is available to download on my podcast now. the untold story. and that is the story of this thursday night. we will see you back here monday. tucker is up next. ♪ ♪ >> tucker: good evening, welcome to tucker carlson sent. the tale of victimhood is now a tale of unimaginable uberous. charged with a felony for plotting his own assault from the beginning. investigate how this happened and why it happened. a close look at smollett's defenders who had misdoubts about this story. doubts any reasonable person would have had from day one as conspiracy theories. pierce morgan will join us too. a rundown of everything that's happened today in chicago. for that we are joined by fox news trace gallagher. trace? >> tucker, the media presence was immense for the

jussie smollett bond hearing. in the end the courtroom drama could not hold a candle to what happened outside. while smollett was settling up his $100,000 bond, a prosecutor from the cook county state attorney's office spent 20 plus minutes detailing the entire case including statements from the brothers who claimed smollett staged the whole thing. watch. >> smollett stated that he wanted them to appear to attack him on the evening of january 28th, 2019, near his apartment building in struderville. smollett said he he wanted the brothers to capture his attention by calling him entire f, entire n. >> chicago police superintendent eddy johnson who was differential to smollett's claim said he weighs offended by the actor's actions. watch. >> how can an individual who has been embraced by the city of chicago turn around and slap everyone in this

city in the face by making these false claims? >> and chicago tribune clowmist john cass points out chicago police solve about 17% of the city's homicides. even with the department's thin resources two dozen investigators were assigned to the smollett case and today, superintendent johnson cited that. watch. >> as i look out into the crowd, i just wish that the families of gun violence in this city got this much attention because that's who really deserves the amount of attention that we are giving to this particular incident. >> johnson went on to say he realizes the city of chicago has a racial divide and it's hard for the city and country to come together. he also wonders how this might impact future cases. listen. >> my concern is that hate crimes will now publicly be met with a level of skepticism that previously didn't happen. >> we should note smollett

could also face federal charges for allegedly sending himself a phony threat letter containing white powder which turned out to be tylenol. his next court appearance march 14th. tucker? >> tucker: trace gallagher, thanks for that. well, there is at least one big unanswered question in the case of jussie smollett tonight. why would this happen? why would a popular actor on a network tv show someone rich and successful and famous pay people to assault him and risk going to jail in the process? at press conference in chicago today a police superintendent wondered the same thing. >> i'm left hanging my head and asking why. why would anyone, especially an african-american man use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations? how could someone look at the hatred and suffering associated with that symbol and see an opportunity to membership thamanipulate that so

further his own public pry file. >> tucker: that's a fair question. what smollett not only did illegal and weird it was terrible for the country. why did he do it? the short answer appears to be he wanted a raise at work and he thought this would get him that the broader answer we should all meditate on he was responding to the incentives the american society has created for him. smollett pretended to be a victim because we reward victims. we decided it's more heroic to suffer than it is to achieve. that's the message of our culture, our politics, our workplaces. jussie smollett was doing his best to get ahead according to the rules that others made. in fact, had his hoax succeeded, there is no doubt smollett would have been richly rewarded for it probably get a significant bump in pay and extended segment on colbert. he would have been a hero. so jussie smollett was not crazy. he knew exactly what he was doing. fake ago hate crime was

entrepreneurial move. in america victimhood is powerful. that's why so many powerful people claim it that's why elizabeth warren pretended to be an american indian. why every low point during the entire span of his political career barack obama invoked bias. that's why so many politicians do the same today. i have suffered, you cannot criticize me. academic left instructed entire theology around the holiness of victimhood, it's called intercorrection analogies. i interintersectionality. every group is assessed according to how much it has suffered. the more your group has been discriminated against the more moral authority you receive. a pretty good deal for a lot of people and they have no interest in changing it. that explains why some on the left initially jumped to jussie smollett's defense. they weren't simply defending him. they were defending identity politics. we can give you any number of examples of this but skip ahead to the most nauseating one of all. watch anchor robin roberts

