CNN's Jeff Zucker wins a First Amendment Award

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CNN's Jeff Zucker wins a First Amendment Award

Tucker Carlson takes on the awards and CNN's interpretation of free speech.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," March 14, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Good evening and welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” I've got to be honest, not many of us in the press are looking forward to the 2020 Democratic primary. Just hours ago, it felt like it was going to be an exhausting miserable affair. The current field is a mixture of fossils, extremists and power hungry cynics willing to say anything and hurt anybody to get a hold on the White House. But things have changed.

A new candidate has entered the race, a man untethered from the old ways, possibly even from the conventional restrictions of physics, time and space, more a spiritual force than a temporal leader, more a poet than a politician. Ladies and gentlemen, the author of our redemption, Beto O'Rourke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beto O'Rourke the social media phenom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Despite his loss to Ted Cruz, the rock and roll loving 46-year-old caught the nation's attention. His offbeat social media posts appealing to a younger generation even taking up skateboarding at What-a-Burger. His Senate candidacy winning the endorsement of celebrities like Beyonce.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Beto loves rock and roll says "GMA." He is not like everyone else. He doesn't do stuffy speeches or policy programs. He is not going to bore you with entitlement projections or some scary stuff about the Korean peninsula.

Beto has a skateboard and wears nirvana t-shirts. His vision for this country is 1995. That was the year he was living way uptown walk up and working as a man and he knew this dude on West 112th Street with some of the stickiest bud in Manhattan -- Indica - a little heavy, but sweet. It was a good time. Beto wants to bring us back to that time and the press is totally on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw him for the first time a month ago when he sat down with Oprah and me and the rest of the people in the audience thought wow, this guy has this dynamic, positive energy

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he has that raw talent. He is very kind of Obama-esque indeed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The women voted for him in the suburbs of Houston who hadn't voted Democratic before because they had a kind of Beto crush going on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, he is wholesome and he is earnest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has got that magic dust. Of course his son is named Ulysses. I love that that's his son's name.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has that gleam in his eye. Some of the -- Evan Smith in the "Texas Tribune" said seeing him it's like a Jesus Christ Superstar seeing this guy in front of people. He has got that celebrity aura about him and in that moment he was owning that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You heard it, Beto has got that magic dust oh, yes, and he does at least an eight-ball. Though the guy on 112th Street has more if you need it. Beto has great hair, too. Beat that combo. Actual voting doesn't begin for months but Beto is already America's spiritual president, and by the way that's a much cleaner way to run for office. Real elections the ones with voters sometimes end like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we have quite a bit of big news to report. We can call now that the Texas race will go to Ted Cruz, the incumbent republican.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ted Cruz win over Beto O'Rourke significant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, that election was a bummer. So Beto splits soon after on a solo road trip. It was a whole me and you and a dog named Boo kind of thing. The sort of trip that Kerouac or Steinbeck would have taken. Just the hum of the engine and the black ribbon of the open road, a time to feed the soul.

Also a time to stage a series of publicity shots for Snapchat and Instagram while simultaneously blogging the whole thing -- timeless stuff. An all- American redemption story. Beto came back a better man. He understood the running for president thing was not for him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there a scenario where you run for President in 2020 or beyond?

BETO O'ROURKE, D-TX, FORMER REPRESENTATIVE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No?

O'ROURKE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Unequivocally, you will never run for president.

O'ROURKE: No punto. No period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: No punto, baby. Down the border where the people are authentic and speak various languages at once. That means, yes, I am hiring for President just as soon as I can hire a staff of consultants and line up some billionaires to fund it, but for now, I will lie about my plans.

And that's exactly what Beto did. And so here we are in the age of Beto. What's the plan, man? What are we doing? What's next? But what's next Beto says is understanding that the things that we think of as terrifying threats to the country are actually perfectly cool.

Like more than 20 million people using fake identities to live illegally inside the United States. That's not a problem. That's the best, man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'ROURKE: All of us, wherever you live can acknowledge that if immigration is a problem it's the best possible problem for this country to have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, it's the best problem. Hard to think of a better problem. Illegal immigration is such a cool problem to have, we ought to have more. Let's knock down the border walls, dude.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HAYES, ANCHOR, MSNBC: If you could, would you take the wall down now here?

O'ROURKE: Yes.

HAYES: Like you have a wall.

O'ROURKE: Absolutely.

HAYES: You'll knock it down.

O'ROURKE: I would take the wall down.

HAYES: And do you think the city -- you think if there is a referendum here on this city that would pass?

O'ROURKE: I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, it's fine. But that's not to say Beto doesn't see problems on the horizon. He does, and when he does, his dough brown eyes cloud a little and he stares off in the distance to consider a holistic solution just like James Dean would have done if he would have lived to be Beto's age and could skateboard.

Beto says global warming is a major bummer. Global warming could make us go extinct like the dinosaurs in the museums, man, dead forever.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'ROURKE: Some will criticize the Green New Deal for being too bold or being unmanageable. I will tell you what, I haven't seen anything better that addresses the singular crisis that we face, a crisis that could, as its worse lead to extinction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Extinction, that's what Beto is fighting against. What else is he for? That's a fair question, but honestly it's not really clear. We checked his campaign website there is a picture there that says "Beto for America," in English. The one in Spanish says "Beto for all."

