in washington, d.c., we don't have to go over that he and pelosi are still locked together and i think you will see them try to remain. so they are skeptical of impeachment. they are wanting to tap the brakes. but i don't know how long they will be able to hold off all of the others. i also think it's very different to think about impeachment as a democrat if you are a 2020 democratic hopeful, of which your chances are very slim tonight of becoming that nominee, or you are a house democrat 31 of them that won in so-called purple districts where they flipped a seat. it was a republican seat and a democrat had won it in 2018. in some of those districts, president trump won by plus 10. so, impeachment is not very attractive to them to say the least. >> tucker: no, not at all. i haven't talked to anybody who has looked at poll numbers and suggested impeachment is going to help democrats. there is a presidential election looming right over

the horizon. >> that's what i was saying that's impeachment. >> tucker: that's exactly right. so this -- i think we both agree this should be a lunatic move on the part of democrats. >> i think, yes. i think. so history tells us that there is just one thing that's bothering me. biden and pelosi, as i said, long established characters, right? they're thinking back to history. they are looking at bill clinton. and i think that new democrats are looking at this with fresh eyes and saying how could you not? what are you even there for? you said that in order to hold president trump accountable we had to win the majority. we won the majority and now you are saying we can't hold him accountable because we might lose the majority? and i think that in some ways the democrats are sick of establishment politics as well. and they are thinking why not just go for this? this is the right thing to do. so i i don't know how that's going to end up. but i do believe this. watch bide and pelosi. they are the leaders of the party right now. he is 22 points ahead of his

competitors. he is the one that's going to call the shots here. >> tucker: how long do you think that he has finally to make that decision? >> well, chairman nadler is chomping at the bit. he is going to want to do this. the first democratic debate is the end of the month. now biden today did not speak himself. he put out a statement by a spokesperson, god love the spokespeople as you know. i was that there is nothing like hearing it from a principle. he hasn't done many interviews and hasn't done many one-on-one events where you would be able to shout a question at him because he has been keeping himself away so that he could keep that 22 pointed lead. but i would say it might be within the next two weeks before the first debate that he is going to have to see you something more. >> tucker: can't play it safe forever with that many candidates. >> the allusion of safety. >> tucker: great point. dana perino great to he so you tonight. thank you. during this morning's statement robert mueller completed the claim that russia undermined american

democracy in 2016. all of us repeat that required to believe that and nod absolutely true. is it true? does his own report actually prove that it's true? we will assess that after the break. guys, get in here!

who's a good boy? it's me. me, me, me. hey guys! you're gonna want to get in on this. i know how to those guys in here. let's pause the internet on their devices. wohhh? huhhhh? [ grumbling ] all: sausages! mmm, mmmm. bon appetite. make time for what matters. pause your wifi with xfinity xfi and see the secret life of pets 2 in theaters. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: during his press conference today robert mueller repeated a claim we have heard from official washington virtually every day for the past two and a half years. the claim is that in 2016, russia made an unprecedented assault on the integrity of

america's democratic system. >> russian intelligence officers who are part of the russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system. the indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign. they stole private information and then released that information through fake online and identities and through the organization wikileaks. the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. there were multiple systematic efforts to interfere in our election. and that allegation deserves the attention of every american. >> tucker: that sounds compelling and terrifying. is it actually true? how can we really prove that after two years of

investigations what does the evidence tell us? aaron mattie has been covering this story contributing writer. thanks for coming on. does the evidence back up the claim that the russian government substantially interfered with the north korea 16 presidential -- 2016 presidential election. >> we haven't seen it yet. quite possible what mueller is say something true. but we haven't seen evidence to establish that yet. take the theft of the stolen emails. mueller has laid out in july 2018 a very detailed indictment of russian military intelligence officers as he mentioned today but we don't know the source of the information that he is basing that indictment on. what i can say pretty definitively, it did not come from the u.s. agency that would know best what the russians military intelligence is up to, which is the nsa. because nsa information to

be publicly released, it would have to be declassified by the president. we know that didn't happen here. we don't know who mueller is citing when contained in a detailed indictment that the russian military intelligence officers did this. roger stone's attorneys contend that it was crowd strike, which is a dnc firm. accused russia of the dnc hack. and stone is trying to compel crowd strike's evidence through compelling right now. see what happens there it 14ud be interesting. mueller even acknowledges in his report that he doesn't know. when he talks about the staff -- excuse me of dnc emails. he talks about the russians appear to have stolen the emails. he doesn't say the russians stole the emails. he uses that qualifier appear. he also doesn't rule out the fact. >> tucker: i'm sorry, may i stop you, sir. that went right over my head. in the mueller report you are saying he does not

