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Nov. 11, 2024 - The Tucker Carlson Show

01:36:48

Tucker Carlson: How Joe Rogan Changed Media Forever, How Propaganda Fools People, & Advice to Trump

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01:22:27

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		As you know, America just had a presidential election.
		It's been a very hectic and at times a very contentious campaign season.
		Many people have been offering their opinions, but unfortunately most don't have a clue what they're talking about.
		That's because they haven't been in the heat of the battle directly.
		But that's not true for our next special guest.
		This man sparks strong reactions across the board.
		For some, he's a powerful voice of truth and an unapologetic champion of viewpoints often dismissed or suppressed by the mainstream media.
		For others, he's a controversial figure, one whose views and commentary have sparked disagreement, criticism, and passionate debate.
		Whether you're here as a supporter or an inquisitive observer or even a skeptic, there's one thing we can all agree on.
		Tucker Carlson has had a profound impact on how millions of Americans think about politics, culture, and the media.
		Today, he's joining us to share his insights and answer my questions in an open, thought-provoking conversation.
		Whether you love him, hate him, or just want to hear more, please help me welcome the very awesome Tucker Carlson.
		Let's just start with what in the heck has the last three days of your life been, I think?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Wild.
unidentified		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I didn't expect that.
unidentified		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I spent almost 35 years being paid to make predictions about elections.
		I don't think I ever got a single one.
		Oh, bless you.
		Sorry.
		I left the sacred beverage backstage.
		Yeah, I would not have predicted that at all.
		That Donald Trump would not only win, but win decisively with a mandate, the majority of the popular vote, the first Republican to do that other than the post-9-11 election in 40 years.
		So I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it meant, but I mean, big picture, it means that the current way of doing things has been decisively rejected, most notably by young people.
		What was the last election where Republicans won young people?
		Really?
		You know, you always think of, like, you know, your blue-haired daughter lecturing you about saying, no, your blue-haired daughter voted for Trump, which is kind of wild.
		She shouldn't have blue hair, but whatever, she voted for Trump.
		He won half of Hispanics, the overwhelming majority of Hispanic men.
		Like, all the guy that they've been telling us is a racist for the last nine years.
		Like, if you knew one thing about Donald Trump from 2015 until Tuesday, it was that he was a racist, because they never stopped telling you that.
		And his numbers with...
		Black voters went up.
		His numbers with Hispanic voters just crushed it.
		He's never seen anything like that.
		And so whatever else he is, he's like, not a racist, obviously.
		So I do think it's time for his opponents to recalibrate.
		I don't think any of this is actually about race or sex.
		I think most people are kind of tired of that.
		I think those were cul-de-sacs in the first place.
		I think they were, in fact, in some sense, psyops meant to distract us from what actually matters, which is like economics and war.
		The things that matter, that changed the course of history.
		And I think on both of those questions, the current administration is reckless to the point of craziness.
		We're on the brink of nuclear war.
		Why?
		Take a poll of Americans.
		How many Americans think it's worth risking nuclear war to teach Putin a lesson?
		I mean, the whole thing's freaking nuts.
		And because of the nature of our media, which is just North Korean...
		Where no dissenting view is allowed.
		It's shouted down immediately.
		I don't think people appreciate the current state of the United States relative to the rest of the world, which is greatly diminished and imperiled.
		I mean, we're really on the brink of catastrophic conflict, which we will lose, in two different theaters, at least.
		So, you know, the Biden administration did that.
		When was the last time we read that in the New York Times or saw it on Morning Joe?
		You haven't.
		But people sense that things are not moving in the right direction, and then domestically, The Biden administration and then the Kamala Harris campaign were both convinced that inflation was not real somehow or that it was just right-wing media complaining about it.
		It was just Fox News making a big story out of it to get their moron voters to the polls or something.
		But actually, the data showed, going back to the COVID checks, that it was entirely real.
		By the way, it was predictable.
		But it was as real as $9 butter.
		I mean, just like anyone who went to the grocery store and knew that.
		But they could not comprehend it and instead spent this entire...
		You know, three and a half, four years lecturing the rest of us about trans issues and race.
		And you may have your opinions on those things, but they're hardly central to, like, the functioning of a country.
		Like, what are you even talking about?
		And it turns out that their politics were the politics of unhappy rich girls, actually, just to be totally blunt about it.
		And unhappy rich girls make up a very small percentage of the American population.
		So everyone else voted for Trump.
		So, okay, now we can have a discussion about adult issues.
		And I'm really gratified.
		I don't think, again, that's ideological.
		It's not even right versus left.
		Republican versus Democrat.
		It's like adults versus people who put signs on their front lawns telling you they believe in science.
		Well, people like that don't know what science is.
		Do you know what I mean?
		Their view of science is shut up, don't ask questions.
		Really, I don't think that's science, actually.
		I think that's...
	Kind of the opposite of science.
	Whatever.
	Those people lost.
	The people who live in Brookline and Bethesda and all the screechy people I deal with in airports, they lost.
	And I'm really glad.
	Sorry.
unidentified		No, no, it's great.
		Yeah, I love it.
		So, if you could advise America's leaders on restoring the country, what would you suggest focusing on politically or spiritual changes?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, both those things.
		I mean, first of all, de-emphasize the race stuff.
		That's just total poison.
		Nobody talks about it.
		Like, in your life, you know, are you, when no one's around and you're just with your spouse or your college roommate or your brother or your closest friends, are you, like, mad about race?
		Probably not.
		Most people don't spend their lives thinking about race.
		Or other people's sex lives, for that matter.
		They just don't.
		And if our leaders encourage us...
		To have yet another fake conversation about race, which is really just one person yelling at another person, that person having to take it, that does nothing but divide the country and makes people hate each other, which is, of course, their goal.
		So stop with that.
		If you engender racial conflict in a population, it's very hard to make that go away.
		Most Americans do not want that at all.
		They don't see race first.
		These are all facts.
		This is not a racist country.
		It's a really nice country.
		It's a country where people give directions to strangers and, like, take in stray dogs.
		It's just people aren't racist, actually.
		And so stop with that stuff.
		Restore the colorblind meritocracy that we were promised.
		That is the basis of America.
		Innovation comes when the most energetic, smartest people are allowed to do their thing.
		When entrepreneurs are allowed to be entrepreneurial and artists are allowed to create art and writers are allowed to write literature.
		Elon's allowed to build rockets, and it doesn't matter what color they are, what gender they are.
		It just matters that they have the energy and the drive and the intelligence and the ability to organize sufficient to get that done.
		That's just true.
		And so, you know, dismantle the state, the kind of, I hate to say it, but they're always calling Trump a Nazi.
		Really?
		Is he the one who said every person in America has to identify by race, by bloodline?
		That's sick.
		Like, we rejected that, actually, in 1945, and we should reject it again and unleash the best within each one of us.
		I mean, you build this monument to Martin Luther King on the Mall.
		Okay, let's follow its precepts.
		Let's judge each other by the content of our character, by what we do rather than how we were born.
		Like, that is the promise of America, and that, you know, we spend all this time taking care of gearing our education system to the people who...
		Learn the slowest.
		Maybe we should spend a little bit of time helping the people who learn the quickest.
		It can't just be making every school dumber.
		What about the smart kids who want to learn and want to create?
		They should be allowed to do that too.
		Just back off and let people do their thing and you will create an incredibly beautiful country and stop encouraging them to hate each other.
		Those are kind of vibe shifts.
		These are not specific policies.
		Those are the first two things I would do.
		Second, restore order to the world.
		Again, I cannot overstate, as someone who travels a lot internationally, how close to nuclear conflict the United States has been for the past three years.
		Almost three years, come February.
		Like, on the precipice of it.
		And because our media don't report this, I think most Americans don't really have a sense of it.
		But we are truly on the edge of, like, ending human life.
		Globally, it's crazy.
		Nothing this crazy has ever happened, probably ever, in history.
		And so the role of the United States, if the United States is going to be a global leader, not its policemen, but a leader, a force for good, it has to become what it once was, which is a force for order and stability, not endless revolution, which is what we've had.
		Let's knock off the leader of that country and hope for the best.
		Well, that didn't work.
		We killed Qaddafi, we killed Saddam, those countries became Worse than they were before.
		There are open slave markets in Tripoli, Libya.
		We'll just ignore that.
		The same people who did that, just move on.
		Let's bump off Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
		Let's kill Putin and hope for the best.
		Stop.
	Stop.
	No more revolutions.
	This is what the Soviet Union used to do.
	Run around the world trying to foment revolutions.
	Overthrow one government and hope that a better government would take its place.
	That's not how life works, actually.
	It takes an awful long time to create something worth having.
	Progress is incremental.
	Destruction is instant.
	I can smash a plate glass window in a second.
	Try to make one.
	Do you know how a plate glass window is made?
	It's complicated.
	Right?
	And that's true for countries, too.
	So restore order.
	The United States should be a force for order.
	No, we're not going to blow up your natural gas pipeline, which we did to Germany.
	Destroy the German economy.
	Destroy the German economy.
	I don't know how many of you travel to Europe.
	Europe is Germany.
	The European economy is Germany.
	That economy has been crushed by what we did.
	Stop doing things like that.
	Okay?
	Reorient away from permanent revolution, and the lunatics are now running the State Department, beginning with the chief lunatic, who's also stupid, Tony Blinken, all the way down the chain.
	Just reorient the whole thing.
	No, our job is to be paternal.
	When, if you're a father, you come home, your kids are fighting.
	Your first instinct is to tell him to keep fighting.
	Hit him harder!
	You're a monster.
	You're a moral criminal.
	You're a bad dad.
	No, your instinct is consistent with your duty, which is tell him to knock it off and make up, make things better.
	And so, you know, there are reports, and look, Trump is always, and he does a lot, I think, to feed this.
	Perception, you know, he's often criticized as, you know, reckless or seat of the pants or whatever, but in fact the opposite is true.
	I think it is being reported, like, in the last five minutes that one of the first things Trump did after winning was to speak to both Zelensky and Putin.
	And to make it really clear that the net effect of this war in Ukraine has only been the total destruction of the nation of Ukraine.
	Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men killed.
	Eastern Ukraine destroyed.
	I mean, really, just the elimination of a country, the biggest country in Europe.
	And no one wins.
	There's been no upside to this at all.
	It's been effectively a genocide against the Ukrainians.
	And we're going to stop it now.
	We're going to stop it.
	And he spoke to both of them.
	That's what a United States president should do.
	And this lunatic who's been running our country for the past four years hasn't spoken to Putin once because he's immoral.
	Really?
	Okay.
	Immoral.
	Find a world leader who's not immoral.
	What do leaders do?
	Well, a lot of them kill people.