We couldn't find any actual policies even about fighting extinction. We did find a sweet Beto tote bag just 30 bucks you don't have to pledge to NPR to get it, although you probably already have. You ought to get one. It's awesome.

Chris Plante hosts the "Chris Plante Show." He joins us tonight. So Chris, rather than asking you the conventional political questions about who is up or down in this race, I want to do a very quick quiz because it's Thursday and it's called stoned tenth grader or Beto. I am going to read you a couple of quick quotes and you tell me where this one came from -- stoned tenth grader or Beto. Here is the first one, and I'm quoting now. "I'm going to take my sweater off and it's not because he asked about marijuana." Who said that?

CHRIS PLANTE, HOST, CHRIS PLANTE SHOW: I'm going to go with Beto on that.

CARLSON: There is a reason you won "Jeopardy." Yes. Here is the second. "When I was six and seven years old, I didn't know I wasn't a Mexican."

PLANTE: I am going to go with Beto on that one, too.

CARLSON: Man. Okay. You are right on that again. Okay. Here's the last one. And I'm quoting. "I don't know if it's a speech or not, but it felt amazing because every word was pulled out of me like by some greater force which was just the people there, everything that I said I was like watching myself being like how am I saying this stuff? Where is this coming from?" Said a stoned tenth grader or Beto?

PLANTE: Can I combine the two and make it a Stoned 46-year-old?

CARLSON: Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Si, si puede as you might say. Exactly. That's so good. So what is -- so obviously, this is a campaign micro targeted at morning shows on the other channels? I mean, I get that to the media class, but who else might be taken by this candidacy?

PLANTE: Well, he has all the qualities as you described there to be a DJ on an MTV show or to win "The Bachelor" and get a rose and win the date or whatever it is they win on those shows.

But now, the process we have is instead of winning a rose and getting a date at the end, you get the White House and that's basically what this is. It is a game show and Beto is the hero as you said of the morning shows. He was called a rock star at least twice.

I was only watching for a little while on CNN this morning -- rock star, rock star -- and they couldn't be more excited. They were giddy and they didn't bring up anything. There was nothing discouraging or critical that you can say of Beto.

He is nearly perfect. He is going to prevent the secular apocalypse which looms large in everyone's mind. I know we have 12 years. Have you noticed we have a 12-year countdown clock, but the countdown clock never starts counting down? That they keep using the 12 years and they are going to keep using it for years and years.

Six years from now, we are still going to have 12 years and that's their timeline for saving us from ourselves from the dreaded secular apocalypse.

Today, some of the audio I played of him today, he is talking about countries where people now live which will soon be under water and will be uninhabitable and hundreds of millions of refugees are going to flood to us and we better take them in and learn their languages and do whatever.

Barack Obama claimed he would slow the rise of the oceans. I think that Beto's claims are much more grandiose than Obama's.

CARLSON: Can I ask you a non-Beto -- I just cannot resist since you have been in the media for so long and you know it so well. Linguists have shown that the use of cliches is a marker for low IQ. Dumb people speak entirely in cliches. What does it tell you that almost every political reporter uses the same cliches every four years -- "He is a rock star."

PLANTE: It is amazing.

CARLSON: Is there no original language allowed in political coverage ever?

PLANTE: The reporters are more and more -- the candidates are using the same bumper sticker language and brief -- keep it brief, keep it to the point, keep it simple, stupid. Hope and change -- this I have got -- today there was no hope and change. It was all horror and apocalypse and we are all going to die.

It was the most uninspiring and uninspired message I had ever heard from a presidential candidate in the United States in their first day running. It was grim and glum and you know, the woman had you on a couple nights ago who doesn't want to have children, that's because she was listening to people like Beto O'Rourke and we're all going to die.

CARLSON: That's totally true.

PLANTE: It's utterly apocalyptic. And if that's an inspiring message for the Democratic Party in 2020, then "Hello, President Trump second term."

CARLSON: So I've got to make a correction. Apparently, we just got a call in the control room and we made a mistake the quote when, "I was six or seven, I didn't know that I wasn't a Mexican," is not from Beto, it was from Beto's dad it's not from a stoned tenth grader either.

PLANTE: Well, his father --

CARLSON: True fact apparently, I just heard that in my ear, so I would like to apologize and correct.

PLANTE: Well, Beto's father was a big -- he has changed parties, Beto's father. He has changed parties. He is now a Republican apparently, but he did campaign for Jesse Jackson for President repeatedly and his father used to be maybe he put down the bong, too. I don't know. But now, I read at least that you can't believe everything you read that he has come over to the bright side.

CARLSON: Interesting. We are going to have to drug test at some point for candidates. Chris, thanks very much. Good to see you.

PLANTE: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: David Tafuri is a lawyer, a former adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and he joins us tonight to assess this new addition to the Democratic primary field. Great to see you, David.

DAVID TAFURI, FORMER ADVISER TO BARACK OBAMA'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So if you could summarize the skateboard candidacy of Beto O'Rourke, how would you?

TAFURI: Well, I would say on the behalf of the Republicans, it's fear, because you just spent 10 minutes being sarcastic about Beto O'Rourke, as did Chris. You guys are pretty funny. You came up with some good attacks on him. And I think those are some of the attacks that the Republican will use.

CARLSON: It was easy.

TAFURI: But you know, there is a super PAC in Iowa, Fund for Growth, that's already put up ads against Beto. They've started last week before he even declared for President. That's because Republicans are scared of him as a candidate.

