then jesse watters and kennedy, they will take the primetime seat, 10:00 p.m. to midnight. you got to be there, sunday night. we'll be back tomorrow night, "fox news @ night." ♪ ♪ >> mark: good evening, and welcome to "tucker carlsonni tonight." i'm mark steyn in for tucker, who is taking a european union length christmas break, which is revoltingly unamerican of him. today was the deadline for the department of justice to turn over requested information about anti-trump text messages to the senate judiciary committee. the text messages were sent by former robert mueller team member peter strzok and are a powerful sign that mueller's probe and othermu fbi investigations could be tainted by political bias. senator chuck grassley has demanded that the doj explain both when it found

the messages and how it has reacted to them. will that information be handed over? so far it apparently hasn't been. but the doj and fbi have repeatedly demonstrated that they consider these requests from congress to be mere suggestions at best. richard goodstein advised hillary clinton's campaign in both 2008 and 2016. richard, it's not a small thing when the people's representatives get to flip the finger by rogue law enforcement agencies, is it? >> mark, can i just say you introduced me as a hillary person. it must have hurt in the gallup poll said hillary i clinton and barack obama man and woman in the world. answer my question.

>> mark: on the entire planet. if only the electoral college, included the jungles of papua guinea, shepi would be sitting in the oval office today. >> my sentiments for that one. >> mark: i will give that you one in the spirit of new year comedy. >> peter strzok's text messages is another distraction. donald trump should thank his lucky stars that the fbi. he would not be in the white house but for james comey having given his press conference july 25th and sent that letter october 8th to making no reference to what the intelligence community knew, which have the russians were trying to help trump win. nothing, not a word. for him and frankly his party members now, to be screaming bloody murder about the fbi, it's a bit much. >> mark: wait a minute, this guy strzok, for example, senator grassley has read this text message from peter strzok, who is a senior counter intelligence guy, even though he writes text messages to his sweetheart like a sixth grade school girl, it is a serious

situation when the plain meaning of the text suggests that in andrew mccabe's office, the number two fbi guy's office, they are i talking about how to, in effect, interfere with the election to ensure that trump doesn't become president. that would be bad if they were doing it to hillary. it would be bad if they weret. doing it to jill stein. doesn't that require an answer from these guys? >> they were saying that atn' a time when the fbi was putting its weight on thehe scales in favor of donaldei trump. seriously, this is perverse. i understand, again, the walls are kind of closing in on donald trump. with the flynn plea, with the papadopoulos plea. seriously, look, mark, i would say this, you know who said really bad things about donald trump? marco rubio said he was a con artist.

ted cruz said he was utterly amoral and a pathological liar.te peter strzok wasn't unique. >> mark: trump said ted cruz's father was on the grassy knoll with lee harvey oswald. that is politics. put that to one side. what we are talking about here is policemen. if trump wants to accuse cruz's father of being on the grassy knoll, that's one thing. when policemen are, as you put it, putting their thumb on the scale, that's quite another matter.at >> well, except it's belied by the fact that what comey, what the fbi ultimately did, they put its weight -- the comey press conference, the comey letter, the nondisclosure of what the intelligence committee knew about what the russians were doing to help trump, that's h basically trumps everything. that supersedes anything that peter strzok could have possibly -- incidentally, when

peter strzok was doing interviews, mark, he would have other people they are the. he didn't have any kind of solo opportunity to move things one way or the other. did he like trump? no, a lot of people didn't. >> mark: you said a fascinating thick there,e, richard, what the russians were doing to help trump.e what were they doing? >> i will tell you, fourou things, keep in mind. they said to donald trump., jr., we can help you. donald trump jr. said, love it, let's see it and then guess what? the russians did help through wikileaks and donald trump 100 times during the campaign made reference to wikileaks and urged them to do more to basically steal from hillary clinton's computer and then, of course, all the people in the trump orbit lied about it. >> mark: nobody had to steal a from any democrats. john podesta's password was "password" with a zero for where the o should be.es so, john podesta and hillary clinton might as well have e left their emails on top of a payphone in grand central station. you don't have to steal it. >> that's like saying that the watergate break-in would not have happened had that lock been a bit more secure, that those burglars couldn't have quite cracked it.

