July 11, 2025 - The Tucker Carlson Show
01:39:47
| 
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Every interview you do, the reporter ends up lecturing you, giving you a moral lecture. | ||
| And I just lived in D.C. for too long. | ||
| And I just, I, I have you in perspective with everyone else you serve with, the other 435. | ||
| You are not the sleaziest person. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| You may have the longest prison term, but you are not the most deserving. | ||
| You are, in my opinion, the funniest member of Congress I've ever seen. | ||
| And to me, that counts for something. | ||
| So I'm not exactly sure how you got seven. | ||
| I mean, you're going to prison in how long from now? | ||
| 24 days from today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| How in the world did you get seven years in prison? | ||
| I asked myself. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I bet you do. | |
| I'm looking at this and I'm treating this as like a mental exercise. | ||
| It's gymnastics. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Tucker, just put it this way. | |
| No one is going to prison for what I'm going to prison for because if they were, we wouldn't have half a Congress right now. | ||
| And that's on both sides. | ||
| I mean, AOC still has a million dollars AWOL from her 2022 campaign that still hasn't been resolved. | ||
| Nobody knows where it went. | ||
| Unaccounted receipts or whatever the case excuse is. | ||
| McCormick down in Florida, the Democrat, she accidentally took $5 billion from COVID relief. | ||
| It was an accident. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was meant to be 5,000, but somebody added extra zeros. | |
| She's not going to prison. | ||
| Even David Schweiker, who had a four-year-long ethics investigation against him for misusing campaign funds, got a $200,000 fine. | ||
| No one got indicted in 87 days. | ||
| I am the fastest member of Congress to get indicted in the history of Congress. | ||
| And one of the charges against you I just read is identity theft. | ||
| Yes, identity theft. | ||
| So we have what the estimate is 50 million people living here illegally, most of them working. | ||
| Every non-citizen without a visa, with a job in the United States, is committing identity theft. | ||
| Pretty much. | ||
| Well, yeah, that's a fake social security numbers, fake drivers. | ||
| Yeah, they all have fake documents. | ||
| I don't think anyone's ever been indicted of those tens of millions of people committing identity theft, but you were indicted and convicted of identity theft. | ||
| Well, it's not even just that. | ||
| There's the Dubin decision in the Supreme Court that came down last year, actually, late last year, or mid last year, pardon me. | ||
| Too soon. | ||
| Wrong person, actually. | ||
| So it essentially says that if identity theft isn't the crux of the crime and if it's a consequence, right? | ||
| And I'm not making excuses here. | ||
| I'm just saying you cannot be charged for aggravated identity theft. | ||
| And this is a case. | ||
| The case they make against me is that I stole people's credit cards and I went on shopping sprees. | ||
| That is categorically false. | ||
| The evidence doesn't even corroborate or substantiate that, right? | ||
| But they went on with the media narrative because it was easier. | ||
| For the prosecution, they knew eventually they would squeeze me out of the ability to defend myself, right? | ||
| And pay for a defense. | ||
| I went through every last penny I had and bank accounts closing on me, bank relationships, Walth Spargo. | ||
| I had an account with them for over 15 years. | ||
| I had a great line of credit with them. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| Closed on me after being harassed with subpoenas by the FBI. | ||
| Same thing for Citibank, which I kept my business accounts at Citibank. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| And I mean, I was in 2022, at least, I did transactions, business, legitimate business transactions that were not contested to the tune of almost a million dollars at Citibank. | ||
| They closed on me. | ||
| Like a bank, banks that I had great relationships with wouldn't extend me line of credit, American Express. | ||
| I'm banned for life from American Express. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because it's it, the, the crux of the crimes charged again, levied against me are fraud or financial fraud. | ||
| It's white collar. | ||
| Why would they want to do business with a, with a high-risk client like myself? | ||
| That's their excuse, right? | ||
| So as the circle starts narrowing on me, I ran out of options. | ||
| And that's how I end up in a bad plea. | ||
| Identity theft? | ||
| I mean, you committed identity theft in the same sense that Sasha Baron Cohen commits identity theft, like in the service of hilarity. | ||
| I'll give you better. | ||
| I committed identity theft in the same sense that ActBlue committed identity theft. | ||
| Having clients on recurring donations, it's not my donors, pardon me. | ||
| Having donors on reoccurring donations does not constitute identity theft per se. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So can you explain what that means? | ||
| So in other words, if I give my credit card to a charity or a bundler like ActBlue, they keep charging it. | ||
| If there's a checkbox, you're supposed to select that when you're doing the donation. | ||
| If you don't deselect that, and this is a big issue, I agree in hindsight, political bundlers like Win Red and Act Blue should not even have that option on there. | ||
| I think that's entrapment. | ||
| I genuinely believe that, you know, looking in retrospect, it's an onus so large on the donor and on the candidate, it becomes a nightmare. | ||
| Because if you go there and you donate the max donation to me and forget to uncheck that box, now you're on a recurring max. | ||
| You're going to completely be maxed out by per the FEC. | ||
| Now, if I had a good operation and a good treasurer, what would that treasurer do? | ||
| Start returning donations, going there, manually removing. | ||
| She wasn't doing any of that. | ||
| She was moving money around. | ||
| It got so convoluted. | ||
| And I trusted her. | ||
| And, you know, it is what it is. | ||
| Here I am. | ||
| Seven years. | ||
| If you look at the crux of the crime, it is $55,000 of misuse of campaign funds. | ||
| I admit to that. | ||
| I admit that, you know, I thought they were all within the purview of spending. | ||
| I was told it was all. | ||
| And I had no reservations of making those. | ||
| I didn't do them in secrecy. | ||
| They were all blatantly done because they were reported to the FEC. | ||
| So I bought a new suit here or there, or I got Botox. | ||
| Apparently they said it was okay for 800 bucks, despite the fact that I've spent thousands of dollars on Botox of my own money. | ||
| But I spent 800 of the campaign funds on Botox. | ||
| Then comes all these other like- Probably. | ||
| I don't know much about Botox. | ||
| It's like the. | ||
| It's a neurotoxin, right? | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| I've always wanted to ask a user that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, no, I mean, sure, there's a side effect to everything, right? | |
| We drink booze. | ||
| It's bad for your liver. | ||
| No, no, for sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So it's, it's, I look at it the same way, but I guess I can, you know, no matter what I die, I'm always going to have great skin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you're all going to see that, but you're never going to know that my liver's falling apart. | |
| But that's kind of like the entire existence of this identity theft. | ||
| And there's an entire Supreme Court decision that the judge in my case completely ignored. | ||
| We made that motion, by the way. | ||
| This is a judge, Joanna Seiber, who was appointed by Clinton, but has a stellar reputation of being fair, very fair, until she tries George Antos. | ||
| And then she completely broke from precedent. | ||
| Every attorney in New York was telling my legal team, like, you guys drew the judge lottery. | ||
| So much so that at one point, the DOJ was trying to judge shop. | ||
| They kept creating relatable indictments within the same case, but presenting them in Brooklyn, trying to get, and then would say, you know, in the interest of justice and of preserving public funds, these cases are related. | ||
| We want to join them. | ||
| Lucky, or I guess not lucky for me, she was very tenacious and says, no, they're all coming to me. | ||
| She's the senior judge on the bench in the Eastern District of New York. | ||
| So you would think, you know, she's, she's seasoned. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She's, she's gone through all the nonsense, right? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| But no, at the end of the day, she just slammed a book at me 87 months, didn't even, she read the indictment inside the courtroom. | ||
| She didn't, she, she went in there with her with her decision completely pre-written. | ||
| She did not, it didn't matter what we can argue during sentencing. | ||
| She didn't care. | ||
| It was pre-written. | ||
| She read it. | ||
| She read, she read my attorney. | ||
| She read us. | ||
| She sided with every single aspect of the prosecution. | ||
| But what strikes me incredible is Nancy Marks, my treasurer, just got sentenced to six, to three years, pardon me, probation. | ||
| She's not even a day in prison. | ||
| This is a person who has had run-ins with the FBI in the past. | ||
| So I've learned afterwards. | ||
| This is a person who in 2022, to the own admission and contradiction, by the way, of the DOJ, did worse acts of criminality and manipulation on another candidate's, another Republican candidate's FEC reports, a big candidate, by the way, somebody, person didn't win, but millions of dollars worth of a campaign. | ||
| And she was a treasurer. | ||
| And then to top it off, they never indicted that person or gave her those charges. | ||
| They were just after me, even though we're talking small potatoes with George A. They were definitely after you. | ||
| If you use Verizon, AT ⁇ T, T-Mobile, then you're overpaying for your phone. | ||
| That's just a fact. | ||
| The companies don't want you to hear that, but it's absolutely true. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| Well, think about it. | ||
| Your monthly payment funds thousands of retail stores, their retail stores, you're never going to go to. | ||
| You're also probably paying for unnecessary perks you'll never use. | ||
| There's a better way. | ||
| Buy what you need. | ||
| It's called PureTalk. | ||
| PureTalk uses the same 5G networks as those other companies, literally the same cell tower. | ||
| So it's not off-grid or done with a wire between cans. | ||
| It's the highest tech available. | ||
| But PureTalk doesn't charge for the add-ons that send most bills to the roof. | ||
| Instead, PureTalk gives you unlimited talk, text, plenty of data for $25 a month. | ||
| $25 a month is probably less than half what you're paying. | ||
| You get the same service, exact same service. | ||
| Go to puretalk.com slash Tucker. | ||
| You save an additional 50% off your first month. | ||
| The switch can take less than 10 minutes. | ||
| They do not hassle you. | ||
| And you don't have to switch your phone or your phone number. | ||
| You don't give up anything. | ||
| You only save money. | ||
| PureTalk.com slash Tucker. | ||
| PureTalk, wireless by Americans for Americans. | ||
| So that's what I noticed just having seen this for so long. | ||
| You see this pattern where a guy is marked for destruction and it's kind of assured at that point. | ||
| First, his enemies attack, then his allies abandon him. | ||
| Then the media backs up, everyone who's against him. | ||
| And then the justice system moves against him and there's just no mercy at all. | ||
| And I've seen it with all kinds of people, some who deserved it, others who didn't. | ||
| But I saw it happening to you, and I didn't really understand the details. | ||
| And the whole time I was thinking, I know it's going to happen. | ||
| That man's going to jail. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Cause like everyone's against him. | ||
| No one will defend him. | ||
