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Dec. 9, 2023 - The Tucker Carlson Show
18:50
Tucker Carlson - Ep. 47 Gonzalo Lira is an American citizen who’s been tortured in a Ukrainian prison since July, for the crime of criticizing Zelensky. Biden officials approve of this, because they’d like to apply the same standard here. The media agree. Here’s a statement from Gonzalo Lira’s
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tucker carlson
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tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
In February of 2022, the Russian military rolled across the border of eastern Ukraine.
And then for the next year and a half, the American media and political establishment spent, what's fair to say, a disproportionate amount of time talking about Ukraine and America's obligation to support Ukraine, pay for Ukraine's military and its government, and of course support it morally, and above all to hate Russia.
And most Americans obeyed.
Politicians wore Ukrainian flags on their lapels.
American citizens put Ukrainian flags on their mailboxes and on their bumper stickers.
But one thing most Americans didn't get a lot of was actual news from Ukraine.
What was it like to live there?
What was happening inside that country that we were supporting and paying for?
Well, you couldn't really know because there was virtually no coverage of it.
But on social media, there were a few people reporting.
In what seemed like a pretty honest way from within Ukraine.
And one of them was an American citizen called Gonzalo Lira.
He'd lived in Ukraine for quite some time and he posted, particularly on Twitter, his accounts of what life was like there and his view of how the war was going.
And so for people who are interested in what was happening, he was worth watching.
Here's one of his reports.
unidentified
The Russian economy is sailing on, sailing on.
European economy, people are starting to die of hypothermia in the UK.
Because they don't have access to the cheap energy of Russia from before.
See?
And so everything that the West has thrown at the Russians has boomeranged right back at them.
And so now they're panicking and they're trying to figure out a way out of this situation.
And they figured that if they throw more tanks, it'll help.
It won't help.
The Ukrainians, rather, they had something like 2,000 tanks before the start of this conflict.
You think a couple of hundred now is going to help?
I mean, why are they asking them?
Because those 2,000 tanks are gone.
That's basic, you know?
And so, what?
A couple of hundred, maybe 300 tanks.
Is that going to change the outcome of the conflict?
No, it won't.
The Russians are just going to destroy them.
In the West, all of the propaganda has said that Zelensky is a hero, a Winston Churchill figure.
You know, and the Kiev regime are just angels and stuff like that.
No, they're bloodthirsty murderers, the Kiev regime.
I'm telling you right now.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
So he made a couple of points.
One, Russia is not losing the war with Ukraine.
Russia is winning.
Two, the Russian economy, despite the sanctions from the United States and Western Europe, and despite the war, has not been destroyed.
The Russian economy is actually fine, and in some ways it's improving.
It's becoming more independent, more commodities-based, and that's an advantage for a country with a lot of commodities like Russia.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy and U.S. military power has suffered as a result of the war.
Now, Lira, to the extent that people responded to him in this country, in our media, was denounced as a Russian puppet and a liar and a propagandist, but in fact, now we can admit he was right.
What you just heard was true, factually true.
Russia is not losing the war in Ukraine.
Russia is winning.
Russia's economy is fine.
Ours is not.
So what happened in Zololira?
Well, for posting that video and others like it, he was arrested by the government of Ukraine, the one that we pay for, the supposed democracy that we support for moral reasons against the autocracy of Russia.
He was arrested.
And then he was let out.
And then he tried to leave the country.
He tried to leave Ukraine.
Here's a video, his last video.
This is Gonzalo Lira.
unidentified
I will definitely be sent to a prison labor camp where I will most certainly die.
And so I decided that the smart thing was take my chances in terms of getting across the border.
Right now, I'm maybe five kilometers away from the border.
With Hungary.
Over the last two days, I rode my bike just about 1,300 kilometers from Kharkov all the way here to the border.
And my intention is to cross the border and get to Hungary.
And in Hungary, I'm going to ask for political asylum.
So either I will cross the border into Hungary in the next...
A couple of hours.
Or I will be arrested again.
And God knows what will happen to me.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
He never made it.