Now, why are they scared? Number one reason is because he ran for Senate in Texas which is a red state and he almost won --

CARLSON: Wait, can I pause really quickly and say if Republicans are afraid of him that means that he is harmless. I mean, Republicans also thought Jeb Bush was going to be the nominee, so Republican consensus is almost never right in politics. That's not a good marker. But tell me why you think he is a great candidate. He just lost a Senate race.

TAFURI: I was saying, you know, he almost won in a super red state, Texas. That means can he bring over independent voters to vote for him. No other candidate on the Democratic side has been able to show that they can do that in a red state statewide.

He also is a prodigious fundraiser. He raised $70 million for his Senate campaign. That's a record. No other candidate for Senate on either side of the aisle has ever raised that much money. That makes him a formidable candidate. Now, he doesn't have a full platform of issues --

CARLSON: So he has got the billionaire class behind him. Okay.

TAFURI: He doesn't have a full platform of issues yet.

CARLSON: Well, he doesn't have, he has got a tote bag and some talk about extinction, but he doesn't have really a platform at all, and so why would you announce for President before coming up with answers to the basic questions about where the country should go?

TAFURI: Well, that's a good question, and I think it's a strength and weakness for him. Obviously, the weakness is he doesn't have a full platform of things can he run on. Though he was a Congressman for six years and he did vote on lots of different legislation, but he has to now build his platform, but it can be purpose-built for 2020 aimed at the center. He is a moderate Democrat.

So he can distinguish himself from the left wing part of the party --

CARLSON: Wait a minute. Why are you attacking Beto?

TAFURI: He is going to distinguish himself from Bernie Sanders and from Elizabeth Warren and he is going to go on that track.

CARLSON: David, David. No, you are supposed to be defending him and now you are attacking him. You just said he would build his platform purpose built for this election. In other words, he would be whatever he thinks he needs to be. He is totally as hollow as he seems.

TAFURI: No, that's not what I'm saying.

CARLSON: That's what you're saying.

TAFURI: No, that's not what I said. Actually --

CARLSON: If he believes in something, why doesn't he just tell us what it is?

TAFURI: One of the reasons he is appealing is because voters view him as genuine that's born out in the election results and the Senate campaign in Texas. That's borne out in the polling as well.

So he is going to build an agenda. It's going to be consistent with his own values. What I'm saying is he is not on the record on lots of different issues. So he can build it in a way that's consistent with his own values but tracks towards the middle of America and shows a serious contrast with President Trumps whose poll numbers are still very low, historically low.

CARLSON: So let me ask you really, really quick, I think a Democrat has a shot for sure. But Beto specifically -- very quick he on camera said that we should tear down the border barriers that separate the United States from Mexico. Are you for that?

TAFURI: That's not what he said. He said, we should tear down the wall in El Paso where is he from because actually the crime rate went up in El Paso after they built the wall. That's a fact.

CARLSON: The city on the other side. That's not -- hold on -- the city on the other side is one of the most dangerous places in the world.

TAFURI: But not El Paso.

CARLSON: So why would you --

TAFURI: But not El Paso.

CARLSON: Right, because there's a wall between them. So do you think we should tear down the border wall between El Paso and Juarez? Do you think that?

TAFURI: I don't. I do not think we should tear down the wall.

CARLSON: Because it's insane actually. And everyone thinks it is. That's the point.

TAFURI: But immigration is going to be an important issue for Beto, and what he is going to have to be able to show is that because is he from a border town and he is from a border state and he has been in local government and in Congress that he knows how to deal with the issue of immigration. He certainly cannot be dealing with open borders.

CARLSON: He is not dealing with it, he is --

TAFURI: He can't be for open borders because America is not for open borders. But he can come up with some reasonable solutions and compromises that all of America would support.

CARLSON: Tear down the wall.

TAFURI: That would protect our country but the path for legalization for some folks who are here like the TPS and the DREAMers.

CARLSON: I think your average person will say tearing down the wall between El Paso and Juarez is not a mainstream position, I mean, you don't support it.

TAFURI: I don't support it, I agree with you.

CARLSON: Well, we'll have plenty of time to talk about this as the Beto movement continues, dude. Thank you.

TAFURI: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, newly released transcripts from Peter Strzok reveal the scope of the FBI's insurance policy -- the famous insurance policy which was of course, was the Russia investigation. We have got details on that after the break.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: It's time right now to get your free trial on Fox Nation, our new streaming service. It is the perfect complement right here to the Fox News Channel and foxnation.com features exclusive shows even for me and your favorite Fox News personalities, people you know, and people you're just meeting.

Here is a preview of Season Two of "What Made America Great."

BRIAN KILMEADE, HOST: I'm going to bring it to Lincoln Memorial. But I'm going to bring you to a place that you've not seen before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the most visited monument, the iconic place to be in Washington and across the world.

KILMEADE: You promised me a visit. Can we go?

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KILMEADE: All right. We're really going in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're really going in and we're going to go down the stairs below the Lincoln Memorial. It's so grand, the public should see it, too. What we're going to do is going to go into the Grand Chamber and I'm going to show you some fascinating art that is really a time capsule back.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To 1914 to 1922.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Republican Congressman, Doug Collins today released a transcript of disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok's testimony before the Congress. The transcript shed some light on his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail server as well as his now famous text message to his girlfriend, Lisa Page assuring her that the FBI had a quote "insurance policy" against candidate Donald Trump.

