>> martha: what a kay. that is the story a busy one at that for september 24, 2019. "the story" is going to go on tomorrow and the day after that. we will see you tomorrow. good evening, everybody. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening, and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." holy smokes there is a lot going on in this country right now. we are going to do our best over the next hour to explain what is happening and what it means. we're learning ourselves in a lot of cases the answer to both of those questions. so for almost three years the leadership of the democratic party in congress resisted calls from its politically inflamed base to impeach president trump. polls showed little support for impeachment among actual voters. they were skeptical of it. older members in congress like nancy pelosi remember well what happened the last time the opposition party impeached a sitting president. republicans did that, you will remember, back in 1998. and in the end, the only winner in that saga was bill

clinton himself. he was supposedly disgraced but, in fact, if you looked at the numbers, he was politically much stronger than he had been before he was impeached. pelosi, and not for no reason, told colleagues she worried that she worried impeaching donald trump might just get him reelected. up until just last week impeachment seemed like a fading prospect and then suddenly out of nowhere it seems a little fanfare and little explanation everything seemed to change. tonight just a few hours ago pelosi announced that impeachment proceedings are, in fact, underway. full steam ahead. >> i can say with authority that trump administration's actions undermine both our national security and our intelligence. the actions of the trump presidency reveals dishonorable facts of the president's retrail of our oath of office. fee frail much the nauert and betrayal of our

election. therefore today, i'm announcing the house of representatives coming forth with an official impeachment inquiry. i'm directing our six committees to proceed with their investigations under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry. the president must be held accountable, no one is above the law. >> tucker: the people who sold out your country to china are concerned president trump betrayed america somehow. as of this moment pelosi's party seems to agree they are behind her, mostly. as congressman john lewis of georgia explained, working to remove an elected president just a year before a democratic election is, in fact, somehow a defense of democracy or something like that. watch i believe i truly believe the time to begin impeachment proceedings against this president has come. to delay or to do otherwise

would betray the foundation of our democracy. >> tucker: um-huh. are you confused yet? if so, we don't blame you. if you left town for the weekend you might be wondering what the hell is going on, exactly. impeachment? for years they told you trump was going to be colluding with russia, spying for putin. then it turned out he didn't do that the story evaporated into dust and seemed to blow away. then just a few days ago they were grumbling about impeachment again and they dragged corey lewandowski remember him brought up to capitol hill to make their case. that didn't go well at all. >> i simply ask you is it correct as reported in the mueller report on june 19th, 2017, you met alone in the oval office with the president? >> could you read the exact language of the report, sir. i don't have it available to me. >> i don't think i need to do that and i have limited time. did you meet alone with the president on that date. >> congressman, i would like you refresh my memory by providing the report so i can follow along. >> you don't have a copy with you. >> i don't have a copy of the report, congressman. >> you don't have an

independent recollection of whether you met with the president on that date. >> congressman, i'm just trying to find in the mueller report where it states that. >> well, have you in front of you, i gave you the page number. >> where on page 90 is it sir? >> mr. chairman you have clock. >> no i still clock. >> it didn't take much for chairman nadler to collapse on c-span pretty embarrassing you they would decide to run a real presidential campaign in 2019 and try to beat trump that way. has to be more effective than now. as of this morning donald trump's approval rating is the highest it has been since inauguration. democrats don't want to wait until the next election. they will don't want to wait until november. politics takes too long and leaves too much to chance. the risk to democracy is voters might not agree with you. hillary clinton learned that the hard way in 2016 one

things democrats don't want to do is that. brings us to the latest question of imbeevment. what exactly is this about? >> sorry to laugh in the middle of this. we spent all day trying to face g figure out what is the impeachment story? it's about ukraine. it's less than a week old. you might be forgiven for not understanding the president be impeached for a story that the democrats literally can't explain whether a did the president do wrong we will tell you the case they are making. tell you it's confusing and not all that interesting. here's what they are saying. they are saying in a phone call with the president of ukraine, the president threatened to delay a 400-million-dollar military aid package to ukraine

