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Nov. 18, 2024 - The Tucker Carlson Show

01:42:12

Tucker Carlson and Russ Vought Break Down DOGE and All of Trump’s Cabinet Picks So Far

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russ vought

01:11:14

tucker carlson

29:43

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Speaker	Time	Text
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you ran OMB before, and you don't have to comment on this, it sounds like you are very likely to run OMB again.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Tell us what OMB is, for those who aren't from Washington, what it does and what you would do with it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So OMB is the nerve center of the federal government, particularly the executive branch.
		So it has the ability to turn on and off any spending within the Office of Management and Budget.
		It has the ability to turn off the spending that's going on at the agencies.
		It has all the regulations coming through it to assess whether it's good or bad or too expensive or could be done a different way or what does the president think.
		And then all of government execution.
		So anytime you have...
		Cabinet executive branches conflicting with each other or working together on something.
		For instance, you know, the wall.
		The president wanted to fund the wall.
		We at OMB gave him a plan to be able to go and fund the wall through money that was the Department of Defense and to use that.
		Because Congress wouldn't give him the ordinary money at the Department of Homeland Security.
		So it really is.
		presidents use OMB to tame the bureaucracy, the administrative state.
		It was really pioneered, honestly, by FDR.
		And then President Nixon also was really learning from FDR on how to use it to tame the bureaucracy.
		And we would have seen that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Did he create the office, Roosevelt?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		The office was formerly the Bureau of the Budget for the last hundred years, right?
		And then Nixon renames it Office of Management and Budget.
		It becomes kind of more of a statutory thing, reporting directly to the president, no longer within Treasury.
		And so since then, you've had it still there, still really important.
		Viewed by the country largely as a budget-cutting exercise, but it is the president's most important tool to dealing with the bureaucracy administrative state.
		And, you know, the nice thing about President Trump is he knows that, and he knows how to use it effectively.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you can't...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		No.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You will be in a situation where you will have, at best, really awesome cabinet secretaries who are sitting on top of massive bureaucracies that largely don't do what they tell them to do.
		And you have to have statutory tools at your disposal that force that bureaucracy from the White House to get in line.
		And that is really the main thing that OMB can accomplish in addition to what everyone would think of from a budget office, which is, yeah, you cut spending, you figure out how to deal with your fiscal finances and all of that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You're making me anxious.
		I mean, I can't handle a disobedient dog.
		I can't imagine what a disobedient federal agency looks like.
		How resistant are they to democracy?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They're incredibly resistant.
		I mean, think about Ukraine and the president in that first term wanted to cut off funding for Ukraine.
		Why?
		Because it's a corrupt country and we didn't know how it was going to be spent.
		It's totally normal policy process to go through that people lost their minds about.
		But the bureaucracy was literally just ignoring it.
		And quite frankly, his political appointees like John Bolton were ignoring him as well.
		And what we then did at OMB was...
		I had been personally told, look, you know, I want the money cut off until we can figure out where it's going, and we cut the money off.
		And it was like all hell broke loose within the bureaucracy.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, he got impeached, yeah.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so you have the ability at that point to bring them to come to heel and to do what the president has been telling them to do.
		And we can do that in foreign aid.
		We can do that in all sorts of places.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's kind of crazy.
		I mean, everything you're saying I'm familiar with, but if you think about it, That's the end of democracy, because the only authority in the executive branch comes from the president and the vice president, also elected.
		But it comes from voters, as expressed through elections.
		So bureaucrats in the federal agency and appointees in the federal agency have no authority to act independently.
		That I'm under our constitution, do they?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No.
		And this is really, the left has innovated over 100 years to create this fourth branch of an administrative state.
		You and I might call it the regime, this administrative state that is totally unaccountable to the president that lets it move in the direction that it has been going.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But the president is accountable to voters, so are members of Congress.
		And the system is designed that way.
		That's why we say it's a democracy or a constitutional republic, because the voters convey, bestow the authority on their leaders.
		This seems not only illegal, their behavior, but unconstitutional.
		I mean, at the most basic level, unconstitutional now.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Totally unconstitutional.
		And if you would have seen Woodrow Wilson bemoan our constitutional system, he would have wanted constitutional amendments.
		The left stopped talking about constitutional amendments because they innovated to this new fourth branch, which is...
		Totally different than anything the founders would have ever understood.
		The notion of independent agencies that think of and Congress has designed them to be divorced from the president.
		But even the notion of, like, we're supposed to be technocrats and experts and we don't have to listen to what you say.
		And I caught this, Tucker.
		People would say, well, we work for the office of the president.
unidentified		Huh?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		What?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		What is that?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Where does it get its authority?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They get their authority.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They have essentially taken authority.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They have no legitimate authority.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They have no legitimate authority in the Constitution.
		But they are part of this fourth branch that I still believe reports in large measure to congressional leadership.
		And in the K Street interest, right?
		You have very powerful interests that direct them to keep going in the direction that they want them to go.
		It's why these bills are written in such a way that they are anything, you could read anything into them, right?
		When Nancy Pelosi says we're going to find out what the bill says, she wasn't actually being inaccurate.
		That's their strategy.
		They pass bills and then they let the experts fill them in.
		But over the phone, they put massive pressure on them to go along with their directions and their ends.
		And lo and behold, you get conservatives, Republicans that take office, and then you find that it's incredibly difficult to wield power to get them to deal with all of that muscle memory to get them to do what you want.
		And so you've got to have statutory authority that a president kind of steps in and says, I am fully aware of where I sit in the Constitution.
		I am fully aware of the tools at my disposal.
		And I'm going to use them on behalf of the American people because I just want a massive agenda-setting election, and I'm going to go do what I said I would do.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's democracy, correct?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That is democracy.
		That is not oligarchy.
		And when they say we're going to preserve democracy, we know that they have been meaning.
		All they want to do is preserve their kind of amorphous oligarchy administrative deep state.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't think that's an overstatement at all.
		I mean, I just think I don't even see the kind of argument against what you just said.
		So let's just, if you don't mind, walking us through what happened in the example that you gave Ukraine.
		So you just said the president comes into office in 2017 and says, why are we sending all this money to Ukraine?
		Where's it going?
		There's no audit.
		We don't know.
		It's the most corrupt country in Europe, one of the most corrupt in the world.
		Maybe we should find out.
		We don't know.
		Okay, we're cutting off until we know.
		I think that's what you said.
		And the agency's like, no!
		We're going to continue to fund Ukraine.
		How do they do that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They ignore the president.
		And officials ignore the president.
		And I think one of the things you'll see in this next Trump term is policy officials, his political appointees, that are not looking to get out of what he has clearly told them to do.
		So let's assume that issue is solved.
		But at the bureaucratic level...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The issue, I think what you're saying is, let's assume that he appoints people who agree with him and will do what he asks.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So, for instance, my staff...
		It was part of what we call the policy process, right?
		Where you would go and you defend and you would articulate what you're trying to accomplish.
		And we had put the hold on the Ukraine funding.
		And my guy goes to all of these meetings and he's like literally the only one in the room that wants to do what the president has asked him to do.
		Everyone's kind of just ganging up on him.
		And that is, think of that often for all of our political appointees.
		They are surrounded by people that have no idea about what the reasons in the agenda that the president has been put in office.
		And they're just bombarded with reasons of how can you do this?
		What are you thinking?
		Did you know that this is, you can't do this?
		Most of the time that's not true.
		And so you have to cut through all of that, particularly.
		And to have the courage of your convictions and, quite frankly, Tucker, the know-how to have read the law, to get in the granular details yourselves, to not be staffed by the people working for you.
		This notion that you can just come in and preside is not true.
		You have to be in the weeds and to drive these agencies to be able to fix where we have the undergrowth and the muscle memory that we've had for decades.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So why can't you just...
		So if the president says, again, to refer to your example, I don't think we should be funding Ukraine.
		I'm elected.
		We're going to cut this off.
		If Congress wants to fund Ukraine, they can go ahead and do that.
		But the agencies are not going to fund Ukraine.
		So why wouldn't you just fire the people who disobey, who try to subvert democracy?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You've got to know how to fire them.
		And there are tools to do that.
		And the president was...
		Was innovating in that space himself with what's called Schedule F, of essentially saying, if you work for me in your policy, a career official, think your attorneys who are writing regulations, then we're going to create a new classification for you, and you are going to be what most of the country is, which is at-will employee.
		That's where we're headed, but there was also ways that...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't understand a system where a president, any president, Obama, Biden, Donald Trump, It should be.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And this is one of the mountains of the administrative state.
		You know, this is how they have built their institution, by essentially having it to be incredibly difficult to hire and fire employees.
		And so, another example.
		When the president decided to take money from defense to build the wall, we had clear legal grounds to do it, that Congress had given us.
		It's called transfer authority.
		And I told this to the Hill, and obviously this was controversial.
		It shouldn't have been controversial.
		Congress had given us very clear transfer authority.
		I must have had...
		At least three times someone relitigate that decision from the career staff who work at OMB. Are you sure?
		Are you sure?
		I think we should oppose.
		I think this.
		Guys, the decision has been made.
		Execute the decision.
		And you see that everywhere, right?
		And if you don't...
