♪ >> tucker: good evening, and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." russia is back in the news all of the sudden. we want to apologize for friends at cnn, for taking the break, there was a point we were not talking about a russia. keep in mind that the premise of the now discredited to your loni investigation was that it was entirely implausible, indeed it was likely that donald trump, a former casino owner who spent 14 seasons starring on an nbc reality show, was in fact despite all outward appearances to the contrary, a secret russian agent working against american interests to serve vladimir putin in moscow.

that was the claim. many nongenus is believed it was true. they repeated the allegation every single day for every single year because that's what they do best. but the much more interesting and important question has always been this: what did senior law enforcement officials think of the story? think of the story? did they really believe it was possible that donald trump was working for russia? and if so, what evidence they have russian mark if they have no evidence, why did they open the investigation and what are they continuing? for years, every american regardless of party has been interested in knowing the answer those questions and for more than a year, the inspector general's office has worked to find the answer. the report finally came public, and even before it did, some of the mouth breeders on television were happy to guess its conclusion. they proclaim the fbi complete innocent of all wrongdoing because in 2019, being a

progressive means taking the sides of bureaucrats with guns the matter what the evidence is. watch. >> the headline will be whether you are a trump supporter or trump skeptic that the fbi is exonerated today from the oft repeated smear that there was some sort of campaign -- it's good news no matter where you stand on the political spectrum in 2019. >> keep in mind when she uttered those words, she had not even read the ig report. this is what happens when you have former flaxen spokesperson on journalism. the actual report was something of a disaster for the fbi. obvious to anybody who read it, even people who work at msnbc. >> what it basically said that the fbi screwed up at basically every level, failing to pay enough attention to potential problems with steele.

the report says the fisa application was inaccurate, application was inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported. it says, for example, the fbi failed to look at some of the problem in steele's past work. that was never addressed. >> tucker: there is the understatement of the week. in fact, steele's so-called dossier was absurd.re no judgment news outlet wouldd run it. so clearly false that "the washington post" kept its distance. it's up to buzzfeed to run it, a cats blog. the one that no one would print because it was so false committee use it as a pretext to spy on the trump campaign. keep in mind, when you are lying, the more specific the lie

is, the more likely it is to be believed. the light in the dossier was he was offered 19%, not 18, 20, 19% interest in the energy country if he can persuade donald trump to lift sanctions against moscow. the claim was wrong.nt it was a lie. page was a naval officer and i had done nothing wrong. the fbi targeted him anyway. prominent figures on the left accused him of betraying his country. carter page's life was destroyed worst of all and this is what we learned today, the fbi knew exactly what was happening and they kept doing it. the fisa warrant against page, the one that allowed them to spy on him, had to be redone multiple times. according to the ig report, the fbi repeatedly lied and excluded cometary information to keep that fisa warrant alive showing that the document was unreliable, they continue to

treat page as criminal and steele as a trusted source for the usual moron, half-wits, and partisans continue to accuse page of something he neverer committed. >> conspiring with russia in ways that were nefarious. >> overwhelming evidence to have probable cause. it would be a direction of duty to not have sought a surveillance warrant. >> makes a compelling case that there is probable cause to believe that carter page is acting in a foreign power. >> tucker: imagine if that was you, somebody on television every day in fact accusing you of treason and congressmen and tv reports all nodded in agreement -- that sounds right. the fbi knew you didn't do it, but instead lifts the burden ofd

suspicion off your shoulders, instead lie in order to hide your innocence? that was carter page a process lie for years but hard to believe it could happen in this country, but it did happen. let's hope carter page spends the rest of his life suing every single one of these people in bankruptcy, and it should include malicious liars like cia head and cnn contribute or john brennan, watch him say something with a straight face now we know is actually false.e. >> do you know who commission the steele dossier? >> i don't. >> did the cia rely on it? >> no. >> why not? >> because it wasn't part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. it was not in any way used as a basis for the intelligence community assessment that was done. i >> tucker: yes, it wasn't in any way.es yes, the basis of that assessment. carter page was not the only and