of abc quote news beam with joy after smollett finishes the most dishonest performance of his life and then tell him his lies are beautiful. >> i still want to believe with everything that happened that there is something called justice. because if i stop believing that, then what's it all for? >> thank you, jussie. >> tucker: thank you, jussie. well, before he claimed that white supremacists beat him up on the street most people had never heard of jussie smollett. after he became a victim everybody wanted to be his friend. here is don lemon over on cnn bragging how he texts his new pal jussie every day. he has his cell number. that's how close they are. really tight. >> my concern is for him. >> right. >> and for his well-being. every day i say i know you think i'm annoying i can show you the text. i know you think i'm annoying you i just want to know how you are. >> that you are okay. >> that you are okay.

if you need somebody, you can talk to me because there is not a lot of us out there. and sometimes he responds. sometimes he doesn't. >> he says you be not annoying. >> tucker: you can talk to me don lemon says because there is not a lot of us out there. here is the translation. us is the people oppressed the any jussie smollett has been oppressed. lemon is letting you know he is in that group too. yes is he a highly paid news anchor w. his own tv show yet like jussie smollett don lemon is a wholly victim. mad scramble over who is the victim here? who is the victim? what smollett did is not a victimless crime. no such thing as that entire group of people did get slandered by this hoax. regular people from outside the coastal cities. people with the wrong political beliefs and skin color. smollett and his many defenders savagely attacked these people and not apologizing for doing it instead they are telling you and hearing it everywhere. the real losers are authentic victims who won't be believed the next time.

okay. that's fine. what about the innocent americans they just poured venom on for two weeks because it matched some bigoted stereotypes they had been b. america? what about them? no mention of them. don lemon like to keep up those attacks. attacks allows him to to feel oppressed. when smollett was caught lemon reacted in a puzzling way. didn't seem concern that his buddy had lied further divide the country troy hurt america which he did, no, that wasn't the real problem. the real problem, according to don lemon is that smollett's arrest might discredit the occult of victimhood. >> this is playing out every single moment in cable news. sean hannity is going to eat jussie smollett's lunch every single second. tucker carlson is going to eat jussie smollett's lunch every single second. >> tucker: yeah, because when you tell the truth about a hate hoax you are the real hater. what's the cost of this

attitude so floridly on display to our society? what does it do to us? think of it this way? what would happen to your kids if you woke them up every morning by telling them that they were victims? no matter how hard they worked people would always hate them just for who they are? what if did you that? would that be good parenting? would it make your kids stronger, happier, more successful? no, it wouldn't. good parents would never do that. good parents tell their kids to take responsibility for their lives not to blame others, to work as hard as they can to overcome obstacles that's what good parents of all of races and all background tell their kids. if you don't believe it, just ask 10 well adjusted accomplished people if their parents allowed them to feel like victims. again, doesn't matter where they are from or what they look like. did your parents tell you are a victim and not one of them will say yes. yet, we tell our citizens just the opposite. you see the effects very clearly in the workplace, for example. in the years after the 2008 recession, there was enormous surge of claims of workplace bias of all kinds. there is still no evidence

that bigotry itself increased at all during those years. yet, when people felt threatened by a teetering economy they knew claiming victimhood status would give them advantage. can you 3w4r5eu78 them? no you can't. they didn't write the rules of our society. they are following the rules like people like don lemon wrote but at great cost. pierce morgan editor-at-large of. pierce, as a guy who has been in the news business for a long time, you must be wondering why were the reporters following this the most credit columbus of all? why didn't they smell a rat? >> perfect storm the victimhood culture where you so brilliantly articulated there meets trump derangement syndrome this disease which has afflicted to many particularly liberal celebrities. and i think in jussie smollett had you greed as a motivation, but you also had he wanted to be a celebrity victim as you said. he wanted people to feel sorry for him to like him to

