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Aug. 28, 2023 - The Tucker Carlson Show

19:24

Tucker Carlson - None of our leaders are punished for lying. Instead, regular people are punished for telling the truth. That was part of our conversation with Hungarian leader Balázs Orbán. It happened immediately after our speech in Budapest. Watch.

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
		The wonderful Tucker Carlson.
		Give a big applause to him, please.
		It was great.
		It was really great what you were saying.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't remember a single word, but thank you.
unidentified		This is how the job is done.
unidentified		You should be a politician, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't think I'd be assassinated immediately, but thank you.
unidentified		You were talking about leadership, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it really matters.
		It matters.
		Without it, the people die.
		It's true.
unidentified		I don't know if you realize, but I became very famous in Hungary because actually I was your last foreign guest at the Fox News.
		And they fired you after the interview with me.
		They did.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The Hungarian was just one guest too far.
unidentified		Here in Hungary, everybody thinks that they fired you because of me.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Trust me, I have no idea why I got fired.
		It may have been you.
		I would not be totally surprised.
unidentified		Oh, sorry.
unidentified		My colleagues are just saying that the last foreign guest was a Canadian, not me.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That doesn't really count.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You have to believe in your own country to be identified as a foreigner.
unidentified		So, now you sit here as a free man, if I may say.
		How is to be free?
		How is your life doing?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I've loved it.
		I mean, thankfully, the people I worked with on my show were also fired with me.
		I don't know, they were quite...
unidentified		Congratulations to them as well.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		My executive producer, Justin Wells, we've been together for many years and we're very close and he got fired two minutes after I got fired and I called him and I just said, I'm so glad you were fired.
		So my world hasn't changed that much actually and I've been married, I've been with the same woman for 39 years and I have...
		You know, a very large and very close family, and the people I work with haven't changed, and my dogs are, you know, we have a lot of dogs, and they're still there, so my life hasn't changed that much.
		I've been, and by the way, I should say, for whatever it's worth, no one really cares, but Fox was really nice to me for the 14 years I worked there.
		They never said, you can't say this, you can't say that.
		They let me say whatever I wanted, and I knew on some level, you know, probably someday I'll go too far and have, like, a Hungarian on, and they'll fire me, and they did, but they were always nice to me.
		I can't kind of complain about Fox, I'm just being honest.
unidentified		And what are your plans for the future?
		I think that this is what, in this uncertain situation, gives you...
		Gives you a purpose of life, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You know, I would say two things.
		One, this is the third time I've been fired as an adult, and I would really recommend it to anybody.
		I think it's...
unidentified		Sorry, what was the first two?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I worked at other cable news networks and was also unceremoniously fired and always on the front page of the New York Times with cackling glee.
		But it's great to get fired because it keeps you from being...
		A truly horrible person.
		I mean, we're all sort of horrible people because we're people.
		But getting fired, you know, the problem with men when they're successful is they start to think they're Jesus.
		It just happens, you know.
		And you get this hubris.
		Like, I can do anything.
		I'm so important.
		And getting fired reminds you that, no, you're just like everybody else.
		You're kind of a ridiculous person.
		And in the end, you'll die alone and terrified like every other human being from the beginning of time.
		And, like, you're just like everybody else.
		And stop.
		Stop that.
		And that's a really good thing to learn about yourself.
		Being humiliated is the greatest learning...
		In fact, I will say, it's not the greatest learning experience.
		It's the only learning experience, at least for men.
		I can just speak because I'm a man.
		And men need to be humiliated fairly regularly to keep their souls pure.
		Otherwise, they become absolutely unbearable.
		And anyone who's married to one can tell you that that's true.
		So I'm really glad that I got...
		And I think my wife was really grateful that I got fired.
		Also.
		But I would say the second thing I learned, and that's why I'm here today, is that the United States is very geographically isolated, as I noted a minute ago.
		One of the most isolated countries in the world, and that's been the secret to our success, I would say.
		We're not getting invaded by Canada, and we would win, for the record, if we were.
		But American news consumers are not interested in the rest of the world, or that was the idea in all the years I've been in the news business.
		I'm very interested in the rest of the world because it's interesting and because I grew up in a family that was interested in the rest because of my dad's job.
		So we did a bunch of stories on places like Hungary and El Salvador and Finland and Brazil and we went around the world and did these stories and people turned out to be interested in them.
		It was a little bit surprising.
		It would not be surprising here because you're in the middle of Central Europe with seven neighbors so everybody in Hungary is thinking about other countries all the time.
		But in the U.S. that was a big thing.
		Like, really?
		They're interested in Hungary?
		Very interested in Hungary.
		So that was such a happy surprise to me.
		And I plan to keep, I mean, there's so much I want to see in the world because the world is resetting completely.
		The post-war order is collapsing.
		NATO is going to collapse, obviously.
		You can't have the main, the driver of NATO, which is the United States, sabotage Germany's main source of cheap energy in Nord Stream.
		The Biden administration blew up Nord Stream.
		And the Germans are so self-hating they won't say anything about it.
		They sort of put their head down like, no, I don't want to talk about that.
		Okay.
		But I do want to talk about it because it's important.
