Tucker Carlson's Final Exam: Cheryl Casone vs. Jesse Watters
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," August 22, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Well, good evening and welcome to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” For the past couple of years, we've reported in some detail -- some horrifying detail -- on how the professional left has totally transformed the City of San Francisco from this country's most beautiful city, our Cape Town, into a cesspool of filth, homelessness and drug addiction. That is not an exaggeration. There are no more junkies in San Francisco than there are high school students.
And so you won't be surprised when the city has also become threatening and dangerous. The rate of property crime in San Francisco is the highest of any big city in America. More than five dozen cars are smashed and robbed every single day of the year. It's a disaster.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But don't worry, the city's leaders have a plan to respond to this. And of course, it's not more cops or better enforcement of the law. That would be bigoted. Instead, the City of San Francisco has decided to ban words that suggests San Francisco has a crime problem.
If people aren't allowed to talk about crime, maybe they won't notice crime exists. That's the thinking. So last month, the City's Board of Supervisors decreed that there'll be no more convicted felons in San Francisco. Going forward, ex-cons are to be called, quote, "justice involved individuals."
Well, as it happens, the people that committed crimes against are also quote, "justice involved individuals." So in other words, victim and criminal are now morally indistinguishable. That's on purpose. This is woke equality.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But there's a problem. Back in Washington, leaders of the Democratic Party apparently haven't gotten the memo on this, and some are still using the term felon, which is the real "F" word. So you might want to send the kids from the room as we play the following clip. We warn you, it's ugly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that anyone trying to buy a gun should at least have to prove that they're not [bleep] or somebody legally prohibited from owning one.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I do support full restoration of [bleep] rights to vote.
JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the policy that the voting [bleep] make sense.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIF., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For all of those young men mostly of color, who got arrested and are now [bleep] for life is selling that weed on the corner.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: Every law abiding citizen has the right to have a gun unless you're a [bleep].
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER FIRST LADY: What enabled that young man to get a gun he was not entitled to? He was a [bleep]. He had a [bleep] conviction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: Sorry, but all the "F" words. How insensitive can you get? Someone better call HR. Meanwhile, back in the City of San Francisco, they're no longer any juvenile delinquents. The whole category has disappeared.
Criminals under 18 are now referred to as quote, "young people impacted by the juvenile justice system," as if the system and not the kid committed the crime, which is what the left in fact believes. It's your fault, not theirs. Check your privilege, Middle America.
Drug addicts, meanwhile, in San Francisco are now called "people with the history of substance use," use not abuse. Get it? Heroin addicts are now the same as insulin dependent diabetics, both use substances. You can't call one better than the other. They're both exactly the same.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now, you could laugh this off, but San Francisco, after all are where all the crazy things happen. But thanks for the implications. Language makes thought possible. When the words disappear, so does our ability to think about the ideas the words represent; when they prevent you from saying the obvious, over time, it becomes impossible to see the obvious. And that's exactly of course, why they do it. Those who control your words, control your mind.
We're joined now by a man whose mind is controlled by no one, but himself, author and columnist, Mark Steyn. So Mark, there are no more drug abusers. There are no more juvenile delinquents. There are no more felons.
MARK STEYN, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST: Right.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: Does this -- does this improve the life of the average person in San Francisco? Like what is the point?
STEYN: Well, the point as you say is to actually disarm the people from being able to debate certain issues. You know, the argument is that if you call someone a felon, it's a pejorative term. It's a value judgment. And it might make you predisposed to think of him in a bad way.
So instead, you say, he is a person impacted by the criminal justice system. In fact, you're the person impacted by the criminal justice system because the felons keep leading them down to misdemeanors, so they never get put in jail. So they are out on the street to rob and burgle you again.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But plain speaking, oddly enough, is only reserved for particular targets. For example, you can still call someone a serial gang rapists if he happens to be the next Republican nominee for the Supreme Court. But other than that, we have this immense cleansing of language. And they're playing for big game here.
I noticed about a decade ago, the government of Spain, removed the words "mother" and "father" from its birth certificates and replaced them by Progenitor A and Progenitor B. I recommend anyone watching, if you're in a Spanish singles bar and you say, "Hey, do you want to come back to my hotel room and play Progenitor A and Progenitor B tonight?" Well, okay, but only if I can be Progenitor B this time.
The fact is, the abolition of mother and father is actually quite a big thing. And the left is clever about this, they put for big prizes. You know, one of the reasons I despair about the political right is because we get all impressed because, well, yes, we're trying to get a cut in capital gains tax through Congress. Meanwhile, they're abolishing the sexes. They're abolishing the sexes. That's incredible.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: That's exactly right.
STEYN: That's incredible. That's incredible.
CARLSON: They are reordering the natural order.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}STEYN: Yes.