	In fact, I'd say about 100% of them do.
	If they have enough power, they kill people who are in their way.
	That's what they do.
	Sorry.
	I'm against that.
	That's why I'm not a leader.
	But that's the nature of global leadership.
	So it's not a question of finding a good person in charge of a large country.
	You're not going to.
	There aren't any.
	But you can find better people, and you can arrive critically at better outcomes.
	And the better outcome is no more war.
	And Trump did that instantaneously, and I think it's going to work.
	That's worth voting for him alone.
	If you voted for Trump, and, you know, there are people in your life who are like, I can't believe you voted for that guy, he's a rapist!
	Okay.
	First of all, who do you rape exactly?
	Oh, lots of people.
	Really, what are their names, and why hasn't he been charged?
	Shut up.
	Um, actually.
	What are you even talking about?
	Stop with that.
	Don't accuse someone of rape.
	Like, what?
	Stop talking like that.
	Running around accusing people of things, of crimes, of felonies, without any evidence.
	Like, what's your name?
	They can't answer.
	The whole thing's nuts.
	Stop lecturing me.
	Adults, people who run countries, the first thing they do is try and stop pointless wars.
	They don't foment pointless wars, they end them.
	And Trump just did that.
	So if you voted for Trump, on that basis alone, you should be proud of what you did, in my opinion.
unidentified		So you have interviewed so many people.
		I mean, recently, Elon Musk.
		I mean, you interviewed Putin earlier in the year.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Putin!
unidentified		What was that experience like?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It was great.
		It was super interesting.
		And I should just say that when I interview somebody, obviously I'm endorsing everything that person's ever done.
		You know, it does really go back to the American media where I've spent my entire life.
		I'm the son of a journalist.
		I grew up around it.
		So that makes it 55 years I've been around this, and its current state is almost beyond description in how low and poisonous and dishonest it is.
		I'm just ashamed to be a part of it.
		No, I mean, of course you would want to interview.
		Your default, if your job is to interview people, is to interview the most powerful people in the world, the most significant people in the world.
		And the point of those interviews is to ask them obvious questions and then let the public in your country, in my case it's the United States, decide what they think.
		That's my job.
		And so the idea that you wouldn't interview somebody because the State Department doesn't like him, or the senile guy in charge of the country has declared war on him without a congressional resolution, that the government doesn't want you to interview.
		I don't care what the government wants.
		I'm an American citizen.
		I can talk to anybody I want to.
		And moreover, I can have any opinion I want to.
		That's my birthright.
		And that's why I don't live in Sri Lanka, okay?
		Or North Korea or any other country.
		I'm American, okay?
		That's what it is to be American.
		So I'm not being defensive.
		I actually don't care that the New York Times called me a Putin lover.
		Anyone who believes the New York Times is like, okay, good luck.
		But it's just a little bit bewildering that nobody else wanted to interview Putin because what the CIA tells you, you're not supposed to want to.
		If the CIA tells me I'm not supposed to want to do something, and they certainly made that very clear to me, that makes me want to do it more.
		I mean, that's my job!
		And if you find yourself, like on the set of Morning Joe, taking orders from the intel agencies, then maybe you should just go work for the intel agencies.
		Maybe you should admit that to your viewers.
		Well, you know, today's program is brought to you by the NSA. Because effectively it is.
		And the intel agencies have a much greater role in American news coverage than most news consumers understand.
		I would say that virtually any news consumers understand.
		And I've seen it for over 30 years, so I'm very familiar with it.
		But it's absolutely crazy that no one has stopped it.
		And I'm praying.
		It's very hard to stop it, by the way.
		I'm praying that Donald Trump will.
		I mean, that's on a long to-do list.
		But I would say near the top, you have to, if you want to restore democracy.
		Which we don't currently really have.
		The lefties are right about that.
		They don't want it.
		I do want it.
		I actually like democracy because I think it's my country.
		I was born here.
		I'm an owner of this system.
		I'm not a renter or a serf.
		But if you want to restore it, you have to prevent the government from using your tax dollars to lie to you.
		Because if you have that system, which we currently have, trust me, I can speak with authority on this.
		Then you don't have a democracy, because you don't even know what reality is.
		In other words, the people in charge are deciding what you can know about what they're doing.
		Well, that's a rigged system by its nature.
		How is that not a rigged system?
		How is that democracy?
		It's not.
		It's an oligarchy of the worst kind.
		And I just don't think people in this country understand the degree to which the information that they received over their Google machines or from NBC News or from the last of the dying newspapers.
		They don't understand just how filtered that information is.
		You have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world if you're only getting your news in this country.
		You have no idea what the candidates are really like.
		It's really crazy.
		We have an ongoing debate in my office because we travel a lot.
		Does the average North Korean peasant have a better idea of what's happening in the world than the average person in a suburb of Boston?
	Maybe.
	It's actually open to debate.
	That's how filtered it is.
	And so the first step toward fixing it is admitting that you have the problem.
	Let's stop pretending.
	You know, if you can't even go interview Putin, who's engaged in a war in the middle of Europe, if you're discouraged from doing that, and the U.S. government tried to stop me from doing that by breaking into my Signal account and leaking it to the New York Times, they got caught, they admitted it.
	If that's allowed, no one was ever fired for it.
	No other, the New York Times didn't rise to my defense.
	Use an intel agency to prevent a journalist from doing his job?
	No, it's totally fine.
	Man, it's a really, really rotten system, and it's the basis of all we know.
	How do you know what's happening in the world?
	How do you know what reality is?
	Well, because you see it on your phone.
	So you have to have honest sources of information, or at least a diversity of sources of information.
	You don't have to trust any one source, but you've got to have a choice.
	It can't all just be...
	You know, Mika Brzezinski telling you what happened yesterday, because...
	Not good.
unidentified		What advice would you have on what to listen to?
unidentified		Where to get a diverse or accurate, non-propagandized sort of education?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's pretty hard.
		I mean, I've gone so crazy, and obviously I wouldn't recommend this to other people, but I don't read any news at all, ever.
		Period.
		I don't read any of it.
		I was in it too long.
		I know how poisoned it is.
		It's like watching a, you know, sometimes you meet nurses who are the most honest people in hospitals in my experience.
		And they'll tell you, like, oh man, don't get any, you know, cardiac catheter at that hospital.
		They'll kill you.
		You should probably believe the nurse.
		Like, she works there.
		And that's how I feel about media.
		Like, I know how it works.
		And so I don't read any of it.
		I get all my information from people via text message.
		I travel a ton.
		To see things firsthand because there's no replacing that.
		But the advice that I give my own children on this question is go with your gut.
		I actually think we have a much more accurate sort of internal measuring system for truth than we understand.
		You know when someone's lying to you.
		You're born with that ability to discern.
		Truth from lie.
		Now, it's unerring, but it's imprecise.
		In other words, if I feel someone's lying to me, he is.
		That person's lying.
		My dogs know.
		If you show up at my house and you're creepy, my dogs have no idea what you're saying.
		They don't need to know.
		They know you're creepy, and they'll snarl at you.
		And then I know you're creepy, because my dogs have already vetted you.
		No, and I mean it.
		And you're not welcome for dinner at that point.
		I don't know what you did, but it's gross.
		Yeah, and I'm not joking at all.
		Sorry, I'm sorry you failed the spaniel test.
		I'll see you.
		Good luck, freak.
		All of us have the very same ability.
		Our instincts are our most honest guide because your instincts are designed only to help you.
		They're not trying to sell you anything.
		They're not trying to get elected to anything.
		They're not trying to scam you.
		They're not selling you a timeshare anywhere.
		They're merely trying to protect you and inform you.
		And so much of the information that we take in sort of bypasses the five senses that science tell us are the sum total of our intelligence-gathering apparatuses.
		I mean, that's like a total crock.
		Intuition is not technically a sense because science is like a joke, actually.
		It doesn't fully describe the human experience or even close to it.
		It's absurd.
		It lacks imagination.
		It's a scam, I would say, obviously.
		We have been trained to believe that our senses are somehow less valid than things that we read on Wikipedia, which is totally controlled by the CIA. And the truth is, the opposite is right.
		If you're listening to someone speak and that person seems deceptive, do not believe that person.
		Period.
		Tim Walls comes out, who ran with Kamala Harris.
		I don't know if you remember Tim Walls.
		And I saw Tim Walls and I'm like, you know, I'm not going to indict him for it.
		I was like, that guy's a creep.
		Just flat out.
		I'm sorry.
		He is.
		And I'm not calling the U.S. Attorney trying to get him indicted or anything because I don't have evidence.
		But I just knew instantly that guy's lying to me.
		And I think we all sort of know that.
	You know, you can just tell.
	And so when the media came out and said the Nord Stream pipeline got blown up, the biggest natural gas pipeline in the world, which fed the economy of Germany, of Europe, of the EU, our NATO ally, and it got blown up.
	And they're like, yeah, Putin did it.
	Putin did it, really.
	He blew up his own natural gas pipeline.
	Why did he do that?
	Well, because he's evil.
	So you're telling me that Putin is so evil that he attacked himself.
	Because he just couldn't help himself.
	Like, he ran out of people to stab, so he just started stabbing himself in the face.
	Is that what you're telling me?
	That's just the nature of evil.
	Yeah, that's what we're telling you.
	Shut up, you're lying.
	Like, I knew instantly that they were lying.
	Instantly they were lying.
	And, by the way, I had the privilege of saying so.
	It was not welcomed by my bosses.
	I got fired in the end.
	But I said, that's a lie.
	You're lying.
	Oh, how do you know we're lying?
	Well, because it doesn't make any sense.
	And also your lips are moving.
	And you're a liar.
	And I know that you are.
	So shut up.
	Oh, you shut up, you Putin stooge.
	Okay.
	Thanks, son.
	You're still lying.
	And that turned out to be a really good guy.
	And then, of course, we learned later.
unidentified		We blew up the North Stream pipeline, obviously.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And now we're blaming on the Ukrainians.
		It's not even an interesting conversation.
		Putin did not blow up the downstream pipeline.
		We now admit that.
		It was a lie.
		It was very clearly a lie.
		And in my old job, someone said to me, well, how'd you know that?
		Did you have inside intel?
		I was like, no.
		I'm sitting in my living room in Maine, you know, looking at it on my iPhone.
		I'm like, that's just BS. And I felt totally empowered.
		I think what made me different from others was I felt totally empowered to say so.
		I don't feel any obligation to go along with that.
		Like, why would I? Don't be intimidated.
		I guess that's kind of what I'm saying.
		Don't be intimidated.
		If something doesn't make sense, say, whoa, hold on, pal.
		You know, I don't get...
		What is that?
		So you become a woman by saying so?
