This is a rush transcript from "Watters' World," December 29, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JESSE WATTERS, HOST: I'm Jessie Watters and welcome to this special edition of "Watters' World." Looking back at some of the biggest, craziest and most controversial moments of 2018. We begin with the biggest scandal of 2018, Robert Mueller and the Russia probe.

A year and a half into his investigation, and the Special Counsel hasn't unearthed any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. But in the final days of the year, Mueller made some very serious moves involving several key players.

Former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials is cooperating on at least three investigations. Former Trump campaign Chair Paul Manafort entering into a plea deal with Mueller before breaking it. He's awaiting sentencing next year and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen sentenced to three years in prison for his role in hush money payments to a porn star and a former "Playboy" model before the 2016 election.

But much of the investigations seem to start with former campaign aid, Carter Page. I spoke with him earlier this year about the abuse of power in the FISA court and how he became tangled up in the Russian web.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Everybody's talking about Carter Page. You know, they opened up the surveillance because of you and no one knows who you are. You're this man of mystery. Who is Carter Page?

CARTER PAGE, FORMER CAMPAIGN AID: Well, that's the beauty of it and that's the way they were able to get so much taken care of because they had a blank slate, right, they had this fake dossier and they wanted to you know, paint a picture on someone and it's a lot easier to do that against me than you know, a Russian billionaire who is well known before the election.

WATTERS: So they have accused you of being some sort of, you know, Moscow lover and you know, Putin butt-kisser and they're saying you're going all the way over to Russia and you're trying to cut deals and you're trying to talk to the powers that be, is that true?

PAGE: I've been doing deals in Moscow for, you know, a decade and a half. So - and working there and, and actually --

WATTERS: You're trying to make money over there, right?

PAGE: Well, actually, I'm also foreign policy scholar and I've written a lot about Russia. I actually did my PhD on Central Asia development - you know, the political economy of Central Asia.

WATTERS: Okay, so you know about the country and you're over there trying to make deals and you're giving speeches and things like that and they open up surveillance on you because they think you're somehow doing something illegal and colluding with the Russians.

PAGE: Well, again, if you have similar to the Iraq situation back in the early 2000s, if you have fake intelligence, and you're able to sell that to Congress and to the American people, then one thing leads to another and you have a nice little conflict to get people going.

WATTERS: Okay, so they're now investigating the abuse of the FISA Court because we know they presented a dossier there, which was salacious and unverified. That's a crime, you're not allowed to do that. And we're also learning now that the Obama White House Chief of Staff, Dennis McDonough was involved in kind of pushing the investigation forward with the FBI counterintelligence people.

And Harry Reid was involved and he was briefed by the CIA Director and then wrote a letter to James Comey urging the opening of the investigation. When you were being surveilled, were you talking to Donald Trump? Are you talking to people in the campaign?

PAGE: I've never spoken to Donald Trump in my entire life, right?

WATTERS: That's huge news. Because the way that the media spins it, you're some sort of central figure, did you ever know that you were being surveilled? Did you ever get like a sixth sense saying, "Wait a second? This is fishy."

PAGE: Well, there are a lot of people leaking to the news about this.

WATTERS: And that kind of give you an idea that.

PAGE: That you know, gave me a pretty significant suspicion.

WATTERS: Did you change your behavior after you sensed you might have been under surveillance?

PAGE: I've never done anything wrong in Russia for the last 25 years or 27 years since I first went there.

WATTERS: So you didn't feel like you needed to change anything.

PAGE: Absolutely.

WATTERS: So they're saying you're talking to Russians at the Republican Convention in the summer of 2016. Is that true?

PAGE: I - you know, said hello to Ambassador Kislyak. You know.

WATTERS: All right. So, you said hello to the Russian Ambassador --

PAGE: Which is the big news story today.

WATTERS: Which is not a crime.

PAGE: Yes.

WATTERS: Okay. You are under the microscope. Do you feel guilty for being a part of this surveillance that has now led to a special prosecutor?

PAGE: I feel guilty that I didn't fight back harder when this first started, you know, 45 days before the election when the fake news story start coming out and defaming me, you know, and so, part of me feels bad that I didn't do more to stand up for my rights.

WATTERS: You've gotten your reputation thrown into the gutter. You have to admit that and the Trump campaign has tried to disavow you, you understand that naturally, I would, too, if I were them.

This entire escapade has embarrassed the country. Do you feel at all guilty for giving these enemies of the President this kind of ammunition to use against him?

PAGE: No, again, I feel guilty that I did not fight back to get the truth out there earlier. I think the beauty of the last couple of months since the House Intelligence Committee and others, you know, Senate Judiciary Committee have started showing what the actual truth was, what really happened in terms of election interference by the U.S. government you know, operatives in Washington - that, you know, has done a lot to help set the record straight.

I think, you know, as more information comes out --

WATTERS: So you wouldn't have changed any of your behavior leading up to the election.

PAGE: I can't imagine anything that I could have done.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Like his father, Donald Trump, Jr. has dismissed the Russia probe as a witch hunt. I spoke with him about the conspiracy against the President and Trump, Jr.'s infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: Let's just talk about the conspiracy for a second here because it's many layers.