come on, it was theft. it was theft. >> mark: come on, richard, we hear this thing, they may have hacked into voting machines. m you can't hack into something that isn't connected to the internet. that's like hacking into a cinnamon bun. you can't do it. >> i totally agree that right now we don't have evidence about the voting machines. here is what we do have evidence of. we know that there is some crackpot from north carolina came up to washington, d.c. with a rifle because some looney thing put out by the russians about a child slavery ring in a pizza place and he was prepared to shoot people. i you think people might be prepared to vote differently? this guy was prepared to shoot people because of what he read on the internet. >> mark: come on, we have a bernie sanders guy shooting up the congressional baseball playing republicans. we have -- that's not on bernie sanders. bernie is one of my new england and i think he is a kook. but i don't think he incentivizes people to murder. you can't make that connection.

>> you are downplaying the significance of what was putng out on the internet by the russians. i'm saying, that the point ixi made was exhibit a, was something that was specifically done by the russians and a guy was i prepared to travel hundreds of miles to shoot people. that's suggests to me that somebody may be able to have their vote influenced, that's all. >> mark: that's interesting to hear from campaign officials.ob because if that guy, putin, can swing an elections for 100 grand, you guys are out of business, richard, because nobody pay millions to the big fancy pants consultants when 100 grand00 for some guy in moscow can swing the election for you. >> two things, mark. we will see when the podesta emails came out an hour after "access hollywood." was that a coincidence or was there some collaboration? and we will see when all these swing voters in michigan, wisconsin were targeted by russians. was that all done by russians or were any americans involved? those are the questions that mueller, i bet, will get to the bottom of.f. and i don't think the answer

will reflect well on trump. >> mark: as i said, richard, the whole industrial complex has goal up in smoke if some s rinky dink roosky in moscow could swing it for you. isn't just text messages. hurting the legitimacy of mueller's investigation, of course. the fbi's infamous reliance on the trump dossier is doing a good job, as well. republican congressman ron desantis of florida says that use of the dossier undermines the basic legitimacy of the fbi's warrant to investigate the trump campaign following last year's election. and congressman desantis joins us now. this is a very interesting legal point you made. if this dossier was the pretext for the entire investigation, it's a kind of almost absurd fruits of the poisonous tree thing in that it's not -- it's not a legit pretext for an investigation; is that correct? >> yeah. just think about where this dossier came from.hi this was paid for by hillary

clinton, the democratic party. h they paid millions of dollars to perkins law firm who then laundered it to fusion gps. so have you fusion gps producing this thing. i think christopher steele was more of a cover to make. it look like an intelligence product. but to this day, the fbi can't verify anything in it other than one person associated with trump traveled to russia at some point, so this stuff is bogus. it's fake news. and you expect that kind of stuff to be generated in the course of a political campaign, but if that is presented to the fbi, and then they are taking that unverified dossier and launching a federal counter intelligence investigation without anything more, to me, that raises some serious questions. and was it peter strzok who was involved? remember, the key text message was he was in andrew

mccabe's office, and they were talking about oh, donald trump can't win, and strzokk says, i don't think the fib can take that risk, we need an insurance policy basically against trump's election. the question is, was the dossier subsequent the investigation, is that what he referenced in most text messages. >> mark: what you are saying here is it comes before a caesar judge who isn't an expert in intelligence matters but it's got the fbi, kind of got an mi 6 in prematter because the spook appears to have credentials. and in a sense it would appear to be a plausible document if laid before a judge. is that correct? >> well, that's the question. we have asked the department of justice, the fbi, to give us the information about hownf the dossier got in their possession. did they pay for the dossiery and how did they use the dossier? did they use it as the basis to get these fisa warrants? and they basically refused to answer this question.