Fox Washington correspondent Kristin Fisher has been on this story and has more for us tonight. Hey, Kristin.

KRISTIN FISHER, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. Well, there are several revelations in the transcript released today from Peter Strzok's closed door testimony, and perhaps the biggest is that despite all of those anti-Trump text messages, Strzok told the committee that Special Counsel Robert Mueller never once pressed him on political bias. The transcript also reveals that the Justice Department essentially cut a deal with Hillary Clinton's attorneys that laid the ground rules for FBI access to her personal e-mail servers and Strzok said part of that deal was that the FBI was not given access to any e-mails about the Clinton Foundation.

Republican congressman Doug Collins who released the transcript explains why he did it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DOUG COLLINS, R-GA: I believe the American people deserve transparency and deserve to know what transpired at the highest echelons of the FBI during this tumultuous time for the bureau.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FISHER: Strzok's attorney put out a statement saying, "Pete welcomes the release of the transcript and that it is further evidence that Pete, at all times discharged his duties honorably, patriotically and without regard to his personal political opinions."

But remember, the Justice Department's own Inspector General concluded that he did not have confidence that Strzok's decision to prioritize the Trump investigation over the Clinton investigation was free from bias -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Kristin Fisher for us in Washington. Thanks very much. Francey Hakes is a former DOJ official and a trusted voice, we think, on this matter and she joins us tonight. Francie, thanks very much for coming on. What's your reaction to this transcript?

FRANCEY HAKES, FORMER DOJ OFFICIAL: Well, Tucker, unfortunately it doesn't surprise me at all. I think that anyone who thought that the FBI was making decisions alone without prosecutors from the Department of Justice doesn't understand how the Department of Justice works.

FBI agents cannot file an arrest warrant. They can't get a complaint. They can't get a FISA warrant for sure. They can't get a search warrant or a grand jury subpoena without a Federal prosecutor and they certainly can't go to grand jury and get an indictment. So they needed Federal prosecutors to agree to prosecute.

CARLSON: Tell me what we know about the insurance policy. I mean, that seems like the most ominous phrase to come out of all of the declassified and unearthed documents in the last two years and no one has ever really explained sufficiently what they were talking about.

HAKES: No, they really haven't, Tucker. It's actually sad when you see a career man like Peter Strzok coming out and saying through his attorney that he was a patriot and free from bias when it appears very clear that he had a preference in the presidential election and his text messages with Lisa Page show that he was acting on that bias.

I just don't know how you can argue otherwise. Partisans certainly do, but people with a brain certainly can't and it looks clear to me that they were putting their thumb on the election and the insurance policy with this bogus counterintelligence operation that started with nothing and was lies to the FISA court and we are here two years later, still talking about collusion.

CARLSON: So a functioning government would see this as a threat to people's faith in government itself and so the power that the DOJ wields over our lives and will go in there and make absolutely certain that none of this crap remained and that people were fired over it and show the public, "Look, this is a clean agency." That hasn't happened, why?

HAKES: I don't know, Tucker. It really, really baffles me that the President has not fully declassified absolutely everything and made everyone give statements about exactly what their motivations are. There are lots of people we have never heard from.

I have no idea who the prosecutors were in the Clinton e-mail matter or for that matter that worked early on the Trump investigation and counterintelligence and who sought the FISA warrant. We don't know their names. We don't know their motivations. We don't know why they did it. We don't know why they lied to the FISA Court. I don't understand why this hasn't been declassified. I hope that soon we have all the answers so everyone can evaluate it.

CARLSON: Of course because I mean, Trump is at the center of the story, but the story isn't really about Trump. It's about whether you can trust that your government isn't lying to you and trying to hurt you for political reasons.

And all of us have a right to believe that and we don't. Francey Hakes, I hope you will stick with us as this story continues because it's always great to hear from you. Thank you.

HAKES: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Outrage is spreading tonight after dozens of people were indicted. They were accused of engaging in a massive scheme to cheat college admissions to game the system. Now, several colleges are themselves being sued in this and we will have the very latest on it. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Over the last 30 years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has become a powerful force in American politics. It has a lot of power and it gets it by systematically slandering the political enemies of the left who oppose their agenda on immigration, practice conventional Christianity, believe in the biological difference between the sexes, host a show like this one and you can expect the SPLC to brand you as extremist, a hate group, an enemy of humanity.

They have gotten rich doing it by the way. They've got an endowment of more than $500 million. But even as it called all of its political enemies, evil, the SPLC was -- and you will not be surprised to hear this - - apparently operating on a very different standard within their own offices.

Today, the group abruptly announced the firing of its founder, Morris Dees. The group has not revealed what exactly Dees did. Its statement implies behavior was severe and widespread. The SPLC says that not only has it fired Dees, it will be bringing in an outside investigation in to review the work environment of the entire group.

Josh Moon who is a reporter in Alabama who has reported on this cites an internal SPLC e-mail and says that Dees was fired for a mix of sexual harassment and again, buckle your seat belt for this one, racial bias.

Despite calling the group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, there was nothing impoverished at all about Morris Dees' own lifestyle. He lived very well, probably better than anyone else in the state of Alabama. He was 82. He was the SPLC's highest paid employee and he lived in a luxurious place on a couple of hundred acres.