		If you don't drive it, you're going to get better.
		You're not going to be able to accomplish what the president needs you to accomplish.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How about if you were to start the meeting with any...
		Okay, this is how democracy works.
		The people elect a leader.
		He carries out their will.
		Anyone standing in the way of that is subverting democracy.
		We will not allow that.
		Anyone who does that is fired instantly.
		Could you do that and just say you're fired for unconstitutional behavior?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You can do that increasingly when you move towards a Schedule F system.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And there are other tools in the toolbox.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But under the current system, what would happen if you tried that?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Lawsuits.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Lawsuits, yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But if you fire them all?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Look, you've got a lot of tools on the table.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's just so infuriating.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Look, it is one of the most infuriating things that you could possibly imagine.
		But I think that the good news, and this is, I think, the good news not just in hiring, firing.
		The good news at large is that...
		Most of the time, they have been able to get as far as they can because it is the way it is.
		It's precedent and laws that are not drafted precisely but purposely vague.
		And as a result, we can then do it in reverse.
		You can have a president who steps in and says, you know what?
		There's no constitutional amendment for me to take control of the administrative state.
		I'm going to do in reverse everything that you have done.
		And I think that is the great hope.
		What you need is people who are able to absorb political heat.
		They don't have a fear of conflict.
		They can execute under withering enemy fire.
		They are up to speed and they are no-nonsense in their own ability to know what must be done.
		And they are unbelievably committed to the president and his agenda and truly believe in their bones.
		That they're not there for their own agenda.
		They're there for what President Trump was elected to do.
		And so his commander's intent matters a great deal.
		And that's the view that I always had, Tucker, is how do I get in the minds of the president to think through what is he trying to accomplish?
		And then I'm going to go figure out how to do it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because once again, he is the authority and no one else does because only he was elected.
		And I just, I'm fixated on this question of like...
		Where do career bureaucrats think they derive the authority to make these decisions?
		Like, who made them God?
		I think it's very...
		No one ever asks that question in D.C. You're considered a freak if you do, but I think it's a key question.
		So one of the problems that you had last time was the media.
		Explain how that works, how the media works in conjunction with the permanent state and the Congress to thwart the president.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think, number one, they...
		Are always framing narratives and messages that both are lies and are also designed to destabilize the Republicans in control who want to be for however that narrative is being framed.
		You used one already with democracy, right?
		If you're not aware that when they say democracy, they mean oligarchy, you're like, I don't want to be anti-democratic.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Actually, the whole point is preserving democracy.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's what we just did.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, if you have a plan to deal with the administrative state and then they frame it as authoritarian, you don't want a cast of your own allies saying, I don't want to be anti-authoritarian.
		We saw this in COVID, right, where if they define something as anti-science or anti-public health, it causes our political appointees to just completely wilt.
		And so that's, I think, the beauty of President Trump, is he's kind of immune to these media-generated narratives that conflict with common sense reality.
		That, I think, is the main one, because that is controlling the skies from a military standpoint, right?
		That is their ability to shape the conversation in such a way that it makes it very hard.
		Number two, they're obviously working in conjunction with leakers and individuals with know-how to know, you know, when a hold has been put on Ukraine to be able to send that and have it explode in the public arena.
		And so you have to prevent leaks.
		You have to govern well from the get-go to be able to manage all of that as best you possibly can.
		But I also think there's an opportunity there because they will report on conflict.
		They will report on confrontation.
		And when they do that, you can get the word out as to what you're doing.
		At least you can get the word out on shows like this and in the new and developing ecosystem.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's kind of it right there.
		I mean, that was the basis of my question.
		I do think things have changed, right?
		I mean, if you still care what the New York Times or Washington Post say, or Ken Delaney at NBC News, I hope you're not working there, right?
		Do you think anybody still cares what they think?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No.
		The whole ballgame has shifted, right?
		Like, I don't even know why you would do many of these interviews at all, because if you can't get, you know, you've got to be able to get your words out without just complete combativeness.
		And I think the best example is, remember, the Caitlin Collins interview with President Trump.
		I mean...
		It's just constant interrupting and misuse of lies, actually.
		And so that's the kind of thing that you're up against.
		But you can shape them.
		You can, particularly the print media, and I think it's important to at least attempt to do that.
		But you have to make the measure of the person that you're dealing with, and sometimes they're complete activists themselves.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Do you remember when Democrats used to refer to abortion as something that should be safe, legal, and rare?
		Well, they've changed their view on that.
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		It does seem, I'm going to ask you about the intel agencies, it does seem like one of the main vectors of control is briefings.
		And the number of people I've spoken to, Congress, executive branch, are like, oh, no, no, no, if you only got the briefing, I think I live there too long, I just don't leave the briefing.
		You know, maybe sometimes they're accurate, sometimes they're not, but they're almost always designed to control the person being briefed.
		Did you see that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I did, and I very rarely ever learned anything particularly interesting in a briefing.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is that true?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They didn't tell you who killed Kennedy, huh?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They did not, right?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so, you know, I think I came away with the similar skepticism of these briefings and the information and the over-classification in the system.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They classify everything, and you're reading this thing, and you're like, you realize that's all...
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Just normal stuff that's out in a congressional research service.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's on Twitter.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So I think that's a huge thing that we've got to fix, overclassification and system.
		But I think they both create this environment where it's very exclusive.
		They are trying to...
		Bring you into their kind of priestly role so that, no, I saw the briefing.
		If you had seen the briefing, you would be okay with us not having a FISA warrant requirement.
		You would be okay with us just another $100 billion for Ukraine.
		We can't have Ukraine fall.
		None of it is rigorous analysis.
		And honestly, I think that's the biggest thing that I was...
		What's bemoaning is the extent to which rigorous analysis that I thought would be there wasn't there.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by rigorous analysis?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I don't expect people to agree with me constantly.
		I want to...
		I want well-prepared memos that have a conviction to them and then support them.
		These are not like, I'm going to plant the flag, and then we can say, okay, who's right, who's that, who has better support?
		No, no.
		It's like, I'm going to give the blob an exercise to report on something, and the blob is going to kind of like all...
		It's not a Google spreadsheet, but it's going to all be an interactive Google spreadsheet to just spit out something that is a consensus document.
		And you're reading this thing, and you're like, this makes no real claims other than to affirm the narrative that we just talked about.
unidentified		Right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So what's the point other than to preserve the status quo?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		At that point, the point is just to know what the intelligence community is writing on.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Because you're not going to learn anything from it.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I talked to someone recently in the last few days who works in the Intel community, the IC. Who is saying that you can see people who come to Washington for the first time in high positions and other branch before and after their briefings and they're like different people and they fall for it.
		Like all of them fall for it.
		Now we're going to tell you all the things you wondered about.
		We're going to tell you the truth about them.
		Presidents especially.
		Trump seems, as you said, immune from this and he's done it before.
		But this person said you should see how much they change like deep inside once we let, you know.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		We don't have our own convictions.
		We don't search for understanding ourselves.
		And so you have people go in and they're like, I kind of need this career staff to tell me what to think.
		I don't want to look stupid, right?
		And so that has killed us on our side of the aisle, the conservative side, to say, we don't have people that are driving policy and bringing their own opinions and their own history.
		And so they are susceptible to feeling like...
		And they still believe that these people have an authoritative stance on things.
		And they don't have enough skepticism that, in fact...
		You know, there's no, the emperor has no clothes, right?
		And that is the, and you've got to bring that perspective.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They're weak inside, is what you're saying, a lot of these people.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I do think that's, I do think that's the case, you know, and I, you know, from the standpoint of the, I see the other thing that they would do is they, they would keep you from being briefed, right?
		The briefing, we've already discussed of what the brief is, and sometimes like what President Trump is saying, I'm not going to necessarily get the brief, right?
		But, I would find that I wasn't read into certain things until they needed my signature.
		So once they needed some reason to get my signature, then all of a sudden I get this brief, right?
		That's not the way it should be.
		If you're trying to provide oversight and accountability, you don't know what you don't know, and so you have to be able to have the whole entire landscape of things that you could...
		That's interesting.
		We should do something.
		President Trump wouldn't like that.
		And I find that was very restrictive unless they needed me.
		And so I basically said, look, you are not getting my signature unless you get me briefed up.
		And I want access to all of these things that I need to be able to provide oversight for the federal government.
		And one of the things that we did, Tucker, is that since...
		The rise of OMB, that ability to turn funding on and off, had always been done by a career individual, not a political appointee.
		And so we changed that.
		And it was like the world was going to end.
		They said, look, you're going to destroy the agency.
		You can't handle the bandwidth.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You can't handle the bandwidth?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		The chaos will be unmatched.
		And we changed it.
		And next thing you know, everything's flowing across our desk.
		Oh, that's interesting.
		We're not doing that.
		You know, it was just amazing.
		And if you don't know and have that thesis that says, this is what must be done, you could be the most incredible conservative in the world.
		You could be the most policy-consistent person with the president, but you don't know how to put your hand in the glove and use that agency for the president's behalf.
		The president's not going to be able to be well-served at that agency.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I saw David Ignatius, who is a long-time water carrier for the CIA. I don't know if they're paying him, but they should be.
		Because he does their bidding and has for decades at the Washington Post.
