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March 13, 2025 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
01:20:52
Woah! Dan Crenshaw REALLY HATES Tucker Carlson: Dan Explains Why – SF553
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Hello there, you awakening wonders.
Thanks for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand today.
We've got Congressman Dan Crenshaw on the show, and we're going to be talking about some of Tucker Carlson's reporting, as well as Tucker's relationship with Dan Crenshaw, which seems to be an unusual fisher.
We taped the conversation with Dan earlier in the week, or at least earlier in human history.
It's a pretty good conversation, and I think...
You will enjoy it.
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Ultimately, I suppose, what we're discussing these days is...
Maga, Maha, an improvement on the previous occupants of the institutions of power.
Let me know in the comments and chat what you think about that.
If you're watching us on Locals, thank you.
If you're watching us on Rumble Premium, thank you.
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Eventually and ultimately to support us.
Stan Crenshaw is going to be on the show a little later and he ain't no friend of Tucker Carlson.
Tucker Carlson, though, is perhaps one of the most important commentators in media.
Is he?
Who is the don of independent media spaces?
Is it Joe Rogan?
Is it Tucker Carlson?
Is it...
I don't know who else it really could be.
Is it Theo Von?
Like, who is it?
Ultimately, when it comes to making your way through the new media spaces, you have to spot coordinates and work out where you stand in relation to them.
Can we trust this Maga-Maha coalition, or do we inherit the same global and imperial powers that proceeded even in the new clothes of the Trump?
Tucker Carlson is talking to Chris Como here about the JFK files and about the nature of the deep state.
Deep state by very definition means that there are sets of powers that retain control regardless of who's officially in the White House or who ultimately wins elections.
You still get the deep state.
I have really enjoyed that conversation between Ian Carroll and Joe Rogan.
Where he said that the conspiracy theory that will remain clandestine is the Jeffrey Epstein files because it leads us to the true root of power, which by his diagnosis is Israel.
Let me know in the comments and chat what you think about that.
Here though, let's address not only the Ukraine-Russia war, not just the conflict and controversy in the Middle East.
But the deep state's defining conspiracy theory, the JFK files.
Here, Tucker Carlson talks to Chris Como about whether or not they'll be, whether or not they'll ever be revealed, whether or not they'll ever be revealed, and one Democrat senator who has consistently resisted their release.
Perhaps we can use this to chart a course through the new waters of power.
Dan Crenshaw coming up after this.
Stay with us.
From whatever group...
Has been able to keep these files secret for 62 years.
So my question to you is like, what is that?
Why have these been secret for so long?
Look, you know, the idea of the deep state to me is a convenience more than it is a reality.
It's a boogeyman.
Why don't they put it out?
Because institutions protect themselves, Tucker, as we both know.
Really?
And there is clearly information in those files that are going to make the CIA look bad.
Just the CIA. Well, whatever.
Different agencies.
No, no, no.
Whatever.
I mean, let's...
Well, I don't know because I haven't seen them.
But it could be the FBI. It could be the CIA. Okay, so I've always thought that.
And then in January, you know, there was a scramble over who's going to get what jobs in the new administration.
And at one point, there was someone who was being discussed for a job in the intel world and a member of the SSCI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senate Intel Committee.
I went to the people making the decision and said, you cannot hire this person because this person will be certain to push for the release of the JFK files.
So this is in this effect.
So this is in 2025, less than two months ago, and you have a sitting member of the United States Senate whose main goal is to keep Those files secret.
And then you have to ask yourself, why?
Yeah.
Exactly.
Why?
Dan Crenshaw will be coming up later.
Dan Crenshaw is certainly no friend of Tucker Carlson's, who, you know, for the record and for plain truth, I really love and think he's a fantastic person.
And in this conversation with Chris Como, Tucker Carlson says that Tom Cotton, Democrat, Senator or Congressman, has been actively resisting the release of the JFK file, something which Tom Cotton...
Actually refutes.
This is false.
I have no problem releasing the JFK files.
Had Tucker Carlson asked me, I would have told him.
He's texted me multiple times in recent weeks so he knows how to reach me.
It's interesting, isn't it?
Because when you actually...
Love someone like I do, Tucker Carlson.
You just tend towards their side on loyalty.
Let alone when you're dealing with complex issues of national identity or racial identity, like the various conflicts in the world at the moment.
Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine.
No wonder people can't chart a course through it.
Let's look at this conversation between Tucker Carlson and Chris Como and see what we learn about that kind of fealty, loyalty, and what the JFK files would tell us were they fully released.
Let me know in the comments and chat.
Whether you agree with Ian Carroll that the conspiracy theory that has to be protected at all costs is the Jeffrey Epstein Mossad one, or whether you think it goes deeper.
It does go deeper than that.
This is where I'm willing to venture into the supernatural and the paranormal in so much as I believe that there is evil organized power and it goes beyond human power.
That's where I suppose I have to tap into either the religious or the...
Either the religious or the more occultist or certainly more esoteric edges of even online spaces.
Let's have a look at this conversation.
Yeah.
Why?
And where's your boy Kash Patel?
I mean, he went in there to supposedly bust all this up.
I can't answer that.
He put out this weird tweet, you know, that was very general.
Like, you know, things are going to change and we're going to do this.
After we learn that someone under his control now, right?
Because he's the head of the FBI. In that office that's under him.
Why wasn't he there?
Why didn't he go there and say, give me the files.
Give them to me.
Weren't you just saying the deep state's not real?
I don't know.
I don't believe in the deep state as a boogeyman.
But look, they're his guys.
I'm just saying, why didn't he go there and say, give me the files?
So let's just use logic.
I can't answer that question.
I think it's a great question.
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But let's just use logic for one second.
Clearly...
If you watch this, in my case, for the same as you, 35 years, watching this stuff carefully, and somebody, you know, gets in office, I'm going to do this, that, and the other thing, and then, like, five days later, they're like, well, actually, someone has called that person to say, there's something you didn't know, here are the consequences of doing that.
Someone has applied very serious pressure on this person, pressure so serious that that person is willing to...
I reckon the reason people like Tucker Carlson is because of moments like that where he reasons his way through what might have happened.
None of us have direct...
And undiluted access to truth in so much as all of us have our own biases.
But I would say the new media climate and template requires that kind of personability.
And some people do it very naturally and beautifully like Tucker Carlson.
And probably everybody's trying to emulate or find their own version of this is my authentic take on these events.
Because now that centralized media, the kind of media that I used to work for, that Tucker used to work for, that Como used to work for has lost its credibility.
People are now just going to go to voices that they trust in that space.
It's difficult to think that Kash Patel might be a human being or FBI agents and workers are just human beings.
And I personally believe, of course, that there is organized evil power exerted through human institutions.
So that's where I depart from purely rational analysis.
But I reckon it's easier and probably more sensible to reach people on the level of that which can be measured.
For obvious reasons, if you can't corroborate it, it just sounds like crazy ranting.
A little late now, huh?
Humiliate himself.
So wait a minute.
Here's the part I don't understand.
So who's that person exerting the pressure?
But you are uniquely qualified to get this answer because one of us can call the President of the United States right now and ask him.
And the other one is me.
So why don't you know?
That's a great question.
It's the only kind I ask.
I'm the great question asker of all time.
I've been asking great questions forever.
Maybe not during the pandemic.
He said sorry for that.
You can't keep banging on.
At a member of the Senate Intel Committee, I'm not guessing, called over and said, you cannot appoint this person.