He got rich by frightening grandmothers sending him direct mail and hurting his political opponents. That pays well.

This evening, Dees spoke with a local reporter and denied all wrongdoing. That's not surprising. Dees has set himself up over 30 years as the arbiter of good and bad. He believes the right thing, so he is by definition a good person. You disagree with him and you are by definition evil.

We will continue to follow this story because we think it tells you a lot.

Meanwhile, the backlash continues tonight after dozens of people were caught taking part in elaborate effort to rig the admissions process at elite colleges across the country.

Yesterday, a class action lawsuit was brought against eight colleges by individuals who claim the schools share the blame for the rigged admissions, which of course they most likely do.

Last night, we told you this simply example of a wider trend. The ruling class looking down on people and gaming a broken system in order to get ahead of them while keeping them out.

But no need to take our word for it, we have the numbers. Thirty three parents, so far have been indicted in this scandal. We took a closer look at all of them.

They are overwhelmingly from the coasts, primarily from the state of California. Then we took a look at political donation history and it was interesting.

Of the 33, just over half had made political donations that we were able to find. Eleven were Democratic donors to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand and others. Eight were Republican donors. But here's the interesting thing. The politicians they backed -- Mitt Romney, Bob Corker and John Ensign.

Not a single one of these people we could find donated to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Now of course, nobody is obligated to donate to Donald Trump now or then or to vote for him, it goes without saying.

But there is a huge split within the Republican Party right now and the side that they found themselves on tells you a lot.

This is a class of people that is absolutely and thoroughly satisfied with the status quo. They are happy with how things have gone in America. They don't need populist politics. They think populist politics are disgusting because populist politics are a threat to them.

They've derided the middle of the country. They accused them of clinging to their guns and their religion. They say they are bitter about the fact they are losers in the modern economy. And even as they do that, they have been using their power and their connections to make certain that that part of the country stays the losers in this modern economy.

They tout diversity as the nation's greatest strength. They point to all the foreign workers they have hired at rock bottom wages, then they made sure their children counted as diverse while powerless kids in West Virginia or Idaho held down as punishment for their so-called privilege for living in some of the poorest states in the country.

In other, words they erected a fence around the meritocracy to make sure it would never apply to them. That's the scam. It happens every day.

Heather Mac Donald is a Manhattan Institute Fellow and author of "The Diversity Delusion," and she joins us tonight. Heather, it's great to see you.

HEATHER MAC DONALD, FELLOW, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: Thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So as you look at this, you are a thinker about big trends in American life. What do you think this reveals about this country?

MAC DONALD: Well, it reveals that college has taken on a grotesquely inflated importance that it does not deserve. The real scandal is how little learning actually goes on in colleges and, yet, you have parents who are absolutely obsessed to credentialize their kids simply for the status.

They don't give a damn about whether their child actually learns something. It also speaks to the grotesquely inflated power of the sports industrial complex within the universities that sports directors get a say over who gets admitted and it also speaks to the fact that this admissions is a black box.

It should be transparent. People should know how it works. This was a scandal waiting to happen because nobody understands how this process works. What I want to say, Tucker though, apart from the fact that colleges do not deserve the tuitions they are getting, they do not deserve the role that they are playing in American life because they have utterly betrayed their responsibility to educate and to pass on the civilizational legacy that is our good fortune to have.

But it is also not really about white privilege. There is a whole set of preferences that are going on in colleges. Legacy preferences are minute compared with racial preferences, so the story is being played by the left at least in a way that I don't think is completely accurate.

CARLSON: Interesting. So, one thing you said really struck me, which is why don't we know the criteria that colleges use to allow young people through the gates onto the path to success in this country? We are paying for these institutions. They are in no sense private. None of them.

I think two -- Hillsdale and Grove City -- everyone else takes Federal funds. So why shouldn't we know? Why do they hide from us how they make these decisions?

MAC DONALD: Well, the main reason is because of the size of racial preferences. That's what they don't want anybody to know, the fact that if you are applying to Harvard being black gets you four times greater chance of being admitted than anybody else. This is much greater than legacy preferences.

But, also, they just see themselves as these artists, it would be wonderful to be able to put every admissions officer out of business by going to a purely meritocratic objective system that would destroy the ability to game the system by allowing people to know how you get in and going by an objective test.

If the left believes that we are so racist, they should not want to put this much discretion in the hands of admission officers and go to an objective test.

CARLSON: That is such a smart point, Heather Mac Donald, you always make the smartest points, it is always great to see you. Thank you.

MAC DONALD: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, you would think Max Boot would be a very grateful man despite having literally zero expertise or experience really in the military or foreign relations, he is somehow considered an expert on both of these. Who knows how?

He even has his own column in the "The Washington Post." Not worth reading, but still, it's a column. I guess, it pays. But despite all of that, Max Boot is not happy.

For one, America is still at peace with both Iran and Russia and that drives him insane. But he is mad for another reason. In a recent column, Boot complains that people keep using the word "neo conservative" to describe people like him. He wants that word retired permanently, banished from the language and public discourse.

It's an unfair term, he says, even an offensive one. When people call him a neocon, they are suggesting that he somehow provided the ideological justification for the Iraq War. They are calling him a clueless warmonger who sees every international incident as an opportunity to launch new wars that other people will die in.

They are calling him a person who can't learn from his mistakes and instead wants to repeat them over and over and over until his country has depleted all the prosperity it took two centuries to build.