retweet him. but, also, he wanted to use the prism of his hatred for donald trump and all things trump as the bedrock for this. they had to be two white trump supporters in making america great again caps who attacked him because he knew that would be the perfect vehicle to turn him into american hero. that actually if he was attacked by trump supporters who lynched or tried to lynch him with a noose and really, you know, committed one of the worst hate crimes imaginable, then he, jussie smollett, would become a hero and he would be a heroic victim and, in fact, he went further in the robin roberts interview he said that he fought back against these two guys. well we have now seen the size. these are two very big men. and, our hero, jussie fought back he is a victim but a hero who also fought back. i look at this whole story. i tweet every day all day. and i write columns two or three times a week. i didn't say a word about

this, tucker, from the moment the story broke. >> tucker: i didn't either. >> somebody about this stank from the moment it happened. i just stayed very quiet. i waited and i watched and i waited and i watched. and all the time more and more stuff came out from him not releasing his phone to then releasing redacted records so on and so on. slowly but surely the real story built up and this guy had completely invented the whole attack. he had staged it. he had wrote to his friends to do. this i'm sorry i have already seen on social media people starting to feel sorry for this guy. we should cut him some slack he has mental health issues. that's always the first refuge of excuse for this kind of behavior. he is not mentally ill. he is greedy and he is somebody who was craving attention. and a lot of the media as i think is very apparent from the story a lot of the mainstream media in america have gone so full on anti-trump that they were prepared to suspend all journalistic integrity and

credibility in the way they reported this story by just believing every word this guy said. they did it, tucker, because we're now in a culture where my truth is perceived to be the truth. and it's not. time and again now we see people where their truth, their idea of a truth is a complete lie. jussie smollett claimed to have been effectively lynched. everybody followed up with this all the democrats were tweeting, kamala harris to cory booker it was a lynching. they were trying to lynch this guy. but it wasn't. the only thing that was lynched was the truth. >> that's right. >> tucker: and the truth abetted it the channel you and i once worked at among them. pierce morgan such a great summation as always. thank you very much. >> good to see you. >> tucker: we have got more on this story and be joined later in the show by dan bongino and chadwick moore for even more on why this happened. why what it means and what happens next. that's in just a bit. we live in the age of the woke billionaire but you

never thought you would live to see that we are seeing it why are the biggest winners in our economic system endorsing socialism for america? there's a reason for that we will tell what you it is after the break. ♪ ♪ it recommends our best custom fit orthotic to relieve foot, knee, or lower back pain. so you can move more. dr. scholl's. born to move.

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credentials and very same time feverishly suck up to the super rich to fund their campaigns. we have seen some of this before tom styer and george soros obvious examples. there are many, many, many more just this past saturday coming saturday senator cory booker attending a silicon valley fundraiser este louder fortune. kamala harris had a fundraiser in beverly hills studio execs. kristin gillibrand did not start her campaign before asking the permission of wall street. what else the message in rich people are highly progressive now and you can see why? they love mass immigration. brings them servants, they support federally mandated. abortion sacrament from them especially when practiced in poor neighborhoods. here is the confusing part. these are by definition affluent people and yet increasingly tax rates are rallying cry for the democratic party. why are billionaires so

eager to back candidates who want to seize their assets to fund new entitlements? this is confusing. here is one reason. buildinbillionaires understand y will never have to pay those taxes because the top federal income tax rate stops at about 500 grand. why. what's the difference someone making 500,000 a year and someone making $50 million a year? the answer the rich every one can much more easily avoid paying full freight and they do. this group makes far more of their money on capital gains taxed only half the rate of your salary some of it is not taxed at all. under the 2017 tax law investments in federally designated opportunity zones evade call at that point gains taxes entirely. one such opportunity zone by the way is right by the army navy country club in virginia one of america's richest zip codes. even on official tax returns. even on income, the richest americans are paying less. according to theist, the top