DONALD TRUMP, JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: Yes.

WATTERS: What they're alleging in the memo is that this guy paid for by Hillary, he is a foreign agent. He created all this fake dirt about your father, and then shopped it to the Washington Post, CNN, "New York Times" and then took those reports -- the FBI and the DOJ did, and then gave it to the judge to help bolster the ...

D. TRUMP, JR.: The credibility.

WATTERS: ... credibility of the Warren application. Exactly. And so the "Washington Post" and the "New York Times" the whole year and a half, they must have known this thing was bogus, and that they were in cahoots with them.

D. TRUMP, JR.: Because they were working with the source.

WATTERS: They worked with him.

D. TRUMP, JR.: That no one else could get away with this other than the Obama administration. And this is why it's clear. They weaponized the FBI and the DOJ to attack the duly elected President of United States.

WATTERS: What does this say now about the entire investigation? Is it rotten to the core?

D. TRUMP, JR.: Listen, it always has been, you're right. We always said this. I mean, it is so ridiculous that - let it go, though, at this point, let it go.

WATTERS: You've got nothing to hide.

D. TRUMP, JR.: They came up with nothing. The real problem that I've had with it is, other than, you know, millions in legal fees and lots of time wasted and being smeared throughout the media for years, that at least they uncovered this, because what if they wouldn't have?

What if - if they would have just let it go at this point. I mean, there is a little bit of sweet revenge in it for me, and certainly, probably the family in the sense that if they wouldn't have done this, this stuff would be going on.

WATTERS: You're right?

D. TRUMP, JR.: This would be going on at the highest levels of government. They'd be continuing to do it to my father, trying to undermine his actions. Imagine how effective he can be given the year he's had without this cloud over his head? So I want them to come, but come to a conclusion already, because you've been looking for two years, you've come up with nothing other than their own nefarious actions and their own collusions, they've come up with nothing.

So at this point, you've got to come to something like just come to something because if they try to drag it over a year, they try to drag it so that you know, the Democrats have their talking points. I watch it right now. You see the Democratic senators, "This is McCarthyism." I'm like, "What?"

You have a guy that's been screaming "Russia, Russia, Russia," with no evidence, obvious collusion - all this shade for 18 months screaming about McCarthyism? I mean, the irony is ridiculous at this point.

WATTERS: You've had two competing narratives that have gone on for the last year. You have on the one side in the media on the left, that Donald Trump is a colluder. He's an obstructor of justice, and he was in cahoots with the Russians in order to help win the presidency.

On the other hand, you've had people reporting a lot of this on our network. It turns out to be true now that the Department of Justice and the FBI under President Obama rigged the investigation for Hillary and then really turned the screws to Trump and now it looks like in a corrupt and illegal way, and the facts are out now and the facts belong on this side.

D. TRUMP, JR.: A hundred percent, and by the way, this has been a much more recent narrative frankly than the other. I mean, they've been looking at the other one for over two years, right? Okay. When they found I took a meeting, a 20-minute meeting - big - but they needed it to be true.

WATTERS: You're so much like your dad, "I took a meeting." "I took a meeting."

D. TRUMP, JR.: But they didn't even know - they needed it to be true because they staked their entire credibility, their whole narrative that was, "Oh, now we can keep going. Now, we can keep on the heat," because they all knew what was going on.

WATTERS: So what does this do to the media's credibility? Which wasn't high to begin with. Now, now after this - this whole hoax exposed, what does it do?

D. TRUMP, JR.: Listen, I just think it gets rid of the notion that there's any objectivity left and I can say that for both sides. But there's no --

WATTERS: Except for "Watters' World," you mean.

D. TRUMP, JR.: Obviously. Well, that's, you know, you're the exception to the --

WATTERS: Fair and balanced.

D. TRUMP, JR.: There is none anymore, and as long as people understand that when they're watching that you can - it's really news entertainment. That's what you're saying. To fill a 24 hour news cycle, you have to do this. People are giving their opinions. They're no longer relaying news. They're relaying news with their preferred choice of spin. And that's a shame.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Behind bars and back - former Trump campaign Foreign Policy Advisor, George Papadopoulos released from Federal prison earlier this month, serving 12 of his 14 day prison sentence as part of his guilty plea with Robert Mueller.

Papadopoulos has had his world turned upside down by the Russia investigation and recently entered "Watters' World" to talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: When you were involved with the Trump campaign, back in the summer of 2016, you were invited to go to Europe. And this is when it all started, am I wrong? Who invited you over there and why?

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: So when I was officially part of the campaign, I was living in London actually at the time, so I was working for this group called the London Center for International Law Practice which now we find out as some sort of obscure shady front for something that it wasn't supposed ...

WATTERS: So you were working for a group that you didn't realize was a front group.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: It looks like it was some sort of front for western intelligence type of people.