Now, you may be thinking at home, wait a minute, all of those things are true about Max Boot. And, of course now you know why Max Boot is so eager to abolish the term neocon, it's become a slur and people like Max Boot are the reason why it's a slur.

Well, up next, a prominent figure in the media is in the news tonight and we are going to take a very close look at why. It's also time for "Final Exam." Can you beat the professionals at remembering these strange and obscure news events that took place in the past week.

Lauren Blanchard up tonight aiming to tie our all-time record. Her challenger Raymond Arroyo.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Oh, it's time now for "Final Exam," your break late in the week where the news professionals compete against one another to see who has been paying the closest attention to what's going on in the news.

After a brief hiatus, tonight, we are happy to say that Fox correspondent, Lauren Blanchard is back. She is here to defend her eight-game winning streak. Sean Spicer and Ed Henry are among those who have been buried by Blanchard. If she wins, she will tie Katie Pavlich and Shannon Bream for the single longest winning streak in this segment.

This week her challenger, one of our all-time favorites, bestselling author, Raymond Arroyo who by the way, who has a new book out, "Will Wilder: The Amulet of Power." So happy to have you tonight, Raymond Arroyo and look, I don't want to come off that high and have you suffer at the hands of Lauren Blanchard who as I know, you know, is deceptively good at this game. But we will see.

RAYMOND ARROYO, AUTHOR: I know.

CARLSON: I know that you both know the rules.

ARROYO: I feel no --

CARLSON: I know you have and I am going to read them for the sake of our audience just tuning in. Okay, your hands on the buzzers. I ask the questions. The first one to buzz in gets to answer the question, of course. You must wait until I finish asking the question before you answer. You can answer once I acknowledge you by saying your name. Every correct answer is worth a single point. Each incorrect answer detracts a point from your total, cruelly. Best of five wins. Are you ready?

LAUREN BLANCHARD, CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

ARROYO: We are ready.

BLANCHARD: Let's do it.

CARLSON: Okay. Question one. Over on social media, where you shouldn't go, but you may anyway, people could not stop talking about a video of a Mitt Romney this week that showed his very unusual method of doing what? Raymond Arroyo.

ARROYO: Blowing out candles.

CARLSON: He can't blow candles? I'm not sure if that's right. We'll go to the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Mitt Romney is being mocked on social media after sharing this video as you can see picking up each individual candle and blowing it out one by one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: It's bizarre. It's bizarre.

BLANCHARD: I don't know. I'm with Mitt on this.

ARROYO: There's a lot of character revealed on that, Tucker, which we won't unpack tonight.

CARLSON: You know what, I'm with you on that, Raymond, I have to say. But we are not going to go farther. This is a game show, not a political show. Okay, this next is multiple choice. So wait until I finish offering all the options before you weigh in. Which famous woman now in her 90s just made her first ever Instagram post? Was it A. Doris Day? B. Betty White? Or C. The Queen? Lauren Blanchard.

BLANCHARD: It was the Queen.

CARLSON: The Queen -- was it the Queen? And by the way, the script does not specify which Queen was a Queen?

BLANCHARD: It was the "The Queen."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT SHOW HOST: Queen Elizabeth, you know the lady from England, she just got on Instagram. The Queen who is 92 years old made her first ever Instagram post today. There she is showing off her revenge body.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: There you go. That was --

ARROYO: We should clarified, Queen Latifah or Queen Elizabeth? I want a clarification from the rules committee on this.

CARLSON: It just said "The Queen." Now, I want you to brace yourselves for this question. This is multiple choice and is difficult. Vegans have come up with a new way to save animals -- 3D printed steaks. It is fake meat. It comes in the form of a vegetable paste that is squirted out of a nozzle into the shape of a rib-eye steak. It sounds appealing. Which combination of vegetable is used to make this steak? Is it A. Cabbage and soy? B. Broccoli and green beans? Or C. Rice and sea weed?

ARROYO: I believe it's the first.

CARLSON: Raymond Arroyo, it's A. Cabbage and soy; is that your answer?

ARROYO: Yes. Cabbage and soy.

CARLSON: Yes, is it cabbage and soy? To the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG GUTFELD, HOST: Who doesn't love a delicious mouth-watering steak like this one? Watch it being lovingly prepared by a 3D printer. Yes, the chef is basically a fax machine with a nozzle. Worse, it's a vegan steak not made from vegans, the ink from its cartridge is made from rice, peas and seaweed. Yes, sea weed. Scrumptlicious.

ARROYO: Oh, no. No.

CARLSON: Raymond, don't berate yourself. In the life of every contestant who faces off against Lauren Blanchard, there is a moment like this. But all is not lost because we're going into question four. And here it is. An unbelievable new photograph shows a South African wildlife photographer getting too close to his subject and winding up in the animal's mouth. What kind of giant beast tried to swallow him? Lauren Blanchard.

BLANCHARD: It was a whale. A whale, a big whale.

CARLSON: A whale? Like a Jonah situation?

BLANCHARD: Yes. It was one of those.

CARLSON: All right, was it a whale? Old Testament come to life?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This has to be an unprecedented picture. Take a look there, the jaws of a whale and there the legs and flippers of a man dangling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A wildlife photographer just his legs showing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It took less than two seconds --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And amazingly, he survived.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: That's unbelievable. He lit a fire inside the whale's belly. Okay, our judges in New York are calling inaudible as they sometimes do, and they are saying that the final question is now worth two points.