this is going to come to a head because i think you are going to see a contempt of congress if they don't produce this to the intelligence committee, but that's the question, and here's the thing, mark, if the answer to all those questions was no, they will say no, the fact they are haven't said so raises serious questions. >> mark: they have been looking at this thing for aa year and a half now and christopher steele cooked it up in a few weeks. they have been unable to corroborate anything except some guy at some point got on a plane to russia. they don't know what he did once he got off the plane in russia. how many more months or years do they need to supposedly attempt to corroborate this nonsense? >> look, i think it's time to put up or shut up. this whole thing started, you know, obviously after strzok and these guys started the counterly intelligence. when mueller got appointed, i think rosenstein made a big mistake. what he was doing was he was

superimposing a criminal prosecutor on top of a counter intelligence investigation. and how good of an investigation that was, obviously, there is a lot of concern about that. but, there's never been a crime identified here. you can believe that russia tried to hack different people's email accounts, but that doesn't mean that there was a criminal conspiracyth with trump's campaign. and there has never been information provided to substantiate that. so i think if he can't answer that question, then i think we need to move on. i think you are going to see the committees in congress move on. and i think the result is going to be no collusion. >> mark: that make a lot of sense, congressman. thanks for that. more liberals are turning on hillary clinton, we'll discuss a liberal magazine that is begging her not to run again, next. and we'll show you president obama's attack on the power of social media. all that coming next.

♪ d dollars when we switched our auto and home insurance. with liberty, we could afford a real babysitter instead of your brother. hey. oh. that's my robe. is it? you could save seven hundred eighty two dollars when liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance. i've always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. super poligrip free. it creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles. try super poligrip free. ♪ if yor crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough, it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract

and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. this condition has not been reported with entyvio. tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn's treatment isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach.

wifiso if you can't live without it...t it. why aren't you using this guy? it makes your wifi awesomely fast. no... still nope. now we're talking! it gets you wifi here, here, and here. it even lets you take a time out. no! no! yes! yes, indeed. amazing speed, coverage and control. all with an xfi gateway. find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. ♪ >> suits, obviously. >> cigarettes or gum? >> gum now, baby. >> gum? white house or buckingham palace? >> white house just because buckingham palace looks like it would take a really long time to mow.w. >> okay, fair enough. >> a lot of upkeep. >> queen or the queen? >> the queen. >> good answer again. >> the rock on chris rock? >> that's an interesting question. i like them both.

>> slippery slide or electric slide? >> electric slide, that's my generation. >> and lastly, your last $5 buy a burger or lottery ticket? >> depends on how good the burger is. >> mark: wow, there is a guest host. as a matter of interest, prince harry and i are identical twins separated at birth. hard hitting topics there. president obama giving his first sit-down interview since leaving office. the former president givingdo his interview to that royal highness. president obama spoke quite a bit about himself but also took an indirect, yet very clear shot at president trump blasting leaders, he says, are warping public discourse by social media. >> the question i think really has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows multiplicity of voices, allows a diversity of views

but doesn't lead to a balkanization of our society, but rather continues to promote ways of findingg common ground. and all of us in leadership have to find ways in which we can recreate a common space on the internet. >> mark: wendy ossefo is an education professor. wendy, putting aside the idea of a president talking to a prince in danger of living in a bubble, what do you think he was getting at here? was it a shot at trump or was it a more general observation? >> it was a more general observation. right now the current climate, not just in our country, but overseas as well,ve is one where everything is volatile. and people need to be mindful, especially those in power, of the decisions they make. that's what president obama was speaking to.

especially a poignant point right now. >> mark: isn't there is a danger in world leaders, the establishment, the elite saying, everything would be better if we didn't have balkanized multiple voices? when the internet started, one of the great things it did was it freed people from the default setting of mainstream media. which is surely liberal. that's surely the bubble, isn't it. >> it's not necessarily the bubble. i wouldn't say the mainstream media is liberal. look at the network right here. when we try to make those type of narratives and try to make those overarching statements, that exactly negates what he is trying to say. that mainstream media at the end of the day has a level of responsibility an our leaders, our elected officials have an amount of responsibility. make sure the policiess doesn't just impact our