| But I couldn't understand why it was happening. | ||
| I'm ideological. | ||
| So I was trying to think, I looked into your positions on everything. | ||
| And, you know, you're conservative for New York, but your positions are not radical at all. | ||
| They're totally within what we call the mainstream of the Republican Party. | ||
| So I don't think, do you, this is just my theory. | ||
| Do you think you said anything on the issues that deeply offended people? | ||
| Not on the conservative issues. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| I totally offended the libs. | ||
| I'm definitely offended the libs. | ||
| I do that for sport. | ||
| Here's my biggest crime. | ||
| I'm a gay man who's a Republican and I won a seat in the middle of New York City. | ||
| That's not, that can't stand. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| They hated you for that. | ||
| But then the Republicans abandoned you too. | ||
| Look, I'll say this. | ||
| It was a small group of Republicans who abandoned me at first. | ||
| And those were the people who wanted to settle petty scores. | ||
| Nicola Loda, Anthony Diesposito. | ||
| These are all local guys, right? | ||
| So the former Congressman Diesposito, because he said that expelling me would secure his reelection. | ||
| Well, it didn't work out that way. | ||
| Neither for him, Brandon Williams, or Mark Molinaro. | ||
| All three of them lost their elections, which they weren't supposed to, but they did. | ||
| Nicola Loda, who replaced Lee Zeldin, which is an absolute travesty because Lee was an actual conservative. | ||
| This dude's just, I can't even detail to you like where on the on the barometer would he even measure as a conservative because the dude caves and votes for every CR that's ever been presented and is contributing to the destruction of our of our economy, contributing to the destruction of our country in general by putting us in perpetual debt. | ||
| These guys didn't like me back home because I was, quote, the rising star in New York. | ||
| Nobody likes that. | ||
| You know, it's all about self-aggrandizement for these guys. | ||
| And when there's one sucking more energy than the other, they're not going to like him. | ||
| And that's, that's how it boiled down. | ||
| So when I was vulnerable for the first time in four years that they've interacted with me, belly up and they're like, ah, this is an opportunity we're not going to miss. | ||
| And they just went in for the jugular. | ||
| But what about in the Congress? | ||
| In Congress, these two guys managed to move people's minds. | ||
| You know, there's one's a former cop, the other one's a service, a former serviceman. | ||
| So they built those relationship with that kind of caucus in, you know, the former cops, a former serviceman. | ||
| So they kind of have that brotherly bond. | ||
| So those guys all disbanded towards them and against me. | ||
| Look, if it wasn't for people like Tim Burchett to extend a friendly hand and pull me in, I probably would have sat in a corner by myself from Tennessee. | ||
| From Tennessee, yes. | ||
| Such a good man. | ||
| He's he was my mentor. | ||
| And I've learned one thing from him. | ||
| We don't need to agree to be friends. | ||
| That's totally right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, he's like a, you know, he's he gets along with Maxine Waters. | |
| Totally. | ||
| And he is my politics, I think. | ||
| And, but he's just a really decent, like Massey. | ||
| He's a decent person. | ||
| I love Massey. | ||
| Disagree with him on stuff. | ||
| Of course, I get it. | ||
| But I'm just saying like a person. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So who were your friends in the Congress? | ||
| Tim Burchett. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I love Trent Kelly in Mississippi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, who would think a gay man from New York getting along with a guy from Mississippi? | |
| But I love Trent Kelly, Lauren Boeber. | ||
| Marjorie was always very, very good to me. | ||
| Matt Gates, you know, I've known Gates longer than I know all of them. | ||
| I mean, I've just known Gates for years at this point. | ||
| I think since I kind of entered the political scene, he's a very welcoming, he's a great recruiter, I would say, for the party because he's young and he's not, he doesn't have all these preconceived notions about people or how people need to be. | ||
| So it's very easy to get all barriers with Gates. | ||
| And again, if you're taxed, like you can call him. | ||
| And I fight with Gates plenty. | ||
| Don't get me. | ||
| Yeah, I get it. | ||
| I argue with him plenty, but I would always go to his office when I needed some guidance on stuff. | ||
| He was always willing to. | ||
| Thomas Massey guided me through some tough votes that I didn't understand. | ||
| Freshman Congressman, I don't understand everything. | ||
| No matter how much of a bookworm you might be, when you get there, you're voting on things that you really don't understand and you need to seek guidance. | ||
| Sought that guidance from Massey so many times. | ||
| And so many times he was willingly available. | ||
| You know, I would turn around and say, Massey, I understand what you're saying, but I kind of disagree with you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would take the information and still vote contrary to him sometimes. | |
| You can't hurt his feelings. | ||
| You can't, though. | ||
| I mean, look, the one thing Massey and I always will agree on, I'll never vote for a CR. | ||
| I never voted for a CR, never will vote for a CR. | ||
| It's just you cannot perpetually live borrowing money. | ||
| You will bankrupt this nation into oblivion. | ||
| And if you do not balance the budget, it is, it's the biggest existential threat we have today is not Iran. | ||
| Despite we don't agree on Iran, we hate Iran. | ||
| Yeah, Iran's not great. | ||
| I'm not saying Iran's great. | ||
| Iran's terrible, but you're not our biggest problem. | ||
| Today, our biggest problem is domestic. | ||
| It's debt, right? | ||
| And the fact that we, one big beautiful bill, love the bill. | ||
| I love the intentions, but I think the framework of the intentions are flawed because they started off by cutting back spending based on 2024 levels. | ||
| They're supposed to cut back spending based on 2019 levels because anything from 2019 forward has Pelosi's COVID pork. | ||
| And we're still spending at COVID level today. | ||
| Don't take it from me. | ||
| Call any other member of Congress. | ||
| We still spend at COVID-19 levels today. | ||
| We might have rolled back some provisions, but the spending is the same levels of 2020 onward. | ||
| If you really want to be serious about cutting back spending, you go back to 2019 and you cut on top of that because we were already about 40% over budget. | ||
| That's my standing financially. | ||
| I think that seems totally reasonable. | ||
| And it's the only reasonable way forward, but you can't even get the framework of the One Big Beautiful bill to be perfect. | ||
| Again, I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good. | ||
| There's good things in the bill, but this version coming back from the Senate, not for me. | ||
| I don't know about others. | ||
| It's definitely not for me. | ||
| So, but you don't have to deal with it because you were literally expelled. | ||
| Pretty much. | ||
| So, okay, this is a philosophical question, but I'm sure you've pondered it. | ||
| You were elected by the voters of your district in New York, in Nassau County. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Nassau and Queens. | ||
| Don't forget about Queens. | ||
| I'm a Queens boy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| I'm one of the boroughs. | ||
| So, but that's where your authority comes from. | ||
| And in a representative democracy, you're representing the democracy. | ||
| Like you're an instrument of our system. | ||
| So how can you be fired by other elected representatives? | ||
| Like, how can I don't understand how that works? | ||
| Well, Thomas Massey said it best. | ||
| I will not overturn the election results of the third district. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And that is just a crisper way to say what I was trying to say. | ||
| But that's what he said. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| And he says, this is, this is preposterous. | ||
| Let you go and be fired by the people who sent you here. | ||
| At the time, no convictions. | ||
| No, I still had a trial was a longs way. | ||
| So no due process offered. | ||
| They call a political hit piece in ethics report. | ||
| And I'll give you a little tidbit of the ethics report. | ||
| And I have to do the air quotes because it irritates me to know that this will forever be in my record. | ||
| I had a hit type plant person try to work in my office called Derek Meyer from Ohio. | ||
| Completely insane, Looney Tune guy. | ||
| He wanted to work in my office. | ||
| One of my staffers said he's a good guy, whatever. | ||
| We did vetting on him. | ||
| Turns out he was nuts. | ||
| He was under investigation for wiretapping a federal courtroom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we said, we don't need the drama right now. | |
| I have enough drama. | ||
| I don't need a sideshow. | ||
| So we said, no, this man, after being told no, went to the ethics committee, complained that we made him work for free. | ||
| I mean, a bunch of stuff. | ||
| None of it stuck. | ||
| Accused you of slavery. | ||
| Pretty much, right? | ||
| None of it stuck. | ||
| Then after a whole week goes by, he decided to pull out what card can you possibly think he pulled out of the pocket? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Sexual assault. | ||
| So I was going to go with racism, but sexual assault, right? | ||
| And I said, wow, that's a first even for me. | ||
| I was shocked. | ||
| I was flabbergasted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, wow, I've never been accused of being pervy. | |
| So I sit at home. | ||
| I go back to my partner. | ||
| I'm like, I'm being accused of being pervy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's like, they definitely don't know you. | |
| Like, I'm such a square. | ||
| And we were just like shocked. | ||
| This plays out. | ||
| He made bombastic allegations about sexual assault that I grew up because Groy and I invited him to karaoke. | ||
| None of which was true. | ||
| Then when he gave his testimony, he gave detailed dates and times. | ||
| Lucky congresspeople who have good staff like I did have a very detailed calendar of my whereabouts with plenty of pictures. | ||
| You know, they're following with pictures and video To post on social media. | ||
| Look, he's working, you know, the whole dog and pony show. | ||
| He's not at karaoke. | ||
| Yeah, there you go. | ||
| So it became so hysterical. | ||
| The ethics committee called him for the lack of all the words, didn't say a straight out liar, but he lacked credibility and evidence to prove. | ||
| And that the evidence to counter it was so overwhelming, they dismissed it. | ||
| This was an office of congressional ethics. | ||
| So the chairman of the ethics committee, Michael Guess, in his infinite wisdom, in his expulsion resolution, contradicted his own ethics report, which exonerates me from sexual assault, but he puts it in the expulsion resolution that whereas I engage in sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in my office, | ||
| in my capacity as a member of Congress, to enhance the, because he accused me of the ethics report also accused me of having a number of high interest credit cards to rely to keep my lifestyle up. | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry. | ||
| That was Joe Biden's economy. | ||
| Interest rates were up all across the board. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry for being American and over leveraging myself. | |
| So I have bad spending habits. | ||
| Like they use this as evidence against me, you know, and built this entire report. | ||
| Like a trailer park economics going on and they were mad about it. | ||
| They were pretty mad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, I'm like, I'm sorry, but I do it well. | |
| So that was kind of the issue. | ||