ARROYO: Oh, love it.

CARLSON: Okay, it's only fair, it's kind of like a handicap in golf.

ARROYO: You've got to give me a chance. I don't want to end up on a tombstone.

CARLSON: No, you would join a long list of worthy opponents. But in any case, here's the final question -- a wild video out of Australia shows a man paragliding against the countryside of that continent/country. When he finally hits the ground, he is violent attacked by what? Lauren Blanchard?

BLANCHARD: Kangaroo.

CARLSON: Kangaroo. Would make sense. Probably not a koala bear. We will find out. Kangaroo is the answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HODA KOTB, HOST, NBC: A man spent two hours paragliding across the Australian countryside, but the real danger came after Jonathan Bishop landed safely on the ground.

Bishop was actually punched twice by one of the kangaroos before they both bounced away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Lauren Blanchard, there is not a fact you don't know, there is not a viral video you haven't seen, there is not a single piece of minutia of American life that you haven't totally internalized. Raymond, there is no shame in being where you are tonight. You did better than most.

ARROYO: I hope you built a nice tomb for me and not just a head stone.

CARLSON: Congratulations. Your name will live forever.

ARROYO: Congratulations.

BLANCHARD: Thank you, sir. It was so nice.

CARLSON: Congratulations to you and to you, Lauren Blanchard we have the Eric Wemple mug for you. Of course, we are not there to physically present it to you, but you have nine of them now, almost an entire set. Congratulations.

BLANCHARD: So close.

CARLSON: Thanks, guys.

ARROYO: Thank you.

CARLSON: That's it for this week's "Final Exam." Pay excruciating close attention to the news all week. Tune in next Thursday to see if you can beat our experts. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Actor Jussie Smollett has pleaded not guilty to 16 felony charges related to the hate crime he apparently fabricated two months ago. Trace Gallagher has been following it and joins us tonight -- Trace?

TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker, no surprise that the "not guilty" plea came today despite overwhelming evidence against him, the actor vehemently denies the charges.

Remember, Smollett claims that back in February, two men beat him up, put a noose around his neck, poured bleach on him and shouted racial and homophobic slurs and yelled, "This is MAGA country." Those two men are brothers who say Smollett orchestrated the whole thing, even told them where to buy the noose and bleach.

And if 16 counts aren't enough hot water, a threatening letter filled with white powder that turned out to be Tylenol that Smollett is accused of sending himself a week before the alleged attack is now being investigated by Federal authorities. Mail fraud often leads to jail time.

And now it appears that when Smollett was still considered a victim, Tina Tchen, a former senior aide to Michelle Obama told Chicago's top prosecutor, Kim Fox saying Smollett's family was concerned about the police investigation and wanted the matter turned over to the FBI.

Fox later e-mailed Tchen quoting, "Spoke to Superintendent Johnson," that's Chicago's top cop, "I convinced him to reach out to the FBI to ask that they take over the investigation." Fox also sent an unnamed Smollett family member nearly the same message. The family member responded, quote, "Oh my god, this would be huge."

Fox who recused herself before Smollett was charged says the family was worried about media leaks. Superintendent Johnson says he spoke to the FBI, but in the end of investigation stayed where it should have -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Trace Gallagher, good to see you. Well, last night a group of highly paid media figures gathered in Washington, D.C. to do what they do best, congratulate themselves on being such incredibly good people.

It was the Annual First Amendment Awards. This show wasn't nominated by the way, and so to remind you, that might seem a little odd. We spent the last two years almost alone in Washington, by the way, defending the idea that the unpopular ought to be allowed to say uncomfortable things in public. That was our understanding of free speech.

But this is 2019. The point of the First Amendment Award is now just the opposite. It goes to the media executive who has worked most tirelessly to punish the people he doesn't agree with and force them to be quiet.

Given those new criteria, this year's award went to, of course, CNN President, Jeff Zucker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZUCKER, PRESIDENT, CNN: The day that we allow those in power to determine who gets to ask them questions and what kinds of questions we ask, that is the day that this dinner ceases to exist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Who gets to ask the questions? Now whatever you think of Jeff Zucker, he is not encumbered by shame. Keep in mind that it was his network, CNN that argued in public that Fox News should not be allowed to ask any questions of the candidates in the Democratic primary debate -- that just happened.

It was also CNN that demanded that radio show host Alex Jones be silenced because Jeff Zucker didn't like what he was saying. CNN waged a long campaign against Jones. It worked. Jeff Zucker silenced and de-platformed his show. It was a stunning defeat for free speech.

So naturally, Jeff Zucker just won the First Amendment Award.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZUCKER: Whether you like Donald Trump or you dislike Donald Trump, the one thing that I think we can all agree on is that Donald Trump has made American journalism great again.

At CNN, our core mission is to tell the truth, to hold those in power accountable, even when it's uncomfortable, especially when it's uncomfortable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: CNN's mission is to tell the truth. Well, maybe someone ought to tell Carter Page CNN falsely suggested he was a Russian agent and helped destroy his life, or tell it to the Covington High School students.

Jeff Zucker's network slandered and shamed and tried to destroy them all on the basis of lies. The truth, or maybe the judge will believe that, Zucker better hope so. CNN is facing $250 million lawsuit over their fraudulent Covington coverage. Lots of luck.