		First of all, it was the biggest act of industrial sabotage in history.
		Second, it was the largest man-made CO2 emission in history.
		Which, if you're a global warming cultist, is like the devil himself come to earth.
		And the Biden administration did that.
		But third and most important, it was an attack on Germany.
		Which is the most powerful country in Europe.
		Western Europe is America's last main ally.
		And we just attacked our most important ally.
		NATO cannot stand long-term.
		At some point, the Germans are going to wake up and be like, wait a second, we had chemical plants two years ago.
		Now we don't.
		You just wrecked our economy.
		I don't think it can continue after that.
		I really don't.
		Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see how it does.
unidentified		I can remember the day after I was in your show.
		I spent some days in Washington.
		And the day after...
		There was the 50th anniversary conference of the very famous Heritage Foundation, probably one of the most influential think tanks in the United States and in the entire world, actually.
		And it was a big gala.
		You gave a wonderful speech there.
		And more than 1,000 people showed up.
		You know, my face, my character, everything.
		I'm just a Hungarian, you know.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Just a Hungarian.
unidentified		Foreigner in Washington, D.C. But more than, I would say, more than 50 people recognized me and told me on that night that, you know, I saw you in Tucker yesterday, and you did a great job, but I saw you.
		I was watching.
		And, you know, it was a very strange...
		Observation for me, because this was the point when I realized that even the political leadership or elite, I think mainly on the Republican side, but probably in a hidden way the Democrats are also following you, but you're following what you are saying.
		I mean, which is...
		I think in the 21st century media environment, when you have opinions coming around and it's very easy to get an opinion, very easy to create a narrative that there is one single person and there is one single show who is a trendsetter, not only for the ordinary people, but also for political elite and political leadership.
		This is quite something.
		Does it give you a responsibility, or do you recognize that?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I don't have a lot of self-awareness.
		I wear the same clothes every day.
		I have the same haircut I had in high school, so I'm not very aware of myself.
		I'm faintly aware that I'm faintly ridiculous, but that's all I know.
		So I don't have...
		I'm not aware of that.
		But I will say two things.
		One...
		We did that show at a moment when there was a power vacuum in the parties.
		And certainly a lack of ideas in the parties.
		Like, the Republican parties ran out of gas.
		Democratic Party ran out of gas.
		They had no new ideas.
		They were like...
		And that's what the trans thing is on some level.
		You know, they just, like, took the civil rights movement of the 50s and early 60s, removed African American, put in trans, and it's the same thing.
		It's like there's no new idea at all.
		It's just the same template.
		And the Republican Party stopped with Reagan.
		Peace through strength.
		Reagan was a great president, famously, but the world is very different from what it was 40 years ago, but they can't update the files in their head.
		So our contribution was just to try and think a little bit differently about it.
		I would say in your specific case, one of the reasons that so many people recognized you is because Hungary really is an inspiration to a lot of Americans.
		Not because it's radical, but because it's not.
		It's interesting.
		So there are revolutions all over the world all the time.
		My country, thank heaven, has been immune from that for 250 years.
		But there are always revolutions, and they always promise utopia, and they always fail to deliver.
		Hungary is so inspiring because it's doing the opposite.
		It's not a revolution, but it's also not a counter-revolution.
		This is my read on it.
		This is a country that knows who it is, understands its own culture, And it's decided to preserve it.
		Not through any radical means.
		Not through gunfire.
		I mean, just as an outsider, one of the things that instantly strikes me is that Hungary's at the center of the conversation in think tanks all around Washington.
		How do we stop Hungary?
		How can we get U.S. taxpayers to send more money to Hungary to stop Orban?
		Because that's democracy.
		When a superpower subverts a democratic election in another country, that's democracy.
		Anyway.
		But they're very obsessed with Hungary because it's such a huge threat.
		But I come here and I notice, first thing, how moderate your politics are.
		Like, no one seems on the verge of killing anybody else.
		Even the people who hate Orban don't seem like they want to kill him.
		They just don't like him or they want somebody else.
		It doesn't seem super heated and crazy.
		It doesn't seem revolutionary.
		It seems just the opposite of revolutionary, actually.
		And there's something wonderful about that.
		There's something wonderfully moderate about that.
		What Hungary is saying to the West, We want to be part of the West.
		Hungary is part of NATO. It's not doing anything crazy or revolutionary.
		It's just like, hey, maybe don't push your garbage on us so aggressively.
		We've got our own thing going on here.
		We're pretty happy with it.
		Maybe you just leave us alone a little bit.
		I just find that thrilling to watch.
		Thrilling because it's rational.
		It's incremental.
		I hate revolutions because they never improve anyone's life.
		And Hungary, again, Is a model for how you can preserve your dignity, you can have a pro-human society without killing anybody, without screaming, and without blowing up what you already have.
		It's awesome!
unidentified		I think this audience never heard anything like this before, that the Hungarian politics is very relaxed.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You should come to the United States or go on Twitter for a day.
unidentified		True.
		So Matthias Korwin's Collegium is an educational institution.
		This is the main reason why I wanted to have a discussion with you, not just touching the very important political issues, but talk for younger generations.