		Like, what are the mechanics of that?
		Does it change your DNA? Shut up, transphobe!
unidentified		No, no, no.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay, great.
		But how does that work?
		Speak slowly so I can understand.
		Or whatever.
		It doesn't even matter what the claim is.
		If it doesn't make sense to you and the person telling you...
		Can't explain it, then they're lying about it.
		Or they don't understand it themselves, which is the same thing.
		Just don't accept that.
		And by the way, if the whole society refuses to accept that, if the whole society refuses to lie, it's like, just make the decision.
		You're not going to intimidate me into lying.
		And in my case, I'm an adult, middle-aged man.
		I pay my taxes.
		I've got four kids.
		Why would I go along with your bullshit?
		No, I'm not.
		Period.
		Under no circumstances.
		And I don't want to fight about it, but I'm not going to go along with it.
		Oh, the Vax is safe and effective?
		Okay, well, I'm not taking it.
		How's that?
		Why don't you make me?
		And, you know, how about no?
		And if you're a father, like, you're in the how about no business.
		That's your job.
		I've done a lot of how about no's.
		But no one's offended.
		You're just like, how about no?
		No, we're not doing that.
		No, we're not getting some weird dog crossed with a poodle?
		I don't think so.
unidentified		What?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Everyone's getting this hype.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		No, how about no?
unidentified		Okay.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It, like, works pretty well.
		And no one is just taking, I'm sorry, not to attack the poodle mixes, but I just don't want one, you know?
		And we've had that conversation quite a bit in my house.
		No, okay.
		And I think you can kind of cheerfully say no to a lot of the demands made on you.
		And they'll get all hysterical and call you names and just like, no, no.
		And I think if enough people do that, maybe like, I don't know, 200 million of them.
		All of a sudden, it just stops.
unidentified		People are like, okay, I guess we won't get the Shih Tzu poodle mix.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You know what I mean?
		Damn, maybe next time.
		Okay, on to the next thing.
		So I do hope that the next time there is this very familiar cycle where some story will happen, you know, some guy tries to pass a fake 20 in a convenience store in Minneapolis and then dies of a drug OD outside.
		And all of a sudden, they take that story and tell you that actually it's your fault that he died, and we need to completely change the country that your ancestors built.
		And everyone kind of goes along with it, and all the preachers on TV and Nikki Haley and all the people you're supposed to sort of respect are like, yeah, we need a revolution because George Floyd died.
		I think at this point, or, you know, there's some virus that comes out of China.
		It very clearly came from a lab that we funded.
		And really early, we learned that the death rate's like one tiny fraction of what they claim it is.
		And on the basis of that, they're going to give us some drug by force that hasn't been tested.
		And by the way, you can't sue because the Congress granted the company that makes the drug total immunity from lawsuits.
		I think more people would be like, no, how about no?
		Like, go ahead and take that if you want.
		Like, whatever, that's your thing.
		You want to go inject yourself with some weird crap?
		That's fine.
		But I'm not doing that.
		And I'm just not under any circumstances doing that.
		And I read the autopsy report and George Floyd, like 100,000 other Americans this year, died of a fentanyl OD and I feel super bad for George Floyd.
		I'm not, you know, defending his death.
		I feel sad about his death just as I do about the other 100,000 who died for him.
		But don't tell me that systemic racism killed George Floyd because it didn't.
		I'm just not going to accept any more of your lies.
		I don't care what you call me.
		I don't care how much you threaten me.
		I'm not afraid of you at all.
		Because I have no reason to be afraid of you because you're a freaking loser who's never built anything in your life.
		So how dare you lecture me?
		I'm an adult man.
		Back off.
		That's a really good posture.
		A super help that's a non-belligerent posture.
		You don't need to get your AR-15, though you should have one, but you don't need to like wave it around and be like, for my cold dead hands.
		Nope, maybe it'll get to that, but you don't right now need to do that at all.
		Just like sort of cheerful, nope, nope, fentanyl OD, not taking the vax, you know.
		Sorry!
		That works.
unidentified		Can I ask you about nurses and people in situations where they were put under pressure or propagandized so much that they had no choice or they would lose their job and single mothers.
		What do you think is going to happen with these people?
		What do you hope to see happen?
		I'd love to really have you explain how propaganda works.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, what's going to happen is, and I have a relative involved in one of these suits who was a commercial airline pilot.
		He just texted me on the flight out here that there was apparently a resolution of a jury in Michigan just awarded a woman fired for not taking the vax millions of dollars.
		And I hope that that is a nationwide trend where everyone whose life was destroyed in that fit of lies and hysteria is made whole.
		I really hope so.
		And I do hope that Congress can immediately strip the blanket immunity from the vaccine makers.
		I don't understand that.
		I've sold products my whole life.
		I mean, imagine you have a product, you convince politicians to force the population to buy your product, anyone who complains gets fired, and you can't be sued.
		I'm sorry.
		And I'm not attacking vaccines, by the way.
		I'm sure there are fine vaccines.
		I don't know.
		I'm not taking any of them, but it's okay if other people do.
		I'm not mad about people taking vaccines.
		I'm not mad about vaccines.
		But that's a scam.
		And anyone who says it's not a scam can just explain to me how it's not a scam.
		How is that not a scam?
		You're not allowed to sue?
		You can sue anybody for anything in this country.
		Anything.
		That's why we don't have playgrounds anymore.
		Remember merry-go-rounds?
		Remember those?
		Is anyone old enough to remember a merry-go-round?
		They don't exist.
		They were awesome.
		I have like 10 friends who have fewer teeth than they were born with because of merry-go-rounds.
		But they have stronger spirits.
		Because they were great.
		They don't exist anymore.
		Because the trial bar decided we're going to get rich suing merry-go-round makers and people who were nice enough to build playgrounds.
		So many good things in American life have been eliminated by the greed of the trial bar.
		By the way, next time you're in the Caribbean, go down to the yacht basin, wherever you are, it doesn't matter what island you are, and look at the biggest boats and just ask the boat guys and the matching polo shirts with the yacht names on them.
		What does the owner of this boat do for a living?
		And just keep a list of how many of them are trial lawyers.
		Like a lot.
		You know, it was the tobacco settlement or asbestos or whatever.
		It was talcum powder or whatever case they were.
		And I'm not attacking all lawyers, though I want to, because I do hate them with a passion.
		But even if I liked lawyers, I would say, how is it that there's this one category that's exempt?
		From the risk that all the rest of us who are involved in any kind of business face.
		I have liability insurance on my house in case the UPS guy slips delivering a package from Amazon.
		But somehow Albert Bourla and all the other creepy, creepy billionaires who run these disgusting pharma companies are in no danger of being sued because their corrupt pals in Congress in 1986 gave them blanket immunity?
		Like, let's tear that down immediately.
		Oh, well, we can't compete.
		Well, why don't you just make a safer vaccine then?
		How's that sound?
		Why don't you face the same risk that every other person who conducts any other kind of commerce or lives in this country faces every single day?
		Oh, we can't.
unidentified		Oh, shut up.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Go away.
		And so that's the first thing.
		I don't even know how I got off on that, but I'm so mad about it.
		It's so crazy.
		And that no one can say anything about it.
		And it's like, oh, you're against science?
		No, I'm not against science at all.
		I wish we practiced it.
		In this country.
		I do.
		I actually believe in science.
		By the way, if you believe in science, let's see the numbers.
		Let's see the numbers right now.
		Do you know what I mean?
		Social Security has the numbers.
		We know a lot about who was injured, who took it, who didn't, about the trials that are all sealed.
		I'll just say this, and I'll stop.
		If you want...
		To restore honesty to government.
		If you want to get rid of corruption, there's a very simple way to do that, and it's with transparency.
		It's allowing people to know what their government is doing with their money in their name.
		And if you can't know, if somehow you're being prevented from knowing, then you can be absolutely certain that crimes are being committed.
		Because why else would they be hiding it from you?
		Why is it?
		That 62 years later, after the President of the United States was murdered, we can't see all the files on that, all the documents on that.
		Why is it that 23 years after 9-11, files are still classified?
		Why is that?
		I had a friend die in 9-11, like probably a lot of people in this room.
		I was there.
		Totally changed my life.
		Why can't I know what exactly happened?
		Why don't you answer that question?
		It's our government.
		No federal bureaucrat has the right to tell you that you can't know what your government is doing.
		Who owns this government?
		The federal bureaucrat who can't be fired?
		No, I don't think so.
		We do.
		So, if you wind up in a country with over a billion classified federal documents, you're living in an extremely corrupt country.
		Extremely corrupt.
		And everyone around the world knows that about the United States.
		We don't know it.
		We don't think we live in a corrupt country.
		We do.
		And we can fix it super easily.
		And that's just, let's declassify it.
		Every 9-11 document should be declassified.
		Oh, shut up, conspiracy theorist.
		No.
		If you want to create conspiracy theories, pull down a curtain of secrecy over what actually happened.
		Why are you afraid to tell me the whole story?
		Why are you afraid to tell me the truth?
		We can resolve this right away.
		Just let me see the evidence.
		I have a right, I have a moral right to it.
		They have no moral right to keep it from us.
		So if I have one hope, secretly, For this administration, it's massive declassification.
		And let's find out what they've been doing.
		What happened to all the $100 billion we sent to Ukraine?
		There's been no audit.
		Oh, they don't want to declassify that?
		Why?
		Oh, because it's a scam.
		That's why.
	And that's why I'm just so grateful that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who I believe spoke to you earlier, will be a part of this administration.
	And I think he will be.
	I think he'll be a cabinet secretary.
	And I hope that his presence reminds all of us the cost.
	Of secrecy.
	Two members of his family were murdered.
	We still can't see the documents there.
	Why is that?
	And why don't we have full transparency on anything related to public health?
	What's the actual answer?
	And the answer is they're lying.
	And they shouldn't be allowed to lie.
	So I hope that changes.
unidentified		So, what about a couple of things.
		One, Jeffrey Epstein files, P. Diddy.
		What do you think is going to happen with all that now?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll just, I mean, I should just say at the outset, you know, I lived in D.C. I got to D.C. My dad worked for the federal government, by the way, in a highly classified capacity.
		So, like, I didn't, and I lived, you know, basically, I got there in high school and I left when I was 50. So, you know, I came up in this system.
		I marinated in it.
		I didn't know that there was anything wrong with it.
		I would have been the last person ever to question the Kennedy assassination or Jeffrey Epstein's clearly a suicide.
		Like, I just had no idea.
		Because it's like having an alcoholic spouse and then you get divorced and everyone's like, wow, you know, your husband was a drunk.
		And you're like, I had no idea.
		Like, the closer you are to something, the harder it is to see its outlines.