is caught up in the witch hunt, and witch hunt is not an overstatement.asas according to the report, the fbi employed undercover agents to collect intelligence on theep members of the trump campaign. the bureau itself used a defensive briefing to monitor what the campaign was doing. defensive briefings are designed for the good of the country. the bureau shares intelligence with leading potential candidates or president-elect so they'll have a grounding what's going on in the world when they take control. in this case, however, the fbi use that briefing the spy on trump staff and build criminal cases against them. can you imagine a question like the ig report claims and if this is clearly motivated. that's a subjective judgment. hard to know, but it's also harr to swallow that claim. only a partisan can believe j something so absurd as this steele dossier. the facts remain to the fbi use flimsy excuses to spy on the flimsy excuses to spy on the american citizen and rival a

presidential campaign. they engage in abusive behavior to make sure the spying continued illegitimately. doesn't matter what the motive for all of that was. the facts alone ought to scare you. former director jim comey think about that for a minute. given what we know, comey ought to be groveling for forgiveness -- he ought to be relocating to paraguay in shame. in fact, he's morere self-righteous than ever. jim comey is a good person -- unfortunately, you are not. approved by a federal judge, comey tells us. he omits the fact that the fbi lied to the judge. the fbi did not insert spies in the trump campaign, no just to

monitor the campaign staff. and so on. we'll never know the difference. jim comey doesn't think you have google apparently, or more d likely he doesn't care. they can issue a hundred ig reports. every one of them exposing jim comey as the sinister fraud he has and he knows none of it matters because he knows he will never be punished. that's part of what we learn today. what else do we learn? we are always happy to be joined by federalist senior editor mollie hemingway. as someone who followed this from day one, what's your takeaway? >> this is a report that is looking if there was abuse in the fisa process and there is no question they found rampant abuse. dozens of instances of the fbi engaging and bad behavior to spy on the trump campaign. it shows people weren't actually in court. even worse than what you were talking about, which is in one case you have an fbi lawyer,

dr. evidence to make it seem like a different federal agency had said something opposite. the other federal agencies had carter page was a helpful asset to them. he doctored that evidence to make it seem like the opposite was the case.as >> tucker: let me ask you to pause there and asked the obvious, why is not that fbi lawyer in prison? >> that fbi lawyer was one of the only people who was ever referred to any kind of accountability. that's one of the things that's frustrating. o this ig outlines hundreds of example of bad behavior from people who are engaged in this campaign to target the trump campaign. not many people will be held accountable by the inspector general. it's interesting to note -- >> tucker: meanwhile roger stone spending life in prison for not remember and who he spoke to earlier that day. >> all of these behaviors by other members of the department of justice, all of the did show political bias or they show political bias the other way, the federal prosecutor looking

into this, just agreed some parts of the ig report in ways that it's even worse. disagree that the flimsy predicate used to start the investigation was sufficient among other things. >> tucker: amazing.at amazing. but it's not a big deal, mollie! don't you worry. >> it's important to note that carter page was in fact exonerated here. claims that he's not a russian asset are shown to be true, that claims he's a russian asset shown to be false. >> tucker: i hope he sues the other cable channels. they destroyed his life! they owe him. mollie, thanks so much. john jerome is conducting his own investigations. after the ig report came out, he issued a statement saying he disagrees with several of the report's findings. in particular about why the russia investigation began.

stephanie grisham is the former press secretary at the white house. thank you for comingpr on. uss to this report, what jumped out at you? >> people need to be held accountable. this was a government trying to overthrow a president by falsifying documents and by lying. by ruining the lives of many people. >> tucker: for a lot of people watching, you hate to have people become more cynical the more news they ingest, but it's hard not to have that happen. people wondering, no one is going to be indicted when law enforcement agencies destroy american citizens on the basisri of no evidence for political reasons and they get away with it? how does that happen?em >> i don't know. it's been a chilling effect to see everything today. with durham, he's going to look at it more. people who are supposed to be enforcing the laws of the law on their own hands but not just the one fbi attorney who falsified documents against carter page who was working with another agency. absolutely people need to beho held accountable.