1% of americans pay about 27% of their income in taxes. but the top tenth of 1%. that's people who make 35 million a year pay less than 26%. and the top thousand of a percent absolute richest pay less than 24%. in other words, past a certain point the richer you are the less you pay. that's why billionaires back socialism. it doesn't cost them much. dana perino hosts the daily briefinbriefing with dana perin. also coming on later in the show on final exam with greg gutfeld. >> tucker: i'm rooting for you as you know. >> thank you. >> tucker: don't tell him. interesting dynamic where the democratic party is becoming openly socialist but certainly embracing economic populism funded by the richest segmentment of our society. >> it is interesting. to say have bernie sanders launch his campaign in the week after the basically another fellow democratic socialist chased amazon out

of new york city put bernie sanders to the left of mayor de blasio and governor cuomo not easy to do it. bernie has been a victim of his own success. he has won this war without even firing a shot. in 2016 he basically said this is going what i'm going to be for. he ran unabashedly on it and he had a lot of support. i think if democrats hadn't rigged their primary he might have actually been the nominee. perhaps good for him that he wasn't because then he had times to let me ideas percolate if you think there had been alexandria ocasio-cortez in 2019 if there had not been a bernie sanders in 2016. >> tucker: good point. >> absolutely not. you have democratic candidates like kamala harris and elizabeth warren both taking great pains this week to say that they are not socialists they are capitalists and they have to explain it but tough ask yourself is it a distinction without a difference? if you are talking about free healthcare for all,

free college for all unbashedly bashing the financial institutions and promising lots of things that are going to look like a socialist country. that's why the democrats find themselves already in february of 2019 on the losing end of a debate with donald trump. >> tucker: are they -- we're almost out of time i'm interested since you are steeped in the numbers. are they going to lose that debate? they will lose it as far as i'm concerned. is the public on the side of capitalism or socialism? sincere question. >> well, i actually think that karl rove has talked about this for a while and he is right. if younger people in america say that they are more aligned with socialism, we should take them seriously. just this week tucker we found most people in america could not pass a basic citizenship test immigrants have to take in order to get a chance to live here in america. so we have a lot of making up to do. but i do think that the country is still a center right country but conservatives, capitalists, people who do not want socialism have to try to

make a very good case for it because bernie sanders has a grassroots organization across the country willing to send him $25 over and over and over again. that makes a big difference. they are not just going to big donors and billionaires to get funding even though they do that, too. they have support all across the country and people should take that very seriously. >> tucker: yeah. i couldn't agree more. >> good. >> tucker: there is a reason people feel that way. dana perino, great to see you as always and we will see you in just a minute. >> okay. >> tucker: the democratic party is changing very fast as you know. we try to chronicle it on this show. they are for socialism. they are embracing reparations for slavery something people talk about on the fringes. no big candidate endorse it a bunch did in the last week. that's next. ♪ ♪ when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2

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>> tucker: in a recent interview kamala harris came up with new policy issues approve of reparations for slavery. >> we have got to address back to the iniquity. there through -- look, america has a history of 200 years of slavery. people aren't starting out on the same base. in terms of their ability to succeed and so we have got

to recognize that and give people a lift up. >> you are for some type of. >> yes, i am. >> tucker: used to be eccentric opinion now lots of people have it just today senator elizabeth warren may be under the influence say she also supports reparations so did leon castro. just two years ago keep in mind bernie sanders and hillary clinton were both asked about this and both said they opposed it. five years ago tearing down statues for taking that position that's where we are today. mark steyn has been following this and joins us tonight. seems like things are moving kind of fast, mark. >> yeah, they are. and this is disturbing if reparations is becoming a mainstream position. it's particularly absurd, i think, for elizabeth warren to be in favor of that. this is someone who, in a sense, has benefited from a fake appropriation of racial grievance as you know the business about her being 1

1/1,024th native american presumably. and, yet, presenting herself as harvard law school's first woman of color. that's what happens when you actually get into this sort of neo appar tight of racial classification. and i find it particularly absurd. i mean, when kamala harris says people are not starting from the same point slavery was abolished a century and a half ago. nobody alive today has a grandparent who was a slave. and in that sense i think you reach a point where, you know, you need to move on. i mean, the reparations thing, eventually as the decades goes by becomes ridiculous, i'm canadian i think you should give us reparations if you hadn't had revolution the whole continent would now be canada and if you were going to steal our land from us and driver the lawyerless out, tucker, you could have