WATTERS: Okay, so a western intelligence front group, you believe you were working for unbeknownst to you at the time. What was the first meeting that set this thing in motion?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: So I am officially part of the campaign, I guess, around March 11 and then I tell this group, "Look, I'm leaving London, I'm going to go back to the U.S. because I'm joining Trump." But for some reason, they wanted to bring me to Rome with them on some business trip to this university. I had no idea what it really was, it's called Link Campus.

So then, after I looked into the school, after I'd had time this past year to look into these places I was going back and forth to, it's some sort of training school for western spies.

WATTERS: Okay, so they bring you over to Rome at some point, and you believe you were involved with another western intelligence front group there and you had no idea. So then what happened?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: So then, all of a sudden, I randomly am introduced to this person named Joseph Mifsud.

WATTERS: Okay, Joseph Mifsud.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: That's right.

WATTERS: And who is that?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Joseph Mifsud is the infamous professor who is allegedly this super Russian spy who had the one piece of information that no one else on this planet had about Clinton's e-mails ...

WATTERS: Okay, so you meet with this guy, Mifsud, and what was the reason for the meeting? Who set the meeting up?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: So that's the key point. The point is that the London Center for International Law Practice set up this meaning between Joseph Mifsud and I.

WATTERS: Okay, so what exactly did he say about Hillary's e-mails to you?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: He is like, "I have information that the Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton's e-mails. I never heard the word DNC. I never heard the word Podesta. I never heard the word Podesta. I never heard anything like that.

WATTERS: Okay, so when he told you that Russians had thousands of Hillary's e-mails, what did you do next? Did you tell anybody?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: So, I have been asked this question a million times and what I can say is...

WATTERS: Well, I asked it the best.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: You do ask it the best and that's why I am going to give you the best answer and the answer is that I have absolutely no recollection of telling anyone on the Trump campaign about this information. What I did do ...

WATTERS: Okay, what did you do?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: ... was I gossiped about it with the Greek Foreign Minister just like diplomats do. I'm not a diplomat, of course, but you know, people in policy circles just gossip about rumors.

WATTERS: So you told the Greeks, then what?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Yes, and then they apparently, I told the Australian high commissioner, Alexander Downer the same information ...

WATTERS: Okay, so you're what? You're at a social event and you run into Alexander Downer who was - who at the time the Australian what?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Yes, so let's back track for a second because there's this misunderstanding that I just run into this person randomly and ...

WATTERS: You believe you were set up again.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Oh, of course.

WATTERS: Okay, so you were manipulated into a meeting with Alexander Downer who was an Australian diplomat and a Clinton donor.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Yes, so Alexander Downer is no random diplomat. This was the head of the - equivalent of the CIA of Australia for around 17 years. He was the Foreign Minister and now, he was the top diplomat in London for Australia.

WATTERS: Okay, so he meets and then what happened?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: So then, what happens is, he basically starts becoming very belligerent talking to me saying that Trump is a horrible person, you know, all your ideas in the Middle East, my personal ideas, because my business was the energy business in Israel, he is like there are threats of British interest, and I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of ever talking about e-mails with this person.

WATTERS: Oh, so you say you never spoke to him about e-mails, but he, Downer, went to who, the FBI? And said this gentleman who is working for the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos told me about Hillary's e-mails and some Russia connection? Is that what you believe happened?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: That's I guess what the media is saying. All I know is I told the FBI directly to them that I felt that he was recording my meetings.

WATTERS: You went to the FBI after you met with this Australian diplomat.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: During my discussions with the FBI, I told them that I think this guy was recording my conversations.

WATTERS: Very interesting.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: The meeting was very weird. You know, I had let's say four or five very strange meetings throughout the campaign that left an indelible mark on my memory and this was one of those.

WATTERS: Okay, so now all right, so you've gotten now yourself involved in this huge situation, this international espionage situation. Were you ever spied upon or did your phones - were they tapped? Were you e-mails looked into? Do you have any idea?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: All I can say that I know that's public now is that I had Stefan Halper, which was this Cambridge Professor who was working on behalf of British intelligence, luring me to London so that the British would spy on me and it's all linked into the U.K.

WATTERS: Okay, so Stefan Halper who people believe is a CIA agent? Is that what the word on the street is?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: The word on the street is ...

WATTERS: Because he was paid by the Obama administration a pretty nice sum of cash.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: The word on the street is that this guy was like a dual agent of the MI-6 and the CIA.

WATTERS: Okay, so then he brings you back to London at another point and you believe you were surveilled there.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: I was.

WATTERS: You were.

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Yes, I was. I mean, it's public record.

WATTERS: So then you had to testify in front of Robert Mueller and I guess he caught you in some sort of perjury trap. I know that's complicated. I've heard you say what happened there, you know, perjury traps. They are easy to walk into, and I guess maybe you weren't completely honest, but I understand what happened there. He got you and you're going to serve some time now. You've been sentenced to how long?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: Fourteen days.

WATTERS: To 14 days. What is your theory about what happened in 30 seconds?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: I think I was set up by Western intelligence. I think most of these meetings that I had encountered with were all orchestrated. I don't know by who, but certainly, we now have evidence that at least one of these meetings was orchestrated by Western intelligence, and that was Stefan Halper.

WATTERS: For the purpose of what?