Jeff Zucker doesn't want to talk about any of that, so as always, he changes the subject to, you guessed it, Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZUCKER: This administration has made it abundantly clear that they do not have respect for or tolerance of a free and independent press. They call us the enemy of the people. They limit our access. They selectively grant interviews most often to outlets that assure them that they will follow the script. Quite literally, they put our lives at risk with their words and their actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Fox News follows a script? Right. This is the only network on television where you won't hear the same script every night. It's the only news channel that deviates in any way from the other ten.

They are united in total conformity. We are different. Zucker hates that. He prefers strict obedience.

Jeff Zucker would shut down Fox News tomorrow if he could. Just the other day, Zucker says that Fox News has, quote,"Done tremendous damage to the country."

How? By disagreeing with him and his friends. This is not the behavior of someone who supports free speech. It's the mark of someone who wants to crush free speech and has. And, yet, in Washington, people like that get First Amendment Awards. It's grotesque.

Well, a collection of 911 calls released by the "Daily Beast" show the miserable often suicidal environment that prevails inside some of Amazon's many warehouses across this country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, this is the Amazon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Amazon.com.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay, what's going on there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a male 34, suicide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have a female associate they believe is overdosing at the moment with possible emotional disorders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He attempted to cut himself three or four times tonight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay, what did he attempt to cut himself with?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of our safety box cutters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she has very specific plans. She made a threat that she said she has enough pain pills in her car to -- to basically end it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And has he said how he would kill himself?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has he said how he would kill himself?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blow his brains out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Shannon Allen is a former employee of Amazon and she knows what it is like inside their warehouses. She has joined us before and she joins us again tonight to give us some perspective. Shannon, thanks very much for coming on. Those recordings are horrifying.

SHANNON ALLEN, FORMER AMAZON EMPLOYEE: Thank you.

CARLSON: What kind of conditions could have led to 911 calls like that?

ALLEN: The excessive pressure that you feel when you are at work, the constant hounding from the managers to always do better. Your best is never good enough. It's never good enough. You can't take bathroom breaks. You can't take water breaks without it counted against your rate and if it counts against your rate, that means you have to work harder to be able to make up that rate because you took time away from standing there scanning or counting or picking to, you know, go use the bathroom or get you some water. So you have to make up those rates.

CARLSON: How closely does the company keep track of where you are when you are in one of these warehouses?

ALLEN: Oh, very, very close. You are on camera 24/7 from the minute you walk in to the minute you leave. If you are not standing at your station scanning or picking or stowing, a manager will come around and want to know where you are at from the time that you are not scanning until the time that you start scanning again.

CARLSON: You are on surveillance camera for every moment you are at work?

ALLEN: Yes, we have cameras --

CARLSON: That seems Orwellian. That's terrifying.

ALLEN: Right. We have direct cameras on us from behind that watch every move we make. You know, from -- I mean, it doesn't matter if you are scratching your nose or if you're coming down off the ladder they watch -- to me, the only time they ever take care of safety issues is if you do something wrong.

But as far as the safety issues from when I injured myself back in October 2017, that was a big issue and Dave Clark had made a statement on NBC saying that they had gotten the station fixed immediately right after my injury which was another lie that they had told NBC because, in January, 2018, when I went back to work, they had -- the station still was not fixed and I reinjured myself on the same station.

So, the mental that you have to put up with, with keeping rate, the safety issues that to me did not seem like a big deal because I reported this station nine times, and it still was not fixed.

CARLSON: So I am a little bit confused. So here you have a company that is owned by the richest man literally in the world, a politically powerful man, Jeff Bezos who owns a media outlet. He clearly could afford to fix the problems that you are describing. People are calling 911 because they are threatening to kill themselves. Why do you think he hasn't taken steps to make this better?

ALLEN: I don't know his reasoning behind not making sure that the issues of safety are a top priority. But I do know that his Amazon winnings are his top priority and not the safety of his employees.

Nobody should ever have to go to work and feel like they are -- their job is in jeopardy or they are going to lose their life at their job because of the pressure that is put on you.

CARLSON: Did you know people who were driven to the brink of harming themselves by working there?

ALLEN: Tucker, I'm going to just go ahead and be honest with you, my very first YouTube video I ever made, I mentioned something about driving my car off of Eagle Mountain Dam because I was more -- worth more dead than I was alive and let me tell you what?

That was so surreal to me because I mean, that's the kind of mindset that they put you in is you are not important. What you are giving to him, his wealth, his Amazon winnings -- that's what's important to him, not your mindset or your health.

CARLSON: I wish we had more time and I just want to issue a public plea will the "The Washington Post" please cover this. I know that Jeff Bezos owns your paper, but show some courage, show some independence and show some journalism and cover the story. Shannon, thank you very much.

ALLEN: Can I say something, please?

CARLSON: Great to see you.

ALLEN: Can I say something, please?

CARLSON: We're almost out of time, give it to me quick, yes.

ALLEN: Yes, if it wasn't for the world socialist website putting out my story, it would have never gotten out there.

CARLSON: Because sometimes it takes the fringe press to cover the truth. That's true. Shannon, thank you. Good to see you.

ALLEN: Thank you.

CARLSON: We'll be back tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m., the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and group think. DVR it if you can figure that out. I can't. In the meantime, have a great evening.

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