| So when you look at this and you have Troy Nells and all these very serious former law enforcement officers who look at this and says, this reads straight up like a political hit piece, no good cop would ever turn this over to a DA and say, here, here's the charging documents. | ||
| But this is what the ethics committee did. | ||
| And it was enough, I guess, to convince 105 Republicans to join the Democrats in expelling a Republican. | ||
| So we want to brag, but this has got to be the most pro-dog podcast on the entire internet. | ||
| They're almost always dogs, actually, just off camera. | ||
| So dogs are non-negotiable. | ||
| Dogs are the best. | ||
| And people who love dogs really, really love them. | ||
| We can relate. | ||
| And so for that reason, we are thrilled to announce a new partner called Dutch Pet. | ||
| It's the fastest growing telehealth service for your pets. | ||
| It's on a mission to create affordable quality veterinary care at any time, no matter where you are. | ||
| They'll get your beloved pet what they need and they do it at a high speed. | ||
| And by the way, if you've ever brought your dog to the vet, the dog doesn't like it. | ||
| They can smell the darkness sometimes. | ||
| It's true. | ||
| Sometimes you have to go to the vet, but if you can avoid it, you should and you want to. | ||
| And Dutch.com has vets who can treat over 150 animal conditions with just 10 minutes on the phone. | ||
| You never have to leave home. | ||
| You never have to scare or upset your dog. | ||
| No wasted time. | ||
| You don't have to wait weeks for an in-office appointment and you don't waste money. | ||
| Unlimited visits and follow-ups for no extra cost. | ||
| Free shipping on all products for up to five pets. | ||
| Membership starts as little as $11 per month. | ||
| And Dutch.com saves most customers nearly $1,000 a year. | ||
| We use it. | ||
| It's awesome as dog owners. | ||
| It sounds too good to be true, probably, but it's absolutely real. | ||
| Visit Dutch.com slash Tucker to learn more. | ||
| Use the code Tucker for up to $50 off your veterinary care plan per year. | ||
| That's a year of unlimited vet visits for $82 a year. | ||
| Your pets and your wallet will thank you. | ||
| This is going to change the game, and we're proud to be partnered with them. | ||
| You think of all the Republicans who hate their party, worked against their party. | ||
| You think of all the Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those are the 105. | |
| Fair. | ||
| But you think of the crazy behavior that goes on in Congress. | ||
| And I do want to ask you about that at some point, but like that is a wild precedent to set. | ||
| We're just going to expel someone from a body to which he was elected? | ||
| Well, I mean, they are pretty self-important up there. | ||
| But you would think that they would also be interested in self-preservation to the point where they would say, let's not set that precedent. | ||
| Let's not start doing that. | ||
| Well, here's the funny thing. | ||
| I was expelled, no due process, right? | ||
| And you had not been convicted. | ||
| No, not even no adjudication whatsoever, just allegations at the point. | ||
| And had I not been expelled, I'd still probably have a juice to put up a fight. | ||
| But when you're expelled, you lose juice. | ||
| I don't know how to put it to you. | ||
| No, that's well put. | ||
| Like, I lost juice. | ||
| I had no gas in my tank to keep going forward. | ||
| So yeah, I totally. | ||
| Where was okay? | ||
| So the leadership of the Republican conference, the Republicans in the House, would be able, I think, to tell Republicans how to vote on that. | ||
| So Mike Johnson's the speaker. | ||
| I'm going to say this. | ||
| Kevin McCarthy was 10 times a better leader for the conference than Mike Johnson is. | ||
| Well, that's for sure. | ||
| I mean, no question. | ||
| Oh, I've noticed. | ||
| I can't believe I'm saying that. | ||
| You don't need to agree with Kevin's politics per se. | ||
| But he was a great leader. | ||
| He knew how to keep. | ||
| He whipped that agnostic on the ideas part. | ||
| He just wanted to win, right? | ||
| He just wanted to win. | ||
| He's a winner. | ||
| He wants to win. | ||
| And that's fine for me. | ||
| I kind of disagreed with him a lot. | ||
| Like, I've let him down a few times, but you know what? | ||
| He had my back. | ||
| So I always go back and I tell Matt Gates, do you still really think it was a good idea vacating McCarthy? | ||
| Oh, I know. | ||
| Cost me my seat, cost the conference a seat, you know? | ||
| But at the time. | ||
| I was so mean to Kevin, who I should just say is a nice man. | ||
| And I saw him at dinner last summer. | ||
| He was seated at a table next to me. | ||
| He couldn't even look at me. | ||
| And I thought, you know, I was so mean to that guy. | ||
| He's easy to be mean to. | ||
| It's easy because he was a face of something you were angry at. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| And I'm annoyed by Republican leadership always. | ||
| But then you look at Mike Johnson, who's a disappointment. | ||
| Oh, authorizing all this killing in the name of Jesus. | ||
| It's like, I can barely stand it. | ||
| So yes, I think those of us who thought kicking Kevin McCarthy out of leaders had nothing to do with it, but just cheerleading from the sidelines, we were completely wrong. | ||
| And I think it's important to admit that. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| And so Mike Johnson takes a posture of vote your conscience. | ||
| At least Stephonic is freaking out. | ||
| Like, what do you mean, vote your conscience? | ||
| Like, who's the Congress? | ||
| I don't have a conscience. | ||
| She firmly votes to keep me. | ||
| Mike Johnson, Scalise, most of leadership who matters. | ||
| And then you have the useful idiots like Richard Hudson, which I don't expect you to know who he is, but believe it or not, he's the chairman of the NRCC, which is in charge of recruitment. | ||
| Now, you wonder why we can't expand our majority. | ||
| A former staffer became congressman, which is a worse way to become a congressman. | ||
| From a state? | ||
| From the state of North Carolina. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So he was a staffer to a congressman, then became the congressman. | ||
| And now somebody thought in their infinite wisdom, we're just going to let him be the NRCC chair. | ||
| A total dud votes against me. | ||
| Then you have the Mormon out of Utah. | ||
| I have such contempt for some of these people that I forgot their names. | ||
| Fair. | ||
| He's the deputy conference chair. | ||
| Can't remember his name. | ||
| I know he's super tall. | ||
| He votes for, he votes expel me. | ||
| She loses the tall guy. | ||
| Yeah, I lose the tall guy. | ||
| Then Lisa McClain, who up until the moment of the vote, she's like, this is so unfair, honey, what they're doing to you, votes to expel me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm like, wait, what the hell just happened? | |
| Never looked at her in the face again. | ||
| So this is, this is, this is leadership. | ||
| Leadership fractured and it gave people a window to say, well, some of leadership went sideways. | ||
| We're just going to go with that band of people. | ||
| But in the end, as you know, you served in the body. | ||
| If the speaker said, no, we're not going to let Democrats kick out this guy for stuff that we all know is pretty common. | ||
| And by the way, if it's a crime, the courts will make that judgment. | ||
| That was the only thing I argued. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So if Mike Johnson had said that, you would have been fine. | ||
| Why didn't he say that? | ||
| Michael Guest recently at an event in Mississippi told a person, and for the sakes of that person's privacy, because he entrusted in me, that he flat out said it was political because they had polled the neighboring districts and they were getting slaughtered because of me. | ||
| I find that very hard to believe because I was still being able to go back home, do my district work. | ||
| In the middle of all of that, Tucker, I did constituent work. | ||
| I was doing town halls. | ||
| I was doing mobile office hours. | ||
| I worked through it. | ||
| These guys were all scared of doing anything because my name was going to come up. | ||
| Well, just say I'm not George Santos. | ||
| If you have issues with George Santos, go visit George Santos' office. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| But they took it personal and they made it personal. | ||
| And it's fine. | ||
| And here we are, but that's why I got expelled. | ||
| So did you know Mike Johnson? | ||
| I knew Mike Johnson from the fact that me and Lauren Boebert harassed him to run for speaker while we were going through that entire debacle. | ||
| That was unbelievable. | ||
| I was coming out of the McCarthy gets vacated. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And, you know, the one thing I hold till this day in my year from that day was Nancy Mace. | ||
| Nobody knew what she was doing. | ||
| And all of a sudden, that echoed. | ||
| What's Nancy Mace? | ||
| Nancy Mace. | ||
| I love that name. | ||
| All I remember is her very, it felt visceral. | ||
| She screams an I that I'm never going to forget the strength she used to say I for vacating him. | ||
| It echoed and permeated through the halls and through the chamber. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you could hear a pin drop because nobody saw that coming. | |
| That was a final nail in his coffin. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And I said with every fiber in her being, I look, I remember looking at Corey Mills' face and going like, what the just happened? | ||
| He's like, this changes everything. | ||
| We were just so caught off guard because now from M onwards to Z, right? | ||
| Mace and alphabet. | ||
| Anything can happen. | ||
| Anything can happen. | ||
| And I sat there just like pondering, like, what is happening? | ||
| Right. | ||
| So that happens. | ||
| We instantly get pulled into conference. | ||
| We've now, you know, you look at Steve Womack's face hitting the gavel and saying the office of the speaker is now vacant. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One eye squinting, the other eye almost bogging out of his skull. | |
| I remember looking at Womack's face and looking around like, did this just really happen? | ||
| I'm like, when history couldn't be made even more, but this just really happened. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm, from my purview, I'm like, oh my God, I'm not the drama anymore. | |
| This is so for six weeks, I felt so relieved. | ||
| I'm sorry, Kevin, but I just felt so relieved. | ||
| It was not on me anymore. | ||
| This is about Gates and Kevin. | ||
| And I don't know if you remember the baby story, me carrying a baby and screaming at a Hamas protester. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So that all happened in that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was just hanging out with babies at that point because nobody cared about me. | |
| But we all now get transferred to doing our conference meetings in the Ways and Means Committee room, which is in the Longworth office building right off of Constitution Act. | ||
| My office was just down the hall. | ||
| So I was like a two-minute walk. | ||
| I joke, my office became the hideaway bar for some of my colleagues. | ||
| So we were going there and we're doing these votes behind closed doors. | ||
| And all I kept thinking was how much I hated it when I would be on the outside and read about it. | ||
| They're all now gathered behind closed doors voting on this. | ||
| I said, the hell with the closed doors narrative. | ||
| I went to X and I started going and telling people play by play. | ||
| They were sequestering our phones. | ||
| I said, I'm a fucking congressman. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| No, you're not taking. | ||
| You were a fucking congressman. | ||
| I literally said, you're not taking my phone. | ||
| Enough of this shit. | ||
| No more babysitting. | ||
| And I was just texting, live texting from in there. | ||
| And then I started going out there and joining spaces. | ||
| And there's some space hosts out there, Diligent Denizen and James and Shell Shock. | ||
| These guys were hosting these spaces in Lou. | ||
| And I'm just giving it to them in real time. | ||