		And so when Epstein was, when he died, you know, I knew a lot of people who knew Jeffrey Epstein, like a lot.
		I never met Jeffrey Epstein, thank God.
		But I certainly knew a lot of people who knew him, like a lot, like more than 10. And so Jeffrey Epstein was not considered some far-out sinister figure in the world that I lived in.
		I'm just being totally honest about this.
		He was this kind of interesting guy who had this kind of rotating salon at his house off Fifth Avenue in New York, and there was always the Israeli Prime Minister and former presidents, and just interesting people.
		I did not understand what that was about at all.
		And so when he died, I was like, oh, poor guy killed himself in prison.
		And then I got a call from his brother, just randomly.
		And his brother said, you know, he did not commit suicide.
		And that, I was really shocked by that.
		And I thought, maybe his brother's crazy.
		So this set off a multi-year journey for me that really changed my views about a lot of different things.
		And the bottom line is Jeffrey Epstein was murdered.
		And not only murdered, but he was murdered in the most secure federal lockup in midtown Manhattan, in the country.
		Not just in federal lockup, but in the most secure part of federal lockup.
		So how did that happen?
		Well, he was clearly murdered by another inmate.
		You can't get any answers to who the other eight inmates on his block were.
		There was no investigation into his death.
		They've never released it.
		And the attorney general at the time, Attorney General Barr, clearly knew.
		That this happened.
		And I've said that in public, and he's attacked me for saying that.
		But it's just a fact.
		He lied about it.
		And so what is that?
		What is that?
		Think about that for a minute.
		And I don't know.
		I mean, there's a lot I don't know.
		I don't pretend to understand really anything.
		I don't understand anything.
		But I know lying when I see it.
		And they're lying about Jeffrey Epstein.
		And if they're not, where's the investigation?
		And there hasn't been one.
		And so that's pretty heavy duty.
		Where are the tapes?
		Where are the Epstein tapes?
		You know?
		It was so funny.
		They released a tape, a guy I know actually released a tape of Jeffrey Epstein talking about Donald Trump and saying, we were friends once and I don't like Trump.
		And okay, this was like the October surprise was to derail Trump.
		And everyone's like, how can you do that?
		And I thought, I'm so glad they're doing that.
		So let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein.
		Like, where are the videotapes from his home in New Mexico, from his Caribbean island, from his place on Fifth Avenue?
		There are all these videotapes now, you know, in federal hands.
		Why can't we see those?
		And we can't see them, of course, because there's like a massive blackmail operation run by various intel agencies designed to put famous people under the control of governments.
		I mean, of course, that's what it was, obviously, and everyone knows that, but no one can say anything about it.
		And as a friend of mine said, we were talking about this one night, and he goes, you know, I'm kind of, if you think about it, like, if you're able to kill somebody in the secure block in federal lockup in Manhattan and get away with it, Probably not someone you want to dick around with.
		Like, that's a powerful force, and that's a fair point.
		But it's still worth saying out loud because it's worth living in a transparent, honest country.
		It's bad to have rot like that.
	It's bad to have crimes like that committed in front of our faces.
	We can't do anything about it.
	It makes everyone feel impotent.
	It makes everyone paranoid.
	It makes everyone feel like nothing's on the level.
	We wind up with a society where no one believes anything.
	And I feel like that's where we are.
	The number of people I know who are like, wow, I've become a really deranged conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe in the moon landing.
	I must know 100 people who've said that to me in the last two years.
	And trust me, if you don't feel that way, you're just not admitting it.
	Because you do feel that way if you're paying attention.
	And that's a bad way to feel.
	You don't want a country like that.
	You want a country where things are pretty much what they seem to be.
	Where people are honest, they're straightforward.
	When they make a terrible mistake, they admit it.
	You want a country that is like the family that you have or want to have, where people are just direct with each other and kind to each other, and not everything is some crazy multi-layered deception designed to, you know, screw you or kill Jeffrey Epstein.
	Like, that's so dark.
	Let's not have that anymore.
	So all these companies are always telling you how much money they're giving to charity.
	Oh, we're so charitable.
	But what are the charities they're giving to?
	These brands that you buy that you have in your house, you don't even want to know.
	Very often they're charities that don't have the same values that your family has.
	Sometimes they're charities that don't like your family at all.
	But when you use Pure Talk, which is a cell phone company a lot of us use, you can be certain that your money is going to charities that you yourself would give to.
	Veteran-led companies, for example.
	To date, Pure Talk has gotten rid of $10 million in debt held by veterans.
	They've spent tens of thousands more every month to help prevent veteran suicide.
	They just give $50,000 to Mike Rowe Works, which gives scholarships to veterans learning the trades after they leave military service, etc., etc.
	So you've seen companies, once again, we're not going to name names, Bud Light, but that do business with lunatics.
	Again, charities that run contrary to your worldview, that despise your worldview, but with Pure Talk, you don't have to worry about that.
	This is a company that supports causes that you can support.
	PureTalk gives you the same great cell service that America's most dependable 5G networks provide for half the cost.
	They also support small businesses with excellent and affordable business plans.
	They are powering us here at TCN, so we can vouch for it, and they can probably save you money, too.
	Find out.
	Go to puretalk.com slash Tucker today.
	Switch to a company that aligns with your values.
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unidentified		Last follow-up on that is celebrities don't appear to be as influential for presidential elections as I think they thought they were.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the whole point of the ditty parties was to get people to endorse Kamala.
		No, there's a lot of, there is a lot.
		This is something that I never perceived at all.
		When I lived in Washington, I thought it was like a dumb conspiracy theory.
		Even though I worked in the kind of crypto entertainment business, I know a lot of people in the entertainment business, of course, because I worked in television.
		And I know a lot of people at the intel agencies and in politics, because that's what I did.
		And you would hear people once in a while say, well, they're all controlled.
		You know, there are files on that person, and I was like, oh, you sound like a freaking wacko.
		What are you going to say, like fluoride in the water is bad?
		Turns out fluoride in the water is bad.
		It's crazy.
		Anyway, but that's actually true.
		It's true, and I'm not guessing that it's true.
		I know some of the people involved.
		If you're on the House Intel Committee, the committee in the Congress that oversees the intel agencies, it's your job to make sure the CIA is not doing anything crazy like interfering in American politics or murdering the wrong people or getting rich.
		It's not allowed to get rich if you're a federal employee.
		And if it's your job to make sure that, like, the CIA is not colluding with the Mexican drug cartels, which they are, but you are almost certainly controlled by those agencies.
		Like, they're spying on you.
		Then I'm not guessing on that.
		I mean, because I know one of the people who ran that agency is being spied on.
		He told me he's being spied on.
		And some of it's come out.
		Like, that's not acceptable at all.
		And I think it's very clear that the same thing happens to cultural influencers.
		And why wouldn't it, right?
		That there are a lot of people, In the entertainment business, but in the cultural business more broadly, certainly in the news business, who are controlled by other forces.
		Like, obviously.
		How many of them look independent?
		How many of them look kind of shifty and afraid?
		You look at Jimmy Kimmel, and like, I don't know what's going on there, but like, that guy clearly is nervous.
		Super nervous.
		And I don't know why he's nervous, but every time I see Jimmy Kimmel, I used to kind of like Jimmy Kimmel, I'm like, wow, man, he's worried about something.
		And I feel that way about a lot of them.
		And so, you know, I don't know that we'll ever get all the details on Diddy.
		I don't know Diddy.
		Never met Diddy.
		Kind of glad.
		Never been to one of his famous parties.
		But I know a lot of people who have.
		And, you know, I don't know exactly what that was about, but I know it is not uncommon at all.
		And I, at least one entertainer I know personally was controlled.
		That whole thing is real.
		That's absolutely real.
		Why wouldn't it be real?
		Why wouldn't it be real?
		To lean on somebody to reinforce a narrative for the purpose of maintaining power, I mean, a lot's at stake.
		You know, running the world?
		There's a lot of power, a lot of money.
		Don't delude yourself.
		People will go to extreme lengths.
		Why wouldn't they?
		I mean, people risk life in prison to rob a liquor store for $800.
		So, you know, there's some context for you.
unidentified		So this guy's sitting here with, see, Babs in the orange and Dan in blue.
		That's Dan and Babs.
		They run an organization called Strategic Coach, a very high-level coaching group.
		And he has this, what he calls a DOS conversation.
		And it's dangers, opportunities, and strengths.
		And you're consuming nicotine right now?
		What the hell's going on?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I am.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		This is part of the Make America Healthy plan.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It is, actually.
		Now, I've already said so many crackpot things that I don't want to totally discredit myself, but I think there are, yeah, if you, you know, take the tobacco and the tar and separate it from the nicotine, you know, it's something, I don't think I'm allowed to make medical claims about nicotine.
		I think we have a whole agency designed to prevent people from saying what they think is true, but...
		It's a choice that I'm happy to make.
		Yeah, for sure.
unidentified		We'll come back to that maybe.
		So dangers, opportunities, and strengths.
		So what do you think is the biggest danger or dangers that we're facing right now as a country, the biggest opportunity, and the greatest strengths that we have?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The biggest dangers were with Iran.
		I'm just telling you that's the biggest danger.
		There are a lot of people who want it.
		There's a lot of money.
		That's been applied to the political system to make sure we get it.
		It's a disaster for America.
		It's not a defense of Iran, by the way.
		Every time I say this, it's like, you're working for Putin, one.
		I'm not working for the Shiite mullahs.
		I'm an Episcopalian, so it's not that I have any affection for Iran.
		A war with Iran would devastate this country.
		And there's a real danger that we're going to get one.
		I'm just saying that.
		That's a fact.
		You'll see.
		So that's the main danger.
		There's going to be some economic turmoil.
		I would have said a week ago that one of the great dangers is disunity in the country.
		But I feel like these election results were really unifying.
		So I'm so thankful about that.
		I mean, if you look at them, it's just kind of crazy.
		I mean, you had Muslims in southeastern Michigan voting overwhelmingly for Trump.
		You had Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn voting overwhelmingly for Trump.
		Like, what?
		It's pretty cool.
		You had, you know, almost entirely white right-wing North Georgia voting for Trump.
		You had a lot of black guys in downtown Atlanta voting for Trump.
		You had the Amish voting for Trump.
		You had South, you know, Central Florida, big sugar plantations.
		You had the guys who own the ranch.
		You had the guys working, cutting cane, all voting for Trump.
		So it's like...
		There's something, and this, by the way, this is not just true of Trump, but it's like whenever you have an election where the majority votes for something, you have, by definition, a measure of unity that you didn't have before.
		That's what a mandate is.
		Most people want this.
		And that's just a great thing.
		It means that our common goals are stronger and more important than our differences.