G. PAPADOPOULOS: For the purpose of spying on me probably for my business ties to Israel that I had a very prominent role in and secondly, to try and probably sabotage the Trump campaign through me.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Okay, still ahead, goat yoga, goat yoga. It's really a trend and I tried it. But first, Greg Gutfeld in some of the best Trump tweets of 2018.

(COMMERCIAL)

WATTERS: Love it or hate it - President Trump is a big fan of social media, something the media has made their battle cry. So Greg Gutfeld and I couldn't end the year without choosing some of our favorite Trump tweets of 2018.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: We are going to read some Trump tweets.

GREG GUTFELD, HOST, FOX NEWS: Yes.

WATTERS: Here is my favorite one. You ready? "The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows. Badly needs a paint job. Rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside."

GUTFELD: It is one of the best because it is specific; filthy canopies. That should be the name of a boat.

WATTERS: Filthy canopies. You know, he was a restaurateur. He's got all of these famous places all over the country. He does take pride in the cleanliness and the display and the presentation of a restaurant, and nothing is worse than calling a restaurant filthy.

GUTFELD: It's also memorable. People, when they think of a restaurant as dirty, they can't get that out of their head.

WATTERS: Yes, because you are a very picky eater. You'd never go to the Red Hen.

GUTFELD: I eat nothing but raw pigeon.

WATTERS: That's disgusting. I punched a pigeon once. Didn't hit it though. All right, Greg, read one of your favorite Trump tweets from this year.

GUTFELD: "While Washington, Michigan was a big success, Washington, DC just did not work. Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents' Dinner was a very big boring bust. The so-called comedian really "bombed." Greg Gutfeld should host next year @PeteHegseth."

WATTERS: Wait, so I wonder why you picked that tweet.

GUTFELD: I don't know. You know, the thing is it's really weird to wake up in the morning and have a lot of people going, "Hey, did you look on Twitter?"

WATTERS: Yes, your phone blows up.

GUTFELD: Yes, and I go, "Oh, that's good." But you know, I was very touched, and I think he's right, but I don't know if I would do the gig.

WATTERS: Why not?

GUTFELD: You know what? You never leave the gig better off than you were before. You know what I mean?

WATTERS: Yes, I see what you mean.

GUTFELD: It just doesn't help.

WATTERS: It doesn't help and your jokes probably would go over all of their heads and they ...

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: I think you are right.

WATTERS: Your humor is a little too high brow for those people. All right, one of my other favorites from this year is this. "Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually he is weak, both mentally and physically and yet, he threatens me for the second time with physical assault. He doesn't know me. But he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don't threaten people, Joe." What a tough guy.

GUTFELD: He is a natural at this. This is an art form. "Don't threaten people, Joe" should be a t-shirt. It would be fantastic.

WATTERS: Yes, like yours.

GUTFELD: He's good at this. I know.

WATTERS: Yes, you should make I'm one. I like that he is going to go down fast and hard. Like Trump has been training. Those two guys. All right, go ahead, what's your next one?

GUTFELD: My next one, "The media are good news fire extinguishers. @greggutfeld, @TheFive.

WATTERS: I actually agree with that one. That was a very good line, and you just said that a couple of days ago.

GUTFELD: Yes, I did and he quoted me, so I thought I'd do this as trying to make it all about me and "The Greg Gutfeld Show" which will be on in less than 90 minutes.

WATTERS: You know, I finally met someone more shameless than myself.

GUTFELD: Yes, yes. It's true and we're both here at the same table.

WATTERS: That's right.

GUTFELD: A double dose of shamelessness.

WATTERS: Okay, here we go. Next one. This is the last one for me. "Alec Baldwin," actually calls him "Alex ..."

GUTFELD: Perfect.

WATTERS: "... whose dying mediocre career was saved by his impersonation of me on SNL now says playing DJT was agony for him. Alex, it was also agony for those who were forced to watch. You are terrible. Bring back Darrell Hammond, much funnier and a far greater talent."

GUTFELD: You know what's great about this?

WATTERS: What's that?

GUTFELD: The mistake he makes is on purpose, Alex Baldwin ...

WATTERS: Do you think that was not a typo?

GUTFELD: Yes, it was on purpose. It was just another little dig, like, I don't even know the guy's name.

WATTERS: Yes.

GUTFELD: It's Alex, Alec - it doesn't matter, he's washed up.

WATTERS: That's like, like Max Gutfeld.

GUTFELD: Yes, exactly. There might be one of those.

WATTERS: Probably. What's your last one here?

GUTFELD: Let's see, "The Gutfeld Monologues is the greatest book ever written with the exception of "The Art of the Deal" which is also a great gift for all ages."

WATTERS: Wait a second ...

GUTFELD: No, it hasn't happened. That tweet has not happened. I just made that up. I made up a tweet.

WATTERS: You're perpetuating fake news on "Watters' World."

GUTFELD: I'm planting the thought in the President's head to tweet this, and then my book sales will skyrocket.

WATTERS: But you want a link in the tweet. That should be.

GUTFELD: Yes, I've got to beat Jeanine and I've got to beat and Jarrett - Gregg Jarrett and Jeanine.