Five miles from the Hungarian border, five kilometers, rather, from the Hungarian border, he was arrested.
Gonzalo Lira remains in prison tonight, a political prisoner in a country that we were told was free.
A country whose government we are still paying for.
The Biden State Department is uninterested in the fate of this American citizen.
In fact, of course, they support his imprisonment.
And no one in the national media seems interested in his fate whatsoever.
So we thought it'd be worth speaking to his father, Gonzalo Lira Sr., who joins us now from Chile.
Mr. Lira, thanks so much for joining us.
Have you heard from your son?
Do you know where he is and do you know how he's doing?
unidentified
Thank you, Tucker.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
Thank you.
unidentified
For the opportunity of saying what is going on with my son, Gonzalo.
Today will mark the seventh full month that he's been arrested in Ukraine.
He has not gone into trial.
He's awaiting trial.
He was appointed a court attorney that doesn't speak English.
He's an Ukrainian attorney.
Insofar as the U.S. Embassy, They haven't done a thing.
Neither I nor his sister, living in the USA, and I'm reading because I don't want to lose anything, neither I nor his sister, living in the USA, have been able to communicate with Gonzalo.
He's incommunicado.
The U.S. Embassy has not answered our inquiries.
The Embassy in Kiev...
Never offered a defense attorney.
Never visited him, except for the first time, his court appointment last November 8th.
The embassy has just burned out, Gonzalo.
An American citizen by birth is in jail because he was exercising his right of freedom of speech.
His defense, as I said before, It's in the hands of a court appointment Ukrainian attorney that doesn't speak any English.
The USA government, with its silence in the face of this scandalous incident, suggests a degree of complicity, or at least tacit approval of Gonzalo's arrest, since nothing else convincingly explains the conspicuous Lack of response.
Let me just read further, if I may, Tucker.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
I hope you will.
unidentified
Gonzalo was arrested last year.
On April the 15th, Good Friday, till the next Friday 22nd, for that full week, without any charges.
He was simply detained.
They stole all of his equipment.
He couldn't continue working.
After he was released, for at least two, three weeks, trying to obtain equipment to continue.
His criticism of Zelensky Nazi regime, supported by the U.S. government, by Mr. Biden, who makes, you know, he is making gargles, you know, that we have to defend democracy.
What democracy?
Ukraine has never...
Let alone today with this man, Zelensky.
He's a well-known dictator.
They were going to have elections, Tucker, and they canceled those elections.
During the Vietnam War, there were elections in South Vietnam, in the middle of the war, Tucker, if you remember.
I do remember.
I lived those years in the USA. Let me say more.
Last April 27th of this year, Gonzalo put on a web video, this time and for the first time, Tucker, heavily criticizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Four days later, the Zelensky police detains Gonzalo through that terrible sinister Gestapo called SPU.
My thinking is that the Democratic Party establishment will try to get rid of Joe Biden and shoehorn in Kamala Harris.
Because Kamala Harris, make no mistake about it, she's an idiot.
I mean, she is, I mean, I seriously believe that she has under 90 IQ points.
I mean, she is so stupid.
Isn't it odd, Tucker, that four days later, after condemning Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Gonzalo is arrested.
Why was he not detained earlier?
When he was let go the previous year, May 22nd of last year, Gonzalo continued the same language, the same criticism against the war.
He predicted from day one that Ukraine would never win a war against Russia.
He also said this is going to bleed the USA and the NATO countries, holding on for Ukraine to hold a battle with Russia, which will never be won, will never be successful.
Did the State Department, Tucker, give the green light to Zelensky to put my son in jail?
This is something that it is unbelievable.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
I mean, the obvious conclusion is if the US government is approving and maybe even encouraging what happened to your son, a man being thrown into prison to die because he criticized the regime, if they're okay with the government, I really don't understand.
unidentified
It just puzzles me.
It just puzzles me also with the prompt defense or the reporter, you know, the Wall Street Journal reporter.
That was detained in Russia.
Well, he was really exchanging his military secrets.
And my goodness, the way they were defending this man, I don't even know if he's a U.S. citizen, but anyway, his name, I wrote it somewhere.