		We have many young people in the audience and many of our students.
		And I want to ask you about your experiences on education.
		So it's like, what was the best thing you learned from your school?
		What is the best advice you can give to...
		To young people now, all over the world, here in Hungary and in your country, United States.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the American education system, which is very famous and still mildly prestigious, is so different from the European system and particularly from the Hungarian system that I'm not sure there are any lessons to draw directly.
		My experience was the most important thing I ever did, other than get married, was read books.
		Not tweets, not electronic, but paper books in traditional form and read them every day.
		And that to me is education, is reading.
		But books.
		My father, who is a self-educated person, entirely self-educated person, but a deep intellectual, smartest man I've ever known, his most acid, his most biting insult.
		To people who presume to be intellectuals always was that he would always say, he reads magazines.
		In other words, he has a shallow understanding of whatever it is he's expounding on.
		And there's something about forcing yourself to read a book all the way through to sustain an argument or a series of connected ideas for 300 pages that's entirely different.
		From consuming information online or in shorter form.
		So I would just encourage, you know, schools come and go.
		And their purpose changes over time.
		Most modern universities were once effectively seminaries.
		Now they're anti-God.
		So colleges change.
		But reading books, books themselves do not change.
		If you read good books consistently through life, you will become educated in a true sense and wise, which is the point.
		Accumulating information is not the point.
		Your iPhone can do that.
		Becoming wise, able to discern between good and bad, truth and falsehood, that's the goal.
unidentified		And, you know, we have this overwhelming...
		This is an ISO. Yeah.
		But, you know, getting knowledge is one part, and being well-informed is the other part.
		So we have this overwhelming noise online.
		What would you recommend for young people?
		How they can become and remain well informed in this online news?
		Okay, following Tucker Carlson, but what are the other platforms or ways of...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Look, start with the knowledge that you're being lied to at scale.
		Not just one person, but a collection of people, a network of people acting in concert, knowingly or not, with one another in order to tell you things that are not true.
		And not just not true, the opposite of the truth.
		And that there are reasons this is happening, but it is happening.
		That's the thing to know.
		So, I mean, I personally, I hate to say this because it's very dark and cynical, but it's also true.
		I assess people's honesty by how the so-called mainstream, which is not mainstream in any sense, but the predominant voices regard them.
		So if somebody in power says, well, you're not allowed to think that, my first question is, well, why?
		Probably because it's true, actually.
		Probably because it's true.
		Very few people are punished for lying.
		I can't remember the last time I saw a public figure in the United States punished for lying.
		They're caught all the time.
		No one is ever punished.
		Instead, people are punished for telling the truth.
		Maybe not the whole truth.
		Maybe a variation of the truth.
		Maybe just something that points toward the truth.
		But it's the truth that is illegal.
		And so I assess it in reverse.
		If the people I don't trust, if the Atlantic magazine is screaming that you must go to jail or be silenced, I want to know what you're saying.
		Because I bet it's a little closer to the truth than what the Atlantic magazine is telling me.
		In fact, I bet my house on it.
unidentified		Looking back, what advice would you give for your younger self?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		My younger self?
		Don't be so arrogant.
		I would give that advice to my aging self.
		I would give that advice to every human being, and it's advice I've given my children many times.
		Don't be so quick to assume you're right.
		Don't be so quick to assume you know.
		Don't be so...
		Arrogant in the way you approach other people, don't be so judgmental.
		Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
		It's conditional.
		You're not forgiven until you forgive.
		And when you realize how stupid and silly you are, you're much more likely to forgive and you're much more likely to be open-minded.
		Don't assume you know.
		Just in your own life, if you've ever known someone or had a close relative, and everybody here knows this experience, who's gotten divorced.
		You have a close friend or a sibling who's getting divorced.
		And when it first happens, you think, well, one part of the marriage, the husband or the wife, was horrible.
		He was an alcoholic.
		He cheated on her.
		She was mean.
		You think you know what actually happened in that marriage.
		But the more you learn, the more you realize, actually, I don't really understand what was happening in that marriage.
		No matter how close you are to it.
		You can't even understand someone else's marriage.
		You're telling me you're going to understand someone else's country?
		I don't think so.
		So go into every decision, every situation with the knowledge that you are seeing it incompletely.
		You are not seeing all the facts.
		You do not understand everything that has happened when you weren't there.
		You don't really know.
		The best you can do is guess with good faith and an open mind and hope you got it right.
		That's the best you can do.
		And if you go into life with that attitude, you will arrive at a wiser conclusion than if you approach it like your average Atlantic Council person approaches it, or the NATO leadership who's like wrecking the Western world right now, or the Biden administration, or your ridiculous, absurd, grotesque American ambassador to Hungary goes into it with, oh, I know what's right for you.
		No, you don't, son.
		You don't know, actually.
		You don't know anything about me.
		You don't speak Hungarian.
		Leave.
		Right?
		So that hubris, that belief you know things you don't, that lie that you can control things you can't, the most basic of all human misperceptions, which is that I am God.
		No, you're not.
		That's how we get into trouble.
		That's how people die.
		Every time.
unidentified		Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tucker Carson.

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