bubble, but all of us as citizens. >> mark: what about the idea the media, the default setting of our society now, by which i mean not just media, but motion pictures, churches, schools, the default setting of our society is essentially liberal. if you go to school, you will learn essentially the liberal view on climate change. if you go to church, you will get the liberal view onon climate change. what's wrong with balkanizing that just a little? g >> i reject that premise. i don't believe it's the liberal's view. i actually think it the popular view. and that's something that conservatives have to start to accept. it's not necessarily that there is a war against people who are conservative or who have right-leaning ideology. it's more so that overall when we look at issues, theyft tend to lean and lean on the left side. and that's just the truth of the matter. we cannot negate the fact that the popular view often leans to the left. that does not negotiate individuals who areoe conservative by any means.

what's really important here, if i can just underscore this, is that americans need allies. the united states needs allies. but, the volatile behavior of president trump makes that increasingly more difficult. we need to start addressing that as well. >> mark: we will see who winds up sitting in the third row at prince harry's wedding on that one, wendy. the magazine "vanity fair" is positively begging hillary clinton not to run for president again. take a look at this. ♪ >> it's time to start working on your sequel to your book "what happened," "what the hell happened." >> get someone on your tech staff to disable autofill on iphone so typing f doesn't become exploratory committee for 2020.

take a hike in the woods how i else are you going to meet unsuspecting hikers. take up a new hobby. take up volunteer work, knitting, improv comedy literally anything to keep you from running again. k >> finally put away your james comey voodoo doll. we all know you think james comey cost you the election. he might have. so did a handful of other things. it's a year later and time to move on. >> cheers to you, hillary clinton. >> cheers to you, hillary. >> cheers to you, hillary clinton. >> mark: i hope they didn't pay big money for those jokes. wendy, liberals are going nuts over this, people are saying it's time to burn copies of "vanity fair." the so-called progressives have no business telling anve accomplished woman that she needs to take up knitting. that that's sexist. you do get the sense, though, that democrats are moving on from hillary. >> yeah. i think democrats are moving on from hillary. i think that the uproar came because we have individuals who ran for president like

john mccain, like mitt romney. we did not see this type of uproar to leave. this is a woman yet she did not win the vote. yes, we know she is not the president of the united states. to use such language and say take up knitting. she is the first female to run for office. then, to say, to take up knitting? she has both a body of work and she doesn't have to be president but you can continue to extend her political realm. >> mark: what killed her? is it the fact that in the midst of this book to her, harvey weinstein and charlie rose and matt lauer came along, and recast her husband and their marriage and a new light. is that part of the problem here? >> i don't think that necessarily killed her because she didn't win the vote. it didn't help her by any means. especially that photo going around of her and harvey weinstein looking chummy and comfortable. that didn't help her. h again, to sit there and say she should take up knitting when she has done a lot inho the political realm is

not -- it doesn't make any sense at all. >> mark: do you regret that your party, progressivee party, wants to shatter the glass ceiling, as canada, new zealand, germany, on and on have done, but it chose the wife of the previous president? you say she's an accomplished woman. but her mainn accomplishment is that she was the wife of the guy who held the job before. >> that itself is sexist. that is not her major accomplishment. she was a secretary of state. she was the first woman to run on the major political party and she got that forward. so that's not her major accomplishment that she is the wife of bill clinton. by all means, no, she has done other things. was she the best candidate for our party? no, she was not. however, to say that her major accomplishment was being a wife, that's what we talk about when we say sexism in the political sphere. >> mark: okay. i stand reprimanded, wendy.

i will try to do better. france's government is scrambling to deal with a wave of migrants that hassc flooded its streets. up next, we will try to see what lessons the u.s. can learn for our own migrant situation here. that's next. ♪ diabetes can be a daily struggle, even if you're trying your best. along with diet and exercise, once-daily toujeo may help you control your blood sugar. get into a daily groove. ♪let's groove tonight. ♪share the spice of life. ♪baby slice it right. from the makers of lantus, toujeo provides blood sugar-lowering activity for 24 hours and beyond, proven blood sugar control all day and all night, and significant a1c reduction. toujeo is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. it contains 3 times as much insulin in 1 milliliter as standard insulin.