		And I heard him saying yesterday that we can't have Tulsi Gabbard at DNI, Director of National Intelligence, because it will cause, quote, chaos.
		Because the intel community doesn't like her.
		And basically he's making the argument that we should not have civilian control of these agencies because the agencies won't like it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Just say it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That's what you really mean.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that's basically what he's saying.
		So that's, again, that's dictatorship is what he's describing, but he used chaos as kind of the threat.
		Okay.
		But you've been there.
		If you really did everything that was...
		In order to root out the corruption that defines our government, you will cause some chaos.
		You would.
		Wouldn't you?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		It will certainly read on the papers like chaos.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's good, fair.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You know, as to what just is normal good government behind the scenes, managing, pushing, pushing through, whatever.
		I think it can be done very wisely.
		And done in a way that, you know, anyone who had a bird's eye view into that would be able to say, that's exactly what we put this administration into office.
		But yeah, you're going to have to kick over people's paradigms.
		You're going to have to kick over people's turfs.
		You're going to have to change people's understanding of things that they have invested their whole life into a view of the world.
		And none of this is, their views of the world isn't rooted in the Constitution, in some cases any version of the facts, but that's going to cause a lot of turmoil within these bureaucracies, and you've got to fight through it.
		And then they're going to overlay the aspect of, oh my gosh, you guys are racist, and you guys don't care about us as people.
		You're going to have to deal with that too, right?
		One of the arguments that they're using in the press against me right now, as they say, he called for trauma within the bureaucracies.
		Yeah, I called for trauma within the bureaucracies.
		The bureaucracies hate the American people.
		They want to put a 77-year-old, and did, a 77-year-old Navy veteran in jail for 18 months for building four ponds on his ranch to fight wildfires.
		That's not the Department of Justice, that's the EPA. You go every agency, and it's not just big government.
		It's weaponized against the country.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so, yeah, we, I would want to provide trauma against that bureaucracy in a way that frees the American people from the people that have assumed.
		The type of power that the Constitution and no law, no public debate ever gave them.
		Does that mean we dislike everyone working at federal agencies and want them to have a bad life?
		No, of course.
		There's a lot of people there who have come to serve and do great public service and we want to affirm that and we want to turn over the bureaucracies that are traumatizing the American people.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and the outcomes are terrible, and they're terrible because it's corrupt.
		That's why it doesn't change.
		And the D.C. metro area is the richest in the country, and they don't make anything.
		So it's just like that's the most obvious marker for corruption I can imagine.
		Tell us about what congressional confirmation hearings are going to look like for Trump's appointees.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They're going to be exhilarating if you have the right approach, Tom. - But they're going to come at everything we've got, right?
		Or everything they've got with what they are able to put someone in the dock.
		And that individual is going to have to face the balance of wanting to defend everything that they have done in life and belief.
		And at the same time, you're...
		The thing that's a little hard about it is you're no longer yourself, right?
		You are yourself, but you are also going to do a job for a person.
		So what I think about a particular issue doesn't mean as much as what the president thinks about something like that.
		It is a different thing than coming on and doing an interview about what your viewpoints are on particular.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		No, that's exactly what it's not.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's not a cable news hit.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		No.
		But I think, look, I've had experience.
		Bernie Sanders went after me very, very hard in my first confirmation hearing as Deputy OMB for essentially believing in John 3.16.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Wait, he hit you, he attacked you on the basis of your religious beliefs?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		He said I was a bigot and I should not serve in the federal government because of my Christian faith and believing something that essentially comes down to what's articulated at sports games with John 3.16.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And that was most...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Who's the bigot?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Who is the bigger, right?
		That's the perfect question that goes back.
		Most nominees will not go through what I went through.
		But I will tell them, you will get through it, you will get to the other side, and it will be the most freeing thing in the world.
		You will come through the end of a process like that, and you will, I find it to be, at that point, exhilarating, because it prepares you to take on enemy fire.
		Are you afraid they've been calling you a bigot, racist?
		Christian Nationalists, Authoritarian.
		If you are not afraid of these attacks, and you give them no credence, no credibility, then you will be able to get through these things, you will be able to convince enough senators, and you'll be able to serve, and you'll be able to serve more effectively, but the bright lights will be on in these confirmation hearings.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So, how much of it is...
		Like, theatrical and how much of it is real?
		Like, so you go into a hearing like that, your confirmation hearing, do you know the outcome at the beginning or do you think that votes really change based on the testimony of nominees?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I don't think most votes change at all.
		I think that, you know, you may have one or two anomaly senators that are trying to...
		You know, have you answered something to their satisfaction?
		Or are they trying to get a feel for you that they haven't otherwise?
		But I think increasingly in the partisan world that we live in, the Democrats are voting no.
		And it's a matter of making sure you've convinced and you've brought in all the Republicans.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, what's interesting...
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I got no Democrat votes.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But the Republicans are always voting for the...
		I mean, Lindsey Graham will vote for any Democrat.
		Sorry, I'm not going to put you in an uncomfortable situation, but there are plenty of Republican senators who are liberal Democrats, effectively, and they vote for all kinds of nominees.
		But you don't see that on the other side.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You never see that on the other side.
		And they have an appreciation that they have to attack our people at every level.
		Because they know that every level is the stepping stone for...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The next level.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Exactly, right?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So they don't make us say, oh, this is just like the undersecretary.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, exactly.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No, we're opposed to that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That guy will be secretary someday.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're, I guess, a perfect example, aren't you?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, certainly, the first term, right?
		I become deputy, and next thing you know, Mick goes to the chief of staff, and so I have an opportunity to serve as director.
		And so that is...
		They understand government and they understand the career path that is opening for people.
		And when they sense, and it's not always the case, but when they sense that this is a committed conservative, it's a partisan line down the road.
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		Isn't it the role of Republican leaders, particularly now, since Trump won the majority of the popular vote, overwhelming majority of electoral votes, House and Senate are Republican, majority of state houses, majority of governorships, that's a mandate.
		So that means that Republican leaders, the two head guys in the House and Senate, should be helping.
		Are they going to?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I have high hopes that people are seeing what Trump just accomplished.
		And are going to be pulling the oars to get things done as soon as possible.
		And I think the jury is out, right?
		I think I want to see and I'm hoping to see people looking for ways to move these appointees through the process.
		And sounds like they're trying to do that.
		We'll see.
		But, you know, we have to do things not based on how it has been done recently.
		Like this whole notion of the recess appointments, right?
		You have some people out there who are saying this is unconstitutional, it's not the way it was meant to be.
		It's totally wrong.
		It is a specific provision in the Constitution to be able to allow a president, if he has to stand up in administration quickly and he's dealing with a Senate that won't move quickly enough, to be able to install his people so that he can actually function as a government.
		It's specifically mapped out, and yet you have...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So in the Constitution.
		So it's by definition not a Constitution.
		Fair?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Fair.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So yet you have Republicans, one of them in particular, like Ed Whelan right now, who's a...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Who's Ed Whelan?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		He's one of the main kind of legal luminaries on the right.
		And ethics and public policy are one of those think tanks.
		And he's out there opposing the whole notion of recess appointments.
		For whatever reason, I don't know, other than I think it's unseemly and not the way the founders...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so don't...
		I mean, this is a whole separate question, and it's a broad brush, but in general, conservative think tanks, with some exceptions, are not conservative.
		They're tools of the left, and sort of repositories have broke down people with no other job prospects.
		Why would anyone pay attention to them?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I think they should increasingly not be.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and by the way, there's some good ones that I... You know, I love Kevin Roberts and Heritage, and there are good people in some think tanks for sure.
		But in general, it's like the world of Jonah Goldberg.
		It's like, who cares what you think?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They only matter to the extent that people in the arena listen to them.
		And that is increasingly they are not being listened to, and I think that's part of one of the reasons why they're so up in arms about it, right?
		I mean, that's National Review.
		What is the National Review?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That was a magazine in the 50s.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And I think that's, but my point is the extent to which people have opposed Trump and the America First agenda, I think ultimately is a loss of power because they didn't get to set the agenda.
		They don't get to be the traffic cop.
		They don't get to kind of say, oh, this offends my sensibility anymore.
		No.
		If you have a radical constitutionalism, and that's really what I've been calling for, given this crazy, unconstitutional situation that we're finding ourselves in, if you have a radical constitutionalism, it's going to be destabilizing.
		You may find that you can use the...
		James Madison could have put a whole lot more recess appointments in than you would have ever imagined.
		But it's also exhilarating.
		And why, if you're trying to preserve the country, would you make arguments against that?
		Why wouldn't you be making arguments for us?
		That's one of the reasons we just put out a five-page paper.
		We'll put out a 40-page paper next as to this is the constitutional grounds for recess appointments.
		President Trump hasn't decided to do it, but if he does, he will be in the same vein as our founders.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's a little weird.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And again, you haven't, well, as of right now, so it's November 18th, you've not been nominated.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I think you will be.
		Hope so.
		But you haven't been.
		So I don't want to put you in an awkward spot, because if you are, you're going to have to deal with this.
		But why would Mitch McConnell, still the Senate leader of Republicans, why would he say we're not doing recess appointments?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Again, I haven't spoken to Senator McConnell on it.