WATTERS: Listen, as long as everybody sells, one, two, three, we're all fine.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Coming up. One of my favorite interviews of 2018, the 30-year-old evicted from his own parents house. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL)

ANNA KOOIMAN, CORRESPONDENT: Hi there and live from "America's News Headquarters," I am Anna Kooiman. The partial government shutdown is now in its eighth day and still no deal in sight. President Donald Trump and Congressional Democrats remain at odds over funding for a border wall, and this stalemate is likely meaning the shutdown will extend into the New Year. The Senate and the House are not scheduled to hold votes until at least Monday.

And new development tonight in the murder of California Police Corporal Ronil Singh shot and killed during a traffic stop. Police have now arrested illegal immigrant, Gustavo Perez Arriaga after a day's long manhunt and now seven others including his girlfriend and brother are in custody for allegedly helping him. We are also learning that the 33-year-old suspect is a member of a violent Mexican American street gang. He said to be arraigned next Wednesday.

I am Anna Kooiman, and now back to "Watters" World." For all your news headlines, log on to foxnews.com. Have a great night.

WATTERS: 2018 gave America record job numbers. With the unemployment rate falling to a 49-year low. It also gave us Michael Rotondo, an unemployed 30-year-old from upstate New York evicted under court order from his own parents' house after living there rent free for eight years.

I spoke with Michael about turning his life around and his house hunt.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: You went to college, right?

MICHAEL ROTONDO, EVICTED FROM PARENTS' HOME: Briefly, yes.

WATTERS: Did you graduate from college?

ROTONDO: Briefly means I didn't graduate. No, I didn't graduate.

WATTERS: So, I thought maybe you matriculated quickly because of your advanced intelligence. What was your major when you were briefly in college?

ROTONDO: I dropped - I won't say that. I started with engineering and I went to business when that didn't work out.

WATTERS: Okay, you dropped out of college?

ROTONDO: Yes.

WATTERS: Why did you drop out of college?

ROTONDO: My academic habits were very poor, so I really couldn't just integrate into the classes very well.

WATTERS: Okay, so you like engineering and you like business. When you dropped out of college, what happened next?

ROTONDO: I was - I started in sales. I've held a lot of different sales jobs.

WATTERS: What were you selling?

ROTONDO: I sold vacuum cleaners. I sold dry-cleaner coupons, I sold - I've done retail, which isn't real professional sales, but I'd done it.

WATTERS: So you have had a few jobs, mostly in sales, but does that account for all eight years? You must have been unemployed for a lot of that time, right?

ROTONDO: No, I drove delivery, which wasn't really a sales job, but I did customer service. That was a significant - that a year and a half, mostly it's been sales.

WATTERS: Okay, were you making any money at these jobs and saving it or were you just spending it on what?

ROTONDO: I really wasn't saving have much, but I spent it on things that I needed.

WATTERS: Like what?

ROTONDO: Like food and just conventional things - entertainment, food, gasoline, things like that.

WATTERS: What kind of entertainment?

ROTONDO: Sometimes housing.

WATTERS: What kind of entertainment?

ROTONDO: Well, bars - you go to a bar, that's entertainment, I would say or just leisure time. Sometimes movies, but not often.

WATTERS: Okay, do you vote, Mike?

ROTONDO: I do vote.

WATTERS: Did you vote for President in 2016?

ROTONDO: I did.

WATTERS: Would you like to share who you voted for?

ROTONDO: I would share that with you. I voted for Gary Johnson.

WATTERS: Gary, somehow that doesn't surprise me. What about Gary Johnson did you like?

ROTONDO: I like how practical he is with a lot of things. I like how you know, fiscal responsibility is very important for the Libertarian Party. So, you know, I would say that personally...

WATTERS: Hey, Mike, so if fiscal responsibility is something that is important to you, don't you think you might have saved some money and have been fiscally responsible in your personal life.

ROTONDO: I didn't think of that. That's a good point. I probably should have bought some bonds or something and saved more.

WATTERS: Oh, maybe.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: We hear Mike is still living out on his own. All right, Mike. Moving now from hardly working to working hard -- "Dirty Jobs" star Mike Rowe shared his thoughts on job creation and the American work ethic.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: What is your assessment of the American worker in the heartland today?

MIKE ROWE, MIKEROWEWORKS, CEO: Well, I wish I had something new and radical to say, Jesse. By the way, it's nice to finally meet you. I figured, our paths would cross eventually.

WATTERS: Yes, great to have you on.

ROWE: Thanks. Yes, we shot in all 50 states, at least a dozen times a piece, and you know, the big lesson on "Dirty Jobs," at least for the people I met, and I'm generalizing, which I hate to do. But there was a sort of a shared awareness, especially in the states that you mentioned, that the people were sort of in on some kind of joke that lot of other Americans really weren't in on.

And that's probably an inelegant way to say it, but the bottom line was, there is an absolute disconnect going on. And to your point, a lot of it has to do with how we define meaningful work and whatever it is a good job means in 2018.