unless ukrainian government agreed to investigate possible criminal activity involving joe biden's son. why joe biden's son? well, for five years joe biden's son, it turns out, was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to serve on the board of the ukrainian gas company. why with joe biden's son be on the board of ukrainian gas company? he had no experience in the energy business. he didn't speak the relevant language. he had apparently no experience whatsoever in the region. turns out at that very moment joe biden was president obama's point man for ukraine. oh, so in a certain point during this saga, the company in question was investigated. and then in 2016, the ukrainian prosecutor overseeing that investigation was fired, apparently he was fired under pressure from then vice president joe biden. now, to the layman, that looks a lot like corruption. what does that have to do with the president being impeached in the accusation is the president trump suggested that that sketched

investigatiosquelchedinvestigata second look. democrats say that suggestion was an impeachable offense. are you following this? of course they there are plenty of other reasons that the u.s. might not want to send $400 million to ukraine it's a notorious corrupt country for one thing what do we get out of it for another. sending military aid to the ukraine may please neocons on cnn bill crystal is for it. greatly increases the with russia nuclear conflict potentially. what's the point of that exactly. nobody has bothered to explain why sending 400 million in military aid to ukraine is in the interest of the united states. they haven't even thought to explain that. they are too busy yelling about impeachment and they are doing it with all the hysterical intensity that has become the hallmark of the modern left. they have a lot of energy. too bad none of it is focused on the country's real problems. there are a lot of them. we don't want to go through

the same litany again. we will a couple worth mentioning. national debt is exploding that includes credit card debt. personal debt at highest ever measured. we have a war in afghanistan we can't seem to win or end. our towns outside the big cities are being disseminated and defecated by opioids and suicide. if you haven't been there take a look yourself basically open border with 34ebgs co. tech companies trying to control our free speech. in many ways our country is on the wrong track and people know it. everybody knows it democrats and republicans. instead of trying to fix any of that. democrats want to spend the next year explaining and they plan, to explaining why it was perfectly fair for joe biden's ne'er do well son to get 600 grand a year from russian oligarchs. that's totally fine but somehow criminal for donald trump to ask about that. that's the message. good luck with that hard to imagine many voters will be

impressed by it. sean joins us. am i overstating that? we spent all day, we are in this business. our job is to follow the news. i talked to my producers this morning. do you stand this story? not one of them fully did i didn't either. we have been trying to understand what the democrats are alleging here. we have come to the conclusion that they are saying it was okay for biden's son to take this money, basically obviously it's a pay jiewoff. >> there is a bit of a pattern these accusations against the president. if we go back to the russian hoax, the russian collusion inquiry they accuse him of illegally and treason newly colluding witcolluding with ruso steal the election from hillary clinton in fact that's what hillary clinton and the dnc were doing. they hired a foreign spy. they were working with russian officials. they were the ones working with foreign governments and they are doing the same thing with ukraine. they have accused trump of

doing exactly what they did. we have biden on camera bragging how he bullied and bribed the ukrainian government to fire the investigator investigating his son's company. i guess the crime if you really look at it, is that he beat hillary clinton that's the crime for when he will never be forgiven and for which they won't pardon them. >> tucker: they have never gotten over that have they? i'm assuming and i should say to our viewers we are assuming that what they are alleging is true. let's say trump did do what he is accused of doing. i'm so confused why we should be outraged by that. that's why we should impeach the president over it. do we know that happened and how do we know. >> no, we actually don't know. in fact this whole new impeachment hysteria and brouhaha has been cooked up by a whistleblower by a phone call did he not hear and transcript he has not read and documents congress

hasn't seen. again it's russia all over again. it's these accusations, innuendo in rumor when in fact there is no actual evidence anywhere of any wrongdoing. it is all innuendo, it is all rumors and gossip from people trying to overturn the results of the election sings the day trump was elected. >> tucker: i assume what you are say something right. no evidence that trump tale said the things nancy pelosi has nohas announced democrats ae going to impeach him over. >> this whib wa whistleblower hs never even seen the transcript. according to congress they haven't seen the whistleblower report. it's clearly being based on media whipped up hysteria and frenzy over evidence that nobody in the media or most people in congress have never ever seen.