| And the numbers started piling up with the audiences, tens of thousands of people listening. | ||
| This is the first time a member of Congress is defecting from the entire conference and telling them what's happening behind closed doors, play by play. | ||
| Who's voting for what? | ||
| What fights are getting to? | ||
| What propositions are being offered? | ||
| Even McCarthy's navigation trying to go back into the speaker's office. | ||
| There was a lot of those deals being cut. | ||
| Did you know that at one point there was an offer of a co-speakership between McCarthy and Jim Jordan? | ||
| That was an actual thing. | ||
| That was on the table. | ||
| Like Jim will be the speaker, and I will be co-speaker with him, and we'll share the office. | ||
| And this was offered, you know? | ||
| So I'm telling people this, and people couldn't believe it. | ||
| So then we go through round one. | ||
| It's Jim Jordan and it's Steve Scalise. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I personally, I was very clear about this at the time. | |
| Scalise, who I look up to him tremendously, was going through cancer treatment. | ||
| And I said, come hell or high water. | ||
| I'm not voting for a man going through cancer treatment. | ||
| Fair. | ||
| This job will kill him faster. | ||
| Yeah, it's not good for him or the country. | ||
| It's not good for him or the country. | ||
| I said, it's not smart. | ||
| I don't think he ever quite understood that. | ||
| I did it from a place of love and I think he took it personal. | ||
| And that's okay. | ||
| That's totally fine. | ||
| So sometimes when people sell products on TV, you know, I love this product. | ||
| I use this product. | ||
| There's the question in the mind of the viewer, does this guy really use the product? | ||
| Does he really love the product? | ||
| Would he keep the product at home? | ||
| Ask my dogs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Now we are in a garage. | ||
| I'm not going to tell you where it is because, again, this is prepping. | ||
| But this is my garage. | ||
| There's a gun safe. | ||
| And this is a part of my stockpile of Ready Hour. | ||
| Completely real. | ||
| The second I put it here, the second Ready Hour sent it to me, I felt peace of mind. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because no matter what happens, we're not going hungry in my house. | |
| I moved a lot of fishing gear out of the way to keep it in my garage. | ||
| And ever since it's been here, I have felt the peace of mind that comes from knowing my family's not going hungry no matter what. | ||
| Lastcountrysupply.com, lastcountrysupply.com, it can be in your garage along with the peace of mind that comes with having it. | ||
| And then Jim Jordan, there was the Jim Jordan aspect of it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We went to the floor three times for Jim Jordan and I voted for Jim Jordan. | |
| I like Jim. | ||
| Jim's a great guy. | ||
| I had personal meeting with him, but it wasn't moving. | ||
| So when I saw that it started to fall apart, I started lobbying Mike Johnson. | ||
| Quiet in the corner. | ||
| He's like, no, no, no, George, I could never. | ||
| These guys are like two big brothers to me. | ||
| And I said, Mike, you're the only person in here that nobody dislikes. | ||
| Like you're the nicest member of Congress. | ||
| Nobody has an issue with you. | ||
| You're the only one that can get a consensus. | ||
| He's like, I could never do this to them. | ||
| Then Tom Emmer tried. | ||
| Poor Tom. | ||
| I mean, the marriage equality vote completely ruined him with the conference, especially with the more Christian base, right? | ||
| Your Bob Goods of the world would never vote for him. | ||
| So that went down in a ball of flame. | ||
| And then the jungle primary started, the jungle rounds. | ||
| There was like six of them up there from Dan Muser to Byron. | ||
| And I love Byron. | ||
| Byron's like a great friend. | ||
| I was very conflicted at that point because here's the guy I lobbied and harassed to jump in the race in the race. | ||
| And here's a friend of mine. | ||
| But I also said at the time, I said to him point blank, you're my friend, but I don't think you've been here long enough to be speaker. | ||
| I think it'll eat you up and you have so much more to offer. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I didn't want him to compromise on his values because you do have to compromise somewhat as speaker. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| But I didn't expect Mike to completely just throw his values away. | ||
| Mike Johnson, the morning he decided to jump in the race, sends me a text message and says to the tune of, George, I just wanted to say thank you for the encouragement. | ||
| I've decided to jump in the race. | ||
| I hope I still have your support. | ||
| My answer to him is, let's go. | ||
| You know, like muscle emoji, let's kick ass. | ||
| I call Arn Bobert dead ass o'clock in the morning. | ||
| She's like, somebody die? | ||
| I'm like, no, Mike Johnson's jumping in the race. | ||
| She's like, woohoo, we're like celebrating. | ||
| And from that point forward, we were his apostles for the MAGA base because we, the two of us were on spaces and then Matt Gates joined promoting him. | ||
| People had no clue who Mike Johnson was. | ||
| And we educated them. | ||
| So that was my little role there throughout that experiment, I guess I call it, because that was an experiment. | ||
| When was that? | ||
| September, September of 2023. | ||
| It went from September throughout October, early November. | ||
| It was a nightmare. | ||
| And then he got it. | ||
| And then he got it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And about a week or two later was Thanksgiving break. | |
| Now here's the guy. | ||
| Week or two after he becomes speaker. | ||
| He becomes speaker. | ||
| Now here's the guy who I lobby like hell, put a lot of credibility into by propping him up on social media. | ||
| Become speaker. | ||
| And I'm sitting in my bathtub having a glass of wine. | ||
| It's Thanksgiving weekend. | ||
| And I get a call from the speaker. | ||
| And, you know, naturally you wouldn't answer. | ||
| I said, I was just, Tucker, have you ever been over something so much that you were just like, I don't care anymore about decorum? | ||
| I'm going to answer this. | ||
| Yes, I have, George. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just answered the speaker's phone call butt naked in a top. | |
| Did you tell him you're butt naked? | ||
| I did tell him I was in the top. | ||
| I'm like, you know, Mr. Speaker, right now it's put up or shut up because I'm enjoying a bubble bath with wine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He said, I'll pray for you. | |
| But he was trying to convince me to resign. | ||
| What do you mean, resign? | ||
| He said, why don't you resign so this doesn't stay on your record forever and you leave in your own terms? | ||
| And I said, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| You had just helped get him elected speaker later. | ||
| He calls and says, why don't you resign your seat? | ||
| Yeah, pretty much. | ||
| Cause he's, he's trying to sell it to me as if it's good for me. | ||
| It sounds great. | ||
| It sounds great. | ||
| Lose your job. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It's awesome. | ||
| Lose the job you blew your entire life to get and not even fulfill the entire term. | ||
| Sounds like a great deal, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| No, thank you. | ||
| I told him, put up or shut up. | ||
| You can tell the guys I said that because I'm not leaving. | ||
| They're going to have to kick me out. | ||
| And they proceeded to do so. | ||
| How long after that did they kick you out? | ||
| December 1st. | ||
| So I want to say two weeks after Mike Johnson became speaker. | ||
| This was Thanksgiving weekend. | ||
| So six days later. | ||
| So he obviously knew. | ||
| I mean, let's be honest. | ||
| He knew they were going to kick you out. | ||
| I remember calling Guy Rushenthaler, who I love, Pennsylvania Congressman, young guy, completely overrated. | ||
| He would be a great speaker, you know, super young, dynamic. | ||
| He's a deputy whip to Emmer. | ||
| And I remember calling him and I said, guy, can I just ask you a question? | ||
| He's like, what? | ||
| He's like, do you guys have the number? | ||
| They're like, do they have them? | ||
| He's like, I don't think so, George. | ||
| I don't think there's an appetite for this. | ||
| I said, all right, I think they do. | ||
| He's like, what makes you say that? | ||
| I'm like, gut feeling. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Right. | ||
| It's like three times the charm. | ||
| I had gone through this exercise two times prior. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I sat there and I just said, I think they have it. | |
| He's like, I'm going to run some traps and see the numbers. | ||
| The day of, I'm on the house floor and the numbers are counting. | ||
| The numbers are counting. | ||
| Then there was a stall and it didn't seem to budge. | ||
| And I'll get back to why it budged. | ||
| There's a big reason why it budged. | ||
| There's a stall and I looked at guy and I said, this isn't looking good. | ||
| Look at how many people haven't voted that are in here just talking to one another. | ||
| And he's like, no, no, no, this is, they're just reasoning. | ||
| Trust me, this isn't going to happen. | ||
| And it happened. | ||
| And it happened in a glorious way for those who cheered, you know, for me to be expelled. | ||
|
unidentified
|
People were clapping as, you know. | |
| And you're standing there? | ||
| Oh, I stood there. | ||
| The moment I saw that. | ||
| Well, your colleagues clapped for your expulsion? | ||
| Pretty much. | ||
| The moment I started walking down the aisle, as Kenneth Cole put it, I wore an expulsion chic outfit. | ||
| Kenneth Cole said, well, he understood the assignment. | ||
| He wore expulsion chic. | ||
| I had a coat over my shoulder because it was a heavy coat and I didn't want to have to hustle with it to get in the car. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I had a kind of like a quick way out, right? | |
| My, my car was waiting at the Capitol steps for me and it was just, that was it. | ||
| Very anticlimactic. | ||
| Did you get to clean out your office? | ||
| Do you know what I did? | ||
| I stayed in DC for Thanksgiving break because I had a gut feeling. | ||
| I emptied my office out on the weekend of Thanksgiving when nobody was there to see it. | ||
| So the one thing I never gave the media, I never gave them the George Santos carrying boxes out of his office. | ||
| I never, because I looked at my partner and I said, I think they're going to win this time. | ||
| And to preserve some dignity, I'm not going to give them the defeated vision of me carrying boxes. | ||
| But it seems clear to me, I don't know, but from what you've said, that when Mike Johnson called you a week after you helped get him elected speaker to say you should resign, he knew that he was, that you were on your way out and that he was going to play, he clearly played a role in that. | ||
| That was literally the reason I decided to empty my office. | ||
| So was that call? | ||
| It was that call, yes. | ||
| So why wouldn't he just be straightforward with you? | ||
| It sounds like he's lying. | ||
| Because it's politics. | ||
| I know, but you can't tell someone you're going to pray for them and then lie. | ||
| It's not very Christian of them. | ||
| It's not. | ||
| It's not. | ||
| It's just not. | ||
| You can't invoke God and then lie. | ||
| Like that's not, you don't do that. | ||
| That's not a good idea. | ||
| But I've learned one thing about these people in Congress. | ||
| It wasn't very Christian of him then, just like it wasn't very Mormon of Mitt Romney calling me a sick puppy. | ||
| So it wasn't very Mormon of him to be so demeaning towards me. | ||
| So or tell me. | ||
| Mitt Romney called you a sick puppy. | ||
| Oh, he told me to sit in the back of the room that I, if I were to say that I should serve in shame in the back of the room. | ||
| I said, nobody puts baby in the back of the room. | ||
| That's not very Mormon of you. | ||
| And he called me an ass and I called him. | ||
| It's a very famous exchange between us. | ||