WATTERS: Now, when I grew up, my father made me do landscaping and manual labor and you know, hedging and shoveling and mowing and planting and just working with my hands and getting dirty and sweaty. And you know, I hated it at the time, but it really kind of made me become a hard-working person. That I believe has been lost in today's America. Are we ever going to get that back?

ROWE: Yes, we will, because we have to. Or if we don't, then the consequences are going to be so dire that I can't even imagine what it will look like. You are talking about the kind of jobs that typically get presented as character building.

WATTERS: Yes.

ROWE: You know, the...

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: And I turned in now to quite a character, didn't I Mike?

ROWE: ... they're important. You certainly did. Obviously, you are a man who is unafraid to get his hands dirty, but the real issue in my view is not - it's actually an appreciation, right? I mean, it's one thing to affirmatively discourage our kids from learning a useful skill.

It's another thing to lose our appreciation for the people who do the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us. I'm not a shrink, but there is something interesting about the way we grow to resent the very things we wind up depending most upon.

And if you look at our workforce and if you look at the jobs that are available right now, 6.3 million available jobs; 75% of them don't require a four-year degree. That's amazing. They require training. They require certification and they require a willingness to do something that most people aren't willing to do.

But to affirmatively distance ourselves from the people who are essentially keeping the lights on, you know, it's a bad deal. That's why we have a skills gap, in my view, that's why we have $1.5 trillion of student loans.

WATTERS: Sure.

ROWE: And that's why we are lending money we don't have to kids who can't pay back to teach them how to do jobs that don't exist anymore.

WATTERS: And you have to start somewhere as a worker whether you're 15, 16, 17, 18 or even in your early 20's. I was a bell hop. I was a valet. I was a bus boy. And those jobs were some of the most of rewarding because I learned that work is just about serving other people. And there's nothing wrong with that no matter at what level. Everybody when they work, they are serving the needs or the interests or the desires of a client or a customer.

Now, I was getting my shoes shined the other day here in Manhattan and it was all Latino workers that were shining the shoes, and they were doing a great job. And they are excellent at it. And it's the best shoe shine place in Manhattan, but people say, "Oh, the Latino workers in America, they do the jobs that Americans won't do." Do you find that to be true? Are Americans getting soft and there is no desire to do those types of jobs? Or do you see it in a more economical way?

ROWE: I think, again, it's kind of dangerous to generalize, but in a very general way, I think what's happened in our country is we have bought into the idea that our happiness is a result of the job we have.

So, we make work the enemy. We don't do it on purpose, but when we look at a job like the ones you've just described, we either see them as opportunities or cautionary tales.

We've taught our kids that certain types of jobs are the kinds of things you are going to wind up doing if you don't go down the well-worn path of a four-year degree and college debt et cetera et cetera.

WATTERS: Right, you're going to be working at McDonalds your whole life if you don't study your school books.

ROWE: Right, so my foundation has trained about a thousand people in skilled trade jobs that aren't going to be replaced by robots and don't really have the whole immigrant conversation hanging around. I'm talking about plumbers, steam fitters, pipe fitters, welders. These people by and large, many are making six figures. They didn't do it by amassing a huge amount of debt. They did it by looking around seeing where the opportunities were, getting up early, staying late distinguishing themselves and doing all the stuff that we are tacitly telling people is going to make them unhappy.

So, I think - look, it's a great conversation because you can't talk about work without talking about job satisfaction.

WATTERS: Right.

ROWE: Why are people unhappy to me is the big question. And the reason in my view has absolutely nothing or very little to do with what they do for money.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Up next, toxic masculinity and white privilege collide on "Watter's World."

(COMMERCIAL)

WATTERS: From toxic masculinity to the problems and pitfalls of white privilege. Colleges spent this year rewriting labels for millennial minds. Here's what Macia Tupytsin, a professor at the new school told me about male melancholia.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: What is toxic masculinity first of all?

MASHA TUPITSYN IS A PROFESSOR OF FILM AND GENDER STUDIES: I mean, I would say there are different ways to describe it, but the way I refer to it is to think about toxic masculinity as when masculinity has to kind of abuse its power in order to function.

WATTERS: How would I demonstrate on a day-to-day basis, toxic masculinity?

TUPITSYN: Well, I mean, I think it's - that's the complicated question, but on a daily basis it would be in your relationships with other people and your relationships with women in the workplace and the way that you relate to your own power in the workplace and your daily life.

WATTERS: Just by being a jerk and offensive and imposing my will on other people?

TUPITSYN: Yes or even negotiating that imposition of will on other people. All right, this idea that you have to kind of stoke my ego or behave a certain way to get ahead.

WATTERS: Okay so, white masculinity, is now a problem. There is a downfall among white males? How so?

TUPITSYN: Well, I'm not saying that there's a downfall. I don't think there is a loss of power although men are always lamenting their loss of power.

WATTERS: How are we doing that?

TUPITSYN: I think one of the - well this constant idea even someone like President Trump who is always lamenting sort of the good old days or a show like "Madmen" which is always focusing on this kind of loss of supremacy that men once held. So that narrative has been going on and that's ...