		And it's just so nice to be reminded of that.
		So that's our main strength.
		And going into an economic...
		The downturn or whatever is clearly going to happen.
		You want a unified country.
		You don't want a country at war with itself getting poorer all of a sudden.
		We avoided revolution during the Great Depression, which is not a foregone conclusion, by the way, at the time.
		There were some really radical movements in the United States.
		But the country held together in a really impressive and amazing way, actually, from 1939 to 1941. I've been worried about that for a long time.
		Now I'm not as worried about it.
		So that's, I would say, our strength.
		And our opportunity is, you know, America has a lot of problems.
		Those problems have been exacerbated gravely over the last four years.
		The immigration scheme that the Biden administration instituted opening the borders, letting 15 million strangers come here, totally insane.
		That's bad.
		The U.S. dollar is in a much weaker position thanks to the deranged sanctions on Russia starting in February of 2022. Kicking Russia out of swift hurt the U.S. dollar more than really anything that's happened since the end of the Second World War.
		But the opportunity is compared to what?
		Compared to what?
		I mean, the U.S. dollar, while weakened, clearly other countries are hoping to diversify their currencies.
		It doesn't help them to have the U.S. dollar be the reserve currency.
		But there's no good option right now.
		America has a lot of problems, but compared to what?
		Europe?
		Seriously?
		Canada?
		Australia?
		I mean, we are still in the best shape of any country that I visit regularly.
	And that's a massive advantage.
	And, like, don't forget that.
	If you can somehow convince Americans that their country is pretty awesome once again, again, it's an attitudinal question.
	When people feel self-confident, I mean, this is true in your marriage, it's true in your job, it's true in every sphere of your life.
	When you feel good about what you're doing, when you feel like you're doing the right thing, you're doing something you can be proud of, you're way more effective.
	And when you feel rattled and shaken and self-loathing and, you know, like, how many productive hungover Sunday mornings have you had?
	Like, zero?
	Because you hate yourself because you did something embarrassing the night before.
	But when you wake up Monday morning clear-headed, ready to go and go for a run and bang it out, you know what I mean?
	If you have that attitude, you're going to kill it.
	And so I do think a lot of America's potential is totally real.
	It remains untapped.
	Our energy reserves are just crazy compared to the rest of the world's.
	We just have a lot going for us.
	And if you can just make Americans feel...
	That we have a lot going for us and that we have nothing to be ashamed of at all.
	Stop telling him it's a systemically racist country.
	Shut up.
	Stop telling him that, you know, they're bad, which they've told us, like, endlessly.
	Just stop with that.
	We're not bad.
	We're great.
	I don't know.
	It wouldn't take a lot to make this a great country again.
	I really think that.
unidentified		Well, I'm going to ask you about that, but first I want to, we'll do some Q&A with the audience here in a little bit.
		Your alcoholism, you called yourself a functional alcoholism when you were drinking and partying and whatnot.
		So what did you change?
		What was the light switch?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, what I did was I stopped drinking, which I found super helpful.
unidentified		What caused you to stop?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, in my case, I was sitting at my desk in my office smoking a camel.
		I'll never forget it, which I also quit, unfortunately.
		Little short ones, flavored with chocolate, delicious cigarettes.
		No one's allowed to admit that, but they were amazing.
		But I was sitting at my desk feeling hungover Sunday morning, having a cigarette, and I just had this voice, which I think was from God, saying, you better quit.
		My wife was pregnant with our fourth child.
		And she was 10 days from giving birth, and I just had this voice tell me, you're going to lose everything if you don't stop drinking.
		And I believed it.
		You know, who knows why?
		I mean, I'm just an ordinary person with a slightly above average IQ, not super insightful.
		Like, I have no idea what that was, but that happened to me, and I followed it, and I did it, and it completely changed my life.
		And it's hard to talk about sobriety without sounding judgy, or like one of those boorish rehab guys who's always lecturing you on all the steps or whatever.
		But the truth is, one of the main problems in this country is that everyone's loaded.
		Everyone's on some kind of drug.
		Or drunk.
		Everyone's on pills.
		I'm sorry, I don't want to judge anybody else, but everybody is on drugs.
		It's crazy.
		Everyone's on SSRIs, or that weird, the meth they give you, but they call it Adderall.
		Benzodiazepines.
		I'm on a flight, I think I'll take some Xanax.
		What?
		It's insane.
		I just am totally opposed to that.
		Weed?
		The number of fights I've gotten.
		I used to smoke weed every day.
		I know a lot about weed.
		It makes you passive and stupid.
		I'm sorry.
		People get so mad if you say that.
		Oh, shut up!
		No.
unidentified		I've smoked more weed than you have.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It makes you into a loser.
		Are you joking?
		Why don't you just face your life?
		It's so awesome.
		I never say this out loud because people really hate you when you do and feel judged.
		I'm in no position to judge anybody.
		I mean, I could blow your mind, actually, if I wanted to.
		I'm not going to.
		But I'm saying, like, I know a lot about this subject, so I think I have the authority to say this.
		It's, like, it's such a thrill to be sober.
		It's not that hard, actually.
		And if you're not sober, you're never going to achieve the purpose for which you were created.
		That's just a fact.
		You're not.
		And it makes you weak.
		It's the last thing I'll say.
		It makes you weak.
		The more you party, the more you run away, the weaker you get, the more fearful you become.
		And the more you just face up to stuff.
		And I'm not even talking about drugs and alcohol.
		For men, I'm talking about like a grumpy wife.
		Like there's nothing scarier than a pissed off wife, like in the world.
		And if you run away from that and just go golfing and like, oh, she's crazy.
		You know, it doesn't get better.
		Like, man up and just tell me what's wrong.
		Just like sit through the first three minutes and then you find out what's wrong and it gets better.
		And you get stronger.
		She respects you for not golfing and for looking right into her eyes and listening to her complaints for a minute.
		It makes you stronger.
		When you run away and when you golf or you get high, it makes you weak.
		And it's like a process.
		It's like the more you tell the truth, the more sober you are, the more you face things that have Make you afraid, the stronger you get.
		It's like life 101, but nobody feels free to say it.
		And the last thing I'll say, we should just go full Saudi on the drug thing.
		I mean it.
		Like, full freaking Saudi.
		One of the benefits of traveling a lot is you go to countries where they just don't put up with it.
		We're like, oh, you're so uncool.
		Like, you don't allow me to bring a joint to your country.
		Don't just cut your hands off if you do that.
		Because we're not...
		Try to do that in Japan, actually.
		Try to do that in Japan.
		You go to Singapore...
		You live in Singapore, they drug test you at the airport if you're a Singaporean citizen.
		And if you fail the drug test, like if you smoke weed, you go to rehab for six months.
		They don't tell anyone where you are.
		You just disappear.
		You go to rehab.
		That's a true fact.
		I just had dinner two nights ago with someone whose friend showed up at the airport in Singapore flying home, got drug tested, got sent to rehab for six months.
		He was engaged.
		His fiancée left him and married somebody else.
		Wow.
		Hilarious.
		You know, it's a pretty big deterrent to getting wasted, actually, it turns out.
		Yeah, that's harsh.
		Okay.
		But compared to what?
		Watching people die of fentanyl ODs on the sidewalk?
		Have you been to our cities recently?
		It's totally cruel and inhumane and disgusting and beneath us as a nation to allow people to OD on drugs on the sidewalk.
		There's no kindness in that at all.
		It's cruel.
	You hate people if you allow that.
	Would you allow your children to do that?
	No, you'd chain them to the freaking radiator until they sobered up because you love them.
	When you hate people, you let them OD on drugs.
	And we're letting the whole country do that.
	And encouraging them to do drugs.
	Sending crack pipes to crack addicts.
	Giving weed to kids.
	Are you joking?
	Lock them up, man.
	As a former drug user, I'm saying that.
	And I really mean it from the bottom of my heart.
	I hope we just get full Saudi on those people.
	Including the policy makers who allowed it.
	Because they've killed so many people.
	They deserve to be punished in a very severe way.
unidentified		Yeah, it's interesting.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How's that for unpopular?
unidentified		No, no, no.
unidentified		It's a...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Bring back the war on drugs, but this time we're not joking.
unidentified		Yeah, well, see, I think the war on drugs was...
		I believe addiction is a solution to pain.
		So the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, the gambling, the workaholism, all the pursuits of the dopamine pursuit is because of either one, you're just pursuing this feeling you want, or trauma and things like that.
		And I have mixed feelings about, like for instance, there's 25% of the world's prisoners are in the United States.
		We're the highest incarcerating country in the world.
		And there's 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. And the majority of people that commit crimes are under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
		And 40% of people incarcerated are committed a violent crime.
		The other 60% have not.
		So a lot of these people are addicts.
		And so it's, you know, it's one of these things where I take a compassionate approach and at the same time, Portugal.
		I'm curious where they're at now, because all I can go off of is really from several years ago.
		I don't know how well they've weathered through the pandemic, and I haven't stayed up to date on it.
		But what they did is they legalized drugs, but the money they were spending on enforcement went into treatment, and it cut the addiction rate in half.
		Almost all violent crimes went down.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		I've spent a lot of time in Portugal.
		I don't think that's an accurate representation.
		And I would say, you know, I know a number of people, more than two, who got off heroin in jail and who look back on their incarceration as a blessing.
		I mean, addiction, I mean, I think you have experience with it.
		I certainly do.
		They're crazy.
		You're not in your right mind when you're addicted to something.
		You're totally crazy.
		You're like a trapped animal.
		You'll do anything.
unidentified		Oh yeah, absolutely.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		People like that, you know, our record on drug treatment in the United States is like a joke.
		It's abysmal.
		It's just abysmal.
		It's made a lot of money for the drug treatment centers.
		Everyone's like, treatment?
		Well, show me a treatment center with like an over 50% success rate over five years.
		I've never heard of one.
		Maybe there is one.
		I'd love to know.
		We should replicate it everywhere.
		The only thing I've ever seen that works is AA. And that's because it's based in...
		Like, the core truth of life, which is you have to admit that you have no power to solve your problems.
		And if you don't, then you're just lying to yourself.
		So I think that works, but, you know, whatever, opinions differ, but let's just apply science to it.
		Like, where's the treatment center with, like, an 80% success rate?
		Where's one with an 18% success rate?
		I just don't know of any.
unidentified		Yeah, the only ones that really have really great success rates are long-term, you know, six months, a year, two years, like Vulcan Academy, this individual, they literally have people, mostly, you know, young adults that check in for like two years and they have a...
		Incredible thing, but it's a long time, right?
		And then, I can't remember the name of it, but in Italy, this is one of Bobby Kennedy's favorite models of recovery, where they have these very long-term, put them in nature, put them around different environments, you know, and connect them.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That definitely is good.