>> tucker: what's troubling about all of this even though as a report claims, and politics were behind these screw ups, it was a purely a political series of dishonest steps, the fbi remains the fbi with awesome power. people are still getting investigate it the fbi. can we trust the fbi is a level of the most important question. >> as the president said there are great people working in the fbi, hardworking people. the people at the top level need to be looked at and need to be looked at all the time. they have great power as you said so it's very important that we really look into this, we find who's responsible and there are absolute -- there something that happened. >> tucker: consequences. do you believe it's likely that the attorney general mr. barr will be firing people? >> i hope so. i'm not going to speculate, but i hope so. this is a chilling effect and the american people need tout believe that the fbi, cia, allth

the intelligence organizations in this country can be trusted. the fact that for years now there has been an effort to overthrow this president? it's scary. it should happen -- any president, i don't care what party you are in. >> tucker: and the media is cheering them on. for decades, america's credit to defeating mccarty it's a lie they tell themselves. nobody supports mccarthyism more than the media.a. for weeks, they've been accusing anybody who dissents from the story line of being a russian agent, in effect a traitor. >> behold, the ukraine conspiracy line that senator john kennedy keeps returning to is utter nonsense. it's vapor. its distraction. it's deflection. >> this talking point,ac the g.o.p. cannot quit. >> using the talking points that come right out of vladimir putin's talking points. >> repeating russian talking points.

>> repeating russian talking points. >> parroting rushing talking points. >> pushing rushing talking points. >> frankly, it's a kremlin talking point. it's a putin talking point. what is going on here? >> it's hard to believe that is realki. >> when ted cruz appeared on "meet the press," which is a show of long standing sundays with a dwindling audience and suggested there's evidence that ukraine metal during 2016, 16, nbc's chuck todd, open partisan, acted like cruz was mentally ill. >> do you believe ukraine meddled in the election? >> i do and i believe there is credible evidence -- >> you do? senator, this strikes me as odd. >> tucker: chuck todd who is

wholly ignorant of everything -- i can't believe you think that! you must be working for-- buck sexton, what's the cost of media leaders who don't know anything but anything are recklessly throwing out the allegations that people they disagree with politically or somehow working for a hostile foreign power. >> i think trump derangement has led to russian derangement and this really does approach the pathological. the way they all bleed in unison about kremlin talking points, it's like they are the barnyard creatures from "animal farm," shutting down anyone who wants to have a discussion what's really going on with ukraine and russia but broader true geopolitics. you look at the facts, you find out trump for example was the commander-in-chief when we killed 200 russian that obama was too scared to give because it would've upset

the kremlin. they say he's putin's puppet. they say that anyone who points out at political and news outlets reported on ukrainian government officials trying to take the balance of the 2016 election in some way to clinton. these are new stories that have not been retracted that are still out there. this is something that very b dishonest people say to audiences they think aren't very smart because you have to accept that they had been wrong or lying about what's going on with trump, with putin, with ukraine for over three years now. that would mean that maybe they are not very smart. >> tucker: that certainly applies to chuck todd, i would say, to be specific about it. that's a 20-watt bulb. i get a sense that he believes what he's saying. he thinks people who disagree with him must be working for

vladimir putin. >> it's not like they found a t couple of kremlin assets working in thef trump campaign. it's not like there's been some collusion of talking points. they keep saying this and now we have people coming out --ey carter page is owed a apology from a lot of people including the government. they're never able to point to any one was a kremlin asset, these people know nothing better saying this about russia, geopolitics. they hear other pundits and the same thing. they know this, if you tag someone with russia that nothing else they say matters. it reminds me how there are some of us like me knew something about counterterrorism during the obama administration and any time you would say, obama doesn't know what he's doing. not taking the right pushed to the middle east, they would say they are doing the terrorist's bidding or bin laden's bidding. this time is kremlin talking points. it's just nonsense. i don't know.. >> tucker: they always want to destroy an individual, carter

page, roger stone, in order to achieve political power.o buck sexton, great to see you.rd more impeachment hearings held on capitol hill today. impeachment! ukraine! we'll show you the best moments, air quotes around that. plus the saudi government was apparently tied to both 9/11 and the recent attack on a naval base in pensacola. and yet, the u.s. government stands by our so-called allyyl without thinking because reallys iran is the great threat. what's going on? is anyone seeing things clearly? that's just ahead. ♪ [ electrical buzzing ]

[ dramatic music ] ahhhh! -ahhhh! elliott. you came back!