		My guess is that the Senate is going to want to know the argument.
		And they probably have been told, and may have been told, and I'm going to just...
		Keep it as positive as possible that this is inappropriate.
		You can't do it.
		And I want to show them, in fact, you can.
		It is entirely appropriate.
		And to win the argument.
		And then if you win the argument, and then people are like, no, we don't want to do this, then it's a different matter, right?
		It just kind of reveals that they're not actually on board with those particular nominees going into office.
		And that's a different issue.
		So, I think that we don't know yet to whether, will the Senate have an issue?
		I mean, to some extent, the Senate knows it has an issue because they couldn't move these nominees fast enough in the first term because the Democrats were filibustering everyone, right?
		And so, and by the way, you know, a lot of these hearings and you read the history books and people got approved by the Senate in a day.
		You know, like...
		The system wasn't meant to be this slow, and it has been bogged down and slowed down.
		And we'll see.
		Senator Thune, Majority Leader Thune, will have a chance to put his own imprint on the Senate, and I want to see how he does.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've got high expectations, low hopes.
		I hope I'm wrong.
		It'd be one thing if the outcome was positive, if the country was thriving.
		You know, you say, okay, the system's dysfunctional, but you don't really need a lot of change right now, so that's fine.
		But the outcome is not positive at all.
		It's total destruction of the country we grew up in, so got to fix it.
		Why would you want to enter back into this?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I've always said the last four years I would never want to miss out on another chance to be at the president's side.
		I find in him to be someone who's so uniquely situated for the moment.
		And you go back, and I've done some...
		You go back and read some of the Federalist papers, and they actually designed the system for someone like him, whose interest would align with the country's interest to such an extent to which it actually works.
		Like, separation of powers is meant to have strong, opinionated, convictional leadership that...
		And for the system to then have true separation of powers, right?
		An example of that is what he's proposing on recess appointments.
		If the Constitution allows you to do it, why wouldn't you do it if it's in your interest?
		And then let's see what Congress does in response to that.
		But that's real separation of powers.
		It's not like this kind of fake...
		You know, fourth branch administrative state where none of it works.
		It's all kind of cartel behind the scene where all you get is kind of different parts of each of the branch coming together almost as a blob.
		And I think he's so unique in terms of being a historical transformative person that we can actually save the country.
		And that's really what it comes down to.
		The hour is late.
		It's 11.59.
		It's not too late, but it's really late.
		And this isn't an election where you can just have seesaws.
		We'll be up and you'll be down.
		No, if we don't win and he's won an electoral mandate, now it's time to actually execute.
		If we don't execute, we may never have this chance again.
		And so you have the president who's ready to go.
		Now you need know-how people who can do that and do it with the attacks that are coming, and they will come.
		They will come hardest at the people that they believe are the greatest threats.
		But that's what the president needs.
		The president needs those types of people where he's not going to be successful and the country won't be saved.
		And I think that it's incumbent on those of us who have that skill set, who have had the experiences we've had.
		We're put here for a reason.
		We're here because God has given us a particular purpose for a particular time, and it's incumbent us to be responsible with those moments that we're given.
		So I don't know what the future holds.
		I don't know if I serve or if I continue at my center to be championing the ideas that he's working on.
		I'm happy with both of those scenarios, but it's incumbent on us to give everything we can to be successful in this moment, because I don't think we will get another moment like this.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And if you doubt how serious the opposition is to the public, not just to Trump, but to the majority of the country that voted for Trump, they're trying to leave him with World War III on the way out.
		I can't imagine a more desperate or evil thing for Tony Blinken, who I think is desperate and evil, in my view, to do.
		Leave him with a war?
		A lame duck president trying to start a war with the world's largest nuclear power, Russia.
		What do you make of that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		It's incredibly insidious.
		And then add to the fact that he can't put two sentences together and he's largely not in control of his own government.
		And so you have almost an unelected president with individuals behind the scenes that are doing this.
		It doesn't surprise me, though.
		I mean, these are the same people that have weaponized the Department of Justice, have the lawfare.
		I have a colleague of mine, Jeff Clark, who's, you know, they're trying to disbar him because of the care that he had on behalf of the president to deal with voter integrity and election fraud after 2020. And so the system has thrown everything at the warriors that are on the field.
		You're seeing that with Tulsi.
		You're seeing that with Matt Gaetz.
		Why is all of this stuff being thrown at him slanderously?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Can I just say, I thought, I'm sorry to digress, but since you mentioned Gates, we don't accuse, look, DOJ leaked that he was a child sex trafficker, okay?
		So at that point, they have a moral, I would say legal obligation to charge him for child sex trafficking and prove it in court, and if they can't, shut the F up.
		But they didn't do that.
		They leaked that Matt Gaetz, a guy they didn't like, whose views were a threat to them, is a child sex trafficker.
		Then they just let it hang in the air, and all their repulsive little minions like Joe Scarborough, like, he's a child sex trafficker.
		You want to live in a world where the secret police can just slander you?
		Through the media?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I read in my Bible this morning that you don't believe something unless two or three people are witnesses and say, and there is none of that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Let's mosaic law right there.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And in fact, the weaponized Department of Justice said, we don't have the proof to pursue these allegations.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I know!
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so then you read in the story.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But they accused him of it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They accuse it.
		They make the case.
		The reporter said read it this morning.
		And then they say, it should be known that Matt Gaetz denies that these allegations has occurred.
		Of course he denies it, because they're not true in the Department of Justice.
		There's no accounting of the fact that these things have been proven not to be true.
		And yet people, and there's a tendency on our side, and this is very troubling, it's not just the left, which is kind of state regime propaganda.
		There's a tendency on our side to believe that if there's smoke, there must be fire.
		Why do we do that?
		Why does our side, why does Republican congressmen, Republican senators believe that where there must be smoke, there must be fire only because this person has been a confrontational, courageous, convictional leader and a true generational talent, I might add.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		The last point is indisputable.
		That's just a fact.
		I mean, Gates is the most articulate member of Congress.
		It's not even close.
		Right, so they hate him for that because he's a danger.
		My explanation, of course, I've noticed that Republicans believe most of what they're told.
		Part of it is, I think there's an IQ gap, if I'm just being honest.
		Part of it is they believe in the system, and Democrats just don't believe in the system at all.
		They don't believe in any system that curtails their power, basically.
		But Republicans really believe in it, to their great credit.
		And so they're like, well, it's the DOJ. I mean, it's kind of corrupt on the margins.
		You know what I mean?
		There's some bad apples, but most of them are really great.
		Really?
		Why haven't the great ones resigned?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't think there's any evidence they're mostly great at all.
		I think they're really dangerous.
		Heavily armed.
		Maybe that's the answer?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I think that is fundamentally...
		It's twofold.
		I think the left is made up of...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		For sure.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right, and they're Marxist.
		If you've read Witness, everyone knows that, right?
		That's not a new phenomena.
		It's become militarized over and over.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Witness was written in like 1955. Correct, right.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So now what that looks like is not someone who's a behind-the-scenes spy.
		Now that looks like some of their members of Congress, right?
		Like an AOC. Their Marxist revolutionaries are voting in Congress.
		So that's their side, and our side doesn't really grapple with that.
		We don't make every decision realizing that's what they think and that's what they're doing, so I'm not going to listen to what they just kind of chit-chat conversation.
		I'm going to govern and make decisions based on what I know they are pursuing.
		Know your enemy.
		Secondly, we do have trust in kind of the media and the institutions.
		Tony Fauci can't be lying, right?
		He can't really...
		He must not have been doing gain-of-function research if he said he wasn't.
		He's Tony Fauci, right?
		Like, that's what we were up against.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Totally true.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And that is the wrong...
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You've got to have a skepticism to all of these people and their institutions and their bureaucracies.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		What needs to be done?
		And just...
		I'll shut up.
		I'll stop with my stupid editorial comments.
		You just go through the top three or four things that you think this incoming administration, which has a rare mandate, should achieve in order.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I believe that there's a lot of policy issues downstream, the border, inflation, wars across the world.
		All of them are downstream of one reality, and that is we don't...
		The American people currently are not in control of their government, and the president hasn't been either.
		And so we have to solve that.
		We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy and have the president take control of the executive branch.
		So my belief, or anyone who wants to listen, is that you have to – the president has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible with a radical constitutional perspective to be able to dismantle that bureaucracy in their power centers.
		And I think there are a couple of ways to do it.
		Number one is going after the whole notion of independence.
		There are no independent agencies.
		Congress may have viewed them as such, SEC or the FCC, CFPB, the whole alphabet soup.
		That is not something that the Constitution understands.
		So there may be different strategies with each one of them about how you dismantle them, but as an administration, the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out, particularly with the Department of Justice, in which there's literally no law.
		All it is is precedent from the Watergate era that the Attorney General and those lawyers don't work for the President.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, who do they work for?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They think that they work for themselves.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So they have the power to kill people just because they awarded themselves that power?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They have the power to kill people.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They believe that they have the power for all of the prosecutions and that the president doesn't get a say in any of that.
		And we have to go at that as hard as we possibly can, whether that's the military.