| It's State of the Union because it's my first State of the Union. | ||
| Yes, I was center aisle. | ||
| See, I saved that seat. | ||
| And Tim Burchett says, well, you fought for this seat. | ||
| You keep this seat. | ||
| I'm not moving. | ||
| Burchett said that. | ||
| Oh, I'm so glad you're telling me this. | ||
| Again, I'm not endorsing anything. | ||
| I'm not, all I'm endorsing is decency toward other people. | ||
| And I got attacking self-righteousness, which I hate and is always a sign of rottenness. | ||
| I'm not a choir boy. | ||
| I don't make representations to be one. | ||
| I am flawed. | ||
| I have made stupid decisions that I regret. | ||
| Why do you think Burchett was so kind to you? | ||
| You know, because I don't think it's not like his constituents are the same as absolutely not. | ||
| Tim Burchett is a special man in more ways than one can explain. | ||
| I would equate it to him just being a good human being, a good following Christian that actually follows Christianity. | ||
| I believe that. | ||
| Because he reached out to me through Marjorie Taylor Greene on December 22nd, 2022, after I had taken two antidepressants after I walked out of the Fox News van and got my ass handed to me by Tulsi Cabard on your show. | ||
| I wasn't there that day. | ||
| I love Tulsi, as you know, but that was not my position. | ||
| She was sitting in for me that day. | ||
| No, that's totally fine. | ||
| And I hold no animosity. | ||
| Clearly, I'm not her friend. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, that became clear in the course of the interview. | |
| But it was Marjorie. | ||
| She's like, that was rough. | ||
| I said, I didn't watch it. | ||
| I experienced it. | ||
| I don't need to watch it to know what I'm feeling. | ||
| So she's like, Tim Burchett from Tennessee really wants to talk to you. | ||
| Can I give him your number? | ||
| I said, sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't even know who or what a Tim Burchett was. | |
| And this man comes on the phone and is so kind and so he extended not just the hand. | ||
| He extended like a actual body for you to know you can rely. | ||
| And believe it or not, we end up being diagonally positioned from one another in our offices. | ||
| It's like maybe 40 feet away from his door. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And I took advantage of that because that's where I would run for refuge many times and seek counseling, guidance from him. | ||
| And he was always there, arms wide open. | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| I don't think most people watching this know who Tim Burchard is. | ||
| I happen to know for another reason. | ||
| And I've just been, I really don't like most members, but I do like him. | ||
| One of the kindest human beings you'll probably interact with. | ||
| I'm thrilled to hear that. | ||
| So you get elected to Congress. | ||
| What are your first impressions of it? | ||
| What did you expect? | ||
| And what did you find? | ||
| I've learned one thing for the sake of the American people. | ||
| It's not a serious place. | ||
| It's essentially an overpaid and a very expensive high school. | ||
| That's the energy. | ||
| I mean, people are pulling fire alarms. | ||
| People are yelling at each other on the Capitol steps. | ||
| They're the stoners. | ||
| The preppy. | ||
| It's just so bad. | ||
| And then there's a fashionesis, which was, I was alone in that category. | ||
| Like I felt so alone. | ||
| I couldn't even get one of the lady congresswomen to like join me on that. | ||
| Like they're all so dull. | ||
| I mean, I'll give Anna Paulina. | ||
| She's kind of spicy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| She'll put her dad's ties on. | ||
| And I'm like, okay, that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's a look, you know, but we had fun, you know, but it was just so, it's not serious. | ||
| Tucker, I'm fun. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I am a, I have a, a self-deprecating sense of humor. | ||
| I am larger than life, but I know how to be serious. | ||
| When serious is required, I will sit there, I will freaking give you spreadsheet charts of all the analysis as I did of a lot of the spending pork and the spending porn that was going on. | ||
| And I would present this to the entire conference. | ||
| I'd say, like, just read this over. | ||
| I'm being serious. | ||
| Are we seriously? | ||
| Are we serious about our jobs or are we just doing messaging? | ||
| Because at that point, I learned 95% of Congress, at least in my time there, was messaging. | ||
| Nothing was serious. | ||
| Nothing was serious. | ||
| The only time they were serious was when the Unit Party joined and passed their pork scruptulous CRs. | ||
| And I remember asking Mike Johnson this on the floor once, Mike, why are we going on recess? | ||
| It's July of 2023 and we don't have the 12 individual spending bills out of the appropriations committee. | ||
| What's Kay Granger doing? | ||
| He's like, oh, it's not Kay Granger's fault. | ||
| Ask your speaker. | ||
| And I said, wait, what? | ||
| And I proceed to go to one of Kevin's staffers. | ||
| I'm like, why am I hearing that the speaker told Kay Granger not to progress with this 12 individual spending bills? | ||
| Oh, George, don't worry. | ||
| It's so complicated, but we're almost there. | ||
| Well, first of all, now in hindsight, we know we had a senile chairwoman in Kay Granger who before she ended her term, she went into a mental health care facility for seniors. | ||
| She was like wandering around Texas, lost. | ||
| That's the chairwoman of the appropriations committee. | ||
| The actual, you know, when they talk about the power of the purse, she holds the goddamn purse. | ||
| She was senile. | ||
| She was in a memory care facility. | ||
| She was in a memory care facility. | ||
| And I empathize with that. | ||
| And I feel bad. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| No one's mocking her. | ||
| But that's a cover-up. | ||
| But so why would the speaker allow her to be chairman of the appropriations committee? | ||
| That's the cover-up. | ||
| Mike Johnson knew of this after he became speaker. | ||
| And so did Steve Scalise, which I like. | ||
| And so did Elise Stefanik. | ||
| Leadership knew she was absent for six months. | ||
| Her staff was still receiving pay without doing any work. | ||
| This is government corruption 101. | ||
| I'm going to call it out on both sides. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| And you should. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| Nobody's throwing themselves for me to save me. | ||
| I'm going to prison for seven years. | ||
| The only person that can help me is Donald Trump if he chooses to. | ||
| And at that, there's a bunch of people telling him not to. | ||
| So why am I going to be kind to these people and not say the truth? | ||
| You should be. | ||
| The truth will set me free, Tucker. | ||
| That's how I looked at it. | ||
| I totally agree with that. | ||
| So when you go back to that and I'm having this conversation with Mike Johnson, that's where I also picked up a lot of respect for him because he didn't mince his words. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But we find ourselves in this place that is not serious. | |
| They're not serious about passing a balanced budget. | ||
| I've noticed. | ||
| They're not serious about cutting. | ||
| I mean, Elon Musk blew half of his fortune by joining the government and going and being the chair of Doge. | ||
| For what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
None of those cuts have been codified by Congress. | |
| We're reappropriating some of these cuts that were identified. | ||
| Never get rid of NPR funding. | ||
| No. | ||
| I mean, sure, the only good thing that comes out of public broadcasting funded by the is Big Bird and Elmo. | ||
| See, the only good. | ||
| Who are a little creepy if you think about it? | ||
| Who cares? | ||
| Aren't we all creepy? | ||
| Just someone. | ||
| Just someone who's creepy. | ||
| Who is it that has nightmares about you? | ||
| I forgot. | ||
| The actress? | ||
| Oh, that's right. | ||
| Probably more than one. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, but you get what I'm saying. | ||
| I tell you, I know I'm creepy to people because they tell me on X. So we're all a little creepy. | ||
| Did you find creepy people in Congress? | ||
| Oh, tons. | ||
| Oh, really? | ||
| Pervy. | ||
| I mean, actually? | ||
| Pervy. | ||
| I mean, seriously. | ||
| Look, I don't, I'm not in the business of throwing friends under the bus, but in confidence, I've had actually reporters come to me and tell me of how members invite them to their offices. | ||
| Oh, I have a scoop for you and then make moves on them. | ||
| In the office. | ||
| In the office, in their office. | ||
| There's weird sex stuff going on in Congress now. | ||
| I keep hearing about this. | ||
| Was that your experience? | ||
| My experience was that it's a dirty place. | ||
| I bought up to, I can't believe I'm giving all of this. | ||
| No, no, no, no, but I keep hearing this from like members that I know. | ||
| And it's like, really? | ||
| I bought up to Brian Stile, the chairman of the admin committee. | ||
| One of my staffers, there's something called the cages in Congress, which is a storage unit for us, right? | ||
| Those are the congressional cages. | ||
| Underneath. | ||
| Underneath in the basement of every congressional house office building. | ||
| So I was in Longworth and we're like, there's some stuff in the cages we might want to go check before we order supplies. | ||
| And I'm like, the cages? | ||
| That sounds pretty racy. | ||
| I'm like, what's that? | ||
| They're like, oh, no, boss, it's the storage unit. | ||
| I'm like, oh, okay. | ||
| Let me go there with you guys. | ||
| He's like, no, boss, you shouldn't go there. | ||
| I'm like, why? | ||
| And he's like, well, you know, there's some rumors. | ||
| People are going out down there and having sex. | ||
| I'm like, wait, is this serious? | ||
| So I know a few other staffers from other members. | ||
| So I went to some chief of staffs that I've known from the campaign time. | ||
| You know, when you're campaigning, you're talking a lot more to chiefs than you are to staff, to the actual member. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| So you built those relationships as a freshman. | ||
| So I knew a couple of chiefs and they're like, yeah, it's, you know, it happens. | ||
| Like, I, what am I going to do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Be the cock blocker, the sex police. | |
| I don't have time for that. | ||
| I'm like, is there's no remedy to this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're like, no, I'm like, why don't we put cameras down there to create deterrence? | |
| So I approached this novel idea, which is like, we're talking about installing like maybe six cameras in each one of these sections to Brian Style. | ||
| And he says, oh, we don't have time to focus on this. | ||
| This is all based on baseless rumors. | ||
| Then I learn that former members were caught having sex with stuffers down in the cages. | ||
| And that's why cameras will never go up. | ||
| No way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So this is, this is what we're dealing with. | ||
| I mean, the last place on earth I ever thought I'd have to deal with sex scandals was but why in the government building? | ||
| Like everyone has a house, right? | ||
| Can I tell you something? | ||
| I think part of it is this dominance fetish problem that they have in DC. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| What is that? | ||
| It's the power. | ||
| Like we're in Congress. | ||
| I'm a staffer of the Hill and you're coming here to service me. | ||
| That's the mentality, whether you're a member or a staff or whatever, you know, it's a dirty mentality. | ||
| And I'm from New York. | ||
| I have a high threshold for dirty and sleazy. | ||
| But even for me, that kind of went like a notch above. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm like, I don't comprehend this. | |
| This is a government building. | ||
| We're supposed to be boring. | ||
| Sex was never in the job description. | ||
| Especially like sadomasochistic tinged sex. | ||
| Like it's about. | ||