>> tucker: even allowing for the hysteria of the moment, which really is the hallmark of this moment. everything is hysterical eruption, this seems pretty reckless. if we see in the transcript tomorrow that they are wrong, they are going to be embarrassed. they must believe that announcing impeachment gives them advantage. >> weird kabuki theater from nancy pelosi where she got everyone spun up about impeachment while not protest promise guilty force people to vote it on the house floor. she is caught in this debacle here where she is trying to placate her left wing deranged delusional base and trying to convince them that she hates the president as much as they do while at the same time trying to protect her own members who are in vulnerable swing districts who barely won their elections from having to take a vote which she knows will destroy their political careers. i really don't understand

what the democrats and what pelosi are up to unless the only way to explain it is that trump is completely broken their brains and they really don't know what to do with him other than try to throw him out by hook or crook. >> tucker: i think that's right. i know there are some democrats who would worry. we got a call for one who wants to come on the show and maybe will come on maybe tonight. not all think it's a wise idea at all. something weird is going on as you point out. sean, great to see you i want to. thank you. >> thank you. if you don't back impeachment you are immoral and the citizens of the future will pull down any statues of you. to those holding out i wanted you to know history will judge all of us. i welcome them in to the right side of justice and history and hope that their

conscious will compel them to stand up for impeachment and stand up for the country. >> tucker: will that kid get off the stage. i can't play another soundbite from thatte that mediocrity. >> i'm sure every democrat turns to beto o'rourke for where they should go next with things. >> tucker: that guy. and by the way i want to issue a m mea culpa here. we are part of the problem. it's irresistible to play sound bites of beto o'rourke. nonfactor in american life. what is the political calculation if you are running for president right now and you see your colleagues in the house doing this. >> first, i will say to reiterate what sean davis said, there has been momentum in the ship for impeachment but there is no formal inquiry. there has been no vote. there has been no announcement for a vote. if you look at the house rules, no committee actually has jurisdiction over impeachment. that's why with nixon and clinton the house voted to one open an investigation and then also to give

jurisdiction to the house judiciary committee. but putting that aside looking at the 2020 democrats. the base wants this. you look at quinnipiac polling 61% of democrats support. this why you are seeing people like beto o'rourke come out and support. he is not alone in this. i want to show what you senator elizabeth warren tweete. no one is above the law not even the president of the united states. congress has the constitutional authority and responsibility to hold the president accountable. this is not about politics. this is about principle. we must begin impeachment proceedings. she then went ton tweet this which i also found interesting. she said that now the impeachment inquiry must move forward with the efficiency and seriousness this crisis demands. the house needs to vote articles of impeachment. when it comes to the senate, i will do what the constitution require. so essentially saying there that if it came to it and

got to the senate, she would be a yes vote. she is not alone in this either. here is what senator sanders had to say. >> the judiciary committee of the u.s. house of representatives must be investigated as part of impeachment inquiry. we have people, including republicans, who are sick and tired of a president who believes that he does not have to obey the constitution of the united states and that he is above the law. >> lisa: this is where the majority of the democratic 2020 candidates have been on this; however, representative tulsi gabbard went on "fox & friends" this morning saying look, if we move forward with impeachment it. is incredibly divisive. this is bad for the country. listen to what she said. i have consistent that i believe impeachment at this juncture would be incredibly

divisive for the country at a time when we are already extremely divided. >> joe biden also gave a press conference today. he was more tepid with it laid out preconditions. president trump continues to stonewall. then this is what congress must do also could be he is implicated in this and not great news for him either. >> tucker: not great news. in fact it does seem like colleagues i think most democrats are decided joe biden is not going to be the nominee. he is not up for it. this story really puts his family under the microscope. >> absolutely. now that we see elizabeth warren at least in the new -- the most latest des moines register poll announced she is the frontrunner in iowa. she clearly has momentum right now. if you are joe biden you have got to be nervous the fact that you are out here on this and so is your son. >> they are the center of the story. in way around it. whether cnn admits it.