CARLSON: They are fighting nature and winning, and the rest of us are still either playing these dumb, low-stakes grievance politics that we do. We are arguing about, as you put it so perfectly, the capital gains rate as if that really matters because of course, it doesn't. Meanwhile, no one is getting married, all the kids are born out of wedlock and the society collapses. How did we miss this?
STEYN: Right.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: How do we miss the important things?
STEYN: Well, I think one of the reasons -- I think one of the problems is that we get head faked. The right gets head faked into playing on the left's terms, in part because the left changes the meaning of all the words so that you end up -- you end up talking the same nonsense as the left.
People now can be -- have their careers ruined because they misgender someone on Twitter. We shouldn't actually conceive these things lightly.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: I agree.
STEYN: The patent absurdity of these things, the British government about 10 years ago in London, they decided they wouldn't use the term "Islamic terrorism" because it was discriminatory, so the Home Secretary announced she was going to call it "anti-Islamic activity" on the grounds that if a chap walks into a crowded restaurant with a suicide belt yelling "Allahu Akbar," it might risk giving Islam the whiff of a bad reputation, So it's anti-Islamic activity.
This is actually industrial scale Orwellianism where you're actually precisely inverting the meaning of language, as you said, so that people can't even discuss certain topics anymore.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: When we give up these battles over words, we give up autonomy. You can't -- if someone else can tell you what words you can use, that person is in charge of your mind. I never understand why we allow that to happen.
STEYN: No, absolutely. Absolutely. And you see it on the critical one on the critical issues for the Trump administration. Immigration where terms -- and speaking as an immigrant myself, the term immigrant no longer means what it used to do, which is someone who comes here legally and fills in the paper.
As a joke, when they introduce these terms, "undocumented immigrants" as a joke in a column in the "Chicago Sun Times" some years ago, I said, why don't we just call them members of the undocumented American community? Harry Reid, about two years later stood up on the floor of the Senate, and actually used the phrase undocumented Americans without irony.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The whole point is that the Second Amendment, they want to get rid of it to take away your guns. The First Amendment, they want to take away your words. They want to take away your power to argue, your power to debate, your power to even raise certain topics.
CARLSON: Yes, your power to think for yourself, the most important freedom of all. Mark Steyn, great to see you tonight. Thank you for that.
STEYN: Thanks a lot, Tucker.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: So San Francisco has banned certain words in an effort to make people not notice that crime exists. It's not working though. The residents of the city are outraged after a future justice involved individual attacked a woman in her home.
Chief Breaking News Correspondent, Trace Gallagher joins us tonight with details on this story. Hey, Trace.
TRACE GALLAGHER, CHIEF BREAKING NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tucker, the homeless population in San Francisco at last count was just under 10,000 and we have reams of footage showing human feces and dirty needles, but this might lend new perspective.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It's surveillance video from a San Francisco condo building where a resident tries to open the door and is attacked by a 25-year-old homeless man named Austin James Vincent. The victim says Mr. Vincent told her he was trying to save her life, but he was clearly a danger.
Yet even after viewing the video, a local judge told James Vincent to wear an ankle monitor and he was free to go. In other words, a home detention device for a man without a home.
When Mr. Vincent's story and face hit local news, police got numerous reports of other incidents involving him, including from a woman who says he attacked her with a knife back in February. Vincent was then rearrested.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}And there's this video also in San Francisco, where the owner of a truffle shop makes a homeless man leave. A fight ensues. The homeless man puts the shop owner in a chokehold right near the front door of his shop. The owner's 13-year-old son grabbed a baseball bat and ran outside. The fight had ended, but the 13 year old was ready. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was thinking to myself if this keeps on going on, if this guy keeps strangling my dad, I'm going to hit him. So if it had lasted a couple more seconds, I would have hit this guy.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: Yes, and it's not just San Francisco, a Fox News investigation looking at home homelessness in several cities shows that Seattle residents don't believe their leaders can solve the issue and despite millions spent on the problem, clearly it is getting worse. Ditto, Los Angeles -- Tucker.
CARLSON: That was the most inspiring tape I've seen in a while. Trace Gallagher, thank you for that. Well, we've told you repeatedly this year that thanks to the homeless epidemic across the country, particularly in the West, medieval diseases like typhus are making a comeback, for instance, in Los Angeles.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY VAUGHN, CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Typhus is popping up in LA's Skid Row, an area where homelessness sprawls across 50 city blocks. An infectious disease eradicated in the 1800s that festers in filth and is spread by fleas and rats is back because the city allows hundreds of homeless people to set up shacks on the sidewalk and live there forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARLSON: No one who saw that package is going to forget it. So that was Fox's Hillary Vaughn and we're happy to have her on the set tonight with an update to that story. Hey, Hillary.
