Youtube censors Steven Crowder; has censorship gone too far?

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Youtube censors Steven Crowder; has censorship gone too far?

Youtube says Crowder engaged in 'egregious actions that harmed the broader community'; The Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald reacts on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," June 6, 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.” Every President since George Washington has faced political opposition, every single one of them. And that's the point of our system. Democracies are built on debate and competing ideas.

If you find a political leader who seems universally loved, what you found is a dictatorship. Nobody criticized Ceausescu, nobody dared. So as a matter of principle, there is nothing wrong with opposing Donald Trump and his policies. Dissent is patriotic.

But that's not what has been happening for the past two and a half years. Nothing about the resistance has enhanced our democracy or made this country better. Just the opposite. The left's opposition to Trump has shredded democratic norms.

Since the moment the last ballot was cast in 2016, they've worked to nullify the presidential election. They've imposed censorship on much of the country. And more than anything, they've sided with the permanent bureaucracy over voters.

People like former CIA Director, John Brennan have openly urged Federal employees to ignore and undermine the elected President. That is a brazen attack on democracy. It's more destructive than anything the Russians attempted.

Brennan now delivers his instructions from a desk at NBC News, where he is paid to deliver commentary like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: This is nothing short of treasonous, because it is a betrayal of the nation. He is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Treasonous, is defined as a betrayal of trust, as well as aiding and abetting the enemy, and so that was the word that came to my mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, so when you disagree with John Brennan, former head of the CIA, it is high treason. It's a death penalty offense. That's the case he is making.

John Brennan is a reckless and unbalanced partisan. That's obvious to anyone who's watched him. When we learned from a source last year that Brennan had somehow retained his top secret security clearance as a civilian, we were shocked, but we weren't really surprised. That's how Washington actually works.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Brennan no longer works for the Federal government in any capacity. He holds no official post. And yet, according to two sources we spoke to exclusively today, Brennan retains perhaps the most valuable asset he had in government, a top secret security clearance.

It is terrifying to think that John Brennan still has access to any of that information. Brennan is an out of the closet extremist. This is not a man who should have a security clearance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Many in Congress agreed with that assessment. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky came on this show to say that John Brennan had no business holding security clearance.

Shortly after that segment aired, the President announced that he was revoking Brennan's clearance. We assumed that was the end of the story, and in real democracy it would have been, but it wasn't because, this isn't.

So a year later, we learned that Brennan still has a security clearance. How did that happen? Because the Executive Branch officials simply ignored the President's orders. This is a problem because he was elected by voters and they were not. All legitimate power in the Executive Branch flows from him and the election that he won. But his employees don't care.

Increasingly, bureaucrats wield the real authority in this country. You see it every day in Washington. But this one time, we decided to find out exactly what happened.

The first thing we did was we called over to the Executive Branch. We were told the John Brennan no longer has, quote, "access to classified information." A source explained to us that means the administration sent a letter to Intelligence agencies, explained that Brennan no longer has a quote, "need to know." That all sounds reassuring and had a kind of narcotic effect.

But like so much that happens in government, it a mirage, it means nothing. In fact, bureaucrats can simply ignore that letter if they choose, they have before.

So the truth is, the President of the United States was undermined by his own staff. He gave them a direct unequivocal order. In their feline passive aggressive way, they refused to carry it out.

How many times a day does that happen? Every time it does, our democracy erodes. And by the way, that's fine with official Washington. If holding elections means that Donald Trump wins power, they're against elections, whatever it takes, including brute force.

Just the other day, Nancy Pelosi told Democrats on Capitol Hill, her goal isn't to impeach the President. Her goal is to put him in prison. For what crime? She didn't specify. But it doesn't matter. You know, as well as anyone that Trumps real offense was getting elected in the first place.

Buck Sexton is a radio host and a former CIA analyst, and he joins us today. Buck, thanks so much for coming on.

BUCK SEXTON, RADIO HOST: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So is it possible -- let's just to be completely blunt about this -- is it possible to tame the bureaucracy?

SEXTON: No. I mean, they're the fourth branch of government and there is a much more pervasive attitude in the Federal government than I think a lot of people realize among the civil servant class.

First of all, that the Democratic Party is the party of the big state, and the state is the party of the Democratic Party. So there's a relationship between people that work for the government, and the sense that they're going to be there forever.

The Democratic Party supports them, they're the party that are more likely to be inclined. And we saw this with Hillary Clinton donations, by the way, in the last election cycle, and there's very little accountability for what they do. There's very little that you can point to and say, "Well, you're going to get in a lot of trouble for this, unless you break the law or don't show up at all to do your job, chances are, you'll be able to stay and do what you want to do and use the discretion you have in whatever role."