		But I guess I would also just say I left something out.
		I'm so mad about the drug thing that I'm sorry I endorsed the Saudi drug program, though I meant it.
		But I do think we should spend a lot more time on the other side of the question, which is endorsing sobriety.
		It is so awesome to be clear-eyed and sober.
		As much as it doesn't solve all your problems, you're still the lumpy loser you were when you were drunk.
		But it begins the process of healing your soul.
		And there's so much joy in sobriety.
		No one ever endorses it.
		Everyone's like, oh, life is better when you're loaded.
		But that's just a lie.
		It's a full-blown lie.
		And no one ever calls them on that.
		And I hope...
		I mean, Trump is sober.
		Bobby's sober.
		I've been to meetings with Bobby.
		And I hope that people now in positions of authority who are on television all the time will just tell their own stories more often and just say, you know, I'm so glad to be sober.
		It's so great!
		Because it is.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
		And I'll tell you, the drugs that kill people are legal, and the drugs that save people's lives, like the Ibogains and certain plant medicines, are illegal.
		And so the whole thing is just lopsided.
		And part of the challenge is, you know, one of the initiatives we have with Genius Recovery is we want to save 20,000 lives a year of the 100,000 plus people that are dying from opiate addictions.
		And so we're...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How many people die of Xanax ODs?
unidentified		I don't know.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So that's what I'd like to know.
		That's a legal product that like every woman in America has in her medicine cabinet.
		Every kid has it too, college campuses.
		I mean, how many, if you've got kids in college, how many of your kids' friends have to go to treatment to get off benzos?
		How many people die every year from benzos and alcohol?
		Many thousands.
		How many people die from withdrawal from benzos?
		A lot.
		And those are legal.
		And psychiatrists prescribe them without Thinking through the consequences.
		And there's no sanction.
		And those psychiatrists should be criminally charged, in my opinion.
		That's crazy.
		The Sacklers paid a billion-dollar fine for sending opioids throughout Appalachia, but psychiatrists who hand out benzos, which are deadly and physically addictive, we're just like, oh, no, that's medicine.
		That's not medicine.
		It's totally wrong.
		And at some point, we need to call out people on the individual level.
		level.
		If you are a psychiatrist who's handing Adderall to children and benzos to their moms without any thought to the addiction and suffering and brain damage that results from those drugs, then you should lose your medical license at least.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Absolutely.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		We've told you before about Hallow It is a great app that I am proud to say I use, my whole family uses.
		It's for daily prayer and Christian meditation.
		And it's transformative.
		So with everything happening in the world right now, it is essential to ground yourself.
		This is not some quack cure.
		This is the oldest and most reliable cure in history.
		It's prayer.
		Ground yourself in prayer and scripture every single day.
		That is a prerequisite for staying sane and healthy and maybe for doing better eternally.
		So if you're busy on the road, headed to kids' sports, there is always time to pray and reflect alone or as a family.
		Hard to be organized about it.
		Building a foundation of prayer is going to be absolutely critical as we head into November, praying that God's will is done in this country and that peace and healing come to us here in the United States and around the world.
		Christianity obviously is under attack everywhere.
		That's not an accident.
		Why is Christianity, the most peaceful of all religions, under attack globally?
		Did you see the opening of the Paris Olympics?
		There's a reason.
		Because the battle is not temporal, it's taking place in the unseen world.
		It's a spiritual battle, obviously.
		So try Hallow.
		Get three months completely free at Hallow.
		That's Hallow.com slash Tucker.
		If there's ever a time to get spiritually in tune and ground yourself in prayer, it's now.
		Hallow will help personally and strongly and totally sincerely recommend it.
		Hallow.com slash Tucker.
unidentified		So looking back, being a father, what is the greatest lesson that has taught you?
unidentified		Because you have four daughters.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I have three daughters and a son.
unidentified		Oh, I thought you have four daughters.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		No, three is a lot, I will say.
		They're like a union.
		You have to negotiate with them.
		No, they're awesome.
		I mean, the biggest lesson of having kids is everything flows from your marriage.
		And when you have a happy marriage, your children are happy.
		Marriage is the core of a family.
		And I do think people spend way too much time going to their kids' sporting events and not enough time with their spouses.
		I think they spend too much time with their kids and not enough with their spouses.
		And if you want to make your children happy, have a happy marriage.
		And if you want to have a happy marriage, spend time with your spouse.
		Don't golf.
		Listen.
		And so that's been the main takeaway for me.
		And there is a period, and my kids are grown.
		My oldest is 30. But amazingly.
		But there's a period in parenthood that everyone in this room as kids is familiar with where it's just so chaotic.
		Like, there's just so much going on.
		So many demands from the children.
		You never have time to talk to the person with whom you created the children.
		And you're really at risk of wrecking your marriage during those years, I think.
		I mean, really, like, an actual risk.
		And not just in the obvious sleeping with your assistant, though, that's a thing, too.
		But just in a much more insidious and common way where you just sort of end up hating each other because you never talk.
		And if there's one thing, I mean, I'm hardly like a marriage counselor.
		I'm just some douchey journalist.
		But just having lived it, I would say, if there's one thing I would encourage people with kids to do, it's ignore the kids in favor of the spouse once in a while.
		And go out to dinner.
		Make yourself do that every week.
		If you want your children to be happy, then what's the measure of their happiness?
		Well, the measure of their happiness is their willingness to come home.
		Is there love for each other?
		You know, if you wind up in a situation where your kids really love each other and are close with each other, you've done a good job as a parent.
		Like, that's the clearest measure, in my opinion.
		And that's really the dream of every parent.
		In every parent's heart is the hope that what he or she will leave behind is kids who love each other.
		And if you want that, love your spouse.
		Because that gives kids the core, the stability, the anchor.
		The kids want to know that everything's okay.
		And that tells him that everything's okay.
unidentified		Yeah, that's great.
		So you seem to...
		You deal with incredibly serious issues.
		I mean, you're quite an influential person.
		You've got...
		I think it always goes back and forth between you and Joe Rogan, who has the biggest podcast.
		I don't know if this is worldwide.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Rogan created the genre.
		Rogan created...
		I talked to Rogan today, actually.
		Amazing guy.
		But I just want to say one more about Rogan.
		I've been in the media, as I said, my whole life.
		Rogan was like a sitcom actor and a stand-up comedian and like an MMA fighter.
		Okay, so he starts this thing called a podcast where he talks for like three hours.
		I'm in television at like a big network and I'm looking over at this being like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
		You know, no one's going to listen to a three-hour podcast from some MMA fighter.
		I know, right.
		And this guy's not even in our business.
		Like, what's he doing?
		He completely changed not just American media but American history.
		He created a whole new...
		It would be like this one guy invented the newspaper or television.
		I mean, that's how big what Rogan did was.
		And I just will admit freely that I did not see it coming.
		I did not understand it.
		I didn't think it would work.
		And the fact that it did work says something so great and important about Americans, which is they really want to learn.
		They're not learning in school.
		They're not learning in the rest of the media.
		It's all shallow and dumb and about race and gender.
		It's all lying.
		And Rogan's just, like, willing to sit there with interesting people and talk for three hours.
		That was the most affirming, that is the most reassuring thing I've ever seen in 35 years in media, that that worked.
		And so I'm just, I'm thrilled by Rogan.
		I'm proud to be his friend, and I'm just, I really admire him more than anybody in media by far.
unidentified		Well, and I mean, and again, you are one of the most influential people right now in the world in media.
		And over the last year, I don't...
		I don't think what just happened on Tuesday would have happened without Rogan, without you, without Elon Musk.
		I mean, there's a series of people, but they are reaching lots of people.
		The reason I bring this up, though, is that you seem to be super lighthearted about it at the same time.
		I see you as a very interesting guy in terms of you.
		Deal with very serious issues.
		I mean, you're interviewing world leaders.
		You're calling people out that you disagree with.
		And you're funny about it.
		You seem to just really enjoy your life.
		And really, you just seem to have a real strong center in the midst of it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't think I'm in charge of history.
		I have a keen understanding of the limits of my foresight and power.
		I don't think I'm God.
		I believe in God.
		And it's not me.
		So that's like the root of my happiness.
		I know that everything we do is basically just dogs barking.
		It will be forgotten.
		You know, you do your best.
		But in the end, your name will not be remembered.
		Your grave will not be visited.
		You are insignificant in the scope of history, period.
		And knowing that, you will die.
		And knowing that, and I keep that ever present in my mind, lightens it a little bit.
		It's not up to you to change the world.
		God's in control, not you.
		And so all you can do is your best, knowing that you'll probably screw it up at least half the time, just apologize when you do and keep going.
		But it sort of lightens the burden a little bit.
		I see these people in Washington, like, I have to change the world.
		And it's like, you will at best make it worse.
		Like, you're an idiot, actually.
		And so am I. But the difference is I admit it.
		I know I am.
		I know I am.
		And that is such an affirming thing.
		And also, the other thing I would say is I have dogs.
		I have a lot of dogs and they sleep on the bed and I hunt with them and I really love them and so does my wife.
		And we sit in bed and we spend at least an hour a day talking about our dogs.
		Aren't they great?
		They're so great.
		And we have these circular conversations that are the same every single day, but despite the fact they're repeated 365 days a year, they are no less enthusiastic and sincere.
		Like, we really mean it.
		Like, that dog's amazing.
		Yeah, that dog's amazing!
		And we're not embarrassed about it.
		And it is such a great lesson.
		That the most beautiful and the deepest and the most important things in life take place right in your bedroom, on your bed, right in your life.
		Don't imagine that the only things that are important are taking place on your phone or in some faraway country or in a battlefield or a conference room or at the scale of world economies.
		No.
		It's a sleeping dog with her tongue out of her mouth is way more important than anything else that's going on.
		Right now, because it's happening in your bedroom, and that's your dog, and that's your wife.
		And there's like joy right in front of you, and you should experience that joy every single day.
		It's like your instincts.
		Don't ignore them.
		If you feel something really strongly, it's true.
		If you're deriving great joy from something totally stupid like watching your dog snore, that's okay.
		Don't anyone tell you otherwise.
		Do you know what I mean?
		I see these people, these political people are like, no, I need to make the world safe for trans kids.
		And that's like, okay, great.
		But first, like, how about being nice to your own kids and pleasing your own wife?
		And like, get a dog.
		Get some freaking perspective.
		Do you know what I mean?
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry.
unidentified		No, it's awesome.
		Awesome.
		All right, can you take a few questions from the audience?
		Okay, so go up to the mic.
		We'll go for 24 minutes.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, as long as you, come on now.
unidentified		Just introduce yourself and go right ahead.