great to see you tonight. >> thank you, tucker. >> tucker: joe biden is at the center of this story. in 2016 he told ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing a investigation involving his son's company. now biden says the whole matter is worth impeaching the president over. >> the president should stop stonewalling. this investigation and all the other investigations into his alleged wrongdoing. using its full constitutional authority congress should demand the information it has a legal right to see. if the president does not comply with such a request of the congress, he continues to obstruct congress and flaunt the law. donald trump will leave congress, in my view, no choice but to initiate impeachment that would be a tragedy. but a tragedy of his own making. >> tucker: a democrat, a former cia officer and he

joints us tonight. thanks for coming on. is this a wise idea, do you think, this apparent beginning of impeachment? >> >> no, it's not, tucker. the whole thing is a disaster. pelosi launched the titanic tonight in a gigantic iceberg in 2020. we had up until yesterday, really the last couple weeks it was all russia. as of later this morning it was ukraine. this afternoon pelosi says actually now that i know trump is releasing the transcripts of the phone call, it's not so much about ukraine. it's about other things to be identified. comes down to we don't like trump and we will move forward with imbeevment imimpeat that's what the base wants. that's absurd. in our republic those are called eelections. the democratic party folks other than tulsi gabbard understand. this this party led by chuck and nannies the progressive and the squad driving this party off of the cliff.

>> tucker: how much of this is being driven by ocasio-cortez and the rest, the freshman? >> 100 percent. absolutely 100 percent of it. look, you have to understand that the progressive wing of the democratic party is in control of the party it's in coal control of the media and talking heads. they repeat the same stuff. thinking critically. so we are not stopping to ask the question of hey, do you know what? there is something about this biden and hunter biden and christopher hynes worked with him in the ukraine for this corrupt, you know, oligarch based ukrainian gas company? is there something to the fact that biden phone calls? should would he be investigating this? the "new york times" ran an article last may that highlighted this concern for biden and his campaign. it is not trump. trump isn't inventing this story. it's been out there for a long time. now that we are hooking our party's future on this over

the next year, it is a disaster and disaster for multiple reaches one of which i am concerned about as intelligence officer putin knows the truth. the russian intelligence service has kiev wired. so they know what hunter biden and all of his buddies over there to include an organization called blue star an appear poo research o oo research. staffed by clinton folks. he has all that compromise. he will make up stuff that isn't true. now we are inviting another steele dossier put on steroids. we are going to put this country through hell again for absolutely no discernible reason here we go again. >> tucker: remarkable. brian. a lot of unexpected news out of washington today as we have said since the top of

the hour. once again washington insiders pushing for impeachment based on murky evidence from anonymous individuals. we will investigate the similarities between the russia collusion hoax and what just happened today next. ♪ when did you see the sign?

when i needed to create a better visitor experience. improve our workflow. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah, and now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. >> tucker: well given the democrats' apparent confidence in their ability to impeach the president, you might be surprised to learn that the latest allegations traced back to a single anonymous source, apparently a whistleblower whose claims are not even public yet. might be surprised to learn that tomorrow the white house is planning to voluntarily release a transcript of the phone call between the president and the president of the ukraine. it's at the very center of this. that will be interesting to see catherine herridge has more on that. >> it stars with the it starts h

discussions between white house lawyers have been advising the administration to release the transcripts of president trump's july phone call with the ukrainian president since last week. on twitter today the president says he wants transparency that he is, quote, authorized the release tomorrow of the complete full and declassified and unredacted transcript of my phone conversation with president zelensky of ukraine. you will see it was a friendly and appropriate call. no pressure unlike joe biden and his son, no quid pro quo. also tonight a government spokesperson confirming that the nation's intelligence chief the acting director of national intelligence joe maguire will testify before the house intelligence committee thursday. within the last hour maguire issuing this statement standing by his actions. i want to make clear that i have upheld my responsibility to follow the law every step of the way, he wrote. as public serve vangts, the men and women of the intelligence community have a solemn responsibility to do that is right which includes wrongdoing. i am committed to protecting

whistleblowers and making sure the complaint is handled appropriately. the committee found the complaint about the president's call was not standard did. not meet the statutory definition of urgent and congressional innovation was not required. this undercuts democrats' claims today that there is a legal requirement to share. a former white house official tells fox news a transcript of all presidential calls are handled by the situation room between four and five intelligence officials typed as the conversation unfolds. their individual transcripts are cross rearchessed so the copy is complete. we are also told there is no audio recordings. tucker. >> tucker: catherine honorable, thanks so much for that. >> you are welcome. >> tucker: a former u.s. attorney for the district of columbia and federal prosecutor. thanks so much for coming on. >> you bet. >> tucker: it's hard with a story this political to get to the basic legal questions here. so, to what the president