CARLSON: Well, that's literally true, you're more likely to die in your job than you are to be fired from the Federal government. But I mean, just take three steps back and assess, is this a greater threat to our democracy? Undermining the democratic order or is breaking into john Podesta's Gmail account? Which is a graver threat?

SEXTON: Well, I think this is a much bigger deal. And you've also seen this with the anonymous op-ed writer and that there are people around the President that he may not even really know are part of a kind of #resistance.

They believe that they're doing the country of favor by protecting us from the different things that he may say he wants to do or policies that he wants to enact. But that is fundamentally not their job, as you pointed out.

And once you're talking about the Federal bureaucracy, you look at places like the State Department, the EPA, there have been whole news stories written about individuals who cried when President Trump was elected and think that this is a great threat to democracy, and that they're doing the country of favor by refusing to enact policies that they disagree with, so they take it upon themselves.

It's a kind of petty, totalitarian mindset. And how do you root this out? How do you deal with it? I don't really know. I don't think there is a way right now to have bureaucratic reform. I don't think the Civil Services is open to it, I think that you get a lot of pushback if you even tried.

CARLSON: So I guess if it can't be fixed, the last thing you'd want to do is give more power to unelected bureaucrats. You want the power to reside with people who you have some influence over elected officials, right?

And yet, in the past week, I've twice seen Democratic presidential candidates say that we should bypass Congress to enact gun control, to protect abortion, and to fight global warming. That we should just let the agencies do that. We should give the agencies more power. That's an attack on democracy when you say that, is it not?

SEXTON: Yes. And it's also showing you that there is a belief and I think it's well-founded that the bureaucratic agencies, you know, the permanent branch of government that never really changes hands, the people that are going to be there for, in their minds, decades tend to lean left.

And so if you're looking to get things done, that have the force of law, but don't actually go through the legislative process, so as you point out, aren't actually accountable to the people turn to the bureaucracies for the rulemaking.

There's a lot of rulemaking that goes on that has the force of law, but that doesn't actually come from Congress. And that's something that people have been pointing to for years.

Unfortunately, people sometimes like it when their side is in a position to do that. So we haven't had as much outrage. But in the Trump era, this has gone to a new level, this is something else, this is something different.

CARLSON: But it's gone in the opposite direction. So in other words, Trump wins the election.

SEXTON: Right.

CARLSON: He is purportedly in charge of this enormous -- the largest humanist organization in history, the Executive Branch of the Federal government, and yet it's become even less accountable.

SEXTON: Right. Well, in the Obama administration, the EPA will take it upon itself when it can to forward Obama administration policies without going through the Congress. With the Trump administration, let's say the EPA, the State Department, other places can decide that they're not going through a Trump administration policy because they think it's better for the country.

So there's a lot of power consolidated in these different bureaucracies, and how could they be accountable? Who really pays attention to them? Who really knows what they're up to and what they're doing on a day-to-day basis? The answer is very few people.

And those that are there in this town, and they tend to give them not just the benefit of the doubt, they tend to think that this is probably for the best that the people that are making -- doing all the voting, they shouldn't count as much. The people that are around here, they should be making the decisions.

CARLSON: I was hoping you were going to reassure me.

SEXTON: I'm sorry about that.

CARLSON: But you didn't.

SEXTON: Well, I try.

CARLSON: Buck Sexton, great to see you. Thank you.

SEXTON: Thank you. The wife of the top congressional Democrat, Elijah Cummings allegedly channel money from her charity into another for-profit organization that she controls. It doesn't look good.

Lisa Boothe is a senior fellow at Independent Women's Voice, and she has been on the story. She joins us tonight with more. Hey, Lisa.

LISA BOOTHE, CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Tucker, and you were just talking about the resistance. And one of the main leaders that in the Democrat Party is Elijah Cummings, who is the Chairman of the Oversight Committee.

This is a guy who has broad jurisdiction, broad oversight over essentially every aspect of the government. And what's happened is there's been a file, a complaint filed against his wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings.

And the complaint has been filed by the National Policy and Legal Center, and essentially, it has two key chief complaints. The first complaint is essentially drawing the fact that there's -- she has a charity called the Global Policy Solutions.

And essentially what's happening is businesses that have interests before the Oversight Committee are giving money to this charity. So that's the first complaint. And I want to pull up a quote from Tom Anderson, who is the Chief Investigator of this group, I mentioned, if we can pull that up right there.

So what he highlights is the fact there's millions of dollars coming in from these entities, these corporations with special interest before Elijah Cummings, and anytime you have that, that opens the door for massive corruption. So that's the chief concern. That's number one.