WATTERS: And so when Donald Trump says "Make America Great Again," what is he trying to say? That we want to return to the good old days where white men ruled the earth?

TUPITSYN: Yes and still rule the earth, but that is being destabilized and so there is this constant kind of narrative of mourning and loss about what's been lost. But what really needs to happen ...

WATTERS: But couldn't the President just be saying, "I want to go back to the '80s where the economy was roaring and we were doing great?"

(CROSSTALK)

TUPITSYN: And when he was the king.

WATTERS: I mean, couldn't that be what he is saying? Maybe not about ...

TUPITSYN: But either way, it is self-referential.

WATTERS: ... white males may be more about let's go back to when America was strong and powerful and the economy was great.

TUPITSYN: And it was a patriarchy that no one questioned.

WATTERS: Okay, but you don't know when Trump says make America great again, he is talking about wanting to bring back sexism.

TUPITSYN: So now, we're having a conversation about mind reading as opposed to interpretation.

WATTERS: No, but you brought that up he wanted to go back to those days.

TUPITSYN: Because these are very old narratives and they don't just refer to national politics. National politics also consists of race and class and gender. It's a kind of packaged deal, right, when you're talking about nation building, you're talking about a lot of other multidimensional things.

WATTERS: Okay, listen, I did not take that from what the President said when he uses that slogan. I guess you're interpreting it...

TUPITSYN: But I didn't come here to ...

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: So what do white men need to do in America now? How can we improve in your opinion?

TUPITSYN: Well, to me, the crisis is really about the lack of responsibility and this lack of self-interrogation, right, that's really what - I mean etymologically, the root of crisis means this point at which change must come.

WATTERS: But do you mean ...

TUPITSYN: So the either the change can come or it won't, but what had needs to happen is that when men start doing some the work and interrogation around masculinity as opposed all of these other sort of special interest groups who study ...

WATTERS: Okay, so let's just study it step-by-step. I'm a man, I'm a white man. What do I need to ask myself or what do I need to address internally about my white male?

TUPITSYN: Well, I would say two things to start with, so one is what kind of privileges have I inherited because of my whiteness and my straight masculinity, let's say?

WATTERS: White privilege.

TUPITSYN: White privilege but it also has to do masculinity, so I would ask - and we all have to ask that question. What privileges do we come into the world with and do we abuse those privileges? The second question...

WATTERS: Okay, you want white men - just take a step back, you want white men to recognize that they have certain advantages by being born a white straight man?

TUPITSYN: Yes, that they use.

WATTERS: And use and I, as a white, straight male should be more conscious of my privileges when I go walk around in everyday society?

TUPITSYN: You should be, but most likely you won't be because you don't have to.

WATTERS: I walk into a bar as a straight white male, am I being too confident when I walk into the bar? Or should I go in a more humble way?

TUPITSYN: But then I do not how you are when you walk into a bar. I just know that men can behave a certain way in public settings and in bars that is different from women. I mean, this is the case for everyone, right? There are codes that we are all following. Even if we just go to work and we don't behave a certain way, we get fired.

WATTERS: Like I can be loud and obnoxious and I can buy people drinks ...

TUPITSYN: And sexually aggressive.

WATTERS: ... and I could flirt with people, is that what you're saying?

TUPITSYN: Right.

WATTERS: And women can't do that?

TUPITSYN: Well, they might do it, but they pay a different price for it. Even just on the level of you might not be seen as someone desperate if you're a single man that walks into a bar, whereas if a woman walks into a bar and she is single, that is perceived as a very different kind of social
gesture.

WATTERS: And then lastly, what was the other question I am supposed to ask myself as a straight white male?

TUPITSYN: Well, you've interrupted me so many times, and now, I can't remember.

WATTERS: I guess that's probably my toxic masculinity.

TUPITSYN: Probably.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Christianity also coming under fire this year, George Washington University, holding a seminar bashing the religion for giving American Christians what it views as an unfair privilege.

I spoke to Warren Blumenfield, an adjunct professor at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, about the controversy.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: You say there is Christian privilege here. Is there not Christian privilege in the Middle East, is there?

WARREN BLUMENFELD, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AT AMHERST: We are talking about the United States right now, but there is Christian privilege around the world in many ways, but I would like to correct you. It's not bashing Christianity, it's raising issues of the ways in which Christians automatically have this unearned privilege just by being Christian in the United States context in a western ...

WATTERS: And what would that privilege be?

BLUMENFELD: There is a lot of ways that privilege manifests itself. In the 1840s, a theorist went around the United States and he wrote this great book called "Democracy In America," Alexis de Tocqueville and he discovered that there is this paradox in some ways, that the United States positioned itself around the world as this country which promoted itself as a religious pluralism.

But he found that the Christian churches had so much power, that in many ways, it could be considered to be the first example of the first institution of politics because it had so much power and so much weight on politics in the United States.

WATTERS: Well, I don't think any more that the Christian church has that type of power. I mean, it's a pretty religiously pluralistic nation and there is...

(CROSSTALK)

BLUMENFELD: And that's one of the myths that we were ...