		We have a whole military-industrial complex of generals, and Tommy Tuberville kind of exposed this this last year with a fight about life, but it really became a fight about whether we have essentially a military that is not subject to civilian leadership.
		You can apply the concept of destroying independence at every agency.
		I even saw it in aspects of OMB with regard to who gets to make the decisions on statistics, right?
		There are little pockets of independence that have to be just, we've got to remove those, right?
		They're unconstitutional.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Would you include the Fed in that list?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I am not a huge fan of the Fed.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I can't look at the Constitution and the massive, decades-long decisions that they have made totally undemocratic and see that that is a place where there deserves to be an exception for the Fed.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I don't even understand who controls the Fed.
		I mean, and where does their authority come from?
		God?
		Are they speaking directly to God?
		Like, what is this?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No, because they're wrong, and they've been wrong for decades, right?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to zero interest rates for 11 years, see what happens.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And see what happens.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		President Trump has a run on that, and so I'm not going to speak.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But I'm just interested as you've looked into the question of what authority does the Constitution bestow and to whom.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No, and to give you an example, if you go on TV, if you were watching news, you're going to have seen in the last two years ads saying, oppose the Fed's regulations on capital, bank capital, right?
		Well, who are they supposed to call?
		They're not calling their congressmen.
		Congressman has no power.
		The issue is like the call to action is against the Fed.
		Well, sorry, you're kind of out of luck.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What's the lever we would use to influence the Fed?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		There is no lever, right?
		And so they have existed with this notion that they have this priestly ability to make decisions.
		And in fact, I don't actually think they're that good at it.
		I think people like President Trump are in fact better at it.
		There's no reason that they should be exempt from the normal democratic process.
		And if Congress wants to come along and pass rules that says, you know, this is how we want the money supply to go, all of that is in their purview.
		But I think, you know, this is not some exception to the rule.
		It doesn't mean in any way that, you know, President Trump has any interest in doing anything in this area.
		But I don't think it's the exception that proves the rule on independence being something that is important.
		Downstream to the CDC, the NIH. I think everything that people like Bobby Kennedy have been running on and others is about, no, you're not some priestly role.
		You are politicians yourself.
		You just don't have to face voters, right?
		So independence is, I think, first and foremost.
		Number two, bringing back the notion of impoundment.
		And this is something of impoundment.
		The ability to not spend money.
		For 200 years, presidents had the ability to not spend a congressional appropriation.
		That has always been the constitutional system.
		It had been a paradigm that had been brought from the UK and how we understood.
		The constitutional principle is certainly...
		Power of the purse means that Congress gets to set the ceiling.
		You can't spend without a congressional appropriation, but you weren't ever meant to be forced to spend it, and it has become a floor.
		So, 200 years, presidents are using impoundment, they get money for something, the president says, I don't think it's a good idea, or I certainly can do it better, or I have events that are happening overseas that cause me not to want to spend on the gunboat when I want to get some treaty done.
		All manner of executive decision-making that would be a part of that.
		In the 1970s, at the lowest moment of the presidency, Congress steps in, and to some extent the courts, and they pass the Impoundment Control Act, which was really the Impoundment Elimination Act.
		And from that moment, they had destroyed separation of powers.
		On spending and on fiscal issues.
		But it was beyond that.
		It wasn't just about dollars and cents.
		It was about control of the bureaucracy.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So that law effectively meant the executive branch, the president's agencies, have to spend every dollar they're sent by the Congress.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
		And I believe, as a budget guy...
		That was the original sin on why we can't do anything fiscally from that moment on.
		It's also why we get omnibus bills, because if I only need you to get your signature and I lose all of my ability to throughout the rest of the fiscal year to push and pull and not spend and have make different decisions, I just got to get your one signature.
		So I'm going to put everything in that one bill, thousands of pages, and I'm going to push it through at the most the hardest time for you politically.
		You might have some diplomatic visit that you're going on.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, totally.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so impoundment is vitally important not just to save the country fiscally.
		It is vitally important to be able to wrest control of the bureaucracy because when you combine Congress giving the agencies vast authority to interpret the laws that they passed overly broad – Make law, essentially.
		Make law, essentially, that has no repercussions on the people who voted it, right?
		They don't have to vote on what the right blend is for ethanol.
		And then you say that your funding is going for Congress, and the president has no ability.
		Sorry, Mr. President, you don't have to...
		That's illegal.
		You can't turn off my funding.
		Now, Congress...
		Imperial Congress still exists, just a lot more subtle.
		So that's number two, bringing back impoundment.
		Number three is dramatically going at restoring at-will employment as far as you can.
		A lot of ideas on the agenda.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		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 grand 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 PureTalk, 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.
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		Can we just go back to empowerment?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Super quick.
		So what was the idea?
		During Watergate of forcing the president to spend all the money that Congress sends him.
		Like, why would you want that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You only want it from the standpoint of control if you want to be able to say, you're going to spend what I tell you you're going to spend.
		It is nothing more than an institutional desire to force the president to spend X amount of money.
		But again, it's never just about that.
		It's always about where they have tried to innovate it from really the progressive era.
		Like they wanted congressional government.
		That was the title of Woodrow Wilson's book.
		He wanted a system where essentially the agencies largely worked out of the Congress or associated with Congress, not unlike what you would see in the House of Commons, right, where their cabinet lives in their –
		And you saw that on steroids with them using the events of Watergate to promulgate new paradigms and ways of binding the constitutional system from working.
		So everything post-Watergate is largely...
		You can just make an assumption it's not the way it was meant to work.
		And so you have our guys defending post-Watergate paradigms instead of trying to think through, okay, let's go back.
		Let's go back to what the founders would have actually envisioned.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Amazing.
		Okay, so to your third point, thank you for this, by the way.
		So to your third point, that the president has to be able to fire people who are subverting democracy.
		Why can't he?
		How did federal bureaucrats wind up with a kind of super tenure where no matter what they do, you can't get rid of them?
		I don't understand.
		They work for the public.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Laws that have been passed, perhaps not challenged.
		Laws that have been passed that give them bargaining power, that give them certain processes that have to be followed before they can be dismissed.
		But I think in that, and it's certainly made it very, very hard to hire and fire.
		The current system needs to be changed, but it also can be used.
		same kind of actors if you're willing to do it.
		And I don't want to get into all of the tools that are available, but they exist.
		You know, one of them is the reduction force.
		I mean, you can, and Vivek has talked about this, I mean, you can proceed on the basis of what is good for the efficiency and the effectiveness of the agency to be able to dramatically lower at a macro level the size of the workforce. you can proceed on the basis of what is good At a macro level, the size of the workforce.
		And that will give you certain legal abilities to begin to move people off of the payroll.
		There's a lot of things that are being creatively discussed in this space, but it has to be front and center.
		Schedule F, as President Trump has already run on, that seems to be like a day one thing he has already instituted in his first term.
		We just didn't get to get it across the finish line.
		Every agency has to go and categories how many of his employees are policy.
		And therefore subject to at-will employment.
		I put 90% of OMB in that category because I wanted, A, it was true, and B, I wanted to set a high bar for the rest of my colleagues at agency heads that this should be viewed maximally.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You're willing to fire your own staff, which is another way of saying you're willing to relinquish some power because personnel, manpower is power.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And it's always not just about firing, although there's certainly going to be massive layoffs and firing, particularly across some of the agencies that we don't even think should exist.
		But what I found was that you get better staff work when people are now in their mind realizing, okay, I'm not immune from all accountability.
		And I would tell people, you know, you have to have these...
		We're in the middle of COVID and explain what we're trying to do.
		And a lot of people were very upset.
		I was like, guys, we're Republicans.
		We don't believe in these laws that give you these protections that we think make you less good at your job of serving a particular president.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So it's just on its face outrageous.
		Like everyone else in the country faces the vicissitudes of the job market.
		I've been fired so many times with a lot of kids.
		I'm not whining, but most people have had moments like that where it's like, oh wow, I'm out of money.
		Why are the people that we pay with our tax dollars immune to the pressure that the rest of us feel?
		It's like so crazy and outrageous.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And it doesn't mean that you can't tell your boss what you think.
unidentified		Like, that's the most crazy thing in the world.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Like, what?
		You know, I've worked for some pretty authoritarian people, by the way, over the years.
		And the last people I worked for, very nice to me, I will say, but like...
		They have really strong views on a couple topics, and I kept my views on those to myself at dinner.
		They're my bosses!
		I mean, I don't really understand.
		How does an entirely separate set of rules apply to our employees, the public's employees, our housekeepers?
		This is how I think of them.
		They work for us.
		And when your housekeeper works for you, steals from you, you get to fire her, correct?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and there's no other way to run any business, any government.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But it's like, on what grounds do they get to be treated better than every other category of employee in the world?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And they're also some of the suckiest employees.
		As the son of a federal employee, I can tell you, some of them are great.
		Most are not great.
		Sub-great.
		Which is why we have so many contractors running federal agencies, correct?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Totally.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And that's...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Like, why is Deloitte, you know, at NSA? Right.
		Because most NSA employees, like, suck and they don't come in because of COVID. They take three-hour lunch breaks.
		They're, like, not effective.