The second concern is self-dealing. So basically, she has got this charity group and then she also simultaneously has an LLC. And what she's doing is from that money that she is getting from the charity, she is paying herself a management fee to the LLC.

So this is raising big questions with this group I mentioned, raising flags, which is why they brought it to the attention of the IRS.

CARLSON: So she somehow is a for-profit attached to the nonprofit from which she is profiting.

BOOTHE: Exactly. And even more than that is the fact that a lot of these groups and these companies that are giving money to her charity, also have interest before her husband's committee. So this is what this group has flagged to try to draw attention to.

CARLSON: That just seems so corrupt. I mean, has Congressman Cummings responded in any way?

BOOTHE: So he has and what he is essentially alleging is, look, this is a political hit job for right wing groups. His wife has also said, hey, look, I've hired attorneys and professionals to make sure I'm doing everything by the book.

So you know, we'll see what happens with this. But it's also interesting because Elijah Cummings, at least according to "The Washington Examiner," in his 2017 financial report, he mentioned the income his wife got from her LLC, but he did not mention the income that she got from the nonprofit.

And the problem is that these two entities are so commingled. That's where this is raising the red flag via this group with the IRS. That's why they filed the complaint to the IRS is because she is getting this five percent management fee. In two years alone, she made $250,000.00 off of that management fee.

CARLSON: Unbelievable. And we're told Elijah Cummings is an important moral voice. Could be time to reassess.

BOOTHE: Allegedly. At least, we need to learn more about this for sure.

CARLSON: We do. We do. Thank you for that report. I appreciate it.

BOOTHE: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, YouTube, clamping down on free speech, the fascist mob comprised mostly of journalists, applauds. We'll explain what's happening straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Steven Crowder is a conservative comedian who makes videos on YouTube. He is pretty popular. He has got close to four million subscribers and tens of millions of viewers. His stuff isn't for everyone, but so? If you don't like his videos, watch Colbert. It's a free country. Or it used to be. The press is working to change that.

A few days ago, a writer at vox.com demanded that YouTube ban Steven Crowder. Why? For the crime of insulting him. Amazingly, many in the Washington Press Corps agreed. "You shouldn't be allowed to mock talentless Vox writers," they said, apparently, it's a new addition to the First Amendment.

It turns out the Vox writer in question is hardly a sympathetic figure. Hardly. He's got a long history of leveling racist attacks online. He's called for physically assaulting people he disagrees with politically, even as he whines about being oppressed himself.

He is in other words, a classic archetype on the left. He is a fascist posing as a victim. No sensible adult would take him seriously. And yet YouTube is obeying his commands.

The company announced it will demonetize Steven Crowder's YouTube channel killing his business. They did this even though in the statement they admitted that Crowder had broken no rules.

Vox amazingly, meanwhile, released a series of statements demanding that YouTube censor Crowder entirely, not just demonetize him, but bounce them off. So much for freedom of the press.

The real question though, for the rest of us is, why is this allowed to continue? Let's stop pretending. Platforms like Twitter, and Facebook and YouTube -- these are the modern public square. Obviously. Congress has acknowledged them as such, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives tech companies special immunity from being sued for defamation or fraud. Immunity that we don't have on this channel, for example.

And the purpose of this is to allow, quote, "true diversity of political discourse." It's a high minded cause. The effect is immunity, and that immunity is worth tens of billions of dollars. It's one of the reasons the owners of Twitter and Facebook and Google are so rich.

You guaranteed that to them through your representatives in the Congress. And yet in return, these tech companies violate the terms of the deal every minute of every day. They're not open forums. There are ongoing exercises in control and censorship. The question is, how long will the rest of us stand for this?

Glenn Greenwald cofounded "The Intercept" and he joins us tonight. Glenn, thanks so much for coming on. So you don't have to be a fan of Steven Crowder or anyone to see this as a threat, a threat to one person's speech is a threat to all of our speech, is it not?

GLENN GREENWALD, COFOUNDER, THE INTERCEPT: Yes, I mean, I personally find Steven Crowder to be just a contemptuous cretin. As a commentator I do think he is an infantile bully and bigot which are not words I easily invoke. He didn't just criticize Carlos Maza, he mocked him for being gay and for being Latino.

He used a list of things to ridicule him, sends a lot of harassment his way. But that's the point, Tucker, is that censorship advocates want our brains to only go to that most primitive first level of do we hate this person? And are we therefore glad that they're being censored without thinking about the framework being endorsed or the consequences that ensue from it?