unequivocally claim they did it only appear to have done it. >> he is laying out a comprehensive timeline of what he says is the russian's effort to hack into the dnc. >> tucker: right. >> and to steal information. which information can mean different things. because not just the emails we are talking about. we are talking about research that was stolen, names of employees and so forth. what we are really concerned about is the emails. when mueller is talking about the dnc emails themselves. he uses the qualifier, the gru appears to have stolen the emails. if mueller knew for sure they stole the emails he would say they stole them. he also doesn't rule out emails were physically transferred to wikileaks in the summer of 2016. which also means he does not know for sure how those emails made their way to weeks. >> tucker: wow, that's a lot of uncertainty at the centers of a story the rest of us have been told for years was absolutely settled. this is settled science. the earth is round kind of stuff. like anyone who doubts it is

a nut case. why are they pretending to know things that they don't know? >> well, because we have a culture in this country where we are supposed to believe what u.s. intelligence officials say on face no matter how many times that blows up in our face. so we all know what happened with the iraq war. intelligence officials including robert mueller, head of the fbi. he testified before congress that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. he was concerned that saddam was going to transfer that to terrorists. we know how that turned out. john brennan, who also played a key role in russia gate. he was there at the cia during the iraq war. didn't raise any objections. james clapper was a u.s. intelligence official during the iraq war. he claimed that there was intelligence showing that saddam had moved his weapons of mass destruction into syria. despite this record of these people we are supposed to now believe everything they say on face and we are supposed to take seriously, for example, when roberts mueller says that russian

social media campaign was part of a systematic effort to sow discord. when you look at what the russian social media activity actually was, it was juvenile click bait. they spent about $46,000 on facebook ads on the election. and we are supposed to take seriously this notion that this juvenile click bathe thabait saw andtweant about the. certain demographics. we are supposed to believe that influenced malleable american voters. >> tucker: it's ridiculous. your average chevy dealership spends more on facebook ads. insane. a massive the left, honest man skeptical journalist we have too few of those. happy to have you on tonight. i hope you will come back. thank you. >> thank you. >> tucker: we have heard for many years about russia's interference in our democracy. countries do interfere in our democracy. russia doesn't happen to be one of them. mexico is definitely one of them. we will tell you how. then, mark morgan will rejoin us to discuss his new role leading ice after the

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>> tucker: if you watched robert mueller speak this morning at 11:00 you heard him echo the official view of washington that russia had a major effect on the 2016 election. as we noted before that is an absurd claim. there is zero evidence that it's true. none that robert mueller himself has presented. but if you are looking for countries that really do influence american politics, there are quite a few. anyone who lives in d.c. can tell you that russia did not make the list. mexico definitely does. at the beginning of the past presidential election cycle, for example, mexico began what bloomberg news described as an unprecedented effort to give american citizenship for permanent residents livings here in the u.s. the point was obvious, of course, to make them voters so they could vote to defeat donald trump russia never considered election hacking that bold.

mexico's current foreign minister from 2006 to 2012. he was the mayor of mexico city. very famous man in that country. between those two jobs he was here in the u.s. what was he doing? he was working on behalf of the democratic party. he urged latino voters in spanish to turn out to vote for hillary clinton. he then compared donald trump to adolf hitler, subtly not being one of his strong suits. imagine if the russians did something like that. put a friend of vladimir putin say the former mayor of moscow into the u.s. spend entire election cycle to support pro-trump ads. how would that work? unthinkable. probably be arrested and top mexican politician did exactly that and nobody cared? why? because it helped hillary clinton. this kind of thing has gone on for years here. anyone who lives in d.c. again can tell you it goes on even today. here is another example. juan handers has appeared as a guest on this show more than once. he led vicente fox's office for mexicans abroad how we

describe his job this way i want to get the third generation, the seventh generation in the u.s. i want them to all to think mexico first. fernandehernandez said always gg to keep one foot in mexico and never fully assimilate. this isn't an idle hope they are working to make it come true. mexican government understands if immigrants start speaking english they will assimilate into american culture and they don't want that mexican government now says it will spend $150 million on the campaign to convince mexicans living here in our country to keep speaking spanish. haven't heard about that on cnn? huh? there is more. mexico has helped its citizens to break our federal laws. it's done that for years. mexican government published a pamphlet advising migrants thou sneak in our country. mexican consulate in san francisco distributed 10 golden rules for the immigrants in the u.s. that paper instructed illegal aliens how to avoid arrest and deportation.