Totally different to Gonzalo.
No one from the U.S. Embassy is defending my son.
He lived in the U.S. all of his life.
He's a Dartmouth graduate.
I mean, he lived in the USA. He has, you know, published Counterparts, one of his, you know, books.
He's been writing also.
He's a writer.
And the U.S. hasn't done anything.
I cannot understand.
If we're going to protect democracy and the world, let's start by taking out that puppet called Zelensky.
And let Congress in the USA, for crying out loud once and for all, in speech, this man, he cannot continue.
The U.S. is sliding down every day, Tucker.
The Chinese are winning us.
I mean, what kind of foreign policy are we getting into?
The worst of it all is that either they don't know history, Because there are a bunch of ignorance in the White House.
Well, they don't know.
I mean, Gorbachev with Bush Sr., with President George Bush Sr., Gorbachev proposed to him, we're going to dissolve the Soviet Union as such, and with it, we'll dissolve the Warsaw Pact.
Which was our response to NATO. But give me assurance that the countries that today belong to the Soviet Union and will be independent countries will not go into NATO. Putin, the only thing he was asking, Tucker, was not to have Ukraine enter the NATO alliance.
He didn't want to be surrounded by NATO countries, just like John Kennedy didn't want the USA to have missiles for Ukraine out loud in Cuba.
But he was doing the same.
The big question is, what?
If Ukraine had complied of not going into NATO force, you know, alliance, nothing would have happened.
There wouldn't have been a Russian invasion.
Like you said before, the US is bleeding money, but it is costing a fortune.
It's costing the military.
It's costing more day by day.
The whole population is getting involved now in the USA. There are constant protests now that we have the other problem with Israel.
Where are we going to?
When are we going to be the great nation we were?
Or is it too late, Tucker?
We have to change the government.
This man cannot continue with this policy in the world.
It's the wrong policy.
The world is beginning to hate the USA. Because they see the USA and the sign is military weapons.
War.
Years back, the protector of the small countries, Tucker.
I lived those years.
Second World War.
Thank God for the USA. It was England's and Europe's savior.
Well, What happened to that country?
This that is happening to my son is a victim of this Biden government and his relation with that puppet Zelensky.
Zelensky is a man that has made opponents, political opponents, disappear.
Gonzalo published two years ago.
A list, I think it was 12 or 13 individuals that had disappeared.
They were tortured and then, you know, killed.
And Gonzalo said, if I'm off the air for more than 24 hours, add me on the list.
He's a brave man, telling the truth all alone.
From day one, he predicted what would happen, that Ukraine would never win a war with Russia.
And that the USA and NATO countries would bleed with armaments, I mean, would support them to kingdom come.
But what is the cost now?
115 billion is what I heard, at least the USA giving Ukraine.
Can you imagine 115 billion in relocation in health in the USA? We have poverty!
We have a high percentage of poverty, Tucker.
We didn't have homeless in my years.
The best years, in my view, 50s, 60s, and the beginning of the 70s.
I lived those years, the 60s on.
America was a fantastic country.
I want the USA to come back to it.
To be the saviour of the world.
To be the grandfather that helps, that is constantly watching out.
Not the one who's making wars around the world, supporting dictators, cheap people like Zelensky.
This is the worst tactic, believe me.
I've read a lot about what's going on.
I see bloggers like my son, the George Galloways, Christopherus.
There's a whole bunch, Durant Durant.
I read, I get involved, and I've seen that we're going down.
We are having terrible policies in the USA, and this cannot continue.
I want you to please, Tucker, you're a man that is heard in the USA. That is power.
Information is power.
You have it.
Make something out of this, please.
As an 80-year-old father who's really fighting for his 56-year-old son, help me.
Give me a hand.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼
Well, I think you're helping him by what you just said, Mr. Lira.
And I'm grateful to hear it.
And I'm confident that when people step back and listen to what you're saying without emotion, they'll see that we've made a terrible mistake.
And we're really hoping that your son is out soon, and I hope that you will keep us informed about what the State Department does.
I hope this pushes them.
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