I mean, I've personally -- it resonates a lot for me, because I've dealt with harassment far greater than Carlos Maza is complaining of. I'm a gay man in a country, Brazil that just elected a President driven by intense anti-gay animus.

My husband is a Member of Congress in the oppositional party. We've been mocked and derided with our sexual orientation, not by random YouTubers, but by the President of the country himself on Twitter, and his family members who are elected members of Congress. And it would never occur to me to run to social media companies to beg for censorship, because in part, it's just something that comes with the territory of being a public figure.

More so because I don't want to live in a world where our discourse is policed and determined by benevolent overlords, who runs Silicon Valley companies, you know, who are always going to cater to the most powerful faction. That's what happened here.

YouTube caved in, not in defense of the marginalized person, but in defense of the powerful one, the one who despite being gay and Latino works for a major media conglomerate. And that's what they're always going to do is defend the mob and defend the powerful at the expense of those who are marginalized.

CARLSON: That is such a good point. They're defending the powerful. Really quickly, I just have to ask you, so you don't have immunity. You don't have the immunity that YouTube, for example, enjoys which was granted by Congress. You founded a pretty big and well known site.

If you libel someone, you can be sued. They're immune from that. Why do they retain that immunity?

GREENWALD: That's a really good question. And the reason is, is because originally, these companies like YouTube, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, were supposed to be like AT&T, which are just neutral public platforms, right?

So if Steven Crowder wants to call someone using AT&T and organize an anti- Vox rally, nobody expects AT&T to stop him because the idea is, it's just a platform for people to use. That's what Silicon Valley companies originally were supposed to be, and they got immunity for it.

In reality, this power to censor was not one that they wanted. It was one that was foisted upon them, amazingly, largely by journalists who were demanding that they remove voices from the internet.

Imagine going into journalism and then begging corporations to silence and censor people. That's the real reason they ended up in this position.

CARLSON: That is such -- so nicely put. I've got to ask you quickly, Federal prosecutors recently revealed an 18-count indictment against WikiLeaks, the founder Julian Assange, he is being charged under the Espionage Act for his role in helping to release leaked government documents.

You've been very close to the story from day one, and your point has been that this could criminalize ordinary journalism. What do you mean?

GREENWALD: Well, a lot of your viewers probably remember that under the Obama administration, a lot of journalists were targeted and called criminals for working with sources, including James Rosen who was called the conspirator for working with a source who leaked to him classified material. But at least they never went out and actually criminalized the people who published that material.

The Trump Justice Department has taken that step now, by saying that WikiLeaks is criminal, not because they stole the information, they didn't, but because they published it.

And I think we've all seen on the left and right over the past several decades that the CIA, the NSA, the FBI are agencies that will abuse their power unless they have great transparency shined on them.

WikiLeaks has done that sometimes angering the left, sometimes angering the right. And that's why they want to criminalize Julian Assange, both to punish him for bringing transparency to the deep state, but also to create a theory, hoping that everybody hates Assange just like Steven Crowder and therefore, doesn't think about the consequences that says that if you're somebody who publishes secret information, you can be turned into a criminal and that's why it's so dangerous to press freedom.

CARLSON: That is -- that's the key point. They pick someone, they whip THE mob into a frenzy. "Here's the person you should hate." And they distract us from the consequences of what they're doing, the consequences to us.

And I thank you, Glenn Greenwald for reminding us those consequences. Appreciate it.

GREENWALD: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, what would a Bill de Blasio presidency look like? Probably not a question we're going to have to entertain in real life. But what the heck, we're going to take a look at New York where Mayor de Blasio rules by fanning racial animosity at a level really unprecedented. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: There's been a surge of anti-Semitic violence in Bill de Blasio's New York. In the first quarter of 2019, according to NYPD figures, anti- Semitic attacks went up by 82 percent. Instead of fighting this, Mayor Bill de Blasio has decided to fuel it.

In a press conference, de Blasio said he knows who is behind the attacks, people of a certain skin color, watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, D-N.Y., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I want to remind people that particularly these white supremacist forces, they affront the Jewish community, they affront the Muslim community, they affront the gay community and the immigrant community. I mean, that's one of the things that's happening here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, the guy is a moron. But that's not really an excuse for making a statement like that. There's no evidence whatsoever that white supremacy is behind these attacks. There's not a lot of that in New York City. De Blasio made it up to vilify a group of people he doesn't like.

Seth Barron is an associate editor at "City Journal" in New York. He has been on the story for quite some time and has the actual facts. Seth Barron joins us tonight. Seth, thank you for coming on. Is there just -- as a factual matter, is there evidence to support what Mayor de Blasio claims?