the mexican government has paid lawyers to clog our lawyers in deportation cases we could go on and on and on. the point is, that's what it looks like when a hostile foreign power interferes in your democracy they don't buy facebook ads that nobody sees. they try to change the demographics of your country. that works. if washington finally decides to fix the country's immigration problem, mark morgan will be at the very heart of that you know him from this show. he has been a frequent guest. happy to have him every time he has been on. the president's new pick to run ice. first interview since starting the job. morgan, thank you very much congratulations. >> thank you. >> tucker: thanks for joining us. what are your priorities? >> first and foremost, i think anyone in this position is a-to-make sure that i'm going to be a relentless advocate for the men and women of ice for the tools necessary to do their job. part of what that means also is getting out here, doing what i'm doing right now to educate the american people

exactly what the hard working men and women of ice do every day to safeguard the security of this country and enforce the rule of law. and also working with congress. here is the problem with that tucker. congress has shown inability to do what they know they need to do to fix this crisis. i have been on here many times saying they need to do several things in the legal framework they can fix this in 15 minutes. although i'm going to continue to work tirelessly with congress to try to get them to do their job, i don't have hope that they are going to, we need to continue to come up with innovative ideas within the legal framework where we can to stop this problem. >> tucker: they have completely politicized your agency completely. >> absolutely. >> tucker: moving into the heat of an election season. a number of the candidates have called for getting rid of ice completely. have compared you to the nazis. >> absolutely. >> tucker: really over the top stuff. given your expectation they are not going to help at all. what can they do. >> give you an example. ice has three major

components. congress don't each realize. they have the enforcement removal operations. deports people. they also have an incredible team of lawyers that's integral part of the overall immigration process that's absolutely needed. and then the last part of ice is hhi. homeland security investigations. i will give you an example. those three major components make up ice. hsi for example what we have done is taken 150, highly trained, experienced hsi agents and we pushed them towards the border. and what they are doing is they are looking at child exploitation. they are looking at those individuals who are grabbing, renting a kid, right, and we called, this tucker. we knew this was going to happen. and it is. they are renting kids, they are paying to rents somebody's kid and then take themselves as a family. right now infused the d.n.a. testing that we talked about in the past. so between the investigative skills and d.n.a. testing right now the pilot program they are finding 25% of so-called families coming across absolutely fake,

fraudulent. just the other day, they caught a 51-year-old man from honduras, guess who he had with him as a family? a 6 month old. and because work at hsi they found that to be completely false. that's the kind of stuff we are doing and we need to continue to do. >> tucker: what would happen if we got rid of ice? >> exactly. right now, ice, on the ero side. this year so far just the first quarter, 66,000 individuals have been deported. of the arrests that they have made 65 percent of those arrests were actually people with additional criminal convictions. 90% of those either have a criminal conviction or a pending charge. you get rid of ice, think about that. so, 66,000 not deported. you have just an incredible amount of people who are doing bad things but remain in the united states. on the hsi component. last year alone, 34,000 arrests, tucker. 34,000 criminal arrests. 4,000, 5,000 gained. human trafficking cases.

child exploitation cases. 1.2 billion in currency they seized. the list goes on and on and on. whether you have somebody that puts out the reckless, irresponse sick rhetoric about ice being abolished that's what's going to happen. this country will absolutely be less safe because of that. >> tucker: it's demented. never any popular support for it. no poll that says get rid of the fbi while we are at it. if congress in a dream world were willing to help you. democrats were on the page in protecting america's borders. what's the first thing you would ask them for. >> two things they have to address the legal framework. they have to fix the flores settlezment agreement which mandates you can't hold a family more than 20 days and the child trafficking protection act that says if you are from mexico or canada, we get to send you back. but if you are from the northern triangle countries we can't. those two things equal catch and release. congress can fix those two things in 15 minutes. second thing is they

absolutely need to continue the funding for ice. specifically on the detention bed space. it's just common -- it's common sense, tucker. >> tucker: they don't care. but you do care. and i don't know a single person who disagrees you are the right man for this job. >> thank you. >> tucker: thank you for joining us tonight. >> absolutely. >> tucker: great seeing you. joe biden has changed his position on basically everything nut past 30 years. but one subject has gotten virtually no attention whatsoever and it should. we will tell you what it is after the break.