VAUGHN: Well, Tucker, everyone knows rats are dirty. But in Los Angeles, the rats can be deadly, and we showed you that in last March, we showed you conditions on the streets of Los Angeles that have brought medieval diseases back to life, like typhus and since our report, the rat problem is even worse.
More cases of the disease continue to pop up. Since 2018 in Los Angeles, there have been 150 cases of typhus and 27 typhus outbreaks. A report from a forum in California surveyed 23 private pest control companies, all of them say rat reports have spiked in the last year.
Just two weeks ago, a Work Safety Inspector found that employees at City Hall in Los Angeles are exposed to heaps of trash and bodily fluids from homeless encampments lining the streets not far from LA's Skid Row.
LA Mayor, Eric Garcetti works at City Hall, but has not declared a state of emergency to handle the homelessness. LA City Council Member Joe Buscaino met with the Mayor this week begging him to declare a state of emergency in the city telling us quote, "These efforts are advancing at an excruciatingly slow pace with bureaucratic roadblocks and red tape at every step of the way. If a natural disaster left thousands homeless, we would declare a state of emergency."
The city has spent millions of dollars cleaning up the streets, clearing encampments, but when they clear a spot, new people just move right in and pop their tents providing safe harbor for a flourishing community of rats infested with disease.
Los Angeles is the second rattiest city in the country, but exterminating them could be a lot more difficult because a bill in the California State Assembly wants the state to outlaw super toxic forms of rat poison because it harms local wildlife like coyotes and mountain lions -- Tucker.
CARLSON: Amazing story. Hillary Vaughn. Thank you for that. I hope you'll come back.
VAUGHN: I will.
CARLSON: Bernie Sanders just unveiled his brand new climate plan. No, it does not until him not flying on private jets. He plans to keep doing that. It means spending $50,000.00 for every American man, woman and child. Where's the money coming from? We will let you guess over the break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled his version of the Green New Deal today, if you were hoping he would announce he is never going to fly on a private jet again, you're going to be disappointed. He is going to continue to do that avidly. You're not allowed to, but he is going to.
No, his plan is this -- spend $16 trillion. It's a lot. It's 10 times as much as Joe Biden's plan. In fact, it's 50 grand for every single person in America. What could you do with that money? I mean, what couldn't you do? Send everyone in the country to college for four years.
Sanders says his plan will pay for itself somehow, and of course by that he means you will pay for it whether you want to or not. Daniel Turner is Executive Director of Power the Future and he joins us tonight to explain what is in this plan. Mr. Turner, thanks very much for coming on.
DANIEL TURNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, POWER THE FUTURE: Thanks for having me back.
CARLSON: So Bernie is going to continue to fly private.
TURNER: Yes.
CARLSON: All of them do.
TURNER: Of course.
CARLSON: But what does this mean for the rest of us?
TURNER: Yes, it means an awful existence because it will be the end of America as we know it. This is not a climate change plan. This is not an environmental plan. This is a Socialist Manifesto, written by grammatically incompetent, angry --
CARLSON: You can stop right there.
TURNER: First line -- the very first line. My mother who is an English teacher would have ripped it up on the spot and said "Do it again." The first line has a serious grammar error.
CARLSON: Can I just know one thing, I am sorry I keep interrupting you, but the people in charge among their many other sins are dumb.
TURNER: Yes.
CARLSON: A lot of them are dumb.
TURNER: And angry.
CARLSON: And angry. But because they went to Harvard, you know, they sort of have you on the defensive like they know a lot, "I'm an expert."
TURNER: Yes.
CARLSON: Actually a lot of them are just like mouth-breathing morons.
TURNER: Yes.
CARLSON: Can I say that?
TURNER: Absolutely. They're dumb. They're very, very angry. There are phrases --
CARLSON: Impressive.
TURNER: There are phrases like "Bernie Sanders will welcome the hatred of the oil executives."
CARLSON: What?
TURNER: Exactly. I read it. And I didn't really understand how that -- what that even means. So yes, they are very, very dumb, but because this is climate change, and because it's the environment, they get away with so much more than your average person would be told to go pound sand.
So things like, you know, $2 trillion given to people to buy electric vehicles. Well, what does it do when we pour all of this money into the education system? Would the price of tuition go up or would it go down? So we're going to pour $2 trillion into buying electric vehicles, what is that going to do the prices?
We sold 400,000 electric vehicles last year, we sold 17 million regular vehicles. So is there an infrastructure to meet the demand of vehicle requirements as electric vehicles? There -- this proposal is so devoid of physics, economics, math, I mean, simple math, high school, elementary school math, it's an abomination.
CARLSON: Is there -- so China is the biggest carbon emitter and the biggest polluter in the world, by far.
TURNER: And the biggest beneficiary of this planet.