| We all saw the Senate twink, right? | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| The guy having sex in the committee room. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In the confirmation room of all with Amy Kloberschwartz chair. | |
| How tragic. | ||
| What was the response to that? | ||
| I was already out at that point. | ||
| Were you shocked? | ||
| Terrible. | ||
| I was not just shocked. | ||
| I'm gay. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I don't want to be associated to that. | ||
| I've fought too hard to disassociate from the game ink and LGBT mafia, this whole nonsense yesterday in New York City with the gay parade. | ||
| None of that represents me and my partner. | ||
| We don't walk around in thongs, in dog masks on all four, like on our, on our on fours. | ||
| None of that represents us. | ||
| We don't walk around naked. | ||
| What are you achieving with that? | ||
| And then this kid goes in there and does this. | ||
| What are you trying to achieve? | ||
| Marginalize people who have fought like hell? | ||
| Because if you go back to Stonewall, Stonewall was about rights, not about promiscuity, right? | ||
| Right. | ||
| So what are these people trying to achieve? | ||
| Creating hatred towards us. | ||
| That has to be it. | ||
| They're marginalizing us with these acts. | ||
| So a person like that twink, that kid from the Senate confirmation room, I loathe a human being like that because I instantly get bundled into a basket to quote Hillary Clinton of deplorables. | ||
| And I'm not that. | ||
| What do you think that is? | ||
| I mean, it does seem like a way to establish dominance or something. | ||
| Like I get to have sex in the confirmation room. | ||
| Like there's nothing you can do about it. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| There's a hostility. | ||
| Nothing happened. | ||
| He was fired, but no charges. | ||
| Nothing happened. | ||
| Are members of Congress sleeping with each other? | ||
| There's a few. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But consensual. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Consensually. | ||
| Consensual adults who are out of their relationships. | ||
| Can you tell who the freaks are? | ||
| The freaks in Congress? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| I'll say this to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The freakiest member in Congress is a very good friend of mine. | |
| He is. | ||
| He is. | ||
| But I would not, I don't want to go down this path. | ||
| Let's just. | ||
| No, no, I won't. | ||
| I'm not going to ask you about Nancy Mace. | ||
| What is Nancy Mace? | ||
| I don't get along. | ||
| So Nancy and I. What is that? | ||
| What is the Nancy Mace thing? | ||
| I don't know Nancy Mace. | ||
| We used to get along in 2020. | ||
| And then she was the first one to, the moment anything goes sideways, that's when you see people who were really your friends. | ||
| She decided to go totally sideways on me and use me as a punching line and all that, but didn't vote to expel me. | ||
| Didn't vote to expel me. | ||
| And I respect her for that. | ||
| But, you know, Nancy is just, I mean, I can't explain it. | ||
| According to there is a kind of exhibitionism, but it's not just exhibition. | ||
| There's something really sad. | ||
| She doesn't need to show herself naked. | ||
| Her tits do it for her. | ||
| They're massive. | ||
| Is that true? | ||
| Like her tits show up before she does. | ||
| If she's turning a door, you'll see her boobs first. | ||
| And you're like, oh, that's base. | ||
| Are they famous in Congress? | ||
| They're pretty well known all around the country at this point. | ||
| Have you not seen the videos? | ||
| And again, not shaming, not body shaming. | ||
| I think if she's happy with that, that's for her. | ||
| But I'm just trying to say, you don't need to show yourself naked to get the attention. | ||
| Just put a nice little cleavage like you usually do. | ||
| And it works well. | ||
| You know, like if it's attention, her currency, that's the fact. | ||
| Her staff will tell you that. | ||
| If you speak to former staff of hers, your mind will blow. | ||
| What are they saying? | ||
| She's an attention horror, self-aggrandizement maniac. | ||
| That's all they say. | ||
| Every last one of her former staffers will say that. | ||
| Every last one. | ||
| Even by the standards of Congress. | ||
| That's the scary part. | ||
| They say that it goes beyond. | ||
| And these are people who've worked for other people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Remember, we're all megalomaniacs. | |
| But for her to stand out, it's a very special situation. | ||
| You know, we're all megalomaniacs. | ||
| That's not up for question. | ||
| And if anyone tells you they're not, then they shouldn't be putting their name on a ballot because it takes a special kind of megalomaniac to say, pick me. | ||
| I'm the best for you. | ||
| No, I totally agree. | ||
| I could never do that. | ||
| Although I think you'll be president one day. | ||
| I don't think I'm the best, but I think, but nobody is the best. | ||
| I'm not. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I think you will be. | |
| And I feel sad. | ||
| I just want to be super clear because I know Nancy Mace will see this and I have nothing against Nancy Mace and I'm not attacking her at all. | ||
| I just feel a sadness. | ||
| It's like, that seems like a super unhappy person who should pause, address whatever is making her show naked pictures of herself or talk about her sexual assault or alleged sexual assault or all that kind of behavior. | ||
| I'm like, you should not be in a leadership position. | ||
| Okay, number one. | ||
| You are not settled inside. | ||
| You shouldn't take care of herself. | ||
| You shouldn't be in charge of other people. | ||
| Like, are you joking? | ||
| How can you have a system that elevates unhappy, like obviously crazy unhappy people to positions of authority? | ||
| That's not a, that's not a working system. | ||
| It explains her turnover. | ||
| Oh, is it high? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's the worst by metrics. | |
| It's the worst turnover in Congress. | ||
| Of all Congress people, she has a worst turnover. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That poor woman. | ||
| Well, I hope whatever she needs. | ||
| Again, I don't hold an ounce of animosity towards her. | ||
| Right, no, no. | ||
| I say this jokingly because it's funny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, and I will not miss a joke if I can make it. | |
| So it's not to degrade or demean or shame her, but she's definitely traumatized. | ||
| And maybe there's a lot of truth to what this criminal, alleged criminal ex-boyfriend did to her. | ||
| And it really hurt this woman because she's not the same woman I met in 2020. | ||
| But you don't get to lead my country. | ||
| I mean, I feel like we should be led by sober, responsible people who think longitudinally, who have squared away personal lives and people who love them, people to whom they're accountable, grandchildren, like normal people, property owners, people who are vested in the country, not people who are acting out their self-actualization Or whatever on stage. | ||
| Key word, sober. | ||
| Oh, is there a lot of partying up there? | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| I mean, the amount of alcohol, the sheer volume of alcohol in Congress is staggering. | ||
| I know. | ||
| And some of them have been caught by it, alcoholics. | ||
| A lot of them. | ||
| And some of them are great. | ||
| No, I'm great people. | ||
| And alcoholism is a disease that I it's very sad. | ||
| It's been there. | ||
| So I get it. | ||
| No, I get it. | ||
| You know, look, I will say this. | ||
| I like, I drink. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not an alcoholic per se, per se. | |
| You know, or by the standards of Congress, I could never be an alcoholic because I can't drink half a bottle of scotch in one sitting or three bottles of wine like I've seen some of these guys rush it. | ||
| I'm like two glasses in and I'm just like guys in leadership too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Dude, it's no, I know them. | |
| I heard from one the other night who I like so much. | ||
| Nice man. | ||
| Texting me late night about something totally bizarre. | ||
| Not bad and not creep or anything, but just was clear he was drunk. | ||
| But you know it's the bottle texting you. | ||
| Loaded. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Loaded. | ||
| Sentimental, stuff like that. | ||
| And I'm like, oh, so you notice that a lot. | ||
| Well, I smelled it a lot. | ||
| Actually, yeah, it was so bad. | ||
| Everything is a party, right? | ||
| So think of all those late nights voting, right? | ||
| Some members, Tucker, would show up so wasted. | ||
| They would have to sit in the cloakroom and hand their voting cards to sober members to go do their job. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Actually? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| And that's actually against house rules. | ||
| I've seen that in my, in my cloakroom. | ||
| I know it happens in the Democrat cloakroom because I've exchanged notes with a fellow freshman. | ||
| He's like, hey, it happens here too. | ||
| It's a shit show. | ||
| So yeah, I've watched groups of some of my colleagues, some guys who I genuinely like a lot, sit in the corner of the cloakroom completely inabriated, incapable of walking outside, standing still, sticking their car and pressing yay or nay and back, especially when we had long amendment battles with like, you know, 70 amendments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They just hand their cards and say, just vote whichever we're going to vote. | |
| I mean, it's the only thing I, just don't make me look crazy. | ||
| I've seen it. | ||
| You know, I've personally seen it. | ||
| So, and nobody's ever probably going to have the cojonas to come here and tell you that. | ||
| I mean, clearly no one has respect for the institution. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| I mean, members leave DC to go back home sometimes under like the hush-hush, but they're still voting because someone else is voting for them. | ||
| That's criminal. | ||
| That actually happens? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That happens. | ||
| I've seen it. | ||
| Well, that's illegal. | ||
| Well, that's what I said. | ||
| It's criminal. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| You know, it's not hard to pull up flight logs and do like a tabulation of like, wait, how could you be in two places at the same time? | ||
| The FAA keeps strict flight logs. | ||
| Yes, they do. | ||
| It's not very hard to prove that what I'm saying is fact. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's just do an investigation and you'll see. | |
| Why don't congressional reporters ever write any of this stuff? | ||
| It's hard to know to their defense. | ||
| It's hard to know if a member is there or not. | ||
| Imagine 450, 45, 35 people. | ||
| From a bird's eye view, when you're in the gallery, they look like ants, right? | ||
| They're just like scrambling. | ||
| And wait, I didn't stay still. | ||
| I would go from one end to the other. | ||
| It's impossible to keep track. | ||
| The way that they keep track is, oh, they must be here. | ||
| They voted. | ||
| Do you know how many times I would go in through under the so the dais is here and you have the reporters on top of it in the gallery? | ||
| Sometimes I would come right underneath there. | ||
| There's a little slip there to vote. | ||
| They wouldn't see me because I didn't go to fly. | ||
| I'd vote because I was giving an interview out or I was on a phone call and you can't talk in the chamber. | ||
| So I'd put it in my pocket, go in there, look up. | ||
| Oh, this is a vote, vote, go back out there, continue my phone call. | ||
| They would never see me, but they're seeing my vote go up. | ||
| So they're like, oh, he's here somewhere. | ||
| That's, that's why they get away with it. | ||
| You know, it's. | ||
| What about all the other stuff? | ||
| I mean, just the general vibe of it. | ||
| I don't live there. | ||
| I don't know a hundredth of what you know, but just from dealing with members of Congress a lot by text or on the phone, it seems kind of out of control. | ||
| It is. | ||