>> tucker: there's an awful lot of news today along with the bottom of the ig report, today also brought a round ofaw impeachment hearings in the house judiciary committee. during those hearings, congressman matt gaetz of florida got into it with the chairman from new york's jerry nadler over the refusal to make adam schiff testify before the community. here's how it went. >> the implication is we want schiff in that chair, not you. the person who wrote the report should come and present it and you when elected by anybody and you're giving that testimony inn place of the chairman. i hope that clears up the implication. >> he cannot simply yell out and disrupt the committee! >> tucker: not allowed to make rational points on the hill. congressman matt gaetz of florida joins us. looks like you cleared up that implication. >> i may not be on jerrold

nadler's christmas list anymore. if he believes that the he should take questions based on his bias, his contact with the whistle-blower, and anything he was doing outside the bounds of the law. instead, it was day cured donor to work today, where some of the left's big donors were able to come in and asked other questions but it's this dystopian reality where i'm watching one democrat donor asked questions of another democrat donor about issues that we could all read about but they just want to give their hot takes. >> tucker: such a nice description. the whistle-blower. are we ever going to have public confirmation of this person the prosperous identity and doesn't matter? >> it depends on the day. adam schiff said the only way to resolve the dispute is to hear from the whistle-blower and later when the whistle-blower's potential connections to members of adam schiff's committee orns potential conventions to campaigns started leaking out to public reporting, they didn't want to hear from thens

whistle-blower anymore. >> tucker: without using hisis name are you satisfied that the person identified as a whistle-blower has been -- >> the only person who knows who the whistle-blower is as adamme schiff. >> tucker: will be talking with ken starr about today's impeachment hearings but we want to get to this. want to ask about the congressman at the naval air station at pensacola.pe it was committed by a saudi naval officer. the question, obvious one, is it time based on this another fact to reevaluate our relationship with saudi arabia? >> the first thing we need to do is to join governor desantis' call to the kingdom to step over the victim. i will call for the immediate suspension for the program will be bring saudis here to the united states without sufficient vetting to stop living like this. we put ourselves at risk. and absolutely we need to support the fbi's investigation and not allow anything to impair

it. at some point, we've got to look >> they trade in oil on the u.s. dollar. if you want to have truth talk, we need them selling oil on the u.s. dollar in order to maintain the dominance of the dollar and make our sanctions effective elsewhere in the world amongst oil-producing nations. that is not a reason to turn a blind eye to saudi potential of

involvement in 9/11, the shooting in pensacola. when we look at their war in yemen, saudi arabia is engaged in all kinds of terrible atrocious >> tucker: if the people who committed those murderers were iranians, who would have troops in tehran right now and i would probably support it. >>wo there is a good amount of washington would like to have troops there by lunchtime tomorrow. >> tucker: congressman matt gaetz, great to see you tonight. thank you very much. fox's pete hegseth booted off twitter for sharing part of the the suspension was for threatening or promoting terrorism. twitter has defended him for violating company rules. did pete hegseth promote terrorism? he joins us now to explain. i don't understand this.