		Am I telling the truth here?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You're telling the truth.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I know.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That's why you've got to have a massive effort to dramatically reduce this so that the good ones rise to the top and everyone else is fine in other work.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay, sorry to get so wound up.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And then the last thing is dismantling all of the specific things like overclassification, the FBI background checks, all of the things that deny information to the political class or the political appointees that prevent them from doing their job.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but...
		This is where people start getting murdered or getting cancer or whatever they're doing to maintain control.
		Because if you start threatening, I think this is why they're terrified of Tulsi Gabbard, you start threatening to expose things, to let the public know what its government is doing, you're going to be exposing crimes because they're committing crimes.
		I know that for a fact.
		I know that you know it too.
		So that's kind of a scary mission, is it not?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		It is one that causes you to count the costs.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You're so judicious!
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I love it!
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Tucker, the reality, and I think this is why I would encourage everyone to think this way, there is no place in America where you're going to be protected from the walls closing in on you and your family.
		And the only extent to which that may not be true yet is which, you know, Kevin Bacon's degrees of separation, you don't have someone that's immediately in proximity to the FBI raiding their house.
		Or being the victim of lawfare.
		I mean, I know two people very, very closely who have been in jail.
		I know four people that have multi-million dollar lawsuits.
		And so they're coming.
		And the only way to stop that from happening for people that are in this community trying to rebuild from a storm or run their coffee shop, the only way to keep it from happening is for those of us in the political arena.
		To stand tall and unabashedly and to lean forward no matter the costs.
		And that's the moment that we live in.
		And so it's not meant to be provocative.
		It's just meant to know that if you are not loud and proud, that's the wrong way to think about it, but if it is aggressive and public and articulate in how you go about it, it will make it so that More and more people can come along beside you and make it so that the president has enough people that are willing to take on the system.
		And I believe that he has a growing number of people that are like that, and it will make it very difficult for them to move against individual actors.
		The nice thing about being out of office is you get to read and kind of...
		And understand what happened, you know, and have new perspective.
		And I'm just blown away by the number of people that they went after individually, like wounded individuals, and we never heard about them.
		I didn't hear about them until after the administration.
		Adam Lovinger, Mark Moyer, these are individuals that blew the whistle on corruption, and their agencies conspired with their political appointees to make them go away.
		And I don't think they'll be able to get away with that this time around.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And in some cases really hurt them.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They wasted three or four years, you know, they're dealing with stuff in their families.
		Life happens and you're dealing with the intel agencies, multiple working behind the scenes together, never giving you due process.
		And I think that is, we know their playbook.
		And we know not only what to look for, but how to be prepared to ensure that that cannot happen again.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I've noticed, and I don't think I'm imagining it, that a huge percentage of people who criticize the intel agencies wind up with kiddie porn on their computers.
		One of the reasons I don't use a computer.
		I don't think that's...
		Because they're disproportionately perverts.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I don't know why you would use a computer.
		First of all, you can't respond to anything without it being FOIA'd, right?
		And so we have to have a totally different view about going into government.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But the intel agencies are not allowed, well, most of them are not allowed to operate domestically, period.
		Well, they were never allowed.
		They do it.
		But they're definitely not allowed to play in American politics to influence election outcomes, and they're absolutely doing that.
		How do you stop that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think you need to have people that are there who are fearless, and obviously Tulsi and RFK, and not Intel, but there are certainly health aspects of national security.
		Matt being at DOJ. Those are the types of people that you need to get under the hood and to push as much as you possible.
		You've got to shut their funding off until they can prove to your satisfaction that things are...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But wait, we're not even allowed to know what their funding is.
		We don't know what the CIA's budget is.
		We don't even know...
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		When you're within government, you can know those answers.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so those individuals can...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You can know the size of the black budget.
unidentified		Correct.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I have never been in government, but I've certainly been around this a lot.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They're huge.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So why do we have black budgets?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		It's a great question, Tucker.
		I mean, there's dramatically more transparency needed, and I would say it's one of those areas where, not unlike the overclassification, there are things we need to know a lot more about.
		And I can't tell you, well, what's the optimal level of transparency on that front?
		But the extent to which you can't have, as a citizen, an understanding of what the size of your IC community is, that's kind of a problem.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I just think you're ensuring corruption.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And the size of these buildings?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Like, you go around and you realize, oh, wow, that alphabet has an enormous institutional presence that the country's never even heard about.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Has a real estate footprint that's beyond what you can imagine.
		I lived as a child with my brother in a house in Georgetown in high school that was owned by CIA. So there's just a lot.
		You go out to Northern Virginia, Tyson's Corner, take Chainbridge from D.C. into Northern Virginia, and how many of those office buildings are owned by the CIA or some other intel agency?
		Like a huge number.
		Why can't we know that?
		I don't understand.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		We need to know a lot more.
		And we need to demand that we know more.
		Like, how is Congress, and yeah, they can go into a skiff and they can be given a brief.
		Debates are supposed to happen on the House and Senate floor.
		And you can't, you're providing no ability to be able to share with your voters, and us as voters, whether, did we ever vote for this?
		Did we ever vote for this military-industrial complex, this intel community?
		The extent to which it's sprawled all over the country?
		Who got a say in that?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It doesn't seem like the intel...
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I would say it's rather undemocratic.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, the intel committees, the oversight committees in Congress, whose job it is to oversee, restrain, keep the intel agencies within constitutional bounds, in my whole life in D.C. from 1985 until now, I've never seen a single member of an intel committee who wasn't in the pocket of the intel agencies.
		That's my perception.
		Have you?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I don't want to, I would just say this.
		Devin Nunez was kind of a unique character in his ability to provide leadership in that, and they came after him with everything they got, and he survived.
		And I think he's a model not unlike that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		When you say they, you mean the intel agencies?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		The intel agencies.
		The forces that are, you know, some out-of-government, non-government organizations, the press.
		Working with the intel agents.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Running it through foreign countries.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's never like some guy at Langley, you know.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so why don't we have more Devin Nuneses?
		That would be the question that I would ask.
		What fear factor is there that, and I'm not making an accusation of anyone, I'm just saying that with all Congress and with all non-government organizations, even our organizations, there's this point where you're like, if I don't...
		If I go after these individuals, this issue set, or this area of corruption, or this policy set, and I saw it right after Mar-a-Lago was raided, and we came out really quickly and said, you know, the FBI should be radically reformed.
		I think I thought it should be, you know, exploded into a thousand pieces, right?
unidentified		Yeah.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Why do we have such fear that that is such a provocative?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Because you don't own the government.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And so that's what we've got to go after, and I think it's a systemic issue that we've got to tackle with everything we've got.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I couldn't agree more, and you don't have to respond, but I would just say, you know, if there are members of the, you know, intel committees providing oversight of the intel agencies, they shouldn't be allowed to serve if they have spouses who work in the intel community.
		Sorry.
		That's like such an obvious conflict that it's pretty ridiculous that that could exist, and yet it does.
		Tell us, on a much happier note, sorry for the dark digression, what exactly are Elon and Vivek going to do, do you think, with this Doge enterprise?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think they're bringing an exhilarating rush to the system of creativity, outside-the-box thinking, comfortability with risk.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And leverage.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Boy, they are comfortable.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Both those guys are comfortable with risk.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's amazing.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And the reason I love it is, I mean, in some respects, this does feel like an intractable problem that we're up against.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, exactly.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And I don't think it is, but I think it feels that way.
		And we're bringing people that, you know, are trying to get to Mars.
		So I'm pretty sure they can handle, you know, the ability for us to balance our books and run a government that's much more efficient.
		So I think that the things that I've heard them say are things like really going after, or from a deregulatory perspective, all of the recent court cases that have said...
		And chopped at the feet of this administrative state.
		You don't have the ability to just come up with new major questions, rank and file agency.
		You've got to have actual specific language from Congress.
		You don't have the ability to get the deference for every position that you've taken just because you're a federal agency.
		These have been big axe cuts at the administrative branches.
		I think what they want to do is to use those as the basis for a massive deregulatory agenda and game on.
		I also think they want to look for as much that you can do to start cutting costs without Congress or with Congress, but to be really aggressive in some of the areas that I've mentioned.
		Impoundment would be a huge part of that, the ability to just not spend the money.
		And then, of course, Being as radical or aggressive as you can in eliminating and reducing employees, full-time employees, individuals, and going after contracts that may not make sense.
		So I think that that's where they're headed, and I think it'll be an enormous boon to the country.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Can you do it from, so neither one of them is going to become a federal employee himself?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's my understanding, correct?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That's my understanding as well.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they're not.
		I'll just say that.
		So, how do you do that from outside?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that you, you know, they will be working with the agencies that do this.
		I think they'll be working with OMB, whoever's in that role.
		They'll be working with Treasury, whoever's in that role.
		And then you give it to the people.
		And hopefully that's been a two-way conversation.
		But you give it to people that are on the president's executive team and his administration, and they run with it.
		And then you've got Doge out there providing a political support for what must be done.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Even just to publicize the ideas, I mean, the U.S. government at this point is like a bankruptcy or stage four cancer.
		I mean, it's like so overwhelmingly bad that you don't see a way out of it.
		At least that's how I feel when I assess it from the outside.