SETH BARRON, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, CITY JOURNAL: That there's a lot of white supremacy out in East New York? No, there's not a lot. There's not a lot.

Mayor de Blasio knows precisely who is doing these attacks. He was working in the Dinkins administration during the Crown Heights riots 30 years ago, which were the largest anti-Semitic pogroms in American history.

No. You know, just a week ago, for instance, there's a video of a young man going and punching somebody -- sucker punching a Hasidic Jew from the back. In October, there was a taxi driver who stormed out of his cab and attacked a Hasidic Jew and was screaming about Allah and Islam. And then he said, "Oh, it was a mistaken identity." I guess he thought it was somebody else.

De Blasio knows precisely who is doing this. This is largely -- the violent attacks are all being done by you know, black and Latino kids and occasionally, like a Pakistani cab driver or somebody.

He is playing a game here. This is political silly season and he is in say-anything-mode.

CARLSON: But wouldn't that be the same as lying in order to whip up race hatred?

BARRON: De Blasio has done a lot of this. He is pushing the same kind of rhetoric in the schools. He claims that there's a lot of racism in the UFT, for instance. I mean, that's the logical extension of his rhetoric.

CARLSON: The UFT would be the teachers union?

BARRON: The Teachers Union.

CARLSON: Is there evidence? Because it's New York City, it's the biggest city, the most sophisticated city in the United States. Everything is measured. So I mean, are there data to prove any of this?

BARRON: Well, no, there's no data that there's a lot of overt racism. But you know, if black students are not attending the best schools, because they're not doing very well on the tests, well, according to de Blasio, that's a function of white supremacy. So you know, if anti-Semitism is up, it must be because of white supremacy.

CARLSON: So let me ask you, when you go to Crown Heights or Borough Park or over the Hasidic parts of Brooklyn, do the leaders of the Hasidic communities believe that the problem is the Ku Klux Klan?

BARRON: No, obviously not. They know who is attacking them. I mean, it's been the same story for 50 to 60 years in these neighborhoods.

No, I mean, nobody believes it. De Blasio doesn't believe it. He's just saying it.

CARLSON: That's really the lowest -- the lowest form of lying. Seth Barron, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

BARRON: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So de Blasio is sowing racial division in America's largest city, but some of his employees are even more effective at it.

The Chancellor of the City Schools, the largest public school system in the United States, Richard Carranza, is leading the charge. He is spearheading the effort to abolish merit-based admissions to the city's magnet schools - - famous magnet schools -- the only successful schools in the city. Why? Because Asians have been too successful there, and we can't have that.

A recent lawsuit, by the way accuses Carranza of demoting certain employees purely on the basis of their skin color. And during so-called racial equity training sessions, teachers were expressly told to give more attention and help the students based on the color of their skin. This is happening right now in New York City out in the open.

Heather Mac Donald is the author of the book, "The Diversity Delusion," and she joins us tonight. So Heather, I know we're not supposed to say this because we're supposed to pretend this is totally fine. But why is this different from Jim Crow exactly?

HEATHER MAC DONALD, AUTHOR: Because we're supposed to believe that whites are the source of all evil in society and the discrimination against whites is compatible with the constitutional ban on all discrimination.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has basically embraced that in allowing racial discrimination in college admissions, in the name of diversity.

What's going on that slightly different in New York City right now is the diversity rationale for racial discrimination, which now seems almost quaint, in its sort of white bread nature. It is being replaced by something far more vicious and far more hating, which is the idea of toxic white culture.

And this is a test. You know, if Carranza and de Blasio get away with this, it shows that the ideology of hatred and racial division that is now absolutely pervasive in our higher education system is entrenching itself throughout the rest of society that will lead to, I fear, a state of very, very dangerous racial tension in our society.

CARLSON: I don't understand how decent people can allow this to happen. I really don't. And I mean, I think all throughout the New York City School System, there are decent people. I know some of them. And there's certainly a lot of decent people who live in this city and whose kids go to the schools.

How can they sit back and allow children -- little kids -- to be attacked on the basis of their skin color? How can they allow that?

MAC DONALD: People are cowed by the charge of racism, obviously. I mean, Richard Carranza in demoting three white women, and justifying what he is doing in his racial crusade within the hierarchy of schools said, well, 75 percent of school students are black and Hispanic. Now that they have senior administrators who look like them, what's wrong with that?

Let's just knowledge the lunacy of this. No student knows who is buried deep in the bowels of the Department of Education that knows the color of senior administration. The desperation to justify, to explain away the black academic achievement gap is so great that we're now claiming that some bureaucrat in the bowels is going to make a difference to whether black kids succeed.