		Thank you.
		David Asarno, if President Trump, Tucker, asked you to be in his cabinet, would you say yes or no and why?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't think I'm in danger of that happening.
		I guess I just proved I'm kind of a lunatic who can't keep his opinions to himself, so probably not the guy you want in your cabinet.
		Can you imagine me in a cabinet meeting?
		An Epstein was murdered!
		I don't think so.
		No, I don't think anyone's going to ask me to serve in any position like that.
		I don't think I'm suited for it.
		One of the things I have disliked all my life and had no respect for are people who get out of their lane.
		Do what you're good at.
		Each person is born...
		Most of your skills are just inborn.
		Sorry.
		No one wants to say that.
		It's just true.
		I have a lot of kids.
		I see it in my kids.
		I'm sure you see it in your kids.
		That kid is good at one thing, that kid's good at another.
		The whole point of life is to figure out what the gifts are you were born with that God gave you and hone them and stick with them.
		Like, everyone's, like, telling kids, well, you should learn to this now.
		Don't learn to do anything.
		Take the things that you're naturally good at and become amazing at them.
		You'll be happy and successful if you do that.
		And I try to apply that to myself.
		Like, I like what I do.
		I think I'm above average at it.
		I've done fine doing it.
		So what, I'm not a hubris guy.
		I don't imagine that just because I can, like, do a...
		I'm going to do what I do, and I'm going to keep doing it until I drop dead.
		Period.
		And the other thing is, I just don't like political people.
		I just don't.
		I don't believe in...
		I just don't.
		I like Trump a lot.
		I like some people around Trump.
		But in general, anyone who desperately wants to wield power over other people should not have any power at all.
		Any person who worships money should be broke.
		I just don't believe in that.
		I don't think you should worship power or money.
		I think you should serve other people.
		I really believe that.
		I mean that, too.
		And so I don't want to be around people who want a ton of power, you creep.
		I don't want to be in the same room with them.
		I don't want to have dinner with them.
		I just don't like them at all.
		And if you live in Washington, they're in the next booth at the Palm.
		And they're just disgusting to me.
		So I mean that.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Yes.
		Tagir, first off, I want to say thank you.
		I've really got into your show in 2017 when you started on, you know, full-time on Fox.
		It was so eye-opening, so amazing, and I don't think you take enough credit for the effect that you've had over the past four years in waking people up.
		I don't believe...
		We would have had the same results if it wasn't for you, Joe, Elon, people like Joe Polish even, waking people up and making it mainstream.
		So thank you.
		I know you've had people at your doors.
		I know you've been threatened.
		Your family's been threatened.
		You're a patriot, brother, and I love you for it.
		Thank you.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		You kind of shut down my question, but I'm going to vehemently disagree with you.
		You would be the greatest press secretary in the history of the United States.
		Take the freaking job!
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Can you imagine?
		No, I think, I used to say, to reporters who worked for me, I would always have the same rule, I'd always give them the same lecture, and I would say, you can't, you know, you should be passionate about things, but if you, you know, you can't cover your own girlfriend, because you love her.
		So your view of her is totally distorted.
		I always say to my wife, she's almost 56, I'm like, I think you're Just totally hot.
		Maybe you're not.
		I have no idea what you look like at this point, but I think you're hot.
		Because my view of my wife is so distorted because I like her.
		And I think the same is true for hate.
		If you hate someone, you should not be covering the person.
		Because you can't see their humanity.
		You're just blinded by rage.
		And I feel that way about the national media.
		I mean, I really mean it.
		I dislike them.
		You know, I know conservatives are always telling you how much they hate the media.
		I hate the media.
		Imagine if you're me.
		And you spent your whole life with them.
		And you know them all personally.
		And you know just how corrupt they are.
		That they would, and they have, sat there and told lies that put people in prison, separated them from their children.
		I could not be in a briefing room full of people like that.
		I would just be spitting hate at them, and I don't want to be hateful.
		I don't want to be around people I hate.
		And I really mean it.
		I would be up there, like, screaming at them.
		You know what I mean?
		And saying horrible things to them.
		Like, really horrible personal things.
		You know what I mean?
		Because, I mean, I know what they've done, and I would just say it.
		And I don't, you know, that's not the Christian way, and I don't want to be that guy.
		So, no, I can't do that job.
unidentified		Oh, man.
		Yes?
		Hi, Tucker.
		My name is Jessica McNaughton, and I just also want to say thank you so much for your courage, your leadership, your presence.
		When you were fired and you pivoted quickly and you gave a middle finger to the mainstream media, that was amazing.
		I've recently heard about your spiritual experience being attacked and earlier today, RFK Jr. alluded to the fact that he believed This larger issue that we're dealing with is a spiritual battle between good and evil.
		And I was just wondering if you could speak to us a little bit about your perspective in being grounded and speaking truth to power and what it's going to take for all of us to continue to unite.
		To come together, to put down our differences, and to help those that still might be sleeping to wake up.
		What do you think we need to do?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you for your question.
		I mean, I could go on for hours, so I won't.
		I'll just pick one part of it and say two things.
		One, I think our obligation is to tell the truth at all times.
		Telling the truth is not an excuse to hurt other people.
		It's not, you know, oh, you're fat.
		You know, that's not the kind of truth I'm talking about at all.
		But I think we should be kind to each other.
		I think there are all kinds of things we shouldn't say.
		I don't think we should be banned from saying that.
		I believe in free speech, absolutely.
		But I think we should restrain ourselves and not be cruel to other people.
		You know, I violate this all the time, by the way.
		I already have, just in the last hour.
		But in general, I think we should be kind to each other.
		But I think we should never lie.
		I really think we should wake up every morning.
		With a kind of New Year's resolution, I'm not going to lie today.
		And if I can't tell the truth, I'm not going to speak.
		Don't let a lie pass your lips.
		And if we do that, we are transformed inside.
		That's when we become bulletproof, when we decide to tell the truth, period.
		And the second thing that I think we should be aware of and awake to is as we watch American politics revealed as not really political at all.
		It's not really about politics.
		This is the battle.
		This is the eternal battle between good and evil.
		And I'm not, of course, suggesting the Republican Party is good.
		It certainly isn't.
		Or the Democratic Party is all evil.
		I'm not saying that.
		It's not that simple.
		But clearly, underlying all these issues is the battle that every culture has described, every religion has described, from the beginning of recorded history, which is a spiritual battle in the unseen world, which is as real as the chair I'm sitting in.
		That's what I've learned.
		That's a fact, by the way.
		I did not grow up believing that.
		I grew up in a totally secular world.
		But I have learned that through personal experience that it's absolutely real.
		100% real.
		And that politics are a manifestation of that battle.
		And I think it's very shocking to people.
		It's certainly shocking to me.
		It's like we can't believe how much evil there is.
		I can't even believe this.
		People pushing wars for the sake of killing.
		It's because they enjoy killing people.
		That's a fact.
		I know them.
		I know Liz Janney personally really well.
		That's what that's about.
		It's shocking to me.
		But we should not get lost in That.
		And feel morose about it.
		Of course evil's real.
		What do we think it wasn't?
		You know?
		Come on.
		What we should remember is that good is also real and it's among us.
		It's present.
		And I see it so clearly.
		My wife and I had this conversation two nights ago at dinner.
		It's like you think of all the relationships that you've lost.
		Every person in this room has lost relationships in the past five years.
		This country's been divided on purpose.
		And that has affected all of us at the level of even our families.
	But as my wife pointed out, and you can't say this enough, In place of those lost relationships arise new relationships that are rooted in truth, that are so much deeper.
	They're not shallow at all.
	They're not acquaintanceships.
	They're almost like relations.
	I have conversations with people now who I've only known for four years that are deeper with conversations I have with people I grew up with or people I'm related to.
	It's insane.
	We're being compensated for our loss in the form of true unity with people.
	It is absolutely crazy, and that is a manifestation of the spiritual war that I'm describing.
	Like, that's the other side of it.
	And the number of people, and I won't even get into it at great length, but in one sense, the number of people I know who, like me, grew up on the coast in an affluent secular world where, you know, God was at best like an idea, many of them on the left, including Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard and a lot of others, who are all of a sudden like, Coming to realize, holy smokes.
	They weren't kidding about this.
	There actually is a God.
	And who are coming to a spiritual awareness, people who never thought they would come to that awareness at all, never even thought about it, who all of a sudden are and are joyful about it.
	It's crazy.
	There's something totally real happening.
	And I should end by saying, I'm the last person.
	I'm not here to represent Christianity.
	If I'm here to represent Christianity, Christianity will be discredited because I have not lived a life worthy of that faith at all.
	Pretty mediocre person, obviously.
	I worked in cable news, please.
	So it's not about me.
	It's just something that I have noticed.
	And it's absolutely thrilling.
	And there's a deeper unity.
	You saw it in the election results.
	Again, in the end, Trump cut the votes of faithful Muslims and faithful Jews.
	What?
	And it's not even about Trump.
	It's about this moment is a moment of division, but also it's a moment of unity.
	And we should be really grateful for that.
	I am really grateful for that.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Tucker, thanks for being here.
		My name's Jill Homan, and really glad that we're talking also about faith.
		I was a delegate to the Republican National Convention from North Carolina, and so I was on the floor of the convention.
		And I just want to share, we had a briefing to our delegation from Susie Wiles beforehand, and I don't think the American public truly realizes how close to death President Trump was.
		And he...
		If he gave his traditional speech, he would have been shot.
		And what they shared is that at the last moment, he had decided to put up a slide about health care that gets very excited about.
		And he turned his head to point to a slide.
		And that slide is typically shown at the end of his rally.
		And this one time, he decided to put it up at the beginning of his rally.
		And he went and he turned his head to point.
		And it was at that moment.
		That the bullet passed.
		And so many of us think it was the hand of God that was there present.
		But my actual question to you is when you left Fox News, we're having a lot of conversation today about opportunities.
		And what Jordan Peterson shared was selecting opportunity is also deselecting or selecting opportunities what not to pursue.
		And it's also what Sam Horn has shared as well.
		When you left Fox News, You, I'm sure, had many, many opportunities.
		And what I'm curious about is you're thinking about how to select, going forward, the opportunity that you did select, and, you know, what sort of rubric or lens did you think about when you deselected or didn't select opportunities in the path you took and didn't take?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I would say a couple things.
		One, I talked to Trump tonight.
		He was shot.
		And I was really struck for a guy who's often been derided as a narcissist.
		And I understand why people call him that, being honest.
		But he was not talking about himself.
		That night in July, mid-July, he was, at least in my conversation with him, he was talking about the people in the crowd and how proud he was of them.
		No one was listening.
		It was just me and him.