don't use toujeo to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you're allergic to insulin. get medical help right away if you have a serious allergic reaction such as body rash, or trouble breathing. don't reuse needles or share insulin pens. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which can be life threatening. it may cause shaking, sweating, fast heartbeat, and blurred vision. check your blood sugar levels daily. injection site reactions may occur. don't change your dose of insulin without talking to your doctor. tell your doctor about all your medicines and medical conditions. check insulin label each time you inject. taking tzds with insulins like toujeo may cause heart failure that can lead to death. find your rhythm and keep on grooving. ♪let's groove tonight. ask your doctor about toujeo. ♪share the spice of life.

>> mark: the government of france is central bling to

deal with 's.nt when the government of france is scrambling to deal with the country's migrant problem. president emmanuel macron ran as a comparative liberal but he wants homeless migrants off of francis street by years end. that probably isn't going to happen. now, the french are cracking down.re authorities are ramping up expulsions, checking ids at emergency shelters, and doing a host of other measures to get migrants out of the country and keep them out. does france have a lesson for america's own migration issues? david tafuri is a former state department official and advised the obama campaign on foreign policy. david, it's always interesting to see how countries that have reputations as being moreng liberal and progressive deal with some of these issues. france expels one in five illegal immigrants. if trump did that, he would literally be hitler, even more literally hitler than he already literally is. wouldn't he?

one in five illegal immigrants get expelled from france. >> well, i wouldn't agree with that characterization. but you're right, macron is doing some interestingou things with respect to migration policy in france. and these are things that france needs to do. here's some of the things it's doing. as he mentioned, it's getting some of the migrants off the street, but it's trying to get some of them into shelters. it is also setting up centers in africa for those who are asylum seekers to be identified and observed and chosen from africa so that they know before they go to france whether they are going to get asylum or not. that's also very important for limiting those who are examining to get asylum and not get asylum. the most important thing he is doing, he is distinguishing between economic my recurrence and asylum seekers, and refugees that meet the standard for refugee, meaning they have a well-founded fear of death or injury if they return to their

country of origin. he is accepting asylum seekers true refugees and he said france is still open for refugees, whereas economic migrants, he is trying to discourage from coming to france. that's something that we can learn as well. it's something we should be learning. president trump has not made that distinction in his a policy thus far. >> mark: everyone knows that the refugee system and that status of a genuine fear of persecution is abused routinely in the immigration systems of the west. france is -- if you go to paris, for example, and you can go a couple of blocks from the best hotels, and you would think you were in a country, in a city that has fallen apart. a beautiful city with streets piled with trash. the jungle calais that they shut down has basically moved to the capital city now. is this not a warning of what happens when essentially you have let

anybody who can walk into your country stay in yourod country? >> well, that's why macron is doing some of the things that he is doing. trying to make the streets safer. he is also trying to make it safer for some of these migrants by moving them offf the streets and moving them into shelters.g i want to go back to onene other characterization you mentioned, which i don't agree with. asylum seekers in the u.s. are not problematic. actually the refugees who have come into the u.s. and be resettled here as refugees are not engaged in crime. their crime rate is less than the average american. they've not engaged in terrorism. none of the major terrorist attacks in the u.s. have come from refugees. they are from people who came to the u.s. in other ways. >> mark: what about the somalis in minnesota, for example, they go back to somalia, they supposedly here -- because it is unsafe for them t. go back to somalia, they go back, strap on the old suicide

belt, and you are department face to half of the 50,000 fragments of whatever's left of them shift back for burial in minnesota. >> mark, you have to look at the statistics. you can pull out one crazy situation. but if you look at the i statistics, asylum seekers and refugees in the united states have not engaged in crimes and they have not engaged in terrorism. it's because our asylum process has a very substantial vetting procedure. they are vetted overseas. it takes two years for them to go through that vetting process. they are interrogated. they go through questioning. and background checks and by the time they make it here through that difficult i process, they normally are law abiding citizens who contribute to our society. i agree we have to do a better of limiting those who come from overseas who do engage in terrorist attacks and there are many who have done that,re but they have not come through refugees. they come on other ways. they come on visitation visas. they come on family visas. they come through other means. those are the ones we should