So why don't you expose that person, first of all, so we can start chasing after him.
Tom Cotton of Arkansas did that.
Tom Cotton?
Yes, correct.
And did you ask him?
I haven't.
No, I haven't asked him.
What the hell's going on with you?
I'd like to.
And...
Kind of makes people suspicious of you, by the way.
Go ahead.
Because if you know that Tom Cotton said, you can't pick this person because...
That is correct.
And then you didn't go to him and find out why?
Well, I need to sit down with him.
I'm not sure that he'll do an interview with me.
Okay, well, there you go.
That's the Tom Cotton crisp.
But stay with us, because now on the show, we've got arch-nemesis of Tucker Carlson, Dan Crenshaw.
Just to reiterate, Tucker Carlson's...
My friend.
So when assessing the deep state and its power, what information we have access to and what information we don't have access to, we have to look at several factors simultaneously.
As Tucker advocates for, rationally and logically, what could be happening?
Why are those files not being released?
Oh, someone has got some new information.
But then we have to look, I suppose, too, at the bigger picture.
And for me, the bigger picture is this.
There are...
Dark powers behind human powers that use human power to facilitate their ends.
I recognize that in saying that, I make myself sound like a crackpot, and many people would say that's a pot that cracked a long, long time ago.
But ultimately, what are the aims and interests of these elites?
Why do they work so hard to control information, to control resources, to control media, to shut down opponents?
What is it ultimately that drives them?
Surely it can't just be the unconscious pursuit of pleasure or money.
Surely there has to be some dark force at work.
I believe that only a religious and spiritual life help you to navigate these complex questions.
But that's just what I think.
Why don't you let me know what you think in the comments and the chat.
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Time now to talk to Dan Crenshaw, controversial con...
Congressman and Navy SEAL veteran, as well as vocal opponent of Tucker Carlson, whom we were talking about at the beginning of the show.
Congressman Dan Crenshaw, thank you so much for joining us on Stay Free today.
Hey, thanks for having me.
It's awesome to be here in a conversation with you, Russell.
I feel that I should mention that I've got an Ash Wednesday cross.
On my head, and I'd also like to mention that when you arrived, you were wearing glasses over your patch, which I thought was a pretty good look, actually.
Yeah, there's a lot going on on the face.
Can't have too much stuff on the normal day.
I'd be able to address that, but, you know, I've got this stuff on, I've got the hat on.
There's a lot going on in my face.
Congressman, I wanted to talk initially about that time when...
It was a famous incident when you were on SNL, right?
After Pete Davidson, who's lost his dad in 9-11, just for anyone who doesn't know that.
You and he had that moment where he said, thanks for your service.
I thought, oh, that was a really good example of reconciliation, of left and right coming together, of respect, of service people.
Now, it's pretty clear that the left...
Owns a lot of cultural artifacts, among them SNL. These kind of legacy media instruments are completely owned by one side of the conversation.
Do you think that that kind of reconciliation that was achieved between you and Pete Davidson there, and I thought was kind of rather beautiful, could be achieved between you and some of your detractors, notably Tucker Carlson, who's my friend.
I love Tucker Carlson, just so you know, we've not met before.
But I also know that, like any public figure, you attract a lot of ire and criticism.
Do you see an opportunity for reconciliation?
Oh, a tuck.
Not a tuck.
You know, the Davidson...
It's so long ago.
It's crazy how long it's been.
You know, that was sort of a perfect storm in many ways, in the sense that there was a road map to reconciliation.
The Perfect Storm, there was a few factors involved in that.
One, it wasn't obvious that he meant what he said with real ill intent.
You could have looked at that clip and said, yeah, I kind of went off script a little bit.
It probably wasn't scripted.
After going on SNL, I know exactly how...
How much every word is actually carefully scripted.
To watch the rest of this interview, please click the link in the description.
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You know, do they go off script occasionally?
I'm sure they do.
It's hard to know.
But it felt like that.
Then there was a ton of outrage over it.
Like a ton.
Not for me, but just generally.
And so, then I had the ability to just say, you know, I think what I said was, look.
Try hard in life not to offend.
Try even harder not to be offended and that's how I'm going to treat this one.
And then they reached out trying to have me on and do some kind of reconciling on the air and it worked out and he was genuinely ready to apologize for what, again, could have been construed as simply a misstep.
And there's a huge difference between a misstep and I think, an open hostility.
And with somebody like Tucker, you know, what's the backstory behind this crazy hot bike story, which I obviously think is kind of the lamest story ever as far as supposed death threats go.
Of course, I'm not going to actually kill Tucker.
The thing is, is you got to go a few years back.
I mean, Tucker has been taking ill-intentioned swipes at me since about 2022, going far worse than Pete Davidson ever did.
I mean, this really started in the, I can't remember what the, well, the issue I think was probably Ukraine funding and him coming after me completely unprovoked.
I never mentioned Tucker's name ever before that.
And I actually continue never to mention his name publicly for maybe a year or two after that.
But he comes after me supposedly on a policy issue, but making it very personal, right?
Calling me, using my eye patch again as a way to insult me.
So using my war wounds to insult me, which is funny because Tucker was, of course, one of those people feigning outrage when Pete Davidson did what he did.
But of course, he's allowed to do it and actually go much further, call me a traitor.
He's called me sinister.
He's called me all sorts of slanderous names over the years.
So there's no...
It's hard to see space for reconciliation in this kind of environment where there's just a complete lack of mutual respect.
Yeah, you need mutual respect, I suppose, in any discourse.
You know, I've been part of the culture that...
Pete Davidson comes from, you know, he's a sort of a movie star and a comedy star and I think a pretty brilliant comic, actually.
And again, as I started by saying, I was touched that the reconciliation could be achieved, even with something that amounts to media spat, as Pete Davidson, while he might be an artifact that one could argue ultimately belongs to a particular political purview expressed through the culture, he's not a political...
I'm sure.
And I feel that...
Since being in your country, I've spent some time with vets.
You know, there's a lot of people, a lot of service.
You know, there are a lot of veterans, aren't there?
And I've got a different appreciation and understanding of American patriotism.
And just as an observer, what it appears to mean to people that have given, in some cases, limbs.
There's a couple of guys I met.
My mate Daniel lost a leg in Iraq.
And my friend Amos experienced injuries in Afghanistan that are not so visible, but like a bunch of skeletal as well as psychological stuff.
And because I agree with the veneration and valorization of veterans, I agree that if people have served their country, they ought to be afforded a level of respect that most people...
Can't claim because most of us aren't willing to sacrifice ourselves for our nation or for what we believe in.
A lot of people in our culture are pretty selfish.
So I suppose what that means is that a veteran is connected to and tied to sets of values that are...
Pretty profound and important, and as near to sacred as one might get in a secular conversation.
Now, I'm not being coy here.
I've not followed whatever you've said about Tucker or whatever Tucker said about you.
I just heard, oh, Dan Crenshaw, Tucker.
Tucker's one of them super famous people that I know, like Bobby Kennedy, where I feel like I've spent time with them, had good face time, and I feel like, oh, I love Tucker Carlson the same way I love Bobby Kennedy.
So I can't imagine that Tucker Carlson would be mean.
I just don't think that about him.
So I figure that it's probably stuff that's to do with politics and money and the military-industrial complex and that sort of stuff.
And if it's, like, what I suppose my sense is that you, just based on your answer, that you've been generally supportive of Ukraine.