The public has to stand up and fight against this myth of bias, and say that there are behavioral differences that explain outcomes. If white privilege explained everything, please tell me how seven out of eight of the recent National Spelling Bee champions were Indian Americans.

If skin color was the scourge of people of color, they would not be able to succeed. In fact, why did they succeed, Tucker? Because they studied their butts off and that's what inner city kids have to start doing.

CARLSON: And a lot of them do. You know, Bronx Science and Hunter College High School and the high level, merit-based high schools in New York City. I mean, they have amazing outcomes. They're not majority white schools, not even close.

MAC DONALD: No.

CARLSON: And now --

MAC DONALD: There's no white privilege against Asians.

CARLSON: Exactly.

MAC DONALD: They're neither white nor privileged. These are poor Asians that have a culture of academic achievement. That is what needs to spread.

Again, as long as the myth of bias remains, the only allowable explanation for socioeconomic and racial disparities, the left wins. More and more people have to stand up and say this is not a racist society. There's not a single mainstream institution in this country, which is not Subroza doing what Richard Carranza is doing, which is hiring and promoting on the basis of race.

It is a benefit. If you're applying to Harvard, if you're applying to any selective school in the country to be black and Hispanic. It's the same -- in Microsoft recently, a female actually complained publicly about the anti-white male bias in that court operation.

This is ubiquitous Tucker, we have to fight back against the myth of bias.

CARLSON: Well, it's just -- it's totally immoral, I would say. Heather, great to see you. Thank you.

MAC DONALD: Thank you. Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: It's time for "Final Exam." Can you beat our experts at remembering the weird things, the strange and the obscure news of the past week? In moments, you'll find out? Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: It's time now for "Final Exam" where the news professionals compete to show off their mastery of what happened this week in the category of strange and obscure news.

This week's defending champion is Fox Business correspondent Susan Li, who did a masterful job last week. Her challenger tonight, Jesse Watters whom you well from "Watters' World" and of course, "The Five." Many years on Fox News Channel. Great to see both. Good luck, Jesse Watters.

JESSE WATTERS, HOST: Thanks for having us.

SUSAN LI, FOX BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Tucker.

WATTERS: Yes, I need it. I'm all for two, Tucker. Thanks for rubbing it in.

CARLSON: I have confidence, but Susan is very good. Okay, you know the rules. I'm going to repeat them for the purposes of people watching at home.

Hands on buzzers. I ask the questions. The first one to buzz in gets to answer the question. You have to wait until I finish asking before you answer. You can do it once I acknowledge you by saying your name.

Every correct answer is worth one point. If you get an answer wrong, you lose a point. Best to five wins. Ready?

WATTERS: Ready.

LI: Yes.

CARLSON: All right. Question one. There are over 20 Democrats running for President. They're finding all kinds of ways to get people's attention. Which candidate just released a political ad in which he changed a baby's diaper?

WATTERS: Eric Swalwell.

CARLSON: That's too embarrassing even for Eric Swalwell. I don't believe you, Jesse Watters. Let's see if it's true.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric Swalwell is also struggling to make the debate stage, so now he is bringing in his infant to help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, that's not -- it's not -- actually, good -- by the way, good job. It's not true that just because you can change diaper, you can run a government. I happen to know having changed a lot of diapers myself.

All right, question two. This is multiple choice, so wait until you get all the options. After dominating 32 nights in a row and winning $2.4 million, "Jeopardy" champ James Holzhauer finally lost to this week. He did not surpass the All-Time Record Hall. How short was he? Was he $38,000.00 short? $48,000.00? Or $58,000.00? Susan Li.

LI: C. $58,000.00.

CARLSON: First of all, I don't -- how could you know that? Second, how so confident. I'm impressed, but we'll see if you're right. Is she right?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After high fiving the new champ, Holzhauer our walks away winnings of $2,464,216.00, some $58,000.00 short of Ken Jennings record, $2.5 million.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LI: Yes. There you go.

WATTERS: Tucker, I waited until you finished asking the question.

LI: I did, too. I was just faster than you.

WATTERS: I think the review will show that she was a little quick on the trigger, but --

CARLSON: You know what I am -- I'm always -- I fulfil the wishes of the judges. Let me just say that. I'm not -- I'm not involved in enforcing the rules at all. I'm merely a marionette who is carrying out their orders and they say that was fair and square. So it is one-one.

LI: Fairness.

WATTERS: All right.

CARLSON: Going into question three. A weatherman in Dayton, Ohio enraged viewers recently not because of his hurricane coverage, but because he dared to interrupt a popular television show. Which show was it? Jesse Watters.

WATTERS: I am embarrassed that I know this, but it was "The Bachelorette."