		Like, how would you even fix something like that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I mean, we haven't had any spending reductions in like 20 years, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But we're bankrupt, right?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		But we're bankrupt, and there's just this notion that nothing can be done about it.
		We still pass $100 billion Ukraine checks.
		Like, even if you thought it was a good idea, like, you can't afford it.
		Like, you never have the affordability conversation at all.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Is that true?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That's totally true.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Like, literally, no one ever talks about affordability and what we can do.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And these foreign heads of states show up and, like, demand money from us.
		And nobody ever says, you know, I like your country or I don't or whatever.
		I think you've got a good point.
		Love to help you.
		But we're just out of dough.
		Like, nobody even suggests that or dares think that.
		Like, what is that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They just assume the gravy train's going to keep on going.
		I deal with the most within the military, right?
		But like...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What's that like?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, they...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, you've got some road miles on you.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You've done some stuff.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I want to understand these things.
		I want to understand these systems and these institutions, why people say what they do.
		And there's just...
		There's no understanding whatsoever.
		There's no fiscal conscience.
		At all, with regard to the individuals.
		It's like, nope, we've got to perform a particular function in the world.
		I read that somewhere in my educational system.
		I now believe it.
		It doesn't matter whether that was never voted on.
		It doesn't matter if that's kind of anathema to where our founding fathers would have envisioned.
		And so we are going to maintain our presence everywhere in the country.
		I, the military, get to define my requirements about what's necessary to win that military objective.
		You, civilian, don't get to ever question my requirements.
		Those requirements now automatically cost X amount of money, and we wonder why we can't ever have any cuts to defense, and we wonder why then defense spending becomes the Praetorian Guard for the non-defense spending.
		Right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I know what you're talking about, but will you flesh it out a little bit because I think you've hit on one of the keys.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		So, we have been unwilling to cut any non-defense spending, the bureaucracy, which is the, quote, discretionary spending.
		Members have a vote on it every single year.
		They don't have a vote on entitlements.
		Those are on autopilot.
		They have a vote on the bureaucracy.
		So, everything they hate about government, their members are voting on.
		We haven't been able to have cuts to non-defense, not because Republicans are unwilling, although many of them are unwilling as well, but because there has been a view that those two things have to be constantly considered together.
		And the Democrats insist and Republican hawks insist that defense has to be growing at X percent to deal with the threats in the world.
		And that requires you to then bring additional non-defense spending to be able to be for that political coalition.
		And ultimately, if you get your average Republican member, they ultimately care a lot more about the defense stuff than they do about the bureaucracy.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Can you say that again?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Ultimately, your average Republican member cares more about the military-industrial complex than they do about the woke and weaponized bureaucracy that is oppressing their...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Flexing their power abroad than about fixing their own country.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I think that's...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I know that's true because I know them.
		They have zero interest in anything that's happened.
		Not zero, but they have very limited interest in what's happening in the United States and the, you know, 100,000 people dying of drug odes every year.
		Yeah, that's bad.
		Yeah, it's so bad.
		Ooh, my heart bleeds.
		The invasion of more than 10 million foreigners into our country without permission.
		Oh, that's so bad.
		Yeah, yeah, I gotta seal the border.
		But what they really care about is...
		Toppling some government they don't like or moving missiles to this military base or whatever.
		And why is that?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think it goes to the unhealthiness of the Republican coalition for like 50 years, but particularly since 1989. Tell me what that means.
		So, your kind of National Review coalition, your fusionist Republican coalition was...
		It was anti-communist.
		It was social conservatives, traditional conservatives.
		And it was kind of fiscal libertarians, right?
		That was your coalition.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And it worked until, you know, at a certain level when we had the Soviet Union.
		But when we don't have the Soviet Union, it kind of...
		It takes on a life of its own, and now you have to keep us everywhere in the world to be able to justify all of the institutional buildup and the complex that has been built up, all of these defense industrial companies and things like that.
		And Pat Buchanan actually talks about this in his book, where he says, look, this was a specific strategy hatched out of the Department of Defense.
		By some of the neocons at the time to be able to continue to justify the largest from a defense standpoint that we continue to be tied down to.
		That, I also think, you know, is, so that's a big part of, I think, why your average Republican that grows up thinking like, okay, I'm going to be pro-defense, I'm going to be...
		Free market economics and I'm going to be a social conservative at best, right?
		That's what you grow up to be.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		100%.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And you don't actually then think through, okay, what does that mean?
		Does that mean I have to then be for every war that's been hatched?
		Right.
		Do I not to be for making a defense that we can actually afford?
		Does that mean that I think that from an economic standpoint that we're not actually citizens before we're consumers?
		Like there's just a lot of unhealth in all of those.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and it's not a natural coalition.
		I mean, famously, you see this in the Democratic Party, where you've got, you know, Hispanic immigrants alongside transgender activists, and they clearly have nothing in common.
		Everyone says that.
		But fewer say the obvious.
		On the Republican side, which is that social conservatives aren't natural pro-war people.
		Most of them are Christians, for one thing.
		So why would they be in favor of killing innocents?
		Like, they're not, actually.
		They're believers in a religion that specifically prohibits that, specifically and repeatedly.
		So I don't know how they've hung together for so long.
		I mean, obvious about my position on this, I find them repugnant.
		Murderous.
		So that's my view.
		But I don't think I'm alone in that.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Why are Christian conservatives naturally defense hawks?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's what I'm saying.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Not just defense hawks, war hawks.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		What happened in that?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, how did Christian conservatives wind up, and I don't want to get too controversial because I don't want to hurt you because I want you to get this job, but yeah, I'll just stop there.
		Yes, I agree without being too specific about it, but there are all kinds of acts of violence against Christians.
		Well, I do believe this is why we...
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		We need to be less doctrinaire on the right and to actually think.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Read those books you were mentioning earlier?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Read and to be thinking through it, ask the questions and trying to learn more and realize a history book may have been written at a time with a particular political benefit and meaning to it and so maybe we don't take everything.
		I don't know.
		Maybe some skills we learned in school and just common sense.
		Intuition.
		This is something that I think is something seems off.
		It's off.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That's a God-given skill that we have.
		We were born with it.
		I think it was given by God.
		But even if you don't believe in God, we were born with it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And you see it in some of the attacks on RFK. They say, well, this hasn't been proven.
		There are gaps in our understanding, our scientific understanding.
		That's like their bureaucratic way of saying...
		Yeah, your intuition's right.
		We just haven't proved it to be able to...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, they train you not to use your intuition.
		It's like, wait a second.
		I remember being in high school, reading an abnormal psychology textbook that I bought at the school bookstore that had an entry on autism that was like two paragraphs long as this esoteric disorder whose origins we were uncertain of, whose parameters were unclear.
		And I remember thinking, wow, that sounds awful.
		You know, 35 years later, it's like a central feature of life in America.
		Like, what the hell?
		And you're trained.
		And by the way, I don't know what has caused a massive spike in autism, but there has been one.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And so it takes a lot of training to get people to ignore that.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		And I do think the training is all designed to get you to ignore what is obvious.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I think it is.
		I think that the systems do it.
		People get into these, and that's where they kind of get to the paradigm level.
		I'm not going to do anything that would hurt national security.
		I came to D.C., I'm not going to do anything to hit the national screen.
		I think that's how we lose people when they go into the skiffs, just to go back to our earlier conversation.
		And you've got to have courage to say, look, what happens if your time in office, you missed a big issue?
		Like, Maha is a new issue to me.
		I admit it.
		I'm trying to read the Means book.
		I listen to your podcast.
		You know, it's a new issue.
		But, like, if I didn't get my head wrapped around it...
		Future generations will have to indict me for me being irresponsible on an existential issue facing our country.
		So I don't think most people think like that.
		But in general, I think our Republican coalition is unhealthy and has been for a long time because we have, and if we are, the country will be too secular, too imperialistic and global, and too economic.
		And I come out of the free market economist lane, right?
		That's where I got my start.
		We're not consumers.
		Like, the notion that the end of all economic good is consumption, and so consumers get the veto on everything, it's not actually what a citizen and a country and a nation are.
		And so, in each of those...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, can you...
		I feel like you're saying something really important, and I just want to make sure that it's fully explained.
		What do you mean by that?
		Too economic.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Too economic, so...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So you're not a socialist, I know you're not.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm a free market conservative, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Of course you are.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		But I don't believe that just because...
		Facebook is a corporation.
		That means that they get to not have to answer questions about how big they are, what the impact is on our country.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Whether they're wrecking my kid's brain.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Amazon giving me same-day service on a book or a product is awesome.
		I love it.
		But that doesn't mean that everything that Amazon does is something that we shouldn't be thinking through.
		Our normal disposition of free market economics may make us bad at assessing companies once they get too big.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, it does seem like there, as you said a second ago, we need to be less doctrinaire.
		And as someone who grew up as a conservative, around conservatives, there were these pillars, you know, hawkish on defense, free market.
		And to a much lesser extent, socially conservative, which no one in D.C. actually took seriously at all.
		And they had total contempt for people like you.
		I assume you didn't grow up in D.C. I did not.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Thankfully, the son of an electrician and a schoolteacher.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so this is exactly the kind of person everyone in D.C. despised.
		Like some Christian electrician.
		Please shut up.