be more focused on. >> mark: what's the answer to that? if you like the situation of europe to africa, it is actually more severe than north america to south america. if you look at the differential in birth rates, a very tiny proportion of the population of africa countries where people have six, seven children, and they can't support the present population. the insensitive to just get on a boat, and as tucker showed on the show a couple of months ago, arrive on a beach in spain, where all the nice continental's are sunbathing in public, and walk into europe. what's to prevent people from just walking into the developed world on overwhelming it? >> you know, i have read some of your articles on the agency statistics that you mention. they are interesting andnd thoughtful. i think you make good pointsay there.e. one of the ways we stop migration from africa

to europe, as you mentioned, is to set up these centers in africa so there c are staging centers there where people can apply and they will know whether or not they will be given refugee status or not. ultimately, we have to do more to turn these countries that are becoming failed states into more stable, prosperous countries, so people do not want to leave them.mo that's going to take a lot more engagement by europe. europe is not doing enough in africa to stabilize these countries. >> mark: europe used to do enough and it's called colonialism and imperialism.op it's actually very hard, isn't it, to do it one removed by just giving money to international aid and development. >> that's just not what i'm talking about. obviously there is something in between colonialism and zero engagement. we have to be engaged and promoting democracy. we have to be promoting economic prosperity and we have to make these countries safe and prosperousak and stable so that people stay there and they don't seek illegal migration. >> mark: thanks for coming on, david. we will try to find where that sweet spot is. cash is as old as

civilization. has technology made it obsolete? up next, tucker is become to talk to an economist who says it's time for all electronic economy.n that's next. ♪ it's time for sleep number's 'lowest prices of the season' on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. does your bed do that? right now our queen c4 mattress is only $1199. plus 24 month financing. ends monday. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you. (amanda von a fluke.d scrappy and he totally has a super-power. didn't know i was allergic to ibuprofen.

and i had fallen asleep... (scrappy barks) (amanda) he was totally freaked out, digging and pawing at me. and when i woke up i realized that i was in anaphylaxis and went to the emergency room. i don't know what i would do if he wasn't there. he's the best boy. (vo) through the subaru share the love event, we've helped the aspca save nearly forty thousand animals so far. get zero percent financing for 63 months on select models, plus we'll donate two hundred and fifty dollars to charity.

i mwell, what are youe to take care odoing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. 8:30? tai chi. yeah, so sounds relaxing. alright, 9:53? i usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so wow, you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios. the automated investing solution that lets you focus on your life.

>> tucker: almost since the dawn of civilizatio >> tucker: almost since the dawn of civilization, cash, cash money, has been a critical piece of the economic economy. in the ink should come, people used gold and paper coins. today, paper money remains the most single popular way to make transactions in this country, but should it be? some economists say day-to-dayke shopping can easily be done electronically continued use of cash hurts the economy and may even cause crime.

a harvard professor, former chief economist at the c international fund.. famous chess player. he said it's time to move forward towards a cashless society. thanks for coming on. >> thank you for having me. >> tucker: i heard this argument before and i understand and i take serious the inefficiencies of cash and the possibilities for crime, transnational crime, it avails to criminals. i get all of that. but there is also a suspicion that a lot of us have that eliminating it would just increase government power, maybe to a point that's dangerous. is that a concern for you? >> absolutely. so, i actually don't favor getting rid of cash. i favor getting rid of largege bills like the 50 and the 100 and similar around the world. i think if you look at the use of cash, actually, by quantity of transactions, it's nowhere near the most popular. it's fallen out. it's behind for purchases over, you know, $50, it's debit cards, credit cards, electronic payments. but for small payments it's very convenient. of course, sometimes somebody wants to do something for