CARLSON: So does any part of the plan say look, this is an existential threat to life on this planet, we're going to -- we're going to go to war with China unless they stop building coal plants. Does it say that?
TURNER: No, and not only that. It promises $200 billion to other nations to help them implement the Green New Deal.
CARLSON: What?
TURNER: Exactly. So not only are we going to destroy our economy, but we're going to fund other nations to help them buy solar panels from China. Of course, China wants this. The China Emissary in the Climate Change Conference, just the other day was saying that he hopes America re-enters the Paris Climate Accords. Of course, they want America in the Paris Climate Accord, because it only benefits them.
CARLSON: I'm obsessed with this one point, I'm going to bring it up again.
TURNER: Please.
CARLSON: Did it say anything about planting trees? If you really believed that the climate was changing because of carbon emissions, you would want to plant trees to absorb the carbon. I love trees. I think we should plant trees actually.
TURNER: Sure.
CARLSON: So nobody in the left wants to do it because it doesn't give them power. Does this -- does this plan mention that?
TURNER: No. It does talk about the Amazon on fire. But it makes it sound like this is caused by climate change, which is not. The fires in the Amazon are man-made and they're tragic. Right? They are tragic, but they're not caused by climate change.
There are, if you follow their philosophy of what causes climate change, I don't agree with their philosophy or their beliefs because it's not scientific, it's opinion. If you follow their beliefs, there are things that they should encourage people to do.
We should all get off the internet. Right? We should all stop using any sort of private jet like you just said, right? Prince Harry, he gave a barefoot speech about climate change, but he's been on a private jet four times in 11 days. One private jet flight has as much of a carbon footprint as the average human's year. Prince Harry, you could be as barefoot as you want until you stop --
CARLSON: I am not sure exactly who Prince Harry is, but barefoot rich people flying in private planes lecturing the rest of us about climate change ...
TURNER: Exactly.
CARLSON: ... can be quiet.
TURNER: Socialism for us, but not for them.
CARLSON: Well, that's always the plan. Daniel Turner, it's great to see you, as always.
TURNER: Thank you.
CARLSON: Thank you very much. Well, Bill de Blasio has statistically speaking, zero percent chance of becoming the President of the United States, but he still has a lot of power to make life worse in America's largest city and he is doing that.
Nearly a year ago, de Blasio was confronted at a YMCA by one of New York's 60,000 homeless people. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... thousand units?
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, D-NYC, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What's that now? I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Out of the --
DE BLASIO: I am doing my workout. I am sorry. I can't do this now. I can't do this now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Out of the 300,000 units you said in your affordable housing program, only five percent will go to the homeless.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma'am, please.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you look me in the eye and tell me why --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why won't you commit more housing for homeless New Yorkers, Mayor de Blasio?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So recently, a local New York news station tracked that woman down. It turns out she's still homeless, but Bill de Blasio doesn't care. He's got other priorities and here's what they are. You can guess. Recently, de Blasio altered the city's affordable housing lottery. Why? To make it easier for foreign nationals here against our laws -- illegal aliens -- to use the shelters in New York City, while American citizens languish on the sidewalk.
Eric Ulrich is a Republican. He is a New York City Councilman and he joins us tonight. Thanks a lot for coming on tonight.
ERIC ULRICH, R-NYC, COUNCILMAN: Tucker, it is good to be with you.
CARLSON: So am I misstating this? The mayor of New York, the city has a terrible homeless problem. There's not enough space, there aren't enough beds. And the Mayor is saying let's put some illegal aliens into the system.
ULRICH: No, you really hit the nail right on the head, Tucker. Bill de Blasio instead of helping homeless men, women and children. We have more than 60,000 homeless families in our shelter system tonight. Instead of helping homeless veterans, instead of helping seniors who are living on a fixed income, he has decided to help people who are in the country illegally and allow them to apply for the affordable housing lottery, to get below market rents for apartments that should be going to law abiding citizens and people who play by the rules. Those are the people who deserve those slots.
CARLSON: It's almost beyond belief, but it's also of a piece with a bunch of other decisions Democrats in your state have made, for example, giving cut rate tuition to people here illegally above and beyond what American citizens get. Is there anything that can be done to stop this?
ULRICH: Well, you know, I find it interesting that Bill de Blasio had this epiphany. He has been Mayor for more than six years now in New York. He has done a terrible job, by the way. A headline that you had on the screen was absolutely on the marquee, he is the worst Mayor the city has probably ever had.
But Bill de Blasio decided that because he wants to be the Democratic nominee, because he is running for President, he is going to roll out this litany of leftist socialist policies, none of which he's ever talked about before. But now conveniently, he wants to use on the campaign trail in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.
There's some people in New York who are upset that he is spending a lot of time outside of the city. I'm not one of those people. The less that he is here, the less damage he can do.