CARLSON: You should be embarrassed. "The Bachelorette." Have we outed Jesse for watching "The Bachelorette."

LI: I didn't even know that.

WATTERS: Yes, thank God I wasn't in Dayton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The viewers of "The Bachelorette" who complained about a local weatherman breaking into their Monday night TV show.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have viewers complaining already. Just go back to the show. No, we're not going back to the show, folks. This is a dangerous situation, okay? I'm sick and tired of people complaining about this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LI: Wow.

WATTERS: Yes, they were --

CARLSON: Were you one of the people who complained?

WATTERS: No, I don't live in Dayton. But if I was in Dayton, I would have been calling him up.

CARLSON: You're a brave man to admit that. I love it.

WATTERS: Very secure.

CARLSON: All right, question four. Cities have banned all kinds of things -- styrofoam, plastic bags, straws -- this week, Beverly Hills became the first city in America to ban which product? Susan.

LI: Tobacco.

CARLSON: Tobacco. Was it tobacco?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beverly Hills, California, the first American city to stub out cigarettes for good. It'll ban cigarettes, chewing tobacco and electronic cigarette sales starting in 2021. The policy is expected to exempt some high-end cigar bars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Wow. Susan Li for the win. Going into sudden death. Chew, too.

LI: This always happens to me.

WATTERS: Oh god.

CARLSON: It's amazing. It comes before you expect it. This is a multiple choice. So you have to wait to all the options have been listed. Here it is. Apple, the company just unveiled its latest computer, it's the Mac Pro. Immediately it was mocked online because it looks very much like a certain kitchen appliance. What does it look like? A. A toaster? B. A microwave? Or C. A cheese grater?

WATTERS: She buzzed early.

LI: I did not.

WATTERS: She buzzed so early.

CARLSON: Susan rang it. Our judges are saying, Susan rang in early. And so it's going to Jesse Watters.

LI: I am contesting this.

WATTERS: Cheese grater -- for the win.

CARLSON: IS it a cheese grater for the win?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think that is? What the thing that is? That is the new Mac Pro. And it's caused an internet sensation because a lot of people say it looks like a cheese grater.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, bated breath. We were wondering, Jesse Watters. Susan --

LI: That was impressive.

CARLSON: You're being penalized for being so fast, which in most contexts would be the winning quality, but a little too fast for us. Congratulations though.

LI: Can I take this to the Supreme Court?

WATTERS: Thank you, thank you.

CARLSON: Jesse Watters.

LI: I am in a final judgment here.

WATTERS: Thank you.

CARLSON: A win for you. I am very impressed. We're going to send you the coveted Erik Wemple mug. There it is right there.

WATTERS: Thank you very much.

CARLSON: And by the way, we've gotten so many requests from viewers who want an Erik Wemple mug that it is now for sale. You can get your own Made in America. Go to tuckercarlson.com and get your own Erik Wemple mug. It's delicious and it is in honor of a guy on their website. Great to see you both. Congratulations.

LI: Well done.

WATTERS: Thank you.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Very strange things appear to be happening to American tourists in the Dominican Republic recently. Some have died as a result. Trace Gallagher has been looking into what exactly is going on and joins us tonight with the latest -- Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: And Tucker, no evidence connecting any of these deaths or illnesses, but it is difficult to explain away. First, 41-year-old Miranda Shaup-Werner from Pennsylvania checked into the Bahia Principe on May 25th. Hours later, she got a drink from the minibar, collapsed and died. Dominican officials say it was a heart attack. The family is not buying it.

Five days later, a sister hotel in the same property, 63-year-old Edward Holmes and his 49-year-old fiancee, Cynthia Day were found dead in their room. Officials say they died of respiratory failure at the same time. And because almost nobody was buying that, they are now looking at possible carbon monoxide poisoning.

A year ago, at a Bahia Resort up the road in Punta Cana, 51-year-old Yvette Sport got a drink at the mini bar and apparently also suffered a heart attack. And the Colorado couple now says last June, they got violently ill at the Bahia Principe telling CNN they were poisoned. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLYNN KNULL, AMERICAN WHO WAS ALLEGEDLY POISONED IN DOMINICAN RESORT: It's blood boiling. It's too coincidental with the symptoms that we had for me to even begin to stay quiet about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Kaylynn was diagnosed with being poisoned by a chemical used in insecticide. The hotel chain sited the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican quoting, "We have 2.7 million Americans that visit this country every year making the statistics surrounding this event very rare."