at least divided the continent east, west so us canadians weren't hold up in the cold: i think i would have the half without the california and presidential candidates in it. >> tucker: i think that's right. >> or maybe the middle and you guys could have the two coasts. but the point here is this is nothing real. this is nothing real to the lived experience of people of all kinds of identities today. and certainly not to kamala harris. shoe has a jamaican father and indian mother and i don't know whether it's the identity politics as her father was suggesting earlier today, i don't know whether it's this whole identity politics obsession that means she has to genuflect to this because her whole experience is entirely apart from the african-american slave experience. >> tucker: it's also bad though. it's really divisive. mark steyn great to see you. >> it is divisive.

>> tucker: it is. >> thanks a lot, tucker. >> tucker: time now for final exam. two contestants create chaos on set during their last match-off. we will face off again. get ready for dana perino and greg gutfeld in this week's news quiz. see if you can beat them. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ just one free hearing test at

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>> tucker: time now for final exam where hardened news professionals have been see who is paying the most attention to what's happened over the last week. lauren blanchard is on assignment. so tonight we have a new york city special edition for you two long standing bitter rivals of many decades, dana perino and greg gutfeld co-host of the five join us tonight. i'm glad you are here. >> i'm glad to be here. greg is so happy to be here. >> eating ribs, tucker. eating ribs and drinking wine and watching a rerun of friends. >> tucker: we are going to see if that kind of preparation serves you well. i think it's fair to ask our audience who has done more prep work for this segment. yeah. that's exactly right. so you know the rules.

i'm going to run through them super quick. hands on buzzers. i ask the questions. the first one to buzz in gets to answer. you have to wait until i finish asking a question before you answer it. >> dana: like alex trebek. >> tucker: you can answer once i say your name. every correct answer gets you one point. if you lose a question, we detract a point. so you could actually get into negative territory pretty fast. best of five wins. make sense? >> yes. >> best of "the five" right here. >> tucker: "the five." question one. here it is. if elected in november of 2020, bernie sanders would be the oldest president in american history. how old would he be on inauguration day? you came in early? >> >> 77. you are right, did i cheat. >> tucker: unfortunately i can't hear you. can i only hear my judges yelling in my ear it goes to greg. >> i would say 80 but i already won. >> 77.

>> so greg gets to answer. you are saying 80, greg? >> i already won. i'm not answering. i'm taking the fifth. >> tucker: no. you have to answer the question. >> talk to my lawyer. [laughter] i already won. >> all right. 77. >> 77 all right. we will go to the tape. is it 77? >> he will be 79. >> oh, no. you, that is so, no, no, no. we are not doing this anymore. she cheats. this happened last time. [buzzer] >> 77 now. >> tucker: you thought you were benefiting from her premature buzz. that. >> is a total set up. last time she was reading off the teleprompter or was that judge jeanine? >> tucker: i'm pretty sure that was judge jeanine. i don't think anyone believes dana perino would do that. >> all right. your questions are too long, tucker. >> tucker: this is even longer one. multiple choice make sure you have heard all the options before you answer.

>> so mad. >> 2020 hopeful kirsten gillibrand had a speech in iowa. her speech was interrupted when a woman pushed passed her on a mission to find what condiment. was it nut sauce. rample dressing or dana perino's famous questions so he. >> dan: it is b ranch dressing. >> is it b ranch dressing? to the tape we go? >> grassroots care about. >> sorry, i'm just going to get some ranch dressing. [laughter] >> dana: just want some ranch, just like everybody. >> tucker: look at that. >> so easy no one is going to go for dana's queso. >> tucker: gillibrand campaign event. question three, a democratic congressman became a bit of a laughing stock in digital world yesterday on twitter. this congressman bragged to his followers that he walked an entire extra block to get