I mean, he is so progressive. So left, he makes AOC look like Shirley Temple. I mean, I really mean this. He is doing so much damage to the City of New York. It's disgusting.
CARLSON: Yes, he is an idiot and charmless. But I guess the bottom line always is not ideological. It's practical. I mean, he can say whatever he wants, he can jump up and down and make all these pronouncements, but the acid test is life in the city. Has it gotten better or worse under Bill de Blasio? And what's the honest answer to that?
ULRICH: Unfortunately, we are not better off today than we were four years ago or six years ago, when Bill de Blasio took office. Almost all of the gains that we made under the Giuliani and Bloomberg administration have all been evaporated under this Mayor.
He is so interested in raising his national profile and being the leader of the so-called progressive movement or the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He shows little to no interest in managing the day-to- day affairs of the city. And the proof is in the numbers.
We have an affordable housing crisis in the city. We have a homelessness epidemic, unlike anything we've ever seen before. Our Police Department lost all respect, all confidence in the Mayor. And where's the Mayor? Campaigning for President. He is at zero percent in the polls. He is a disgrace.
CARLSON: If it weren't the country's best city, it is New York City. It wouldn't matter, but it does matter because it is New York.
ULRICH: Well, it does matter. We've got to keep fighting the good fight.
CARLSON: Amen. Councilman, thanks for coming on tonight.
ULRICH: Thank you.
CARLSON: Well, like many on the left, President Obama says that climate change is an existential threat. It's going to destroy the planet. And yet well, you weren't watching when he started negotiating on a piece of incredibly expensive oceanfront property. Doesn't make sense, does it? But he is not the only person left doing that. Details after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Well, if you listen to Democrats in Washington, some Republicans by the way talk, too. You hear a lot about the existential threat of climate change. They claim to believe that, but they don't live like they believe it. We can give you a million examples. Here's the latest.
President Obama apparently is in the process of paying $15 million for an ocean front home in Martha's Vineyard. Trace Gallagher returns more on that story tonight. Hey, Trace.
GALLAGHER: Tucker, the former President and First Lady have spent much of the summer in a rented home on Martha's Vineyard, you know, cozy little cottage; 7,000 square feet, seven bedrooms, pool, outdoor kitchen, second story Jacuzzi and oh, it's on 29 acres of oceanfront real estate.
We're told they love the home. In fact, as you mentioned, they're going to buy it. List price point $14.8 million. That's not to say the Obama's are paying full tilt. Though even when the former President was recently talking about income inequality. He had to admit that he's really rich. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: I should add by the way right now I'm actually surprised by how much money I got. There's only so much you can eat. There's only so big a house you can have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: Seven thousand square feet to be exactly, which is only tiny if you're Al Gore. The former Vice President's Nashville home is more than 10,000 square feet. And in 2017, right before his documentary, "An Inconvenient Sequel" open, the "National Center for Public Policy Research," a conservative think tank estimated the Vice President used 21 times more energy than the average American that's just in the Nashville home. They didn't figure in the other two.
It turns out being a Congresswoman, not nearly as lucrative as being a President or Vice President, Democrat Maxine Waters' California home valued at a mere $4.3 million and that home is not even in her district -- Tucker.
CARLSON: Amazing, amazing. If you want to know people, watch how they live. Trace Gallagher. Great to see you.
Well, here's something that really is an existential crisis, social media is having a devastating effect on America's most vulnerable and particularly on teenage brains. This is real.
Researchers in the U.K. found that teenagers who use a lot of social media are far more likely to be highly stressed due to a mixture of less sleep, less physical activity and more exposure to bullying. And in schools, experts are warning that children cannot be deprived of their phones for an entire day because it is too psychologically stressful for them to quit using a device for that long.
Jean Twenge is a Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and author of the book, "iGen" and she joins us tonight. Jean so much for coming on.
JEAN TWENGE, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY: Thank you.
CARLSON: So this has added to what is now a growing mountain of evidence that social media really are physically harmful for our young people. Tell us -- summarize these findings if you would?
TWENGE: Well, first of all, we really have. We are in the midst of a mental health crisis for teens in this country, particularly for teen girls -- depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide -- they all started rise after 2012 when social media became common and so did smartphones.
And this is probably not a coincidence because the people who spend a lot of time on their phones especially those who spend a lot of time on social media, it is linked to lack of sleep and depression, and less happiness -- all of these effects and they are hitting teen girls especially hard.
CARLSON: So I don't think anything you said is speculation. I mean, it seems like there are studies to back up every discrete point that you just made. There are a lot of people running around in our society right now who claim to deeply care about teen girls, young women. None of them are saying anything about this, why?
TWENGE: That's a good question. I think there's a lot of denial out there. Everybody loves their phone and spending time on their phones. But I think people just not being realistic about how we need to deal with this issue, that it's very tempting to say, "Oh, that's just the way things are now," that's just the way kids are, and we should just accept it.