>> tucker: well for decades joe biden had pretty clear views on illegal drugs. he increased penalties for dug offenders including people who dealt marijuana. marijuana is a harmful drug he said within the past

decade he insisted it should remain illegal. watch. >> the punishment should fit the crime but i think legalization is a mistake. i think i still believe it's a gateway drug. i spent a lot of my life as chairman of the judiciary committee dealing with this. i think it would be a mistake to legalize. >> tucker: well that was in 2010. now joe biden wants to be president. his party has changed completely barely recognizable. now as he has on immigration and abortion and crime and the view of english common law and you pick a topic joe biden has a brand new position on marijuana. he said nobody should be in jail for marijuana offenses and that prior offenders should have their records expunged. what's interesting is he apparently came to this conclusion after meeting with donors who may be profiting from legal marijuana. interesting. a former supreme court clerk joins us tonight. ian, thanks very much for coming on. does this make you pause a little bit? i mean i'm a small minority

of television against legalizing marijuana most kids are for it. personal liberation but also a major business interest. people profiting from cannabis and convinced presidential candidate the leading one to support their effort. shouldn't would he be a little skeptical? >> i think one thing you are absolutely right about is that when you have candidates who are as donor-driven as joe biden and the one thing he has always been -- never changed his mind about is that his donors are always right. the thing that's interesting about that is that as new industries emerge, you can expect that the new things they want to do to make money, they are going to be able to buy lobbyists too. if they can buy a lobbyist they can buy joe biden. i would be more surprised if i didn't know this is how joe biden operates. the man with is a senator from mbna. what do you expect? >> tucker: very good point when a credit card company pays off a politician and he is hard lit only one i should say. tons of republicans who take money from pretty big

companies, too. it's a very kind of straightforward thing. you understand why someone is from ethanol because the soybean growers corn growers are giving money, i get it. the marijuana issue specifically is cloaked in the language of freedom. and coolness. and so we don't think of it as a quid pro quo as a payoff. that's clearly what it is. >> right. and i think that to a large extent there is obviously a real issue with the justice of people sitting in jail for sort of nonviolent drug offenses. >> sure. >> that's right. what you want to do is go to full scale nationwide legalization and permit businesses to get into that arena, then tough answer -- i mean if you are as i am a critic of capitalism, you have to answer the question what are we going to do in the deficiency of capitalism are replicated in drug sales, right? one of those deficiencies is a capitalist spy politician and other deficiencies, too

that we need to be taking seriously even if you don't think people should be rotting in jail for marijuana offenses which i don't. >> tucker: i agree with you completely. of course people should not be rotting in jail for marijuana possession, obviously. i agree with you completely. but the question is when politicians start pushing on their people and their populations are supposed to be representing things that don't elevate them but instead degrade them and make them dumber and more passive. i mean so let's say joe biden does a fund raisener miami and comes back you know cocaine really shouldn't be illegal. why don't we decriminalize i'm serious. yeah, joe biden is really cool at least acknowledge that he is being paid to say that? >> one way to sort of think about this, one analogy you might think about is how does -- what is the sort of structure of the alcoholic history in the united states? because we have to probably expect similar patterns because you know, these two drugs aren't all that different. what you see there is about 30% of americans don't drink at all. another 30% hardly ever.

but the top 10% of americans consume. this is true, on average, more than 70 drinks per week. right? and that represents a majority of alcohol sales in the united states. in other words, booze companies and i'm not saying you can't enjoy one response sib if you can, congratulations. booze companies make it on addicts and marijuana companies will do the same thing. joe biden is going to be happy to take that meeting. >> tucker: god bless you for saying that what you said is absolutely true. i just want to be clear. i don't agree with your politics on most things but you are absolutely right to say that and the rest of us have been so bullied but really by corporate propaganda into pretending it's not true when it clearly is true. thank you. anyway. the truth is worth telling no matter how unpopular it is and who tells it. thank you very much ian for saying that. >> well, i appreciate it. again, all of this is not to say that there are not substantial issues of justifiable here. right? >> tucker: i get it. >> and all these things. at some level you might say any stick can beat a dog.