| Yeah, it feels that way. | ||
| It's a frat house gone rogue. | ||
| It feels that way and not in a fun way either. | ||
| At her expense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| At our expense. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| When was the last time Politico wrote that piece? | ||
| Like the reporters don't really seem to write about this. | ||
| I don't think there's an appetite because there's a currency of access in DC that reporters are pigeonholed to. | ||
| And ethics has gone out the window for reporters and large because if they actually do the hard bangers, the ones that are in DC do the hard bangers, they lose access. | ||
| The outlets don't want that. | ||
| So what there's an outsourcing that happens, right? | ||
| So they'll get a whiff of something, give it to their editors and say, I can't write this, but find someone. | ||
| But then when you're outsourcing it and the person isn't there and doesn't have access, the story doesn't get written without confirm. | ||
| You can't get a second and a third to confirm. | ||
| You know, it's tough for them to write it. | ||
| It is tough. | ||
| So it's, there's, there's an ethics issue that's going on in Congress and reporting for a while now. | ||
| I believe that the answer to the question I asked at the outset, which is, why did they decide to destroy you? | ||
| Not that you did nothing wrong, but your sins compared to the sins of your colleagues didn't really stand out in my opinion at all. | ||
| I was a great volleyball player. | ||
| So that's it. | ||
| So I just want to ask you about that. | ||
| So the reason I want to interview those before I got fired from Fox and I never got to the interview, but I just wanted to tell you, I thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. | ||
| That was like dada. | ||
| That was like performance art. | ||
| That was just incredible. | ||
| The volleyball team at Baruch. | ||
| That's like, I wish I'd thought of that. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| I know I will be attacked for being nihilistic or making fun of serious things, but I did think that was funny. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| But I think you may have infuriated people by mocking the system itself. | ||
| This is my kind of pet theory. | ||
| I know it's kind of. | ||
| Oh, no, it's a, it's, it's my theory. | ||
| Oh, is it? | ||
| Okay, so tell me. | ||
| So the volleyball story, a lot of people don't understand. | ||
| So what is the volleyball story? | ||
| Tell us the volleyball. | ||
| I had a GOP chairman in the district, Joe Cairo, who's a sports fanatic. | ||
| Notre Dame grad, still live. | ||
| He's like 80 and he still lives in the dawn of Notre Dame. | ||
| He's, he was, he used to, what do you whistle like referee, I guess, games until he got injured so he couldn't, but he still goes to the games. | ||
| Very big football thing. | ||
| Every second word out of his mouth is a sports analogy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't like football. | ||
| I go to watch baseball, but I don't understand the plays too much, but I enjoy the sport. | ||
| It's all American, right? | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| I know everything about volleyball, but I've never really played because I never really went to college. | ||
| So I said, I'm just going to make up. | ||
| I went to college, played volleyball, and I can have some sports analogies and he'll like me. | ||
| And it worked. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| It was supposed to be a little white lie just to create proximity with one guy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But then he started talking about how I was a volleyball star. | |
| I'm like, fuck. | ||
| This went completely. | ||
| And then I literally started Googling like, oh, Baruch played Harvard. | ||
| They beat them. | ||
| I'm like, that's all I could think of. | ||
| You know, sadly, it's the truth. | ||
| You know, like, I fucked up. | ||
| I fell into the, there's no such thing as a white lie, Tucker. | ||
| I think that's true. | ||
| There's no such thing. | ||
| There's no white little lie. | ||
| Just so no, you don't hurt feeling. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| The truth is imperative because I am, I went from being known by my friends as being a blunt asshole to becoming liar, liar, pants on fire. | ||
| And it's so shocking. | ||
| Some of my friends tell me that. | ||
| They're like, George, how do you go from being the guy who would eviscerate people to their face to now being called a liar? | ||
| I'm like, I don't know. | ||
| You think that politics? | ||
| Bruce volleyball. | ||
| My favorite was you had said, or you were perceived to have said. | ||
| I don't have no idea what you actually said, but people would say he pretended to work at Goldman Sachs and he didn't as if working at Goldman Sachs was something to be proud of. | ||
| So that was another thing that's hilarious to me. | ||
| Like they're mad that you didn't work at Goldman Sachs. | ||
| Like what? | ||
| That's where Tulsi actually really got me. | ||
| And I tried to explain. | ||
| And then I said, it's just going to go everybody's head. | ||
| I worked for a company and we contracted work with them for the sake of embellishing. | ||
| And everybody embellishes a resume. | ||
| That's an actual fact. | ||
| I'm not saying you should, but everybody likes to make them feel a little bit more important. | ||
| So I put it on there. | ||
| Oh my God, that was so bad. | ||
| Oh, big mistake. | ||
| Never embellish. | ||
| For me, never embellish. | ||
| Well, I'm so grateful you didn't work at Goldman Sachs. | ||
| In fact, you should get a tattoo that says, I did not work at Goldman Sachs. | ||
| Just to brag about it. | ||
| Citigroup. | ||
| Can you imagine? | ||
| Can you imagine anything more shameful? | ||
| It's today, actually, I'm embarrassed to ever had said that. | ||
| Like thinking to myself today, I'm like, of all things to lie or to embellish, why would I embellish? | ||
| No, because if you were like an OnlyFans performer or just like a straight group, just more honest streetwalker, you could at least say like, I ran out of money, whatever. | ||
| But if you work at Citibank or Goldman, like it's hard to explain. | ||
| Like, I wouldn't want one of my children to come home and say, I took a job at Goldman. | ||
| I would be really upset. | ||
| No, I don't blame you. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| No, no, I don't blame you. | ||
| It's like working for BlackRock and Blackstone. | ||
| It's these mega corporations are part of the problems we have. | ||
| I completely agree. | ||
| So, but you think that making a mockery of what the rest of them pretend to hold sacred is what made them hate you? | ||
| I exposed the theater. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And you know, it's funny. | ||
| And I say this because I, do you know when you look up to someone really well, like, and you're like, this is a stand-up guy. | ||
| This is somebody I admire. | ||
| And for me, that was Ryan Zinke. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Always thought he was such a stellar statesman. | ||
| It's the hat thing going on. | ||
| I think it's cool. | ||
| Former SEAL. | ||
| Former SEAL Secretary of the Interior, Congressman, just a good man. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Do you know what's the first things he said to me on the House floor once? | ||
| He's like, George, let me talk to you. | ||
| I know you're going through some stuff, but just remember this. | ||
| This is all theater. | ||
| All that matters is you have one of the best seats in the house. | ||
| I completely lost respect for him. | ||
| Like, talk about never meet your heroes. | ||
| Yeah, I know, I know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, I sat there like, oh, okay. | |
| I left so defeated that day. | ||
| I remember going back to the office. | ||
| I looked at my chief. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm like, I don't understand this place. | |
| He's like, what happened? | ||
| I said, this, this, this happened. | ||
| He's like, oh, but he's just trying to be funny. | ||
| I'm like, I didn't think it was funny. | ||
| I mean, and I, and I, I'm not, not laughing at jokes. | ||
| And that's when I started to realize it's all theater and I expose the theater. | ||
| But I mean, how long can this continue? | ||
| Does anyone there think like, okay, Congress doesn't actually make meaningful decisions? | ||
| They passed all their power to the president, the executives, the agencies. | ||
| All the power of regulation, all the real power exists outside of Congress. | ||
| They have only budgetary power, which they don't really exercise. | ||
| They don't leverage a joke and they're having sex in the basement. | ||
| Like, how long does this go on? | ||
| I don't think if Congress, I hate using this as an example because it can be viewed as an as a terrible way, but did you ever watch a show designated survivor with Keith or Sutherland? | ||
| No. | ||
| Essentially, a terrorist attack happens and a conspiracy happens in the country and the whole during a state of the union, the Capitol's blown up. | ||
| All government's wiped out. | ||
| The only person left is a designated survivor, which is a secretary of, I think, HUD. | ||
| And he becomes president of the United States, right? | ||
| And it's Keither Sutherland. | ||
| So we all get crappy housing. | ||
| We all move to the same state. | ||
| Well, what that show shows you, I'm not advocating for that, but what that show kind of shows you is Congress was so broken that when they have the clean slate, they bring this whole, I got goosebumps talking about this, but I think what we generally need is a shakeup. | ||
| We need to clean house Republican, Democrat, everyone. | ||
| I mean, it's bad enough we have senators like Chuck Grassley, who are like four generations removed from the actual bulk of the working for workforce in America today, who's what, under 40, under 45. | ||
| Chuck Grassley's almost 90 and he's talking about potentially running for reelection. | ||
| I don't know that he'll do that, but understand that. | ||
| And I love Chuck Grassley. | ||
| Me too. | ||
| Tons of sacrifices, but we need to learn how to let go. | ||
| We can't all Diane Feinstein it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And may she rest in peace. | |
| She was a trailblazer in her own right. | ||
| I disagree with her, but she was a strong woman, went to Congress, became a senator, whatever. | ||
| I disagree with her policies, but she served her country in the best way she thought she did. | ||
| But why are we letting these people die in office? | ||
| It's like watching Joe Biden. | ||
| It was elder abuse. | ||
| The whole presidency was elder abuse. | ||
| Why are we doing this to our country? | ||
| At what cost is this coming? | ||
| So I think we need a reset, a great American reset. | ||
| And that means everybody needs to just not run for reelection. | ||
| I don't care if you're a freshman today. | ||
| We just need a real reset. | ||
| I try to convince them to pass a bill that would say every Congress, if that Congress fails, and it's not my bill, but if that Congress fails to balance the budget, which is its sole duty and obligation, every member therefore would be ineligible for reelection. | ||
| I was laughed at by every single person I propose this to. | ||
| I bet you were. | ||
| I was laughed at. | ||
| I mean, we were promised term limits, which I support. | ||
| I have some issues with it because the moment you pass term limits, you're handicapping the choice of the people and deferring the power to staff, which is dangerous. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| It's a very dangerous move. | ||
| So there needs to be provisions in term limits that also move on to staff and what capacity they can serve for how long, because we already have an issue with staff in DC, which is what? | ||
| Lobbyists whine and dine committee directors more often than they do members. | ||
| Do you know why? | ||
| They slip in the pork. | ||
| Because they make the decisions. | ||
| And nobody knows. | ||
| Members aren't reading bills unless you're Thomas Massey and Chip Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nobody's reading bills. | |
| I did. | ||
| They don't read them. | ||