his coffee. this was an effort to boycott trump tower. who was it? greg gutfeld? >> swalwell. eric swalwell. i'm mocking his name. >> tucker: see if answer matches tape. eric swalwell. >> turned a trip to go to starbucks into a political statement tweeting this: it's snowing in new york. i need coffee. the closest cafe is inside trump tower this is me walking to alternative. >> tucker: they are giving it to you even though you sound like the parents in a peanut cartoon. >> i was mocking his name. >> they are trying-to-a pease you. >> tucker: i don't think they are. i think you are back to zero. congratulations. >> story of my life. >> tucker: question four, if you looked up at the night sky this week. if you didn't live in new york city for example, you may have seen an interesting lunar spectacle the winter

moon appeared extra bright thousands of miles closer to the everett than it normally is there is a name for this event and hint is has something to do with winter weather. [laughter] if you were to look outside your apartment. >> i don't do that i usually sit in a dark room and listen to death metal. >> i saw the picture it was tweeted. >> guess. it was picture. >> guess. >> dana? >> not a harvest moon. lunar moon. >> she said march rest moon. >> she said it's not a harvest moon. what is your answer? >> i said lunar moon doesn't make any sense. >> lunar moon. that would be redundant but it might still be the answer we will find out. >> a super snow moon. t.j. is wrapped watching. >> this it's called super t.j. because the moon is at its closest to earth right now and it's full and february is full moon is known as a snow moon because many associated the month

with heavy snowfall. >> dana: got it. [buzzer] >> tucker: statistician in control room saying this is the first ever zero-zero final question. so you are going into sudden death with no points on the board. >> dana: sudden death might be his. >> tucker: final question multiple choice have to wait until i finish asking it a statue of ab abraham lynn in the california become unpopular online because of unusual depiction of our 16th president. what is so strange about this particular lincoln is it a? he is a young and shirtless? b, he is holding a kitten? c, he is on roller blades? >> okay. >> tucker: you sound resigned. >> i have not seen this statue or anything he was a big animal rights activist actually for his time so i'm going to go with b holding a kitten. >> tucker: was abraham lincoln holding a kitten in

the statuary hall. >> reminder that the los angeles federal courthouse has a statue of abraham lincoln where is he a shirtless young stud suggestively tugging at his waistband like a "sports illustrated" swimsuit model. abraham lincoln like you have never seen him before. [buzzer] >> i don't think i should ever be asked again. >> i won with a score of zero. >> tucker: lowest score ever recorded in the history we >> people and little scores. >> tucker: greg gutfeld you win with zero. next time i see you i will award you our eric wemple victory mug. >> i can't give you gave him eric swalwell. >> come on. you are going to talk about this for the end of time. >> tucker: that may be how it's pronounced i don't know. >> have you him on the show all the time. i watch your show. >> he is our next president. >> tucker: thank you, have

you entered the history books. >> thank you we are very honored. >> thank you, tucker. if that's your real name. >> tucker: congratulations. that's it for this week's final exam if you can call it that. pay attacks to the news each week tune in thursday to see if you can beat our pros, hint, yes, you can we'll be right back. ♪ with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say "oh we can't beat usaa" we're the webber family. we're the tenney's we're the hayles, and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today.

>> absolute justice would be an apology to this city that he smeared. admitting that he did and then be man enough to offer what he should offer up in terms of all the resources that were put into this. >> tucker: so as journalists and politicians race to see who could say the most embarrassing credulous things about jussie smollett's obvious hate hoax, the police did their jobs. they stayed calm, they made no assumptions. they investigated it thoroughly and they discovered something shocking. and for that they are being attacked. just moments ago smollett's

attorney released a statement saying quote mr. smollett is a young man of impebleg cable character and integrity who fiercely and solemnly maintains his innocence and feels betrayed by system who wants to skip due process and proceed directly to sentencing. dan bongino is a former officer with the nypd and he joins us tonight. so, dan, you've watched this from beginning until now and still unfolding. what are the main conclusions you are drawing from what have you seen? >> well, tucker, you know, it's amazing we have spent all this money on this country education system that claims to teach you know critical thinking, right? but if you thought critically about this case from the beginning, you would have never jumped to the conclusions. and, you know, i spent a lot of time with the secret service and nypd but you don't have to be a law enforcement officer to have seen the red flags in the case, tucker. first, if you are attacked like this violently at night, who doesn't turn over their police records to immediately clear themselves and try to get the actual