So I wonder, then, what your perspective is on...
Can I say a couple of things about what you...
Of course!
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
We can talk about Ukraine in a minute.
But, like, there's a couple of things.
And you'll appreciate this as a comedian.
So going back to Pete Davidson.
One of the reasons it didn't work was because it wasn't funny.
Because, you know, the joke he made about me just before that, he's like, Dan Crenshaw looks kind of like a hitman in a porno.
I got to admit that's kind of funny.
And so you could view that as disrespectful because the only reason I look like a hitman in a porno, I guess, is because of the eye patch.
The only reason I have an eye patch is because I lost an eye in combat.
We're not above making...
People making fun of us.
The worst possible jokes, but also perhaps the funniest, are the ones that come from my best friends who I serve with.
I'm actually flying back to San Diego tonight for a SEAL graduation.
I'm still very close with the SEAL teams and the veteran community.
They will say things about my wounds that you just get in so much trouble publicly.
But it's different because we're part of the same community.
And you know what?
It's funny.
In comedy, and you know this, if the joke lands, it can be offensive.
And that's what good comedy is.
So that's a problem.
With Tucker, there's never any attempt to be funny.
And the last thing I want to say about that is the reason there's such animosity from me towards him is because he's never made a policy argument.
People will actually ask me, why does Tucker hate you?
And I'll be like, well, the fact that you have to even ask that question tells you everything you need to know.
The fact that he doesn't actually have an explanation from a policy perspective, because this is supposedly a policy debate, and he just smears me personally, accuses me of crimes, accuses me of being sinister, accuses me of being liberal, despite my voting record and everything I do being completely the opposite.
You know, it's just slanderous and it's ill-intentioned and that's why we just, that's how the reconciliation just won't happen.
You won't talk about Ukraine, but the thing is, like, Tucker has never really made the arguments against my stances.
He just calls me a horrible person, which isn't, it's childish.
That surprises me because, like, when I first met Tucker, I went on, like, Fox News and I'd been schooled that...
You are not going to like Tucker Carlson, he's a racist, he's a Nazi, he's the worst person in the world.
Then I met him and he was...
So sweet and charming, and I've subsequently got to know him well, and I think he understands American politics really well, and I think sort of out of the independent media, of course there's really few people that can compare to Joe Rogan, but Joe Rogan, if you were going to compare him to anyone in the culture, he's like Oprah Winfrey, I figure, like sort of congenerate other stars.
He's like a galaxy-generating media figure.
You don't get Theo Vaughn or maybe Huberman, maybe even in my new incarnation, my career has been him.
Influenced and impacted by the sort of ability and position of Rogan.
Where I figure that Tucker is distinct is he comes out of legacy media.
He's obviously Republican.
He's Christian now.
He's conservative.
And when I've done live things with him, what I recognize is that Tucker somehow understands and speaks for and to American people in a way that I can appreciate.
I feel like he loves America.
I feel like he loves your country.
I feel like he loves veterans.
I feel like he's really respectful of pretty old-school conservative American values and part of my personal change.
Like, as a person that would have been, you know, I hosted SNL, like, only one time.
It was only once!
I just did SNL once!
Like, as if it's a drug.
I just did it once, so I'll never do it again.
I can handle it.
I won't get caught up in doing it five times.
But, like, I come from that culture, comedy, movies, liberalism, all that kind of thing.
And, like, I started to recognise it was disingenuous and hollow and empty, never meant...
It didn't mean people couldn't back up the virtues they espoused with sacrifice and action.
That's why my particular position when it comes to veterans is one of, as I've said, reverence because of that.
That don't mean I wouldn't make jokes.
If I knew you...
Better, and I felt that there was good faith, and that you'd be able to discern that my jokes were coming from a position of love.
I would do some jokes, but I don't feel I've earned that, and because I'm trying to talk about things that are somewhat delicate and complex, I wouldn't go there.
So, like, um, so...
What I feel like is, I'm just guessing, I'm guessing that Tucker must think that there's some sort of financial impropriety connection to military industrial complex companies that are at odds with what you represent in the culture.
Because I feel like in that SNL moment with Dan Crenshaw, I thought what Dan Crenshaw represents is...
Decency of congressmen and veterans.
And in a way that, say, something like Hegsef might now represent, oh, like, even if the left hates this dude, Hegsef, and makes allegations against him or claims there are allegations against him sexually, and Lord alone knows I know what that's like.
He, ordinary vets, like when I met with them guys recently in DC, they all love him and were, like, well into him.
So, and I feel like if we're in a moment, congressman, where we're trying to bring about reconciliation, Well, that'd be nice.
Unfortunately, the incentive structures in modern American politics aren't geared that way.
Tucker's incentives are not to have any kind of...
Good relationship or reconciliation.
Tucker's incentives are monetary in nature.
And cornering a market which I think is based in outrage and based in this idea that the establishment is always against you.
I know he's coming after you.
And then you got to that a little bit when you talked about his ideas on military-industrial complex.
And so it become, for him, it's very much a single-variable analysis.
And you're a critical thinker.
I mean, is single-variable analysis critical thinking?
Of course not.
But that's effectively what he's doing.
Okay, so I guess the narrative goes, well, okay, if you support this policy, then you must be somehow captured by this nebulous military-industrial complex.
Captured how?
He doesn't say.
Well, he does say, actually.
I mean, he makes radical, insane claims.
He made a bunch of them when he was on Rogan.
God, was it last year?
One of the claims was that those of us who serve on the Intelligence Committee, I serve on the Intelligence Committee, are consistently blackmailed and threatened by organizations like the CIA, and that's how they get us to keep funding their activities.
And he says, well, you know, members have told me this.
Well, then name them.
Then say it.
Offer some proof for what you're saying.
Because even somebody who knows a little bit about civics and how our government works would know that the incentive, like, that just, that doesn't make sense even on the surface.
Because our particular committee has, this is very different than the UK, for instance, and actually most parliamentary systems.
We have a very serious set of checks and balances in our government.
We actually control the authorities and the budget of those agencies.
So, in fact, the power dynamic that Tucker is describing is exactly the opposite as he describes it.
They have very much an incentive to be scared of us, not the other way around.
This idea that we're being blackmailed by them is just utterly insane.
He also claimed in that particular interview that aliens are living underwater and we have all the evidence and they want I mean, it's just stuff like that that you're like, what are we talking about?
Is this entertainment?
Or are we trying to give people news and interesting insights?
Or is it just entertainment for the sake of clicks?
And this is what I mean by incentive structures that have unfortunately percolated in a massive way, and it's largely because of social media.
And you're not putting that cap back in the bag, so it is what it is.
But it has created a different set of incentives around politics where you gain power by engagement and you gain engagement by outrage porn.
That's what gains engagement.
I give people this test all the time.
I'm like, and especially conservatives, because I'm like, conservatives especially, because of the way we're sort of wired, we tend to look, we tend to be skeptical.
But skepticism can turn into paranoia, can turn into conspiratorialism pretty quickly.
But you're skeptical of government.
You're skeptical of authority.
You're skeptical of adding more regulations to something.
You don't think it'll do what it's supposed to do.
That's a typical conservative way of looking at things.
But that can devolve if you don't have a good mental framework with which to assess problems in front of you.
That can devolve quickly into paranoia.
And one of the things conservatives do, almost like a sport, It's trying to find the enemies in their own midst.