did or said he did in this conversation with the head of state of ukraine. now, i heard today in fact on our air i heard judge napolitano say what the president has admitted to doing is a crime. is it a crime? you are a former federal prosecutor. >> well, i think judge napolitano is a fool. and i what he said today is foolish. no, it is not a crime. let me underscore emphatically that nothing that the president said on that call or what we think he said on that call constitutes a crime oofn when he had said wouldn't get the money it wouldn't be a crime. as i watched nancy pelosi today struggle to keep her dentures in her mouth called it an official impeachment inquiry. it is not. the only way you can have an official impeachment inquiry is by a resolution on the for floor of the house calling for impeachment inquiries and authorizing an investigation that has not occurred. what she did today was a

head fake to placate the nuts on her left. >> tucker: i got to say and i try to take all accusations seriously because you know you don't know what is going to turn out to be true in the end. >> true. >> tucker: of all the things alleged against the president, very serious. spying for putin at one point trying to be as objective ascii. this can't be serious if wholly true. why would they choose this to impeach over? >> i think they are scrambling, tucker at this point. if you go back and look at what president obama did interferes in the elections the threats he made to individuals and things like this. this is all acceptable political behaviors by presidents. they are scrambling for a theme and a narrative. they have gone everywhere from russian hoax to russian collusion and now they have come to this. you may note today they said they wanted to see the transcript. when it was announced that

the transcript was going to be put out tomorrow, they said that really doesn't matter. we want to know about the complaint from the so-called whistleblower who by the way doesn't know anything about the call. he or she is completely anonymous and it's at this point serves no useful purpose other than to help them scream and yell. >> tucker: so they want to -- i mean, everything you said sound absolutely right. they just want to impeach. looking for a pretext pop up they jumped on it. it doesn't seem that way. why? it's a political matter. i have never seen any polling that the majority wants impeachment much less a year before an election? why would they want to do this. >> this is about power. democrats want to control the house, the senate and the presidency. they think they should have won the 2016 election. they think in their bizarre brains that they did because she got more popular vote. they don't like the

electoral college and process and a lot of things in the constitution which is why they want to change it. this is lunancy. you are watching a great political party historically the democratic party devolve into a bunch of screwballs because they want all the power. that speech today by pelosi was an embarrassment for a speaker of the house because it was mostly lies and mostly made up. >> tucker: interesting. joe digenova, great to see you tonight. thanks for coming on. >> great to see you. >> tucker: well for more legal reaction to what has hand today we would like to welcome jenna ellis a constitutional law attorney and serves on the advisory board of the trump 2020 campaign. jenna ellis joins us tonight. jenna, thanks for coming on. >> great to see you, tucker. >> tucker: if you could i would like to ask you the same question i just asked joe digenova. this is also knew even to us who follow this stuff for a living. this story is kind of coming into focus for loot of us.

what is the crime they are saying the president committed? >> right, well, they don't have one. that's really the problem. this is a rush-to-judgment from the democrats that i think is going to end up being their undoing. for the last even since 2015, they have been looking for a smoking gun to try to undermine president trump. they couldn't do it before the election. they have not been able to do it with the mueller report. now basically nancy pelosi is trying to forum shop some kind of political tactic and try to say we now know that we have credible evidence when no one from congress including speaker pelosi has even seen the transcript of the call with the ukrainian president. so, clearly they have no legal basis here. this is simply a political tactic. tucker, with the american people, i don't care if you are democrat, republican, independent or not even a citizen of this country, what everyone needs to understand about the united states constitution is that

it does not allow for political based impeachment. there is specific text actualltext talllanguage misdem. it goes to treason, bribery not just because we hate the president of the united states. this should not be political but clearly because they came up before they even have seen a shred of evidence. this is just a political tactic. this should not ever be allowed regardless of whether there is a d or r after your name. >> tucker: there is political element to it. process that plays out in the congress. >> it shouldn't be, that's a separation of powers issue that hopefully if everyone is looking at the united states government correctly, and they are saying okay, we are going to look at what the evidence actually shows. that's why there is also a separation of powers that the house has to impeach, the senate has to try. the chief justice of the supreme court has to

preside. it shouldn't be politically partisan but it's become that way. >> tucker: everything has. but if you could sum up just because i think it's helpful for like they do in high school debate take the other side for a second. what is your opponent saying? if you could sum up their case in one sentence. what is it, exactly? i have been doing this all day. >> they hate trump. that's their only case we hate president trump. >> tucker: they have been making that case for quite some time. >> this is a shotgun tactic that we use in legal speak to say they are throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks. nancy pelosi is saying we have evidence of something but she can't clearly articulate it. no attorney would ever go into court and would ever file any sort of charges. they know they can't reach the threshold of probable cause that's a really low standard. to say we are going to impeach the president of the united states based on something we can't articulate. that's a dirty political tactic.