>> neither do i. i simply posted the words of the terrorist killed three americans in a terrorist attack. yet, i am violating the twitter policies on terrorism and therefore armband. listen, if we live in a country where we can't know why the people who attack us and why they did it, why are we here? why do we have a first amendment? i'm hosting ahe news program. i don't play the veteran card, i don't. i served in iraq and afghanistan and i guarded these guys. i know what they want to do to us. if we can't share that with the people, their true motivation, hatred for america. look at the false narrative from the pc folks of silicon valley. they will ban me, they'll been anybody. >> tucker: that is exactly

right. think about the people they don't have access to this>> platform? what is the status? >> they told me if i delete the tweet then i can go back on the platform. if i don't then i'm gone. of course i'm not going to delete the tweet. it was simply sharing the manifesto and exposing the motives of this terrorist. if i don't do that, i don't get to tweet anymore. you are so right, tucker. it's not the people who have a profile, it's the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands who share staff about radical islam which is taboo. they are blocked every day. silicon valley is in bed with defendant under the guise of defending against islamophobia. anyone who exposes the things i that radical islam is doing, that's what i ran up against. >> tucker: there is no limit to the things you could say about christianity and remain. >> analysts.

the double standard is there a blatant. >> tucker: thank you. keep us updated. >> we will keep fighting. thank you. >> tucker: you heard him say he served in afghanistan. that war in that country has now dragged on for 18 years. the pentagon under the last administration lied to us extensively about what was happening there. hadils i ♪ so nice to meet you june, ja, ji, kay, raj, and... ray! good job, brain! say hello to neuriva, a new brain supplement with clinically proven ingredients that fuel five indicators of brain performance. neuriva.

>> tucker: want to feel old? it's been 18 years since

the u.s. military declared on television. over and over, government leaders tells us that the war is making progress and we couldn't pull out. newly released documents show they were lying repeatedly. officials distorted statistics to conceal from the public which was happening which would in fact was a disaster. hundreds and billions of dollars were spent -- how much did we spend? we spent more than the entire marshall plan after inflation. d it was all wasted trying too modernize afghanistan's tribal society. they didn't know who the enemy was a lot of times. they never admitted it in public to the people paying for the wars, dying, fighting. what happened to the people who did this, who prosecuted this disaster and misled you about it. if you orchestrated a orgy of incompetence on this scale you would be in jail. you wouldn't have a job.

the people who did it are still in the job. they are running lobbyists come on think tanks, defense contractors but no one is ever punished. douglas mcgregor has been warning the public by the futility of what's happening. we have video proof on the way back to 2010. watch this. >> before i let you go, should we be spending a trillionn dollars in the islamic world to import democracy? >> absolutely not. it's a dead end. it's a hopeless endeavor. it's a bottomless pit for our resources. e >> tucker: if only we listen. we didn't. doug mcgregor joins us tonight. thank you for coming on. >> sure. >> tucker: what we learn is what we suspected, the people in charge lied to us. what i'm amazed by is nobody -- the people who lie to us aboutpl this disaster, where are they

now? >> first, let me go over some ugly things which i have to do the segment. i want to say, go army, beat navy, 120th game on saturday. i'm a west point graduate. i want to see the army win. set that aside, little has changed in the senior ranks of the u.s. army and marines since the vietnam period. we see the people who set aside the truth in flavor of pleasant fiction. at that time, were awarded for promotion for doing so. we need to remember that president trump in july 2016 gathered his cabinet, brought in his advisors, and said i want to leave afghanistan immediately. i want out. and everyone who had any service in the military community formed or otherwise, all close ranks and said you can't leave. if you leave, the world as you

know it will end, and we are making progress. we need to send more troops, double down. the same routine that went on with president obama. ultimately we know the rest of the story. there is no one who walked in with any military experience the truth. you are right, mr. president. we need to cut our losses and get out before more good soldiers, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, colonels, warrant officers are killed. it didn't happen. what about the generals that brought us this tragedy? some of them are not retired. i recorded before i came in david petraeus pushing back in saying, i stand by everything i said. either he's lying at the time or he's delusional because we know from the report that others who were there on the ground who are not generals saying, look, this is a disaster, it's not working. president trump has an opportunity right now to drain the military swamp.

go after the senior officer is on active duty right now who play a role in this. interestingly enough, general milley is featured in these papers but one of those who kept saying no, the police, the army, afghan forces, they are doing a great job, we areke making progress when that was absolutely untrue. i think if he was invited to retire, that would send a very positive message to the rest of the force. lying doesn't pay anymore. >> tucker: if you raise your children the way washington treats his policymakers where there is no penalty whatsoever for dishonesty, you'd be a sociopath. >> yes. >> tucker: thank you so much for what you are doing to people incredibly angry at a lot of things in america but especially about an advertisement for an exercise bike. they are so mad that the company who makes that bike saw stock price declined by a billion dollars. because the ad was really that bad. s

maybe people complaining about it were that bad. mark steyn would sort it out for us. plus, ken starr reacts to the impeachment hearings. that straight-ahead. ♪ hey, come on.