Democrats don't go dino hunting, right?
But Republicans love to go rhino hunting.
There's nothing more satisfying than finding out that somebody you loved and respected is actually part of the deep state.
Now, the person claiming that, like, say, Tucker, can offer zero evidence for it.
Zero evidence.
But we've created this culture where it's like, it's just...
It's like a gravitational pull to believe something that someone has betrayed you that you formerly respected.
And it just gets you engagement.
And my name is Clickbait.
Some other random congressman could have been hot-miked on the Tucker thing, and it wouldn't have made waves.
But I have a really particular ability, I think, to make a certain segment of Twitter very, very angry.
It's quite astonishing.
I suppose I'm flattered by it to an extent, but it's also silly and exhausting, and it detracts from, I think, a lot of the serious work we're trying to do.
That's the unfortunate incentive structures that we see in our political spectrum right now.
It's not healthy.
And the test I gave, I said I was going to give a test.
So I'll tell voters, look, what are you more likely to click on?
Headline number one, Biden can't speak again at the podium.
Headline number two, Democrats wasteful spending, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Headline number three, five reasons why Dan Crenshaw is a globalist that you need to know.
Which one are you going to click on?
You're going to click on the third one.
You're going to click on this guy you respected, you thought was your guy.
Actually, here's five reasons why he's a globalist, whatever the hell that means.
I mean, it's something I deal with.
It's something we have to deal with as politicians.
It's fine.
It is what it is.
But I also want people to be clear-eyed on who's telling you this and what their incentive structures are for doing so.
It's difficult to argue with the idea that those of us that occupy a space in the independent media world over time become kind of acclimatized and schooled in what you could refer to, and fairly so as well, as clickbait, because I know that when you title a video or you thumbnail a video or you have to consider a way of presenting it, probably when we pull a video from this conversation, we all...
Use the idea that we're talking about Tucker Carlson rather than saying we talked about the deep state in a general way because, yeah, for exactly the reasons you've described.
But with Trump's success being founded both in 2016 and now in 2025, somewhat on that kind of cynicism that you began your argument with, Congressman, do...
And I hear what you said about, in particular, the Intelligence Committee that you sat on and their relationship with the CIA. Isn't so much of the sort of current MAGA, MAHA movement built on the idea, think, for example, of Doge or the way that Trump has handled Zelensky, on the idea, and to your point about globalism and what you mean, what I mean when I say globalism is that...
It doesn't matter if you vote for the Republican Party or the Democrat Party.
There are within state institutions, figures and individuals that have relationships with global entities that could be NATO, could be the WHO, could be WEF, that mean that they stay within a purview and guardrails of a set of agenda that are not in alignment with the democratic will of the Republic of America.
That's what I mean by globalism, this kind of...
Capture.
But I also know what it's like to be a famous person and to have people sort of collapse and conflate.
Oh, Russell's got this 33 tattoo on his arm.
That means he's in the Masons or he's Illuminati.
This is because Jesus died when he was 33. 33 vertebrae in your neck for a minute.
I thought it was my lucky number back in the days when I believed in things like luck.
So I know it's like when stuff sort of gets...
Out of control.
And I reckon all rhetoric can escalate in exactly the way you described to sort of create, you know, controversy and therefore clicks and ultimately sort of revenue.
But what my feeling is when it comes to more broadly the argument about mistrust of...
The state, and in particular the deep state, is I say with the CIA in particular, like, I know that there are, I don't know, I heard and believe that there are CIA carve-outs that funded Ukrainian media outlets that claimed that I was a Russian asset, and I'm like, I know that I'm not a Russian asset.
Like, I know that I've never had a conversation with or money from, and I know that I don't think that Putin's a great guy.
I just sort of query the origins of that conflict and NATO's involved.
And all those arguments that come out of the kind of the sceptical position on the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
In case you care, like my sort of general position is, it's terrible that people keep dying in this war, and there seems to be some complexity in its origins, particularly when you listen to people like Mearsheimer, Sachs, or even recently a brilliant argument from Matlock, the dude Matlock that worked for Reagan and actually translated some of the discourse between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and then was present for James Baker's negotiations with Gorbachev, where he said that how Trump's handling this conflict is good.
That's a long-winded way of saying that with Trump being, in a sense, the chief beneficiary of much of that cynicism around the deep state, and with Tucker almost being the sort of public face of that, the media face of that aspect of Trump's success and popularity, do you feel that there is legitimacy to the arguments that the Ukraine conflict is somewhat...
Perpetuated because of the agenda of organizations like Raytheon, Norfolk, Grumman, or what we would loosely term the military-industrial complex.
Okay, lots to tackle there.
I want to wrap up even talking about Tucker.
I think he's such a waste of time to talk about.
In a way, though, it's gone broader.
It's gone broader now.
We're in deep state and war funding.
I know.
I want to wrap that up and then move on to a lot of other things.
You know, I don't think Tucker deserves to be the face of that Trump movement, right?
I think these are two separate things.
I do think Trump rightfully represents that skepticism.
And, you know, actions speak louder than words.
We're doing it as we speak.
We're rooting out some of these things that I think Americans are rightfully skeptical about.
Again, skepticism can turn into conspicuousism, but skepticism is good.
And there should be skeptical of how I would define the deep state.
It's not too different from how you define it.
I would leave out the global organizations necessarily.
I think the deep state is really, it's people.
It is people who have biases.
And there are people with biases in every organization.
Now, the difference between a bureaucracy and a private organization is a private organization, all those biases, they don't matter all that much because you're profit-oriented.
And so there's an effect there that you don't have to control for.
With a bureaucracy, you better damn well control for it because biases, well, what's the mission?
It's not profit for bureaucracy.
The mission is helping people, right?
So whatever the bureaucracy is, the mission is helping people in some sort of way, whether it's a healthcare or the EPA or whatever.
But of course, there's a large spectrum on the political belief systems on what it means to help people.
And that's where the biases comes in.
That's where deep state comes in.
And somebody in the right position can either sign something or not sign something, check the box or not check the box, because they're in that position of power.
And rooting that out is a real key goal of this administration.
It's a key goal of Republicans, I think, generally.
One that I violently agree with.
I just don't put Tucker in that same category simply because...
To me, just knowing his history, he's the epitome of the DC insider.
You know what's on the Hunter Biden laptops?
Emails from Tucker Carlson to Hunter Biden asking Hunter Biden for help to get his son into Georgetown.
You can just Google that.
That's well-documented.
This guy's been part of this system for so long.
So it always just strikes me as just disingenuous.
What I'm being accused, as somebody who's done nothing but serve this country, I'm being accused of being a multimillionaire.
None of this is true.
I will show you my brokerage account on my phone.
It's probably less now because these tariff announcements have crushed the market.
So I'd probably have like $22,000 in there.
And that's normal for the past six years that I've been in.
It's about $22,000, $24,000.
That's the big reveal on Dan Crenshaw Insider Trading.
It's just all lies.
It's just constant lies.
And people like Tucker know their lies, but say them anyway.
So let's wrap that up.
I would leave Tucker out of it.
Let's go back to your general statements on Deep State.
Yeah.
Now, do companies like Raytheon and Lockheed, this is a common question, a common belief.
Do these companies, Somehow influence policymaker decisions to get into whatever conflict.
And the answer is I just see zero evidence of it.
Zero evidence of it.
These companies are going to survive just fine, whether there's a conflict or not a conflict.