bad guy? it just didn't make sense? and that statement you just read, i mean it's outrageous. he is not entitled to due process? tucker, he was given every single benefit by the media, by everyone else, benefits by the way you and i would have been questioned about this vigorously from the beginning. now is he claiming somehow that he is a martyr in this? listen, of course you are presumed innocent. i get that. but that's a ridiculous statement to try to paint yourself as a martyr when you haven't even cooperated with the police from the beginning. it's absurd. >> tucker: at some point he is going to put the media in a pretty tough spot. if he continues to deny this and say that he is once again the victims of yet another persecution or whatever, i mean, can don lemon sit there and cnn and not defend him? >> you know, at some point when these kids on twitter they say you have got to take the l. at some point you have to take the loss. tucker it's binary at this

point, is it not? they have these two brothers. these people that they are questioning. apparently involved in this. they are either the attackers or they are not. if they are cooperating and they have been released, what dots that say to you as someone who thinks in common sense terms? they are either the attackers or they have not. they have been released. clearly there is something wrong with this case and it appears that when you take it all and look at it that smollett is the guy who nasa not been clear, open, and honest here. >> tucker: i just don't understand how we are sort allieding over what this guy really did which is use racial stereotypes to attack fellow americans and no one is saying that. i'm not really sure why. >> right. it's not just that. he lied. it's that he took it to the next level. he added a bunch of let's call them aggravating factors they were wearing maga hats and they screamed this is maga country and they put a noose. one of the most abhorrent symbols of a troubled time

in american history all these aggravating things he threw on top as if being attacked and claiming trump supporters wasn't bad enough we have to put bleach and a noose and they screamed it's maga country. really speaks to this didn't happen and this is all a hoax, a level of serious depravity. this guy needs some serious help. >> tucker: i want to super quick check on your sensibility about all of this. so you work in journalism. robin roberts over at abc quote news works in journalism. she heard jussie smollett's story and she concluded it was, quote: beautiful. was there ever a moment when you heard his story and you thought that's beautiful? >> no. i thought it's questionable. but, robin roberts needed that story to be true and wanted it to be true. and it's clear from the questioning. there was not one critical question asked of a guy with a very suspect story. it's a real shame and a stain on journalism. >> tucker: nicely put. dan bongino, great to see you. thank you. >> good to see you too, tucker. see you next week.

>> tucker: after court hearing jussie smollett returned to the show empire. he kept crew waiting 30 minutes in order to film his scene this was today. when he arrived he begged the crew and fellow actors to believe him. to believe in his innocence he said this, quote: i would never do this to any of you. you are my family. i swear to god i did not do this. end quote. well, the press didn't need that kind of begging to believe jussie smollett. virtually everyone in the press is ready to believe him anyway. >> what we do know is that racism is alive and well in this country. there is real evidence of people who have done these things who cite that the president has inspired that. >> the fact that reportedly said this is maga country adds to sort of the atmosphere of menace that african-americans in particular and people of color in general have felt since the advent of the trump administration. >> he said his attackers

hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him. this is america in 2019. >> tucker: so there are a lot of dumb credulous people in the media. chadwick moore was not one of them. he was not fooled. he predicted the outcome in the smollett case. dallas was attacked for it but deserves us now for a well-deserved i don't want to call it a victory lap you were right. great to see you. you looked at this story. looked at the facts and you didn't buy it. >> i didn't buy it from the first sentence of the first report that i read. and it wasn't even just maga country which made me laugh out loud and i think a lot of people because nobody -- what trump supporter would say that. everyone knew that was fake. >> tucker: exactly. >> my first question when i read this story i thought what was the weather last night in chicago? looked it up and negative 20 with a the wind chill. that was the first thing that tipped me off. something isn't right here. that is the most simple question to ask. we expect our journalists to be able to that would be the most basic thing i would look up.