[ electrical buzzing ] [ dramatic music ] ahhhh! -ahhhh! elliott? elliott. you came back!

>> tucker: this ad for the exercise bike, watched. ready? >> a palatine? >> i'm nervous, but excited.it let's do this. five days in a row. are you surprised?

>> thriving! >> it's totally worth it.ou a year ago i didn't realize how much this would change me. thank you. >> tucker: are you offended? do you think they seem like a nice couple? you are not woke then. you should be as mad as twitter is. you should recognize what you are watching is toxic mamasculinity meeting the patriarchy to oppress women with exercisese bikes. the response has been so negative that ad that the market cap for peloton dropped by almost a billion dollars after the ad was released. why is an exercise bike company to worth billions? that's another question. addresses the first question, but why is this sexist? t >> here's the thing. i do not personally think this is sexist. as you said, may be this woman wanted a peloton bike.

they are worth over $2,000 for it if my boyfriend got me a peloton bike i personally would be pretty excited. but you know, if people are offended, okay, we can take that into account. i want to bring up this point: maybe it's sexist to assume that the husband got the bike to work on because the woman said she wants to buy for healthiness. >> tucker: who is more judgmental about women of high stress weights? men or women? >> are you ask me that question? >> tucker: i think you know the answer! >> i took a poll on my twitter because i knew i was coming on and i was very interested because i'm one of the young women who follow me and i was actually surprised most of my followers say, i do not think this is sexist.

only one of them said it did bit i think this is also a take of twitter blowing up that's now become a viral moment. i mean, it's funny. i have to say, when i first saw the commercial, i thought before it blew up, i thought this was over the top and it's kind of big weird commercial.ug they are making the peloton into this grand the thing, the song and everything. i knew it would get attention. i do have to say that i'm surprised it got this much of a negative backlash for being called sexist. i think that making some assumptions and i think we should let the woman choose what she wants. >> you are pro-choice on the peloton question. great to see you tonight. >> thank you. >> tucker: let's take another look at that sexist ad. watch. >> your coffee, sir. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> how can such a pretty wife made such bad coffee.

>> sorry, that was a folgerspr coffee ad from the 1960s. mark steyn to assess how sexistf that peloton ad was.he >> i had no knowledge of this.t my friend, her song is used in this. "she is so high," this is about how this woman is so high above the singer. she is on a different level. and clearly, the people who created this ad are woke madison avenue types. they do ben & jerry's and they do uber, they are plugged into the zeitgeist. as they are on madison avenue, wealthier than most americans. this woman who looks fabulous, she's so high, high above you. but she has ballooned up to 103 pounds.o maybe if we buy her a $2500

exercise bike, she will be able to look more cadaverous and emaciated. how does that relate to any of this? but least of all the bit where she is -- he's in the ad for five seconds and his career is over. he's being talked about, the little pajama boy is there for five seconds. he is a combination of harvey weinstein, matt lauer, and charlie rose. that's his reputation on twitter. the actress has made a response ad in which her girlfriends talk about the safe space she needs. the weirdest thing about this is that after she's been on the exercise bike, they sit down on the sofa and watch the video. she takes videos of herself all the timeafrcple exercising on t. you know, there's nothing on tv -- people say, do you want to

watch a lousy guest host? should we watch you sitting on the exercise bike? what are they going to do the next time? sitting on the sofa -- i can't relate to any of this! the only big take away of this, for all people talking about celebrating diversity, one way to celebrate is the conformity. if you go by into a perspective even for a niche product, if you don't buy into all the pieties. you have to be hunted down and destroyed. we have stereotypes -- that folgers and about the beautiful wife who makes horrible coffee. there are women like that. they are also horrible wives who make beautiful coffee.ri it's a crapshoot. that's like tapestry. the stereotype that is applied, and how your coffee is made by a