this should not be anything that the democrats want to go in front of and if anyone is paying attention, then they should not vote for this party in 2020 simply because they hate the rule of law. they are only interested in power for their own purposes. that is not how america works. >> tucker: if i'm the president and talking to the head of ukraine and he is saying i would like $400 million in military aid the first answer is no. get it from the eu if you want it. why would we pay you that second, by the way, why did you shut down the investigation into the company that was paying all this money to the vice president's son? i think i would ask that. why wouldn't you? or whatever. i guess i would be impeache impeached. >> you can have multiple subjects of discussion. probably doesn't talk to him every day. >> tucker: he definitely does. i will say that good to see you tonight. thank you. >> good to be with you, tucker. thanks. >> tucker: the left has pushed impeachment from day

one. they hate trump but also addicted to trump. what are they going to do when trump is gone? can you imagine a lot of lonely reporters. we will tell what you they have been saying today. coverage of the day's insanity continues next. ♪

♪ >> tucker: welcome back. so apparently we are on the road to impeachment. boy, did that happen fast with almost no warning. you have seen very few reactions from dissident democrats but not all of them are on board. we are going to be hearing more from some, no doubt, in days to come. as of today, one of the very few who seems definitely not on board is tulsi gabbard of hawaii who is also by the way running for president. today gabbard told fox news

brian kilmeade that moving forward on impeachment would be, quote, terribly divisive for the country. a an attorney and democrat joins us tonight. robert thanks for coming on. >> thank you, tucker. >> tucker: what's your assessment of this. >> i think impeachment is increeisincredibly divisive. not a winner for the democratic party. what we have to understand every time we see impeachment inquiry the party loses the upcoming election. we need to find other ways to investigate very serious accusations against the president. right now a full third of house democrats have against the idea of impeachment. there are not enough votes in the house to pass impeachment as it stands right now there definitely aren't enough votes in the senate to remove the president. this is a quick sonic journey being driven by the far left of the party. we have to get back to really kitchen table issues that democrats care about in order to try to win in 2020. the best way to beat the president is to beat the president. >> tucker: exactly.

i mean likes a in a democracy. it's not as if there are not enough problems in the country you couldn't cobble together a campaign based on solving them. so many things you could run. everything you said is true, i think, and this is not an attack on you but also kind of obvious. everything you said is obvious. why are they doing this? clearly bad. >> i think president trump has baited nancy pelosi into this. the call for impeachment had been growing from the date that president trump got elected calls to impeach him. call to ukraine is create a justification for it. create a create a bell cow to lead the way for it. what nancy pelosi did was not launch a call for impeachment but call for impeachment inquiry which she didn't quite explain what that is that means we are going to have hearings, testimony, present evidence, find other ways to gain information. i think that is nancy pelosi's way of splitting the baby in half so she can satisfactory the people calling for impeachment but

also not launching all-out assault on the presidency. >> tucker: still a dismembered baby though. that in the end is going to be el embarrassing, right you? announce impeachment but you don't impeach because your members aren't in favor of it. hard to see how pelosi wins or hard to see how anybody but donald trump wins in this. >> it's going to be important to find out what exactly comes out during this inquiry period. remember, president trump could have released the transcript last week. he could have released the whistleblower complaint. he could have released the ig report a week ago and avoided all of this. >> tucker: i don't know if he could have released the whistleblower complaint some question whether that is legal or not. the transcript is coming out tomorrow. >> the president has the power to declassify the information. he could have said i had a perfect call with the president of ukraine and detailed what happened and

explain to the american people why this wasn't an issue and not let it build up for a week before doing so. the president has some culpability in this. >> tucker: you are saying that trump baited them, i guess literally trump wanted to be impeached. is that what you are saying? >> i think trump wants this inquiry to go forward. he has been trying to get the far left riled up. i think this is exactly. he plays into the news cycle. he plays the news cycle like no politician before. we have fallen into his trap with this. and now he basically picked his opponent for 20206789 as you see beto o'rourke talking about this. see the crazy lady who sells crystals talking about this. you realize different in stature he has made this basically a three person race and made the rest of the entire field irrelevant besides joe biden and -- president trump knows exactly how he is playing the democratic party and think it's important to understand that and not fall into his trap again.