But, you know, we have a responsibility as adults, as parents to take charge of these things, to not say, "Oh, kids can't deal with not having their phones."
CARLSON: Right.
TWENGE: You know, they're going to want their phone. Of course, they're going to want their phones, you know, have you been to a business meeting lately? Every 55 girl can't keep their hands off their phone. And so how are we going to expect a 13 or 14-year-old to keep their hands off their phone during the school day and say, "Oh, we have to teach them to manage the phone, we're not going to take it away. We're going to teach them to manage it." Nobody can learn how to manage it. These things are designed to be addictive.
CARLSON: That's right. That's exactly right. The only thing -- I mean, it's like -- can you imagine saying to a 13 year old, you know, you've got a pack a day Marlboro habit, but we're going to manage that. We're going to get it down to 15 cigarettes a day. No one would consider that, correct?
TWENGE: Absolutely. Yet, you know, there are a lot of people out there who say but we need to, we shouldn't take them away during the school day. We should trust them. We should -- they need to learn how to manage it. Yet, they're not old enough to learn how to manage it. And even adults are not having a lot of success doing that. So we have to step in and be the adults and be the parents.
CARLSON: I think what we're really saying is we just don't care that much, actually. Jean, thanks so much for joining us tonight.
TWENGE: Thank you.
CARLSON: It is interesting and sad. What even interesting and sad, a new survey from Pew is disconcerting about what's happening in this country. It's widely known information, but it's not often acknowledged in public. America, it turns out is becoming a low trust society.
American adults, 65 or older group in a very different country and their views reflect it, only 29 percent of this group, the older American group believe that quote, "most people can't be trusted." Just 39 percent think that most people are looking to take advantage of them. And 48 percent agree with the statement that quote "most of the time people just look out for themselves."
Contrast those attitudes with the attitudes of young Americans. They're radically different. Sixty percent of young people in this country say that most people can't be trusted; 71 percent say that people are trying to take advantage of them; 73 percent think that most people can't be trusted most of the time.
It's hard to blame young people for thinking this way. The point of this is not to blame them. They've learned it. As children, they were told that education was the key to success. Now, many have tens of thousands in college loan debt, they'll be paying that off for years or decades. They learned nothing. It gave them no advantage at all.
Meanwhile, they grow up in a world where they took it for granted that Facebook would spy on them to make a profit. While companies like Uber employ them and give them no benefits and call it the gig economy and pretend they ought to be grateful to work there. The highest job they can aspire to is wearing some matching t-shirt in some spare, depressing retail Apple store -- that's considered cool.
These are kids who spent their whole lives under leaders who are happy to send Americans to die in pointless wars in the Middle East, but barely think about stopping the nation's deadliest drug epidemic. We're having their entire country bought up by private equity then sold off piecemeal to the Chinese.
These are kids who exists in a social environment where friends will denounce them over a single disagreement rather than try to live with differing views. They become less trusting because their daily lives tell them that trust isn't worth it. It's for suckers.
So this is not a small thing. It has massive implications. Social trust is a critical component of happiness. No country can remain happy without social trust. All humans crave communities where they feel at home where they can trust the people around them.
If Americans can't trust each other, and instead hate and suspect each other, there are only two end games, and neither one of them is good. This is something that we should worry about and address directly and try to make better because everything hangs in the balance.
Well, Democrats like to tell you that global warming is an existential threat, probably overstated at this point. That doesn't mean there aren't deadly threats out there that could be existential -- super volcanoes and asteroids for example, existential threats. Should we be worried about them? We will tell you just ahead.
But first, it's time for "Final Exam." Two of our Fox professionals will show who has learned more useless knowledge this week. The winner comes away with an Erik Wemple mug. After the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: It's time now for "Final Exam" where the hardened news professionals here at Fox News compete for the chance to win the coveted Erik Wemple mug.
Our challenger tonight, Fox Business Anchor, Cheryl Casone, one of the great people in the building. She will be taking on "The Five's" co-host, Jesse Watters who reclaimed the "Final Exam" title last week by beating Martha MacCallum in a showdown for the ages. That was quite intense. Welcome to you both and good luck.
JESSE WATTERS, HOST: Thank you.
CHERYL CASONE, FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Thank you.
CARLSON: So you know the rules but I am going to repeat them for our audience. Hands on the buzzers, I ask the questions. The first person to buzz in gets to answer the question. Critically, you have to wait until I finish asking it before you answer. You can answer once I acknowledge you by saying your name. Every correct answer is worth a single point; if you get one wrong, we subtract a point from your total -- out of cruelty. Best to five wins. Are you ready?
WATTERS: We are ready.
CASONE: Let's go. All right, got it.