$5,000, even $100,000 they don't want anyone to know. you know, you can carry suitcase of $10 bills, aan briefcase of $10 bills, $100,000, 20 pounds, if you have to do that once in a while. we shouldn't go cashless. t but i do think if you look at the declining use of cash, and the rising printing of these big bills, we ought to realize it's for tax evasion. that's much bigger than crime and crime and if you can cut back on tax evasion, you could, for example, lower tax rates. >> tucker: so you do acknowledge though, it sounds like you are acknowledging, that people have an inherent instinct, desire for privacy. they don't necessarily want anybody, whether it's a bank or the treasury department tracking what they are doing with their money and that's okay, you think? >> well, there is a big difference between somebody doing a wholesale business

where they are doing $50,000, $100,000 in transactions every week and they don'tt want the government to know and, you know, somebody who is doing something on a much smaller scale. and i think these wholesale transactions are facilitated by these big bills. big, you know, drug kingpins, tax evasion is a huge thing. so, i just think we need to recalibrate it a little bit. not so much eliminate it. >> tucker: are you worried about the vulnerabilities of a digital system? we're moving in that direction anyway. the beauty of cash is it's tangible. you can hide it under your bed. no one can hack a $100 bill. are you concerned about that? >> i'm very concerned about cybersecurity. on the other hand, if we have a problem hanging on to the rump of cash we have left in our systems, going tose save us, we need to protect ourselves. if you have a big storm, that knocks out the power system, god forbid an emp

blast or something -- >> tucker: right. >> it's very useful to have some rump of cash left there. although, you know, people have been very inventive when that's happened in the past with checks, ious, and other things. o we don't want to get rid of i cash completely. i do think if you look at what the government is printing, there is almost pushing over $4,500 for every man, woman, and child in the united states. and there are lots ofed surveys, even if you take the part that's out of the country, the average person is holding, you know, maybe a couple hundred, 2 or 300,dr counting in their house, counting in their car. they are not holding $4,500, much less their kids. >> tucker: no, they are not. quickly, what do you make of bitcoin? spectrum? >> bitcoin is great innovation. the part of it that that is anonymous, eventually, the government has to apply anti-money laundering rules, tax rules, and everything. i mean, the government can't

just look the other way and let people do giant transactions, transnational, national, and not care about it. it's going to get regulated. i think the long run, bitcoin is great technology butt it's more likely to look like myspace that lost outut to facebook. than it is to look like the next big thing. i >> tucker: right. because it is a threat to the government in the end. and you never win threatening the government. >> in the currency game, the government makes the rules. so this idea that you can invent a currency that wins out, it's nonsense. but it's a great technology and has greatt uses. >> tucker: i love the idea of, it though. professor, thanks for coming on. that was interesting. >> thank you very much for having me. >> mark: the winter olympics are quickly approaching and this year, we may be seeing some transgender athletes competing. will they have an unfairr advantage? we will talk to a transgender athlete next on "tucker carlson tonight." ♪

whoooo.

looking for a hotel that fits... ...your budget? tripadvisor now searches over... ...200 sites to find you the... ...hotel you want at the lowest price. grazi, gino! find a price that fits. tripadvisor.

♪ >> mark: we >> mark: we have an update in the saga of seat snatching congresswoman sheila jackson lee

of texas. earlier this week, united a airlines passenger jean marie simon was exiled to an economy seat despite buying a first class ticket, then she saw her seat handed over to sheila jackson lee. after ms. simon resigned jackson lee statement she was racist even to object. that's not true at all. ms. simon is a human rights activist who spent much of her life campaigning on behalf of poor guatemalaens. sheila jackson lee, meanwhile, has spent her life running for re-election, playing the race card, and becoming notoriously unpleasantsl airline passenger in the process. who would you side with? the 2018 winter olympics in south korea are just about a month away. and if any transgender athletes seek to compete they will be welcomed with open arms. ioc rules allow for transgender athletes to compete as their preferred gender.

a biological male winning a gold medal in a women's event now seems a matter of when, not if. joanna harper is transgendered and an athlete. and argues that transgender competitors don't enjoy anyue advantage. joanna, there are a lot of people who, in this age of gender fluidity, take a relaxed view of it and accept that you choose which bathroom to use and allt that. but when it comes to sport, when it comes to who is the fastest, who is the strongest, when you are running around a 400-meter track, that basically from gender fluidity, we're back to two biological sexes. those who are born male have a distinct advantage. q where are they going wrong on that?