20-year-old pajama boy whose six-figure college debt. things change. this urge to enforceor conformiy is so disturbing. it's actually totalitarian. >> tucker: artists ought to be fighting against it and instead they're embracing it. we are finding out who the actual artists aren't output with the top of the list. i mean it. mark steyn. >> tucker: coming up, we'll have even more on today's impeachment hearings. hard to believe we can spend another segment on something so vacuous. but we have former special counsel ken starr joining us for reaction.. ♪

♪ >> tucker: house speaker nancy pelosi made it pretty clear last week that the president is going to be impeached no matter what. the house is continuing to hold hearings, as if it's a question. ken starr knows a lot about impeachment. he was special counsel in the whitewater investigation under bill clinton. today on fox he accused democrats of steadily lowering the bar for what merits impeachment. ken starr joins us tonight. thank you very much for coming on. >> my pleasure, tucker. >> tucker: we thought about this more than any living american. what qualifies as a high crime or misdemeanor sufficient to impeach? how i would you rate the charges against the president now? >> i would rate the current charges as not meeting, not even

coming near the term high crimes and misdemeanors. those terms are tied to treason and bribery and other high crimes, not low crimes, not a low misdemeanors.es something profoundly serious. and also something, i think history is a great teacher here, tucker, read the nixon impeachment articles. they are so powerful. he read those articles and you understand why 400 members of te house of representatives said, we've got to go through with impeachment here. read the glint in articles, muce more divisive, to be sure. when you read the articles, this is serious stuff. we don't know what the articles are going to say but what we do know is, there will be no republican support whatsoever. they will be some democratic slippage as well. so this will be unprecedented in american history. the most partisan approach and history o of the republic. >> tucker: you've never had a party man impeachment or anything near approaching it. what will bey the effect do you expect on a country of something

like that? >> a deeper division and an increasing utilization, which is always seen, of impeachment as simply a political tool. reasonable minds can differ about the phone call. i don't see why reasonable minds, given all that we know about the facts, all the testimony that we have had, would say, that was a crime, or that was such an abuse of power, which is the current nomenclature, that the president must be removed because he's a clear and present danger to the american polity. it's extravagant, in my view, and so i think we have organized impeachment, unfortunately. >> tucker: going forward, will there -- can you expect that every president will have to expect and impeachment? >> that is the fear, that we have become impeachment happy. we shouldn't.

impeachment should be the last resort, and now it's simply a political tool, famously we now know "the washington post" said 18 minutes after the president was sworn in, the impeachment effort has begun. that is profoundly wrong, and a great disservice to the american republic. >> tucker: very quick, just in 15 seconds, do you know what this is about? what is it about trump that makes people feel threatened as they do? >> he is so unorthodox. he does not play by the traditional rules. so he clearly episodes the career foreign service. that is forr starters. >> tucker: they can control him, so they want him destroyed. it's amazing to watch. ken starr, thank you for much for your perspective. appreciated. >> thank you, tucker. >> tucker: we are out of time tonight. could go on forever and would love to. but as it is, we'll be back, tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. enemy of lying, pomposity, of lying, pomposity, smugness,

and groupthink. all of which are in high abundance here in washington. good night from your capitalig city, the one you pay for every year. we go now to new york and taking control of fox news right now is sean hannity. hey, sean. >> sean: tucker -- sorry. oh, is a time? sorry, kidding. >> tucker: [laughs] >> sean: buckle up, welcome to "hannity." breaking tonight, fisa abuse report is officially out internet, the deep state, they need to understand they are all in deep legal jeopardy. premeditated fraud perpetrated repeatedly on the fisa court with all the unverifiable flies, to from hillary clinton's bought and paid for dirty russian dossier put together by christopher steele who had only one source, yeah, a guy that was an egomaniac known to live. nothing but outright lies, corruption, abuse of power, a massive political bias,