>> tucker: puppet master sounds like. it's great to see you tonight. i don't know if i believe any of your theories but they are really interesting. >> always right, tucker. you know that. >> tucker: thank you. good to see you. the media didn't need today's news to start pushing for impeachment. they have been pushing for that for about three years now. just about any reason at all. >> if means anything in the trump era, trump will be, must be impeached because of the crimes prosecutors say he committed in the michael cohen case. >> both parties need to get on board to pass articles of impeachment. >> you have conspiracy, you have obstruction. have you campaign finance. and have you emonthliments. if the democrats do not pursue this vigorously, they will be, in some ways, held accountable for advocating their responsibility. it goes to the ethical question. democracy is at stake. >> tucker: i'm not a shrink but not watch tape like that and look me in the face and

say your average progressive activist is a happy person. they are not. well, msnbc and cnn have reason to get on board. they have been in deep trouble the last couple months. after the mueller report came out and turned outed that the whole two last years have been an elaborate fraud. it looked like the impeachment story might be over and their ratings might be in a permanent slump. with this week's news they immediately work back into action from congressman david jolly wanted msnbc to splain that delaying aid to far off nations you couldn't find on the map is exactly the kind of tyrannical behavior the founding fathers staged a revolution to suppress. >> when the framers wrote the language around impeachment, they specifically wanted to reach abuse of power when there was not an underlying crime. this is the president that the authors and architects of the impeachment feared. this was the presidency that

they were worried about. >> tucker: i don't know if he is being serious or not. let's give him the benefit of the doubt. chris plante host of chris plante show. probably the most incisive media critic we know and always grateful to have him on the show. sorry. that was so stupid. i'm speechless. so the press has wanted impeachment really since the day this guy got elected but if trump were impeached and hauled off in man kels or whatever, sent back to palm beach, they would be the most disappointed people in america. what would they do, right? >> the behavior is path pathological at this point. it's panic. it's really nutty. i'm concerned for the well being of a number of these people. you had to robby mook, behaving as though they are lawyers. they are grabbing sniped from "new york times" and parroting what they read this morning and faithfully and dutifully carrying out the mission of the

democratic party which is unfortunately the vast majority the news media in. they work hand in glove. they are the functional wing of the democratic party. the news media. much more functional than nancy pelosi or chuck schumer on capitol hill. they raise no questions whatsoever. they have absolved the biden family past, present and future of any wrongdoing, possible wrongdoing theoretical wrongdoing. they are in the clear. it doesn't matter. we have got joe biden on tape expressing what is clearly a quid pro quo involving a prosecutor he is demanding be fired or we will withhold aid. the prosecutor countly of coincidentally paying his son a great deal of money. imagine if president trump was on the phone demanding that they lay off of his son in ukraine and fire the prosecutor that's investigating his son. the news media might be on

to a story there that could be an important story. we are no longer in the realm of articles of impeachment involving high crimes and misdemeanors. now it's an ever evolving news story that started out in the "new york times" as a call with the president of ukraine and there was a promise made. what happened to that promise. that's no longer the story. then the democrats wanted just the transcript or a recording. as soon as the president announced that they are going to give them the unredacted transcript. chuck schumer moved the goal post. in fact, pelosi and chuck schumer running all over the field like cartoon characters with the goal post and nobody knows what the threshold is anymore. and in reality we know it's just anything. anything will do. and the news media unscrupulously failed to ask all of the obvious and salient questions. that if you were just a curious high school newspaper reporter you might start asking you about amazingly the entire institution of the fourth estate in america. the american news media continues to fall down on

the job. i'm beginning to suspect that this is not just a -- you know a coincidence at this point. it's remarkable. you know all the questions that you would ask and then can you ask about the dichotomies what joe biden did. they don't ask that. i was reading a bloomberg story today saying that he was requesting help from a foreign government to tar or smear his opponent. now, that's what the dossier is. did anybody miss this the last two years in the whole dossier is. [laughter] >> to smear the president and then repackaged as a dossier which is opposition research from russian intelligence to smear donald trump. >> tucker: whatever they are accusing you of doing is exactly what they are doing themselves. >> that's precisely right. >> tucker: chris plant, great to see you. >> thanks, tucker. >> tucker: boy, has it been a weird day of news.