CARLSON: Good. Okay, question one. We will begin tonight with a multiple choice. Senator Elizabeth Warren is facing criticism this week, but it's not for something that she said, it's for her dance moves. At the conclusion of a Minnesota rally, the candidate awkwardly rocked out to which song? Was it A. "Respect" by Aretha Franklin? Was it B. "American Girl" by Tom Petty? Or was it that 70's anthem "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton? Jesse Watters.
WATTERS: I'm going to go with A. Respect.
CARLSON: You don't think it was Dolly Parton. Is Jesse Watters right? Is it "Respect" by Aretha Franklin?
[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]
CASONE: All right. Nice.
WATTERS: Got it.
CASONE: Oh, so good. That's sick.
CARLSON: I want to apologize to our viewers. I hadn't seen that video. Typically, I screen all the video before this segment. That was just horrifying. I'm sorry we put that on the screen. Okay. You got that correct. Question two. Another multiple choice for you. The President has canceled his trip to Denmark. That is because the country's Prime Minister rejected his proposal to buy Greenland, which is a Danish territory -- who knew? The question is, who is the prime minister of Denmark? Is it A. Erna Solberg? Is it B. Mett Frederiksen? Is it C. Benny Andersson? Jesse Watters.
WATTERS: I am going to go with B. Mette whatever her last name is.
CARLSON: And I think it's Mette -- I think I've pronounced it incorrectly, but you know that would be just like me.
WATTERS: Oh, okay. All right.
CARLSON: But is it B? Is he right?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Danish Royal Palace which invited Mr. Trump was apparently blindsided by the cancellation and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, he is surprised and disappointed. Look.
METTE FREDERIKSEN, DANISH PRIME MINISTER: I've been looking forward to the visit. Our preparations were well underway. It was an opportunity, I think, to celebrate Denmark's close relationship to U.S.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: You were right, Mette.
CARLSON: Jesse Watters. You are a savage. I am not surprised. It's just you're really on top of this stuff.
WATTERS: Oh, you seem surprised.
CASONE: Is my button working? I don't know.
CARLSON: It's possible, it's not. But trust me, we didn't rig it.
CASONE: It's a set up.
CARLSON: All right. Question three, which 2020 Democratic candidate promises that if elected President, she will create the first ever Department of Peace. Jesse Watters once more.
WATTERS: That would be Marianne Williamson, Tucker.
CARLSON: Marianne Williamson, your personal spiritual adviser. Is Jesse Watters correct?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 67-year-old spiritualist and author is doing things her own way.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you make me President, we will have the United States Department of Peace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she has established herself as one of the most quotable candidates.
WILLIAMSON: Yada, yada, yada.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Whoa, man, that's awesome. Good job. Okay. So it's three zero going into question four. However, this question is our Daily Double. This is worth two points, and it's another multiple choice. Here it is. Kroger, the supermarket is now selling vegan eggs. They are completely plant based. Which vegetable are these vegan eggs made from? Is it A. Pinto beans? B. Kidney beans? C. Mung beans. Cheryl.
CASONE: C. Mung beans.
CARLSON: Okay. And for an extra point, the question would be, what's a mung bean? Is Cheryl correct? Is it a mung bean.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STUART VARNEY, FOX BUSINESS HOST: Kroger is now selling vegan eggs made from something I've never heard of. And that will be mung beans -- M-U-N-G beans. The bottom line here. This a plant based food is expanding rapidly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it's here to stay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Okay, I've always loved Stuart Varney, but the fact he admitted he hadn't heard of that either made me love him more. Okay, final question.
WATTERS: All right. This is a multiple choice. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced this week that after careful consideration, what type of animal is cleared to fly as an emotional support companion? Is it A. Ferrets? Is it B. Mini horses? Is it C. Baby llamas? Jesse Watters.
WATTERS: B. Mini horses.
CARLSON: Is it mini horses?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So miniature horses. I can think of a lot of concerns with this.
CATHY AREU, PUBLISHER, CATALINA MAGAZINE: I don't see any problem with it. I'm completely okay with it. They're adorable. They're two to three feet tall. They are emotional support animals and the ADA sees cats, dogs and mini horses are approved as service animals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Mini horses couldn't drag me away. Unbelievable. Great job. Cheryl, you did a fantastic job, but Jesse Watters, I mean he would flatten me. I didn't know. I didn't know any of that. So to you, Jesse Watters, another Erik Wemple mug. I want you to drink this with pride or without pants. But as you do remember us.
WATTERS: Thank you very much.
CARLSON: Thank you. Cheryl, thank you for that.
CASONE: You bet, Tucker.