Again, it's single variable analysis.
Just because there's a profit to be made, does it therefore mean that the profit incentive is the sole cause of the policy decision, or is it possible?
That there's actually a whole lot of other reasons why policymakers might make the decisions they make.
And I'll just give you a quick synopsis on campaign finance.
There is no way for you to be bought off by a defense contractor.
There's just no way to do it because of our campaign finance limitations.
I mean, you just can't do it.
And I've never seen a case, by the way.
I could be wrong, but I've never seen it, never heard of it.
And it's the kind of thing that if it was revealed, one, it's revealable because if you make a super...
So Raytheon, in theory, could create a super PAC. In theory, they could do that.
But they still have to report where that money is coming from.
And in reality, the way our super PAC system works, the way campaign finance works in America...
You know, people have a lot of heartburn over it.
You know, they call it dark money.
They call it this.
It's not really dark money.
You still have to report who's supporting what.
And in the end, it's never going to change because of our First Amendment.
You have a right to spend money and whoever you are and make your voice heard.
But I've never even seen a case where the defense contractors are actually doing an open advocation for this war in particular or any war for that matter.
We just don't see it.
And I certainly, I can say at least from my own experience, there's zero pressure, zero, for your policy stance to match whatever we perceive their desires to be.
And again, I use the word perceive their desires to be because they don't even make them apparent.
They're much more paranoid about I think a lot of people realize.
Lobbying, by its very nature, is competitive.
There's a thousand different industries represented.
I don't care who you work for.
You're represented by a lobbyist in Washington.
It doesn't matter what you do for a living.
Somebody is representing you.
Those are competing factions.
This goes back to the Federalist Papers.
How does a Federalist system survive over time?
Well, it survives by competing factions that are freely allowed to yell at one another, compete with one another, and exercise their First Amendment right to lobby.
They're congressional representatives on what they want.
And then it's up to you, the congressional representative, to ascertain who's bullshitting you and who isn't.
And then really just go back to your own personal judgment based on what you ran on and told your constituents you would be for them.
And that's what I've done.
I say, hey, when I run an election, I say, this is who I am.
This is how I make judgment calls.
This is how my mental framework works.
It's within a box of conservative values.
This is how I process new problems.
I can't tell you exactly how I'm going to vote on X, Y, or Z because we haven't seen it yet.
But I can tell you how I think.
And that's what representation is supposed to be.
And if people don't like that, they can vote you out in two years.
We have a pretty quick turnaround up here.
I don't know if that answers your question.
So many questions.
Thank you, Dan.
It answers loads of questions.
When I think about what you said about lobbying and donors, sometimes I recognize that when you're inside of an institution, you're of course going to be granted insights that are not available when you have a broad sense that, oh, well, I get my information from a variety of independent media sources, but after a while I... Kind of tend towards figures that have been actually heroic in another sense.
For example, Assange and Snowden, men that have made sacrifices in order to bring information to the public that's influenced the way that we see these kind of institutions.
And I recognise that there's a lot of generalisation that goes on, maybe even in, presumably, even in my own reporting when talking about the Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon.
And I recognise these organisations do a lot outside of...
But it's difficult for me just instinctively as an outsider not to think that the whole business of lobbying and...
Party political donations, certainly at the scale of whole political parties rather than individuals, about which obviously you know a lot more than I do, doesn't have an impact because obviously that's why they're doing it.
And when I pivot to something that I feel a little more comfortable talking about, because I don't know a whole bunch about anything, but certainly not about military-industrial complex or the impact of those organisations on war, but when I think about how the pandemic was litigated, how it was managed globally, and the...
The way in which organisations like Pfizer and Moderna benefited, the way in which big tech and social media companies censored, and the way that...
Political movements, in particular democratically elected political parties in my country and yours, behaved.
I can see what your great comedian George Carlin meant when he said, when interests converge, no conspiracy is required.
I'm talking now sort of in a general way about the pandemic rather than the military-industrial complex.
You and I are going to have a lot of agreement on pandemic stuff, I'm sure.
So, and I suppose that when it comes to that, because I don't know the details in the same way with the Euraphians, Lockheed Martin, etc., what I saw, and I think what a lot of people saw during the pandemic era is, oh, look at how the state, the media, big tech...
And Big Pharma and the apparently objective regulatory bodies around Big Pharma, the FDA, CDC, NIH, appear to have been influenced financially in ways that dilutes and even corrupts, frankly, their apparent objectivity and undermines their duty, and in so doing, our faith in those institutions.
I'm not an American.
I'm a guest and a visitor.
In your country.
But I feel like that what we learned in the pandemic kind of confirmed what a lot of people had long suspected.
And someone like Nancy Pelosi, I really appreciate your transparency.
It's like $22,000.
It just sort of puts things into a totally different perspective.
When you say a number, you think, oh, my God, who's going to begrudge that?
But when...
Yeah.
Well, the insider trader thing, I'm like, you know, to be an insider trader, I have to be trading.
Last time I bought stocks for 10,000 bucks, literally 10,000.
I mean, it was three, four years ago.
Those accusations against me are so absurd, and it just almost made me laugh at this point.
Sorry, I didn't interrupt you.
I understand that.
I was talking about Nancy Pelosi.
So, like, people have, whether it's true or not, people have a sense that Nancy Pelosi is escalating an accumulative wealth during a...
Period of time where she's been in lawmaking is an indication that she gleans information from the various committees she sits on and her husband, you know, and this is like mostly unusual whales reporting on Exit, I'm talking about here, and I think there's some sense that people feel that that's true.
So when things are generally true, i.e.
in the pandemic, it seemed like Big Pharma was able to influence regulatory body, it seems that the government's legislation, or if not legislation, guidelines and governing benefited both The pandemic was really bad,
really bad for experts, for the public health sector, because they were knowingly giving out, I don't think ill intentions, but...
But bad information.
And I might have different blame than you do, even though we agree on the general awfulness of how that was conducted.
I mean, but okay, so let's talk about the vaccines getting expedited, right, through FDA approval.
There's no evidence to suggest that, I mean, well, so obviously the company...
Making the vaccine has an interest in getting it expedited.
But that's always going to be true with any FDA approval, no matter what.
That just makes sense.
Operation Warp Speed is what did it.
And that was President Trump's Operation Warp Speed.
Now, he doesn't talk about that much anymore because the vaccines have become so unpopular.
But he wasn't influenced by money.
He was doing what he...
You know, if we're defending Trump here, I think he's doing it with the best information he had at the time in a moment where people were demanding action.
And so I think the blame, this is where I would at least share blame, is, look, when we were doing polls, I mean, I was out on a limb because I never wavered.
I was out on a limb, unpopular limb, with saying lockdowns are bad, vaccine mandates are bad.
And I'm not even sure that this obsession with testing is going to get you where you want to be because by the time you test, you're already infected.
It's just everything they said I had a problem with.
You can't take the hydroxychloroquine or whatever.
What's the one Joe Rogan got famous for taking?
Ivermectin.
Ivan, we can't take it.
And it's like, okay, maybe it won't work.
Maybe they're right that it really doesn't have a good effect.
But it also doesn't have a bad effect.
So leave people alone.
Everybody's biology is a little different.
Some people respond to medications just differently than others.
Who knows?
It was so far beyond the scope of common sense, especially the lockdown stuff.
The lockdowns are ultimately what caused massive global inflation, because what are you doing?
You're constricting supply, and then on purpose, constricting supply.