none of them did it. and now what we see with the media is they are legitimately gas lighting the american public and saying no, no, we handled this very, very well. we were very fair. they are saying a lot of celebrities and activists on twitter ran with it and you are confusing us with them. no, you can certifiablably look up "the washington post," abc news, nbc news, the associated press, the guardian. go on forever. they all ran with the story. they all never said alleged attack. they never said claims. they said he was definitively attacked. now they are circling their wagons and now they are defending one another. i have never seen a journalist ever have true remorse ever go through a period of or very rarely a period of self-reflection. and we're not going to see it here. brian stelter over at cnn is sort of leading the charge with this. it's about they are continuing to protect their own. protect their industry. and they just simply do not care about the truth. they do not care about being anything but activists at

this point. >> tucker: no. i think that's absolutely right. what's interesting is that there doesn't seem to be any penalty in this deeply corrupt, deeply corrupt business of journalism for getting it wrong in one direction. if you would come out in public two weeks ago, i doubt to myself about this story, seemed obviously like -- there were at least holes in it i was afraid to express those doubts in public. it's not worth it actually. massive penalty for doubting this in public. isn't our job supposed to be skepticism? >> exactly. i sort of thought the same thing. if i'm wrong this could really be a big hit to my career. i was just so convinced i wasn't. nothing about it made sense. meanwhile at the time when a few brave people were actually expressing skepticism, they were called conspiracy theorists by the media. they were maligned and they were treated like kooks. turns out they were right all along. and, you know, the media will just move on. they don't care. they are really the propagators of all of this.

they're the reason why jussie smollett felt like he could get away with this because he knew they would be on his side. because they created this fake narrative of armies of racist trump supporters marching around and assaulting people. so, why we think that he wouldn't get away with it? >> tucker: that's a food point. you, of all people know what it's like to be inside journalism and take a view that is not considered acceptable. you came out in favor of donald trump and had people basically try to destroy your life? >> exactly. and, yeah, a lot of it happened. we just saw recently that reporter, i believe she is from cbs news who came out and tuck lara logan. >> that's right. another case recently so weird to see this. npr who did similar thing. almost like when these journalists actually seek out the truth and actually try to get to know these boogie men trump supporters they almost seem to always

key flect afterwards and sort of fail to seat horrors that are happening in their industry. journalists are -- they couldn't be more disconnected. i think democrat politician who ran with this story from day one are generally corrupt and they are smart enough to see the holes in it. >> tucker: that's for sure. >> the journalists who ran with it, some i'm sure but i think it was main lay profound stupidity and. >> tucker: that's not reassuring. you know what? all the smart kids go into finance. i don't think any are homegrown green justs are rushing to the "new york times" anymore. great to see you. >> always a pleasure. >> tucker: thank you. well speaking of presidential candidates, kamala harris has lost no time resorting to stereotypes to advance her cause. true. recently bragged about smoking a ton of weed in college listening to tupac. tupac not released any music at the time.

in her press legalizing weed come on, man, i'm jamaican. i'm jamaican. one person didn't think was that funny was her own father a stanford professor called donald harris. he released a statement condemning what his daughter said quote my dee dee parted grandmother as well as my deceased parents must be turning in their graves right nau to see their family's name, reputation and proud jamaican identity connected in any way jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics. speaking for myself and my immediate jamaican family we wish to categorically disassociate ourselves from this tragedy. it's amazing. but it really shouldn't surprise you. she was trafficking in stereotypes. completely. not every gentleman make can is dread locks and smokes weed all day and you have to be kamala harris to think

otherwise. amazing. that's it for us tonight. good night from washington. we'll be back tomorrow 8 p.m. the show that is thejuss. smollett. great story. great show. welcome to "hannity." buckle up for another full night of breaking news all over the place. coming up, caught on tape. is this a trump supporter actually being punched in the face. what could be a politically motivated hate crime? the person involved will tell their story in a few minutes. first we begin in chicago once again and today after posting $100,000 bond, jussie smollett sprinted away from the media. the actor spent the entire day in jail, a cook county circuit court after he was arrested on felony charges for filing a false police report. according to