		How proud he was of them for not running.
		And I thought, wow, that's incredible.
		I mean, I try not to be a narcissist.
		It's, you know, it's an uphill battle.
		I would say for all middle-aged men, particularly for me.
		But I think if I got shot in the face, I'd be talking about me.
		And he wasn't.
		And I just thought, wow, there's something.
		I do think that changed him.
		I do.
		I've talked to him a lot, and I think it changed him.
		So there's that.
		When I got fired, first, I've been fired a lot.
		So I've been fired enough that I'm always grateful for a little bit of public humiliation.
		Because I think it's really important, particularly for men, particularly successful men, I think it's important to fail.
		I'm not just saying that.
		I mean it.
		I've lived it.
		And not just fail in a noble way, but to be a little bit humiliated.
		Because when you succeed, and I succeeded young, really young, in my 20s in television, you just become a horrible person, and you never sort of pause to ask yourself, am I doing the right thing?
		Because success is self-ratifying.
		Like, of course I'm doing the right thing.
		I'm succeeding.
		Meanwhile, you're rotting inside and becoming like a horrible person.
		And so getting fired, having some big...
		It really forces you to look inside and ask, am I doing the right thing?
		By the time I got fired from my last job, it took me about less than a minute to be excited.
		My wife was thrilled.
		She was so excited I got fired.
		As to what to do next, I'm not that guy.
		I'm an instinct player completely.
		I'm not a list maker.
		I told you that I love dogs.
		I try to make decisions as a dog would by smell.
		You often see dogs, like my dogs, or bird dogs, and we hunt birds with them.
		And they don't know where the birds are, so they just run.
		And they're just like, oh, they're just sniffing the bird, but they're running the whole time.
		They're not walking looking for the bird.
		They're charging in, you know, to the spruce looking for the grouse.
		And I try and live like that.
		Like, I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I wasn't going to stop moving.
		I'm going to keep moving.
		Because I am afraid of entropy.
		I am afraid of, like, and by this point, you know, I'm in my 50s.
		My kids are out of college.
		I paid off my mortgage.
		Like, I guess I could not work, I guess.
		I don't have, you know, crazy money aspirations.
		I was like, no, I'm going to keep working.
		I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do, but I'm going to, like, get up every morning and try to do something.
		And I was really blessed because Elon called me, you know, the day I got fired and said, you should put your stuff on X. We're, you know, we're a free platform.
		I didn't take any money from him, for the record.
		But he encouraged me to do that, and I'm just so grateful.
		He changed my life by saying that.
		But even if he hadn't said that, I would have done something like that, because I just think you should just keep moving, and it'll become clear what you should do.
	But always keep your nose up.
	Just sniff.
	If it smells bad, don't eat it.
	If it smells good, eat it.
	That's kind of how I feel.
	If you just keep your dog senses...
	Honed, you will make the right decision.
	I really believe, I mean, it's not much of an answer, but that's how I make every decision.
	That's why I got married at 22. That's why I had too many kids.
	You know, all the big decisions in my life have all been made on instinct, and that turns out to be the best way to make them.
	You know, if I sat down with a list, like pros and cons, they're always like, do the pros and cons.
unidentified		Nah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Nah.
		I'm not putting that in my mouth.
		You know what I mean?
		So, that's work for me.
		That's all I can say.
unidentified		Thank you.
		We'll do one more question because we have time for it.
		So do you have any tools that you would recommend to help foster understanding with those that might have different perspectives?
		So whether that would be empathy, understanding cognitive bias like in-group, out-group or confirmation bias.
		Anything that you use to help foster understanding?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's so funny.
		Do you have a camera in my kitchen?
		Because we're just having this conversation.
		Because, look, we just had an election, and I think I probably have had a very similar experience to a lot of people in this room, which is, I mean, for the first time I went, I mean, I've been a journalist, so I'm not endorsing candidates, but the Trump thing, after he got shot, I thought to myself, the stakes are kind of big.
		Like, the country is honestly going off a cliff.
		I just went all in for Trump.
		I never thought I would do that.
		I spoke on his behalf.
		I spoke at the RNC. I did rallies for him.
		I was just like, flat out, I'm for Trump.
		I've never done that before for any candidate, ever.
		And of course, not everyone in our world was that impressed by that.
		And there were some people who were deeply offended because this election wasn't about who's got a better program.
		It was about, you know, is Trump a Nazi or something?
		You know, all this stuff.
		And people believe the propaganda.
		So, you know, we had people, not in my immediate family, I will say.
		But people close to us who were, like, really offended.
		Like, I can't believe that Tucker's out there endorsing a Nazi rapist.
		And so my wife and I had a lot of conversations.
		And there's people we love, you know, for real, who are good people, by the way.
		Not everyone who disagrees with you is a bad person.
		Some of them are wonderful people.
		But they just disagree or they're deluded or whatever.
		And so how do you handle that?
		And we talked a lot about it, like, for hours.
		And my view at the end was, you know, you don't have to win every argument.
		I'm a professional debater, so I'm pretty sure I could crush pretty much anyone in a debate.
		It's what I do for a living.
		I spent my whole life debating people.
		I think I'm good at that.
		If you're a transmission guy, you can fix a transmission.
		I'm a debate guy.
		So I thought, well, should I just crush them in debate and just muster all the evidence and throw them at them and be like, actually, Kamala Harris is horrible, and here's why.
		I could easily do that.
		That's what I wanted to do.
		But then I thought, you know...
		The only way you really change people's minds is by just loving them.
		And, like, you just, like, sit and take the shit for a minute, actually.
		That's kind of what I did.
		And just sort of try to be as loving as you possibly can be.
		And just, like, if you think that you're on the better side, if you think you have a more humane position on something, live it out in your life.
		Like show people love and that wins them over in the end.
		I don't think in your personal relationships you win that much by didactic, pedantic debate points.
		Going all Ben Shapiro on them.
		I just don't think that works.
		I shouldn't say Ben Shapiro.
		Or me.
		Did you know that?
		According to the Department of Agriculture.
unidentified		So like teaching by example?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I think that.
		Also being happy.
		I think being happy is a huge marker for something really important.
		If there are two sides of a debate and one side seems kind of...
		You know, grounded and cheerful and has functional relationships and, you know, wives who respect them and kids who love them, they're probably on the right side.
		And if the other side is like living in an apartment, you know, screaming at MSNBC and, you know, compulsively petting their cats, like maybe they're on the wrong side.
		No, I'm not being mean.
		I'm just being serious.
		Like the people with the balanced, happy lives are probably on the right path.
		And the super angry people who are calling everybody Hitler are probably in the wrong path.
		If your program is so effective, then why are you so miserable?
		And why do your kids have weird piercings?
		And they clearly hate you.
		And your wife obviously has no respect for you at all.
		You know what I mean?
		It's not working for you.
		So that's how I make decisions.
		I look at the outcomes.
		I'm not going to do a real estate deal with a homeless person.
		I'm not going to invest money with a bankrupt person.
		Probably not going to hire an obese person to be my personal trainer.
		And I'm not going to vote for the party of unhappy people because that doesn't work, clearly.
		So if I want to change people's minds, then I want to model what I think success is, which is calm, cheerfulness, which is peace, which is connection between people, which is stable, enduring, longitudinal relationships.
		You know, that's success to me.
		And I think by living that openly, you change way more minds than by any argument that you can muster.
		That's what I've concluded after 30 years of making arguments.
unidentified		Awesome.
		I thought your Callie Means and Casey Means interview was amazing.
		Where's Callie at?
		Where's Callie?
		He's around here somewhere.
		He'll be here tonight.
		And, I mean, there's a lot of interviews you have done that are just so eye-opening.
		People can learn so much and get so much perspective and learn what's really going on in all kinds of areas.
		Jimmy Dore, which I watched recently, was fascinating.
		What interviews have you done this year that you think would be...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, all the interviews with people I thought I would disagree with.
		I mean, I lived in Southern California as a child, and, you know, all the organic peanut butter moms in my neighborhood I found incredibly annoying.
		You know what I mean?
		Saving the whales and furry armpits and lecturing you about eating white bread.
		And I was like, oh, stop.
		You know, tell me again about how Woodstock was.
		Shut up, hippie.
		And as I've gotten older, I realize, actually, I love those people.
		They were right about everything.
		And it's just wild to see that a lot of them just wound up in an alliance with them.
		And they were right about all the health stuff.
		I mean, I smoked until I was 45, and I love pizza, so clearly you're not taking health advice from me.
		But it doesn't mean that they're wrong, you know?
		They're right, actually.
		And so really the most beautiful and rewarding experience for me for the past four or five years is realizing how much I have in common with people I thought I had nothing in common with, including Bobby and Callie and...
		Jimmy Dore and, like, just Naomi Wolf.
		I mean, just the list goes on.
		To be surprised in your 50s, to learn something new in middle age, to realize and cheerfully admit you were wrong and then find out, you know, all the things you were wrong about and accept things that are clearly right, like, I love that.
		I mean, maybe some people are embarrassed about it.
		I see in our whole political class that can't admit they're wrong about anything.
		They're still defending the Iraq War.
		But I think they're in bondage.
		They're trapped.
		They're fearful.
		They're terrified of admitting they're wrong about anything because then the whole edifice of bullshit comes crashing down and just crushes them like the Wicked Witch of the West.
		How much better is it to live in pure freedom by admitting the truth about everything?
		Then you don't have to be afraid at all.
		You can just be like, I was totally wrong.
		I got fired from my job.
		It's like, who cares?
		You're just like totally free when you're honest.
		And so that has just been incredible to me.
		I've loved it.
unidentified		I love it.
		Thank you for coming to Genius Hour.
		You're awesome.
		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		Tucker Carlson.
		Yeah, yeah, yeah.
		Thank you.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		We are proud at TCN to offer quality long form programming, films, documentaries, short series, and we've got a new one rolling it out. documentaries, short series, and we've got a new one rolling It's a six part documentary series called All the President's Men, the Conspiracy Against Trump.
		It's made by our friend, the documentary filmmaker, Sean Stone.
		It's an in-depth look at what happened in the first Trump administration, 2016 to 2020. And while the rest of us were just busy watching TV... Behind the scenes, permanent Washington, particularly the intel agencies and the law enforcement agencies, under the indirect but pretty clear command of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, set out to systematically destroy not just Donald Trump, but the people around him, the people who supported him.
		And this series explains exactly what happened.
		It's worth seeing as Donald Trump starts his second presidency.
		This series has interviews with the people who are targeted and presents it in a way that will help you understand exactly what happened, how American...
		Democracy, yes, democracy, was undermined by the people who claimed to be defending it.
		It's in this series, and it's absolutely worth it.

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