not exactly sure what's going on. that's why we are so grateful to have brit hume after the break. ♪ ♪ i was hesitant to get the hearing aids because of my short hair, but nobody even sees them. (avo) our nearly invisible hearing aids are just one reason we've been the brand leader for over 70 years. (deborah) when i finally could hear for the first time, i started crying. i could hear everything. (avo) get special anniversary savings and your chance to win a seven day hawaiian cruise. call 1-800-miracle today.

>> tucker: will continue our coverage tonight. impeachment is all of a sudden looking like a possibility. but there is nothing new about talk of impeachment that's been going on since the day this president has been elected. what does this mean exactly? there's no one better to answer that question then brit, senior political analysts on fox news. why are democrats doing this? it doesn't seem politically wis wise. >> brit: it strikes me, talker, that the speakers are under pressure from the left wing of the party and the leftists in their caucus, who are numerous, to move ahead her here. the loathing of donald trump and the desire to get him out of

office is very intense. they've got constituents back home. it comes down to this. what's striking to me about this, tucker, is that trump is already agreeing to release the full unredacted transcript of his phone conversation upon which this whole thing is supposedly based. and, as of tonight, he's also apparently prepared to release the whistle-blower complaint they are saying they must have. now, i ask you this. do you think donald trump would go forth and release to documents that were highly incriminating? i have my doubts. >> tucker: me too. of course. to do so, so quickly, which makes this whole thing seem more idiotic. i don't think nancy pelosi is idiotic. i think she's good at politics. that's why she's the speaker of the house. so what is she thinking do you think? >> brit: i think she's thinking that she needs to be responsive to the needs of her

caucus. look at what she did today. it was really quite clever if you think about it. did she have a vote in the house to conduct an impeachment inquiry? no. she did not. she simply announced one. how is that different from what her committee chairman, jerrold nadler did just ten days ago? he announced that they are going forward with an impeachment inquiry. as a matter of law and constitutional activity, the question tonight is, has anything really changed? is this an action or is this merely a gesture? my sense about it is that it's merely a gesture. she has continued to protect vulnerable members of her caucus from having to vote by going forward on impeachment. she just announced it. now, they might have to defend that, but they can go forward and say, "i didn't vote for this." the president is willing to put all the stuff out. it may not lead anywhere. i think we may be able to

surmise something about that as well. some of our colleagues in the media might be looking at themselves a little funny. >> tucker: yeah, i think they are beyond that. [laughs] >> brit: that's too much to hope for part dominic? >> tucker: it's way too much. in 15 seconds, is that enough for aoc and the squad, do you think? >> brit: i don't think anything is enough for aoc and the squad, who is literally incoherent when you are talking about policies. so, there you are. she will be able to satisfy, for now, at least, a large portion of her caucus, and shall continue to be able to protect her vulnerable members and other members who are having to take a hard vote on this. >> tucker: boy, that's a tight rope. i'm glad i'm not her. thank you for your analysis. great to see you. >> brit: you too. it's the one that's it for us. boy, that hour passed quickly.

will be back tomorrow night. 8:00 p.m. the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink. hopefully, with great cheer and not bitterness. sean hannity, speaking of cheer, is a new york tonight. >> sean: all right, tucker. i think we have breaking news tonight. good show, tucker. it's going to take the full hour to get all of us in. we are going to break this down. will give you all the news and information the mob will never give you. here's what's happening. we'll start with a summary. the psychotics, and to trump hysteria, it is now completely overtaken the entire democratic party. what is happening is dangerous to this country. it is grossly political. it will forever alter how any president in the future, in his constitutional role as commander-in-chief, will be able to communicate freely with other world