And then Democrats take power, Joe Biden takes power, and they immediately implement the American Rescue Plan and the IRA, which were basically massive injections of free money demand.
So what happens when you have high demand and low supply?
You have sky-high prices.
You get inflation.
You know, these things had terrible effects.
And then all the data, in hindsight, although I was making this claim at the time, the data shows that lockdowns just don't work.
And that the best thing you can do in a situation like this, we don't need to relitigate all this.
I mean, we agree on this.
And I think most people do.
But we were going out on a limb trying to make that.
And, like, I'm on the health subcommittee.
Let me just say that.
Like, I'm on the health care subcommittee for energy and commerce.
I meet with lobbyists from the health care industry all the time.
So, obviously, whatever influence they had on me didn't make me say any of the things that you would think they want me to say.
But I'll tell you what, they never wanted me to say them.
Like, it's just not true.
Never, ever would I ever get a letter from Pfizer or Moderna saying, hey, I mean, these vaccines are good.
Like, never.
You know, the only reason I ever got a vaccine personally was because I had to visit the fucking UK, and the only way I could get into the fucking country was to get this stupid vaccine.
And I was pissed because I'd already had COVID. I still couldn't smell.
And I'm not even sure I've totally regained that sense.
Although that has its benefits, I'll tell you what.
Not smelling certain things has its benefits, especially when you're raising a small child, as I am.
Although, sometimes I'd rather smell the poop than have to feel for it.
Yes, yes.
Too much CMI. The sense to engage with a baby's diaper is definitely the sense of smell.
You don't want to be using the tactile senses or listening for it.
Get in there.
And I can't see that well, so it's like I'm already screwed as far as senses go.
I'd rather just have my sense of smell back.
Anyway, too much information.
The point is, you know, It's a little bit more nuanced and harder to say why people are doing the things they are doing than I think a lot of people want to believe.
I think a lot of the public, when they see problems, too many people look for easy buttons to press.
Well, I see this, so it must be this person's fault.
It's so much easier to blame a specific entity, whatever that entity is, because it just makes your problem solving simpler.
And I always feel the maybe stupid need because it'd be much easier in my political life if I just simply agreed with everybody.
But I have to point out sometimes like, ah, your rights, but also there's other things at play here.
And there were things at play during COVID were massive amounts of public opinion that were like, do something now.
We want something done now.
Trump was under a lot of pressure to do something all the time.
And, you know, in hindsight, it probably went too far for the likes of some of us.
I remember pressuring my own governor, Governor Abbott.
I was like, we didn't lock down a whole lot.
I remember we closed down gyms and bars, and I would get on the phone with him and be like, you need to reopen.
Like, you need to reopen.
This has no effect.
The people going to gyms are not the ones who are going to die from COVID. And our hospitals are not at the capacity.
Like, I would be putting out constant messaging on, like, what's our actual hospital capacity?
Because that's a factor.
For some countries, I understand why they lock down a little harder, because they simply don't have the hospital capacity.
But, man, this is like bringing back 2020 vibes.
We haven't talked about this stuff in forever.
So, you know, a public opinion had a lot to do with that.
And people need to be less fearful and more critical thinkers.
Less emotion in your brain.
I think the reason we ended up discussing it is because it was epochal, and there's no question that I imagine that after the pandemic, there was an evolution and change in the political perspectives in your country that have been at the end led to...
Bobby Kennedy being part of the MAGA movement.
I reckon that's one of the indicators that you don't have an unbiased media because legacy media could have assessed that particular alliance as well as Tulsi Gabbard's new position of prominence as an indication that MAGA 2025 is not Trump 2016. And those conversations aren't taking place because there isn't an objective media upon which those conversations can happen.
Now, I wonder what you feel about Trump's top line appointments, whether it's Kash Patel, our very own from Rumble, Dan Bongino at the FBI, or Bobby Kennedy at the HHS.
And I wonder what you feel about Trump's public diplomacy on the international stage, in so much as the way that he campaigned, he appears to be governing in the way that he campaigned.
And with, for example, his bellicosity and belligerence and overtness, when it comes to, say, dealing with Zelensky, do you feel, as I do, that what Trump does publicly, political figures have often done in more clandestine and discreet ways?
And do you feel that when it comes to the Ukraine-Russia conflict in particular, Trump's style of diplomacy is going to bring about peace?
And what do you, in general, think, Congressman, about his position when it comes to making deals where American aid is undergirded by Ukrainian resources?
And perhaps you can speak for a while on that basis about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and how, in general, the Republican movement has not been supportive of ongoing aid to Ukraine.
you Yeah, okay.
Lots of impact there.
Okay, so first start with his appointments.
I mean, that's the easiest one.
I'm ready to work with all of them.
You mentioned a couple names.
At least I know Kash Patel.
Not too well, but we have friends in common, and we were at the same wedding a couple years ago.
So he's a smart guy.
He's been in some positions that I think make him well-qualified.
Pete Hegsteth, Pete Hegsteth is the only one I really went out and supported.
I stayed silent on this.
I'm not a senator, right?
Senators do the confirmations.
Us lowly House members, we watch, and we gain nothing by trying to instigate anything.
So why do it?
I think Kennedy's interesting you know We'll see how he...
It manages an organization like HHS that does a heck of a lot more than just public health.
It actually does very little in the sense of developing what you should do to keep yourself healthy.
But I like where he's going with it.
I guess I like his messaging.
And, you know, just a simple idea that we want to make America more healthy and talk about things like, I don't know, modern nutrition and exercise.
That's pretty crazy stuff.
It's stuff that most of us already know because, you know, like, I care about my longevity.
And so, like, some of the stuff he says about this or that, like, I'm like, yeah, I mean, I thought that was common knowledge.
Some of it I'm like, I don't really know.
Some of it needs to be studied.
And I think he's done a good job of, like, Admitting that.
Like, you know, I just want truth.
You know, he often said that during his hearings.
I just want the truth to come out.
You know, I'm not against this necessarily.
I just want the facts.
This is where, like, somebody like Anthony Fauci really screwed us.
He treated people too stupidly.
And that was a real problem.
And that created massive distrust because you just can't.
Like, we're not that dumb.
Like, we know that.
Look, you can tell me ivermectin might not work, and I'll believe you, because I don't see any studies that show it does.
However, you can't tell me it's dangerous either, because I know the studies say it's not.
Maybe a banana will work or maybe it won't, but it's not going to hurt me.
It's a fucking banana.
So let's just calm down.
And of course, there's more reports of him actually saying that.
We have to scare the public to get them to do what we want.
You really screwed what is a necessary institution, which is public health.
Public health should be trusted.
And if you can't trust it, it could have massively bad consequences for whatever the next pandemic is.
I don't want to...
Talk about that anymore.
Okay, so we'll try to answer your questions on them.
So anyway, I'm standing ready to work with anybody in the Trump administration.
I'm excited about what we're doing.
My focus is on cartels mostly.
So, you know, we haven't yet figured out who's going to be in charge of that in this administration.
I'm looking at standing up a select committee here in the House so we can focus our efforts on cartels in Mexico.
That's a major, major, major priority of mine.
Has been for years.
We can talk about that after if you want, but I'll answer your questions on Ukraine and how Trump's dealing with it.
Look, I think this was the necessary evolution of steps with Ukraine.
I think it was necessary to beat our chest and stop Putin in his tracks initially.
Why is that necessary?
Because wars of conquest are bad.