>> well, first of all, biology is actually quite complex. and so to suggest that biology is dimorphic is incorrect. it is certainly true that people gone through male puberty especially do have substantial advantages. and to be clear, the ioc rules say that transgender women can only compete in women's sports after they have gone through a year of low testosterone due to hormone therapy. and that actually changes many biological characteristics and especially those characteristics that are important for sport. and the second thing i would like to say is that i have always admitted that transgender women have advantages over typical women. but also disadvantages, too. the important question is, can the two groups compete against one another? >> mark: right. >> equitably and meaningfully?

>> mark: let's look at the tests and the testing that you mentioned. where they say you have to -- maybe can you actually explain this in layman's's terms. you are a scientist. you understand a lot of this. but lowering testosterone and the thing is, you have to have your testosterone levels below 10 nanomoles per liter. c if i can think about i can think about what a nanomole is. 90% of female athletes their testosterone levels are around 3 per liter. in other words, this upper limit is three times what would be typical in a female athlete. so it seems kind of like an

arbitrary setting unrelated to the realities of the situation. >> well, i actually agree with you there. and, in fact, i am part of a committee that has recentlyy recommended that we lower that limit from 10 to 5. and it's important to understand that that's a limit. the vast majority of transgender women will keep their testosterone below 3 and in fact below 2 and usually below one. >> mark: right. >> this is an upper limit. i absolutely agree, 10 is too high, and our committee has recommended bringing it down to five. >> mark: you mention that it's not like a binary boy/girl thing. there was -- i think she was south african athlete who competed in the athletes and the commonwealth games a couple years back and her fellow female competitors were convinced that at a certain level she was transgender. and the authorities ended up actually testing her to find out whether she was transgendered because her

levels were believed to be extraordinarily high. i wonder if we are in dangerer in the end of just killingan women's sport by this kind of microregulation of the individual d.n.a. of each participant? >> first of all, the athlete in question was almost undoubtedly intersex, which some people may not be familiar with that term. but hermaphrodite may be a term. intersex people have a mix of male and femaleav characteristics. and she is almost undoubtedly intersex. there are different issues than with transgender athletes. it's important to separate the two.ar but, again, it is important

to have fair play. it is important to -- that introducing intersex and/or transgender athletes does not overly affect the playing field that exists. and transgender athletes, in particular, are hugely under represented in women's sports. in other words, if you were to look at the population of transgender athletes, you would expect that there would be a lot more athletes than there actually are. >> mark: we will see where that ends up, joanna. it may well be that men and women just end up running around the track all together in their undies separate events anymore. first, the left agitated over racist trees as we reported yesterday. now, another tree controversy, this one involving the first family. that's next. ♪

i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424.

♪ >> mark: racist trees are so last week, it turns out. now the problem was anti-tree discrimination. at least according to the interim intrepid lads at "newsweek." lastly, they published a misleadingan headline warning tt first lady melania trump had ordered the destruction of a magnolia tree planted almost two centuries ago by andrew jackson. the headline, "melania trump orders removal of the near 200-year-old tree from the white house," as though the arbor-phobic first lady hates nature and destroyed the tree. melania trump approved its removal at the recommendation of several specialists. a panel of tree fellows. three of them. "newsweek" updated the body of the story but the misleading headline remains even after they were called

out.en frankly, though, we're surprised "newsweek" was so concerned in the first place.h, the tree is old. it was planted by andrew jackson so doubtless it's ass very racist plant and should be removed. david webb is in for hannity. >> david: how do i followw that? thank you, mark. welcome to "hannity." i'm david webb in for sean tonight. major, majorby breaking news abt the fake news anti-trump dossie dossier. byron york from the "washington examiner" is reportingep that house intelligence chairman devin nunes is issuing a subpoena to a former state department employee with ties to senator john mccain. cramer then gave the dossier to senator mccain when he returned to the u.s. and byron also reporting that during a december interview with he said he knew the russian