CARLSON: That's it for this week's "Final Exam." Pay close attention to the news each week, particularly the weird news. Tune in Thursdays to see if you are worthy of an Erik Wemple mug. You could find those mugs by the way on our website, tuckercarlson.com. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... that climate change is real, it is an existential threat to our country and the entire planet.
SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-N.J., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If NATO is about the common defense, the biggest existential threat is climate.
JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is climate change. It really is the existential threat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Holy smokes. An existential threat. Can you define it? Can they? It doesn't matter? Pretty serious. So what could that existential threat be? Of course, the Democratic Party is talking about climate, which is -- as we're about to tell you not about to kill anybody, anytime soon. But there actually are some existential threats out there. And they are, in fact, kind of terrifying.
For example, the Yellowstone super volcano. A "New York Times" op-ed warns that if the volcano explodes, it will obliterate Wyoming and cause years of winter. That's existential.
And then there's the giant asteroid threat. Big ones, like the ones that killed the dinosaurs or the ones that Bruce Willis blew up in the movie "Armageddon." We will have three close encounters with giant space rocks in just the next week.
And then, in case you're not rattled, yet, The Big One, the earthquake that could shear the entire West Coast of America off and send it into the sea, by which many have mixed feelings, but apparently it's real. Scientists are warning about it constantly.
So of these threats, which is the most existential? Which is the gravest? Are they real? Brett Larson has looked into this for us. He is of course an anchor for Fox News Headlines 24/7 and the man we go to if we have complex science related questions.
So Brett, should we be worried?
BRETT LARSON, FOX NEWS HEADLINES 24/7 ANCHOR: We should absolutely be terrified, shaken in our pants, Tucker. This is serious stuff. You know, it's funny, I'm glad you mentioned California. I grew up in California and your entire life is spent waiting for The Big One. You talk about it with your friends.
CARLSON: I remember well.
LARSON: You prepare for it. You're ready for it. You've got your emergency kit. And in reality, when you look at all of this stuff, that's really the most important thing to combat these existential threats. Just be prepared to take care of yourself for a day or two when something bad goes wrong.
I lived in California during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. We fared better than most. Our power went out off and on for a day or two. We were fine. We had candles. We had some canned food. We had some non- perishable food. We were able to get by until things came back to normal.
Scientists are always telling us about asteroids that are going to hit us. The volcano you mentioned in Yellowstone Park. These are real things. These are things that could potentially be a problem. But they were talking about this volcano that erupts -- it's erupted three times in 2.1 million years. And the last time it did it was 640,000 years ago.
Well, we weren't around 640,000 years ago. And if it's once every 700,000 years, I'm guessing none of us are going to be around in 60,000 years or so. Maybe by then, the artificial intelligence robots will have taken over and they can deal with the existential threat.
And with the asteroids --
CARLSON: Let me just pause you and say I'm going to take that off the list. We're going to pass that volcano buck to future generations fair.
LARSON: Absolutely. Totally fair. The asteroid thing and this again, it's a great plot line. If Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is ready to make the movie, I am ready to write the movie about the asteroid. But we've had the movie like six times, "Armageddon," you've mentioned it.
Look, there's an asteroid that's going to pass by us in 10 years, it's 1,100 square feet across, but it's going to be 19,000 miles away. We might not even notice that it goes by. It might give now -- well, it's definitely going to give NASA something to study when it goes past us. And this is great. That's great for science.
Maybe in 10 years, they'll figure out how to land a probe on it, so we can see what's going on, on these asteroids. But we shouldn't be terrified of these things. We should just be prepared to take care of ourselves for a few days until help is on the way to help us. And yes, California --
CARLSON: After the asteroid hits.
LARSON: Yes. Well listen, if the asteroid hits, it's over. I don't want to be a doomsday guy. But remember Y2K, the planes were going to fly out of the sky, the ATMs are going to spit $20.00 bills at everybody. The power was going to go out everywhere. The buses were going to crash for no reason. None of that happened. It was just -- it was just this mass hysteria peddled by the media because that's what we like to do. We like the little fear in you.
CARLSON: It was -- Richard Jewell, Gary Condit, Y2K. We've got a pretty bad track record for us. That's the cracks of the media.
LARSON: Yes, we do. The Mayans -- everything was supposed to end in 2012 or 2016.
CARLSON: The Mayans.
LARSON: I can't remember. I kept -- my calendar kept going and so did my life.
CARLSON: Some days, I wake up, I think I can't believe I'm in this business. How did I get to be a journalist? How did I do that?
LARSON: Exactly.
CARLSON: Brett, great to see you tonight. Thank you for that.
LARSON: Good to see you too, Tucker. Thanks.
CARLSON: That was existential, can I say? Whatever that means. All right. We're out of time. Sadly, an hour like that. It goes by -- a metaphor. Enjoy every second. We'll be back though tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. The show that is the sworn and totally sincere enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.
Sean Hannity, next from New York.
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