if this is what it takes to make sure we don't have all of these young men sitting around in their jail swallow that because i live in a capitalist world and you can't fix everything at once. i want us to go into it with our eyes open. when coors opened up like leafy green subbranch and starts making money the same way it makes money on alcohol. i don't want anyone to think they weren't warned. >> tucker: anything that makes teenage boys dumber and more passive i'm opposed. to say ian, thank you for coming on. one woman says an fbi informant and press teamed up to defame her all in an effort to bring down michael flynn and donald trump. now she is suing. that story is after the break. ♪ ♪ eations from starkist. buffalo style chicken in a pouch-- bold choice, charlie! just tear, eat... mmmmm. and go! try all of my chicken creations! chicken! back then, we checked our zero times a day.

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>> tucker: we are covering robert mueller statement, the one he gave this morning. we will have more on that in just a minute with michael

computer though. but first a woman is suing an fbi informant and for news outlets claiming they defamed her like tying her to russian collusion efforts. catherine herridge has the story. >> after the fox investigation the russian born academic filed this lawsuit in virginia and several major news outlets for defamation. she claims false information alleging inappropriate contact between le cova and michael flynn at a cambridge university in under five years ago. she said she was never alone with flynn who at the time ran military intelligence for president obama. fast-forward to to 2017, she says multiple media outlets contacted her and what appeared to be a coordinated effort alleging suspicious contact with flynn at the cambridge dinner. according to the lawsuit, macola believes that there were allegations to further support

the russian collision story line. this is a very colorful lawsuit and one section, she alleges that the plaintiff was a was a russian spy and traitor to her country and the plaintiff had an affair with general flynn on the orders of russian intelligence. le cova who is a british and citizen broke her silence in march. >> i have never worked for the russian government. >> she has not responded to fox's questions in the past but of course if that changes we will update our reporting. >> tucker: with that be great. for more reaction to robert mueller statement today we are joined by someone who is being watch very closely, michael cavuto. thanks so much for coming on. >> tucker, how are you doing? >> i can imagine you watch that live in you had a strong

reaction to it. what was her take away? >> to me it was almost surreal. like so long robert mueller, i guess you want to ride off into the sunset now. obviously he didn't say anything that wasn't in the report except that he didn't want to testify publicly. i don't think we are going to let him right into the sunset and i don't think we should. there are some things i would like -- a republican congress would like me to ask him a private session off-camera. things like for example, when did you know there was no russian collision and why didn't you ended right then? because you have to believe they knew there was no russian collision, let's say, as soon general flynn was cooperating. any prosecutor would figure out then, if there was going to be some collusion it would be something general flynn would know about. it was all over adapt.

>> tucker: so as a legal matter and also as an ethical matter, could you continue? >> no doubt. obviously, first of all i love the fact that he slammed the door, slammed the window on the fingers of all days russia collision conspiracy theorists, that were still hanging on by their fingernails. i loved watching that, but at the same time, he gave the resistance crowd a pivot point, from which to turn away from his investigation and off into a house of impeachment. i think today he shined a light on those breadcrumbs in case they were getting lost. i think they got the pivot point we were looking for to dive deeply into impeachment. >> tucker: is it smart for the democrat to impeach the

president right now, do you think? >> i think it's a terrible idea for the democrats, it's a suicide mission but i think they are drawn to it like moths to a flame. absolutely they are committed to it. i don't even believe any of these people wringing their hands over it. it's been part of the plans it's election day 2019. they are on target, and if mueller has given them the path they need, they are off to impeachment even if it kills them. >> tucker: if you are part of a party that is called for eliminating i.c.e. and banning passenger cars, maybe this doesn't seem as insane to you. it's great to see you. we are out of time tonight, sadly. we will be back tomorrow night though and you can be certain of this, at 8:00 p.m. the so that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink, all of which are in an abundant supply here in

washington in case you didn't notice. by the way, you can dvr this show. we encourage you every night to do that so you can figure out how, please dvr. good night from washington. from new york city right now, ladies and gentlemen, sean hannity. >> sean: the great tucker carlson, thank you so. sir. buckle up, welcome to "hannity." i want to start with a thank you, to you, the viewers of the show and this network. you continue to make the show not only possible but number one in all of cable news. now going on our third year, we don't ever take it for granted. we are working hard but the great ensemble cast here to