Wars of conquest are indicative of a return to history, as I would call it.
So a return to what history?
The pre-World War II history.
That was human existence prior to World War II. Major turning points for civilization.
I think the birth of Jesus being the primary one.
I know you're going to like that one.
By the way, I've really enjoyed watching you.
You're very articulate on matters of faith and religion.
Your awakening to that has been really interesting to watch.
Enough with the...
Kind words.
Let's move on to business here.
The Jesus Christ birth is a major one for Western civilization for a lot of reasons.
I mean, I think the primary of which is it is what created true equality.
It is what created true individual empowerment.
Because before that, the power of access to God, whatever God you worshipped, was not through you, but through the priest class.
Or an elder system.
Something like that.
Jesus turned all that on its head.
And that's what eventually gave birth to what I think the basic tenets of Western civilization.
Western civilization is something worth protecting.
Another major day, there might be a lot more that I'm missing, but let me skip over like a thousand years or two of history and go to D-Day.
D-Day.
When America decided that we were going to stop a tyrannical...
Psychopath in Europe from just destroying Europe and aligning with Japan, eventually destroying us, and making The Man in High Castle, that series on Netflix, the reality.
After 80% of people decided we weren't going to do it, we eventually did it.
A huge sacrifice that, in hindsight, could have been less sacrifice had we acted earlier.
That's only known in hindsight.
It happened, nevertheless, in the 80 years since then have been a very, very different history, one that humankind has never really had and certainly doesn't seem to appreciate very much right now and is now only recently being threatened.
State-on-state wars of conquest have not happened since World War II. And people might be like, wow, you invaded Iraq, invaded Afghanistan.
Yeah, but we immediately, and maybe almost too soon, tried to hold elections and hand over power back to them.
We kick ourselves out because they vote on it.
I mean, I'm not sure if that's conquest.
That's a pretty crappy conquest.
And when you allow history to go back to those kind of moments, I mean, you get world wars.
You get tens of millions of dead.
You get disruptions to a global economy that we all benefit from massively.
For me, this has never been about Ukraine specifically.
It's about Russia and Russian actions and their propensity to invade what are considered by everyone to be sovereign states.
And we could argue back and forth about whether they had to or they felt they need to or they felt threatened by NATO. And we can disagree on that all day.
I'm not even sure it's worth it because in the end, they did it.
In the end, there's a decision that has to be made once they do it.
Do you allow this?
And do you allow a situation where if we had done nothing, if we give them no weapons to begin with, well, they'd end up with their entire army still intact, crush Ukraine, subjugate it, take all the resources and be on the border of four more NATO countries.
With a message from NATO, which is, you know, we don't really, we say we're going to defend our allies, because we told, we killed Ukraine without the security assertances back when they gave up their nuclear weapons in the mid-90s.
But of course, Putin doesn't believe we're going to actually defend our allies anymore.
And you actually set yourself up for a potentially catastrophic miscalculation from both sides, where Putin says, you know, they probably won't defend the Baltics.
And the Baltics are definitely next on my list.
Moldova as well.
Creating a land bridge between Russia proper, which would now include Ukraine, according to them, and Kaliningrad.
Why not just try it?
Because they didn't do anything last time.
That's how the domino effect happens.
Preventing that was a good policy.
And we've successfully prevented it and turned it into a stalemate, which has been very bad for Russia.
People, it's somewhat beneficial for the US. Contrary to popular belief about our military-industrial complex, the reality is it's been largely decimated over the last two decades because our primary focus has been counterterrorism, not big power competition.
And so we haven't been making things.
We haven't been making the exquisite weaponry that would be required to deter China from invading Taiwan.
And when you don't make things on a production line, Well, the millions, maybe not millions, but certainly thousands of small businesses that create the little wicket that goes into that particular missile, well, they start to go out of business, and the people start to retire because they're not getting orders anymore.
So there's been this atrophy, actually, in the military-industrial complex that the Ukraine war has helped awaken.
It's also...
Given a lot more insight into how we might fight wars of the future, specifically with cheaper drones.
And so it's really given us amazing insight into how we might protect Taiwan, ideally deter Taiwan, because I don't think anybody wants to go to war over Taiwan.
Certainly not me.
So that's that.
But that doesn't mean that you just keep doing that forever either.
And Trump's election was the perfect timing for this because Biden had escalated, probably too late in my opinion, but he had escalated at least to allow American weapons to be used inside Russia.
He tightened a little bit of screws on sanctions, although there's a lot further we could go against Russia on that if, for instance, they want to embarrass Trump and not come to the table, which is still a possibility.
There's still a lot more we can do.
But it certainly is the time, as President Trump has dictated, it's the time to just start talking and see what happens.
And so I think we're definitely supportive of his goals there.
And I want him to be successful.
So, you know, he's cutting off Ukraine aid.
Well, it's only temporary.
It's a way to get Zelensky to the table.
You know what it did?
It immediately got him back.
He should be here on Tuesday.
To sign that minerals deal.
So what do I think of the minerals deal?
That was one of your questions.
It's a great deal.
It's a fantastic deal.
It's a good deal for Ukraine.
It's a great deal for us.
The critical minerals problem, that's a whole different subject, but it's a real problem because we've let the Chinese corner that market to an amazing degree.
And it's not because...
They have special access to anything.
It's just that they're willing to engage in practices that we aren't.
And we need to be willing to engage in that.
We need to be willing to mine our own critical minerals and then process them.
Processing is a dirty business.
It requires a lot of chemicals.
It requires a lot of power and energy, which is CO2 emissions, which the left freaks out about.
It's like, guys, your civilization sort of depends on these things, so maybe we should make them.
And not rely on China to make all of them.
And Ukraine happens to have a ton of resources.
This is why Russia wants it so bad.
So I think the way Trump is doing this is everything with him is a little outside the box.
But he's right in that you're not going to get Putin to the table.
If you continue the chest thumping, right?
You got to be nice.
You got to do flattery.
Now, the way this would work best is if Europeans were actually scary for once and were on the back end kind of playing bad cop.
Now, the English and the French are at least thinking about that.
And I think an ultimate deal would have to have security guarantees that include European forces actually securing those because you can never trust Putin.
You're just never going to trust him.
But you don't need to if you have a good deal, right?
You have a deal that just works.
And ultimately, that's what Trump wants.
And ultimately, even if you get a deal that, you know, Ukrainians don't like, well, you know what?
Russians aren't going to like it either because you know what Russians wanted?
They wanted the whole country and eventually more.
And if we can stop that in its tracks, then American strategic interests are actually met.
And because what's our strategic interest here?
Deterrence for the long term.
That's our strategic interest.
That's why I say it's never been about Ukraine specifically or our love for Ukraine or whatever.
I'm not going to defend Zelensky.
Made me mad at that White House meeting because I think he just did not read the room correctly and started to try and litigate, you know, past injustices of diplomacy by Putin.
It's like, dude, you might be totally right.
It doesn't matter.
This isn't the time.
This isn't the time.
You're here to have lunch and sign some papers and save your country.
Like, that's what you're here to do.
So let's do that.
Let's not litigate.
Now, I think that's a mismatch culturally because Eastern, you know, you're from Europe.
You probably understand this by the most.
Eastern Europeans have a way of talking.
They want you to see their points.
They don't see it as argumentative.
To them, it's just talking.
To us, it's kind of offensive.
And especially at that moment, in that setting.