And finally, U.S. citizen Tammy Lawrence-Daley says last January, she was assaulted in Punta Cana by a man wearing a Majestic Elegance Hotel uniform. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAMMY LAWRENCE DALEY, U.S. CITIZEN ALLEGEDLY ASSAULTED IN PUNTA CANA: You couldn't tell who I was. I was just solid black, dried blood all over my face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Yes, we didn't want to show you that picture. The hotel doubts her story saying she only went public after not getting the $2 million compensation package -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Trace Gallagher, thanks for that. Bizarre story. Chicago police meanwhile have released to 911 calls that Jussie Smollett's manager made following Smollett's fake hate crime against himself. The call suggest just how extensively Smollett may have planned his hoax.

In the first call, the manager says he is calling police because Smollett didn't want to.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

FRANK GATSON, JUSSIE SMOLLETT'S MANAGER: I just need the police to come by. I work for an artist, I don't want to say his name. But he stated that he to a subway. He was just walking by and some guys, I don't know, they jumped him or something like that, and I just want to report it and make sure he's all right. I'm scared. I don't know what it is. They put a noose around his neck.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: It turns out, they didn't put a noose around his neck. Chadwick Moore is a New York based journalists and he joins us tonight to assess what we're learning about the story, which continues, Chadwick. I mean, it's like -- it's just every week, we learn more detail. What do they add up to?

CHADWICK MOORE, JOURNALIST: Yes, this is true. So we had a document dump on behalf -- from Kim Foxx, the State's Attorney's Office who dropped the case last week. It was 500 documents with the gold transparency, she said.

But what's come out of it is it has only raised more questions and contained in that document dump was evidence that the State's prosecutors met with Jussie Smollett's attorneys to decide on the language that they were going to present to the press before they dropped the case.

And the point was to make it not sound like Jussie Smollett was guilty and this is very strange stuff. You know, I wouldn't expect the Chicago DA's office to reopen this case. This is after all, Obama country.

But there are a lot of people who've been following this case for a long time have a lot of questions about why the Federal government hasn't stepped in. And among the biggest concerns is the Chicago Police Department concluded their investigation that they believe that Jussie Smollett had sent those letters to himself, if you remember that -- to the studio where "Empire" was filmed.

CARLSON: Right.

MOORE: And in those letters contained a white substance. So not only did Jussie Smollett allegedly fake his hate crime, he potentially faked a terrorist attack against his workplace. Where is the Federal government on this? You know, there was the guy in Florida who sent devices meant to look like bombs to Democrats. He is facing life in prison. Jussie Smollett did the same thing.

CARLSON: That's an excellent question. And by the way, in doing it impugned an entire group of Americans, people with certain skin color or certain political affiliations. I mean, this was not just a fake attack on himself, it was an aggressive attack and other people.

MOORE: Exactly. I mean, the man tried to drive an even bigger in this country. Some say he tried to start a race war. Imagine if this had happened in the summer, in warm weather months. Would there have been riots in the streets of Chicago? It just so happened it was negative 20 at the time when this happened.

It is such a heinous and despicable crime, but this man is protected by everyone. Now, what's going on in Chicago? We do have the Chicago Police Department who has filed a civil suit against Jussie Smollett, $430,000.00.

A lot of people who have been following this case don't think that's enough. But the good thing about civil suits is the burden of proof is much lower than a criminal case. Since everyone basically knows he's guilty, there is that on the horizon.

CARLSON: Right. Can I just ask you something because there's a lot going on and you can't keep track of every detail or every story, but at the height of this, Robin Roberts at ABC interviewed Jussie Smollett and allowed him to talk about how he was the victim of racism and at the end of the interview, she said, "Beautiful, Jussie, beautiful," has she apologize for that?

MOORE: Of course not.

CARLSON: Does she still have her job?

MOORE: I believe she still has a job. I believe she is still making six or seven figures or eight figures, I am sure around there. She still has a job. All of the media personalities who bought into this, of course, still have jobs. They've been pretty silent on it so far.

It's truly astounding that journalists just don't believe in being journalists anymore. They're purely activists.

CARLSON: No. Well, that's why we're also glad to have you on the show. Chadwick Moore. Thank you.

MOORE: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as you know has warned this planet only has 12 years left, thanks to global warming. It turns out she may have may have given us more than we -- time that we really have.

An asteroid called 2006 QV89 scheduled to pass by the Earth in just three days. The asteroid is wider than a football field. If it were to hit the Earth, it would explode with the effect of a thermonuclear bomb and obliterate an area scientists say bigger than New York City.

Fear not though. Scientists estimate there's only one in 7,000 chance it can hit the Earth, of course, assuming their modeling is correct. They're pretty sure it is. Good luck or enjoy yourself.

Anyway, have the best night. We will be back tomorrow night.

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