WATTERS: ... and now, you can't have the Ten Commandments at the courthouse or you know, if you are a Christian and you want to say "Merry Christmas" in public school, they yell at you. You can't have a Christmas tree, they call it a Holiday tree. Is that privilege?

BLUMENFELD: We are talking about religious pluralism. The school year is founded on the Christian calendar. If I want to take a day off to go to - do you even know what the holiest day is on the Jewish calendar is?

WATTERS: No, tell me.

BLUMENFELD: And that's a form of Christian privilege. You don't have to know other religions of when our holidays are. It's Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement. And it usually comes ...

WATTERS: Okay, so I have the privilege of not knowing what your most devout holiday is? That's a privilege to not know something?

BLUMENFELD: Yes. You don't have to know.

WATTERS: I would think that that would be the opposite. I feel bad that I don't know. I mean, you know, listen there's not a lot of Jewish Americans in the country compared to Christian Americans. I don't know the most of devout Muslim holiday either.

BLUMENFELD: Of course. And again, minoritized people have to know of the holidays of Christians for our own survival because it's just self-promoted.

WATTERS: Okay, let's solve this then because I don't want Christian privilege. I just want to be open and I want to know everything about every other person and I don't want to feel privileged. What can I do as a Christian to make myself feel less privileged?

BLUMENFELD: I'm not asking you to make yourself less privileged. I am asking you to share your privilege, like as a white man, I don't want to lose my white privilege. I don't want to walk into a store and be tailed, racially profiled. I am not saying I want to lose that. But I am working as a white person so that I share my privilege so that nobody is racially profiled.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Up next. I tried goat yoga. Yes, yoga with goats. I can't believe I'm showing you guys this. Stick around.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just put your hand right here on the horse.

WATTERS: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice deep breath in.

WATTERS: That's good. That's good. No teeth, right. You said it had no
teeth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No teeth. No teeth. You can do it. You can do it.

WATTERS: Okay, okay. I got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: It's no secret that I am not a big animal lover, but sometimes, you just need to lean in. I did exactly that when Terin Alogenegro (ph) Christine Browak and their four-legged friends stopped by to show me a few moves of the newest trends taking the country by storm, goat yoga.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I want you to bring your big toes together to touch. We are going to start in a mountain pose, so bring your arms down to your side, palms face forward, fingertips spread wide and really feel grounded here. SO you really want to feel rooted down into the ground.

WATTERS: I feel very grounded right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good, so we want to start with our breath, so take a deep inhale through your nose.

WATTERS: I smell goat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then open your mouth and just sigh in out all out. One more time, take a nice deep inhale and sigh it all out. On your next inhale, just reach the arms up overhead and on an exhale let's fold all the way down, so we're coming to a forward fold.

WATTERS: That wasn't me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Once you're there, we're going to plan our palms down to the mat, step back to a plank pose.

WATTERS: Oh gosh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So this is where you get that six-pack. You want to
bring your hips up even with shoulders here, so bring them up a little bit.

WATTERS: Higher? Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take a breath here, inhale. On your next exhale, we're going to lower the belly all the way down to the mat, nice and slow.

WATTERS: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Once you're there, you can untuck your toes. We're going to come to cobra, so press through the palms and start to straighten the elbows, press the chest forward, nice back bends here.

WATTERS: What are the goats supposed to be doing right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think they are making you happy, right? Relax. Relax your shoulders, take a breath, exhale slowly, lower the heart all the way back down.

WATTERS: Is this goat wearing a diaper?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

WATTERS: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we're going to come to a child's pose, so you want to sync your hips back to your heels here.

WATTERS: I know that pose. Hold on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you could walk your fingertips forward, so you can walk your fingertips forward, let your forehead rest on the mat just to make sure there is no food or maybe some poop there.

WATTERS: Oh, I'm good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then start to make your way to a table top position, so come to all fours, shoulders over wrists, hips over knees and we are going to go through a few rounds of cow cat or maybe goat cap or whatever you want to call it today.

WATTERS: When are we going to do downward goat?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll do that actually next, so come back to a neutral spine here, tuck the toes, and we're going to press back to downward facing dog, but for today, it will downward facing goat.

WATTERS: Oh that hurts.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WATTERS: Something about these animals got me hooked, because I got a dog this year. I can't believe I did. His name is Rookie Watters, and he is absolutely adorable. Like me. Up next, "Last Call."

(COMMERCIAL)

WATTERS: Time now for "Last Call." It ceases to amaze how little the average American knows about our country. I hit the streets for a lightning round on current events and here's the best or the worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: Who is the Vice President?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know and I really don't care.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my god.

WATTERS: Name one state that borders Canada.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ohio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New York City.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Massachusetts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: North Carolina.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not California, right?

WATTERS: What does the CIA stand for?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That I do not know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am going to guess like Constitution, but I am going to guess that that's wrong.

WATTERS: That's wrong. Who was the first person to set foot on the moon?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Wright.

WATTERS: That was the baseball player.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The moon is dumb, there is not even a Walmart there. Who cares?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: That's all for this year. Have a happy 2019, I know, I will. "Justice with Judge Jeanine" is next, and remember, I'm Watters and this is my world.

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