And so even I was blasting Zelensky for that.
I've supported them.
But I was appalled by what I saw.
I'm glad it's coming to a resolution.
I think Trump has been the bigger man on this.
Look, the guy wants to make a deal.
This is his thing.
And he promised...
If there's one thing you can say about Trump, he will make good on his campaign promises.
And so being surprised by that is surprising in and of itself.
Long-winded answer, but it was a lot of questions you asked, so I tried to answer them as best I could.
You've got a good memory, Congressman, on top of everything else.
I wonder then, on that note...
What you particularly wanted to talk to us about regarding cartels and the border, which seems to be an area of your interest and concern.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, look, I care about a lot of things around the world, but I divide threats just like a military guy does.
I divide threats into, you know, 5-meter targets and 25-meter targets.
And, yeah, we even say meters, you know, like you guys.
Not even sure why that is.
I guess there's some validity to that.
And, you know, our five-meter target, our short-term, near-term threat is fentanyl production from the Mexican drug cartels, right?
You know, we lose 2023, maybe 80,000 people a year.
Now that's gone down fairly significantly.
There's been some gains on that, personally.
We've gotten legislation through that allows us to actually collect intelligence on cartels.
You know, we tie our own hands behind our back, don't even let ourselves use some of our best capabilities to collect intelligence on certain cartel members or the Chinese companies that developed the precursors.
We fixed that about a year ago.
Although that was more contentious of a vote than you would initially think.
So that's why it's a big priority of mine.
You know, it really came to a head for me when we were passing HR2, when we had just taken the majority, and our flagship, you know, one of our first bills was HR2, and it was on the border, right?
It never got passed into law because Democrats had the Senate.
Biden was in the White House.
It was not a lawmaking exercise, but it was your sort of perfect.
It was your perfect.
If we could just be king for a day is what we would do to change certain asylum laws, immigration laws, things like that, that would fix the border.
And I noticed it had nothing to do with cartels, and that made me mad.
And so Kevin McCarthy, speaker at the time, placed me in charge of the cartel task force.
I spent the next year.
Interviewing, meeting with officials inside, outside of government, former cartel members, former Tijuana police officers, just trying to build as much expertise as possible on the cartels.
Developing a blue force picture, it's a military term, it just means developing a picture of who on our side is doing what.
Like, what's the DEA doing?
What's the FBI doing?
What's the CIA doing?
What's the DOD doing?
What is everyone doing?
Who's coordinating it?
The answer is no one's really coordinating it.
That's what I hope to change with this administration because they've made it clear it's a big priority of theirs.
I want to make sure that our efforts are aligned and synced up.
So there's another new opportunity, which is the new Mexican administration.
Claudia Scheinbaum and some of the people she has in charge on the security side are simply better to work with.
They've already shown that.
I think there's a lot to look forward to on this, but there's a lot of work to do.
And the biggest obstacle we face is really just Mexico letting us in.
I mean, they're very sensitive diplomatically and politically about American involvement in their country, more so than, say, the best side-by-side example would be Colombia.
I grew up in Colombia.
I went to high school in Bogota.
My dad was in oil and gas, so we would move from Houston to overseas.
I was born in the UK, actually.
I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and then moved to Cairo.
And then I actually wasn't even in the U.S. until I was like four and five.
And so I grew up in Houston.
I don't have any memories of Aberdeen or Cairo, really.
But I grew up in Houston.
Then we moved to Ecuador.
We moved back to Houston.
Then I spent my entire high school in Bogota.
So that was from 98 to 2002. This is a massive civil war in Colombia at the time.
You know, this is post-Covid.
Cartel days, because the Escobar days are like early 90s.
So your Narcos series is really about the 90s.
And then that ends because the cartels were effectively decimated.
But that doesn't mean violence in Colombia just disappeared.
It just means the cartel headshed was really the power structures moved to Mexico, but the cocaine production, and of course the...
The Marxist guerrilla groups that have been at the Civil War there since the 60s still existed.
I mean, so you couldn't even leave the city.
There's car bombs going off.
This is the kind of Colombia that I knew growing up, and it's certainly not the Colombia that exists today.
It's a much better, safer place.
And that's mostly because of U.S. involvement and their willingness to allow U.S. resources into their country to help them.
It's actually a pretty massive foreign policy success over time.
You need to do the same thing in Mexico.
But Mexico remembers 1848 like it was yesterday.
They think Texas is theirs still.
Do they really think that?
No, but they kind of do.
Even growing up in Latin America, I didn't appreciate that until I really went down there multiple times over this past year.
I'll be back there in a week.
And really understood those political sensitivities and how we have to work through them diplomatically to get what we both want, which is to tackle a mutual enemy.
The mutual enemy destroys us with fentanyl production and supplies, but it's destroying Mexico in a much more profound way.
And I mean, to the point where, like, Mexico to me seems like Colombia in the early 90s, like at a true tipping point.
And it's scary as hell.
And if there's one thing America has to be focused on, it's our biggest trading partner right there to the south.
So this gets at the reasoning behind Trump's tariffs.
You know, I think people thought those were going away because Mexico was threatened with tariffs, right?
25% tariffs.
And Trump said, look, we want the border done.
And in Mexico, they put 10,000 troops on the border.
They were like, whatever you want.
But it wasn't enough.
Trump is now saying, and I've asked them to say this, so maybe this is my fault.
I don't know.
You know what?
I'll take credit.
Screw it.
Trump's new letter to them was, you're not doing enough on the cartels.
Now, we need to give them exact instructions on what we want them to do, and I can give them those instructions.
I want, in writing, a security cooperation agreement that looks like Plan Colombia.
You can't call it Plan Mexico because that's already a thing.
You know what I'm saying?
We need to be fighting a counterinsurgency, because that's what the cartels are.
They're a terrorist insurgency that is dominating Mexico at all levels of society.
That's definable what an insurgency is, and it makes it very difficult to fight.
Because people who don't know anything about this issue, they're like, well, you know, we'll just bomb them.
Oh, yeah?
Bomb who?
Where?
Like, you know, you bomb a neighborhood?
I mean, the cartels are integrated into the society.
It's not like they have bases and uniforms.
Some do.
They take pictures of them.
But it's mostly for show.
They're integrated very deeply into the society.
And it's going to take a massive whole-of-government approach and Mexican willingness to deal with it.
I'll leave it there.
Sorry.
Long-winded answers.
But it's a topic I care a lot about.
Well, Congressman, this is the type of conversation that's required where, in a sense, I'd like to, if it's possible, set out an area for us to discuss whether it's sort of seemingly personal or geopolitical or biographical.
And I think your last answer really helped me to understand why you would have that position given your peripatetic childhood there.
You're probably pretty lucky you don't remember Aberdeen, because if you did, that would be something I suggested you had bleached from your mind.
That's a very particular part of Scotland that you happen to have been born in.
Congressman Dan Crenshaw, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for being so transparent and open to discussing difficult and complex topics.
Thank you for your devotion and your service to your country.
And thank you for making time for us today.
Hi.
Thank you, Russell.
It's been an honor.
I've been trying to connect with you for a while.
This was cool.
I appreciate it.
Let's talk whenever you want.
My email, I can have someone give my personal details to whoever facilitated this.
I really appreciate your time.
Well, thanks very much for joining us for the show today.
Thank you, Dan Crenshaw.
Thank you, Tucker Carlson.
Thank you, most of all, for joining us.
We're having a short break.
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