		That was their view.
		Sorry, I'm sure you know that.
		But it's a fact I was there.
		But on the free market stuff, if you asked any questions at all, it was like, shut up, socialist.
		And you don't want to be a socialist because that hasn't worked and it was embarrassing, but they kind of maintained control of people on behalf of some of the worst interests in the world by invoking that, that slur, you're a socialist.
		Oh, you're a socialist.
		Do you know what I'm talking about?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, they do in the foreign policy.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You're a useful idiot for Russia.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Wait, they call you a useful idiot for Russia?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Well, they're saying that about Tulsi.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		They say that about Tulsi, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I've lived that, yes.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You've seen that?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I have, yeah.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		In every one of these things, when they don't want to have the conversation, they shut it down with a slur.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		But on the economic questions, I think I've been almost hesitant to draw obvious conclusions.
		Because I don't believe in government controlling the economy to a greater extent that it does.
		I'm just not good at it, and it abets corruption, so I'm against that.
		But it doesn't mean that we have to be in favor of usury, right?
		Why is it good to charge 20% interest on a credit card?
		Do I have to nod along with that just because I'm a conservative?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And that's where if the coalition was working, you'd have a lot more interesting conversations.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You know, you'd have your Christian conservatives being upset with that, having debates with the free market coalition to say, like, where's a place that we can land in ways that previously the conversation wasn't?
		Because in this, to say, okay, that's something that would come out of the mouths of...
		We need more of that, I think.
		And you're going to see it in trade, right?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Trade's like the one big domino that the president, I think, finally has now toppled with his election.
		But there will be a sizable number of Republicans that are very grudgingly going along.
		Or opposed to what he wants to do with what I think is a no-brainer policy with regard to universal tariffs and higher tariffs for China.
		And I want the money to be able to balance the books, but I also want this country to be a manufacturing-producing hub.
		And what I found, Tucker, is that even I can win arguments with those who are free traders because they themselves have ceded the ground of independence.
		If you're comfortable with other countries making your stuff, that may or may not be important from a national security standpoint, or just period, because we don't want to have to wait for six months to have a refrigerator.
		If you want independence, you've got to make it here.
		If you don't want to have to rely on China and have Xi shut down his whole economy because he's dealing with the COVID, then...
		Then the answer is independence.
		And how do you get to making things more here?
		And just, I also zoom out from a standpoint of like...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		If my parents are paying my rent, I'm still a child.
		It doesn't matter how old I am.
		Right.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And like, there is a balance in every community where we're not all going to be carpenters or plumbers or electricians, right?
		Like, you're not going to be independent as a person or a community across the board.
		But you would kind of hate it if we didn't have any carpenters in your community, right?
		You'd hate it if you didn't have any plumbers in your community.
		And we've gotten to the point as a country where we don't make this stuff anymore.
		And that's a real problem.
		And I think it's just kind of an intuition way of getting at something that...
		Has been suppressed for decades.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		What has been suppressed, and there are specific institutions that have made it their mission to suppress it, one is the Wall Street Journal, the other is the American Enterprise Institute, which for my whole life, 55 years, have been sort of leading standards in the right-wing firmament.
		AEI, Wall Street Journal, people really care on the right what they have to say, and I can't wait for both of them to collapse.
		I will celebrate.
		I really will celebrate when they go under.
		I mean that.
		But, like, why haven't people who want to put the country first, its actual interest first, built their own institutions to rival the Wall Street Journal and AEI? I don't get it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		This has been my life's work for the last four years, and hopefully, you know, over the next 50 is, if I live that long.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		50?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		How old are you, Russ?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That's a little excessive.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're big in the Maha thing now, so maybe it's possible.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		You know, get that 50 on.
		Look, I think this is what is needed as new institutions.
		That's why we created the Center for Renewing America, because we wanted to make sure there was a home to give elites, both in D.C. and in the grassroots, this is actually how you do what's necessary to be done.
		So, like, if President Trump gives a speech in the first term or you from your show are articulating something that must be done, we felt there needed to be an institution to actually take that and turn it into the regulations, the translating into actually public policy.
		And that has to be new.
		Some exceptions exist.
		I mean, Kevin is doing a great job at Heritage, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
		My view is that you've got to create new institutions that are scrappy, are hungry.
		It doesn't take them two weeks to write a paper.
		It takes them one day to write a paper.
		You get it out there.
		And if that paper's not read, you go and you get it in front of people so that they understand it.
		And then when they have read it, you figure, why haven't you acted on it?
		You have to work it hard.
		And that's going to come from not sitting around a board table at a prestigious organization.
		That's going to come from...
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		I mean, since we've moved toward an economy where, like, you can't really do anything without a billionaire on your side, I've noticed.
		Luckily, you know, good people now have Elon Musk.
		He's our billionaire, which is great.
		But, big picture, it's super bad to need a billionaire to do anything meaningful.
		And you wonder, are Republican donors...
		Coming around to the idea that America needs to be saved and that what we've been doing isn't working.
		Do you think they see this?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Look, there's a lot of awesome conserved donors.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		There are?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		You would know.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And many of them are coming to our banner over time.
		I think the issue is...
		Do they know about your organization, the impact?
		And there's a lot of grift, and that's the problem.
		You've got to kind of show yourself.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		There's so much grift.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		It's unbelievable.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		You kind of have to acknowledge there's a lot of grift out here, but at the same time, do everything you can to just get up in the morning and do your job and do it effectively, and then people come.
		Where I feel like the issue is is that with everyone, you're educating them on the same journey that I think you have.
		I think you've talked about it, and I know I have, of this.
		Trying to, like, what has been off about conservatism for a while and been, I think, the reason why we have lost and been on the edge of tyranny?
		And sometimes there are folks that still have viewpoints on that.
		Like, when we took Ukraine, we were the first organization out to oppose Ukraine funding.
		That was risky, right?
		Because Putin had just invaded.
		We didn't want that, but we knew where this was headed, and that was a long time for us to educate all stakeholders.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Can I just ask, now I'm being mean and bitter, but why would anybody who thought that was a good idea have power ever again?
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Shouldn't that be a litmus test?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		I do believe Ukraine should be a litmus test for the national security team for sure.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Well, it hasn't been, unfortunately.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		It's certainly in terms of getting a read on where someone is, and then you can have whatever conversations you want to have with them.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		That was obvious to me.
		I'm just a stupid cable news host.
		I'm not a national security expert, but I've been around it a lot.
		I'm just trying to apply common sense.
		That was so obvious in February of 2022. This was going to hurt the United States in very serious ways, and it has.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		And it has.
		So, over time, that coalition, that conversation we're having about what conservatives need, what does conservatism need to be to save the country?
		Not protecting, you know, your little niche within that, but to save the country.
		You were given resources to do nothing else but to save the country, and that's what your donors are giving.
		That conversation and the ideas is why, when you come to one of our events with our donors, I hand out books.
		I don't want you to just necessarily read our policy paper.
		I'm sure you're going to do that anyways.
		I want you reading Werker Chambers.
		I want you reading Rusty Reno, Return of the Strong Gods.
		I want you reading this stuff.
		We're giving out Pat Buchanan books.
		I want the whole conservative movement to be going deep in these books so that you're both...
		You're enlightened, encouraged, and you come out a fighting force, whether you are the practitioner here in D.C., the funder on the outside, and that's a long-term project, honestly, but I think it's one that's absolutely vital.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Last question.
		In retrospect, one of the things I'm most guilty about was being used by Bill Kristol in particular, but just as a young man, I was used by the forces that control Washington to attack.
		Both Ross Perot and especially Pat Buchanan.
		You know, whatever.
		They're human beings.
		They have flaws, obviously.
		But big picture, they were kind of right about a lot of stuff, correct?
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, they were absolutely right.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They were.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		They were.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and this has been an undercurrent that has been popped up at times, but is largely suppressed by the Republican establishment and their intellectual Praetorian Guard, National Review and others.
		And Pat Buchanan was a major What are some of these viewpoints mean?
		Where were they right?
		We're wrong.
		What does it look like in health?
		What does it look like with AI? What does it look like in all of these different areas?
		But I think it's primarily remembering that we're individuals.
		We're a nation.
		We're not just an economy.
		These are the kinds of first building blocks that if you get in place, then you can have a much more coherent, convincing, and satisfying public policy life.
		But ultimately, I think it's like Whitaker Chambers married to Pat Buchanan, married to someone like a Donald Trump.
		I think that...
		Movement over time is something that trying to find out how to give it flourish in life and institutions and will ultimately be successful in saving the country.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Man, if you wind up in this administration, I will sleep better.
		I mean that.
		So thank you, Russ.
		I appreciate it.
russ vought ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me, Tucker.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing our show.
		I know.
		Shocking.
		That in an election year, with everything at stake, Google would be putting its thumb on the scale and preventing you from hearing anything that the people in charge don't want you to hear.
		But it turns out it's happening.
		So what can you do about it?
		Well, we could whine about it.
		That's a waste of time.
		We're not in charge of Google.
		Or we could find a way around it, a way that you could actually get information that's true.
		It's not intentionally deceptive.
		And the way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel.
		Subscribe!
		And you'll have a much higher chance of hearing what we say.

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