| No, I did. | ||
| Do you know why? | ||
| I had no committees. | ||
| I was bored. | ||
| Why does she have no committees? | ||
| I stepped down from committee assignments because I genuinely believed it would really hurt the work of the committee. | ||
| Tucker, I had a tale of 60 reporters at days harassing. | ||
| So you, I, I'm so, and pardon my aging memory. | ||
| You were under. | ||
| So you get elected in 22. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| You came in January 23 and you're out by December 23. | ||
| So that means 11 months. | ||
| 11 months. | ||
| And you got there and you were already in the middle of the swarm. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| For I had been already 10 days since the New York Times story broke. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| So when I showed up, you don't understand. | ||
| There's a video of me. | ||
| I look like Dora the Explorer. | ||
| I had a book bag. | ||
| I like wearing book bags, but this particular one was from my 2020 election that I almost got elected in and the absentee ballots reversed the result. | ||
| Long story. | ||
| So it was the House GOP conference one. | ||
| And I said, on my first day this time around, I'm going to wear that dumb bag. | ||
| So I had the book bag on my back, like literally like first day at school kind of like vibe. | ||
| Had my staff with me and we're walking to my office when we turned the corner, at least 50 reporters, cameras. | ||
| I forgot what they're called, those bigger cameras that do live feeds. | ||
| I mean, you wouldn't believe it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We couldn't open our door without tripping over reporters. | |
| And this was from the very first day. | ||
| January 3rd. | ||
| Damn. | ||
| And then if you go back to the speaker's vote as we're going through all those rounds, you would think that I was the main subject of the vote because C-SPAN cameras were all, if I moved all the cameras, I remember joking, Matt Gates is like, George Santos moved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know where he's sitting because the cameras are pointing in that direction. | |
| I don't know if it was mad or if it was large. | ||
| Somebody said that. | ||
| Actually, I don't think it was Matt. | ||
| I think it was someone else who said it. | ||
| But it was like the cameras kept moving in whichever, which direction I went. | ||
| Like if you go back to the coverage of the speaker's vote, it's like me plastered everywhere in a very uncomfortable way. | ||
| Like I was scratching my nose and people said I was picking my nose. | ||
| I'm like, I'm scratching my nose. | ||
| Do you think there's anything a Democratic member of Congress could do to get expelled? | ||
| Do you think 100 Republicans would vote for the expulsion of a Democrat for anything? | ||
| I mean, it would assault somebody in their state. | ||
| Look, I reject the notion of expulsion. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I wrote a piece recently and I ran it on the South Shore Press on the case of La Monica McIverson. | ||
| I reject any notion of expelling her. | ||
| I think she needs to be afforded due process. | ||
| Obviously. | ||
| Just because you set bad precedent with me doesn't mean one size fits all. | ||
| And that gets people a little like off guard when I say that because they would think I want to see everybody expelled. | ||
| No, I believe in the Constitution. | ||
| I believe in due process. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| She needs to have due process. | ||
| The people rule. | ||
| They'll decide who serves her. | ||
| She acted like a thug, don't get me wrong, outside that ICE facility. | ||
| I couldn't agree more. | ||
| But she has due process. | ||
| That's exactly right. | ||
| And Alina Hobb is delivering it. | ||
| So in the end, you were the DOJ was as tough on you, the Democrat-controlled DOJ, as some of your Republican colleagues. | ||
| I mean, Merrick Garland supervised this case directly. | ||
| Directly? | ||
| Directly. | ||
| I mean, my attorneys were talking to the DOJ attorneys and they say, okay, we got to go back to the AG and see if this works. | ||
| Damn. | ||
| And so that's a lot. | ||
| It's a lot of pressure. | ||
| Now, I understand probably why I'm a city member of Congress. | ||
| So that's that kind of checks, but you would think that that would be more hands-off once I was expelled. | ||
| It continued the same. | ||
| Everything was run through the AG. | ||
| They had zero agency. | ||
| The one thing that brings cause for pause is the amount of discrepancies throughout this entire process I had. | ||
| Exculpatory evidence being withheld for 14 months, significant, not just nominal, significant exculpatory evidence being withheld for 14 months. | ||
| Motions ignoring Supreme Court rulings. | ||
| I mean, we go, it's a laundry list. | ||
| I'm being forced, Tucker, to pay Back $200 and somewhat dollar, $200 and somewhat odd thousand dollars back to the NRCC. | ||
| Money that I've never seen. | ||
| It was used towards my campaign. | ||
| And the NRCC in its own admission says they would have spent the money. | ||
| That's the bare minimum they spend anyway because my polling numbers were good. | ||
| The DOJ says they only spend it under false pretenses because I said I was something I was not. | ||
| So NRCC is not National Republican Campaign Committee is not asking you this. | ||
| But I'm being forced. | ||
| But DOJ is requiring it. | ||
| Is forcing me because they needed that number in order to get the points higher to get to the 87-month sentence. | ||
| Oh, it's also grotesque. | ||
| By the way, I forgot to ask you, what did your colleagues think of Trump? | ||
| Like behind the scenes? | ||
| What did they say about Dr. Trump? | ||
| Oh, I love seeing the fakery. | ||
| You know, if I got a dollar for every time I heard somebody say, he's not going to get elected. | ||
| This is nonsense. | ||
| We need to move on from him. | ||
| I'd be a billionaire. | ||
| Be able to pay your legal fees. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I probably wouldn't be going to prison. | ||
| You feel the fraudulence, you know? | ||
| So, I mean, look, Mark Green is one, the chairman of the homeland, who's now stepping down because he's doing some gold deal in Guyana, but is still serving while he's negotiated employment terms. | ||
| Don't even get me started on that one. | ||
| He's negotiating a gold deal in Guyana while still in Congress? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And he's notified the ethics committee according to his own public statements and everything is kosher. | ||
| They're aware that I've already have employment terms secured. | ||
| I'm like, you're lobbying for a new job while still holding a position of public trust? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's, that's per se freaking criminal. | |
| I would say. | ||
| I mean, what are we doing? | ||
| So, so, you know, you have him, you have so many fraudsters there. | ||
| Like on President Trump has about a good three dozen real allies in the house. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Like that's about a real three dozen real allies, like Elise Stephonic, Marjorie, Laura. | ||
| Those are his allies. | ||
| The rest, they're just as dumbfounded as probably the Democrats are that he got elected. | ||
| And they don't like him. | ||
| They don't like him. | ||
| And they're fake. | ||
| They're very fake. | ||
| And it's this posturing. | ||
| And it's painful because I know some of the guys who work for President Trump who vet this crap and they know. | ||
| Obviously, they need to play nice or else they're going to stall his agenda. | ||
| So I'm not here to tell the president to go scorch earth on them, but I just want him to know, you know, there's a lot of fake people there, people who were literally trashing him. | ||
| I mean, it just. | ||
| What do you think Mike Johnson thinks of him? | ||
| I mean, look, I'll say this about Mike. | ||
| I know Mike is a supporter because he was in his expo. | ||
| He was in the courtroom. | ||
| Well, not just the courtroom. | ||
| Forget that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can tell you a bunch of those who showed up there who really care for Trump. | |
| He was in his impeachment defense team, right? | ||
| So first term, if you're putting yourself in that position, you care for the guy. | ||
| Like Lee Zeldon cares for him. | ||
| I think President Trump's biggest allies are already around him, with the exception of Elise, who I kind of feel got a raw deal with what happens or she should be the U.N. ambassador. | ||
| Yeah, I don't understand what that was about. | ||
| It's backstabbing. | ||
| I mean, Elise is a knife holder. | ||
| She's the new knife holder in Congress. | ||
| Everybody backstabbed at her on that. | ||
| That wasn't by design. | ||
| That was purposefully done to hurt her. | ||
| And I think it's really wrong what they did to Elise. | ||
| Who did it, do you think? | ||
| Look, the speaker I know lobbied begging for him to stop pulling from the house and ask him to reconsider Elise. | ||
| And I have that on good authority. | ||
| I mean, nobody gave me receipts, but I spoke to enough people. | ||
| Once you hear something from more than three people and it's the same exact words, you start believing that it's credible. | ||
| And I think that's the standard for reporting, right? | ||
| Yeah, it was a standard in life. | ||
| You don't need to give me a receipt or a text message or a recorded phone call because if three different people within a specific spectrum, right, in DC, all were able to convert. | ||
| And I didn't just hear it from three. | ||
| I heard it from about four or five. | ||
| And they all said the same thing that the speaker was asking him to reconsider because he was concerned about what was going to happen in her primary up there for in her special election up there. | ||
| I believe he's culpable. | ||
| And that's why I believe he bought back the position of the chair of the conference, the chair of leadership, you know, because it's guilt. | ||
| Again, I'm not accusing him of anything to Fray. | ||
| No, I get it. | ||
| I'm just explaining that math is hard. | ||
| And this math was simple. | ||
| If she left and that special election went to hell, that meant we wouldn't have one more seat. | ||
| And that would have made things even more tight. | ||
| I don't think that's crazy. | ||
| I mean, that seems like a totally legitimate explanation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And rumors are she's very unhappy as she should be. | |
| I would be a bull with tits. | ||
| I would see red everywhere I go. | ||
| I don't know how she's still smiling on camera. | ||
| I'd just be sour pussy. | ||
| People enjoy serving in the house. | ||
| Some do. | ||
| I did. | ||
| Despite everything, it was an honor of a lifetime. | ||
| I don't think I'd ever do it again because I don't think there's anything happening there that I think I can be more effective out here than in there, you know, educating people on how it works and how dirty it is. | ||
| Cause I still have, I will, I will be well sourced in the House for at least another decade and a half, right? | ||
| With time, it dwindles down, but I will be well sourced at least with for a decade and a half. | ||
| A lot of people who came in this Congress, I already knew them too from trying previously or just from knowing them from, you know, the MAGA world. | ||
| So again, there's always that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's some people who enjoy it. | |
| I enjoyed it very much. | ||
| It was an honor of a lifetime. | ||
| I'm a people person. | ||
| I love helping people. | ||
| It's something I enjoy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that job gave me the official authority to help people. | |
| And I found it very fun. | ||
| I mean, I had Wednesdays, I would answer calls in my office. | ||
| Again, remember Tucker, I had no committee assignments. | ||
| So it was pretty free. | ||
| So I started answering phone calls every Wednesday. | ||
| Just like pick up the phone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pick up the phone. | |
| The phone rang. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd just be like, Office of Congressman George Santos, how can I help you? | |
| Who's this? | ||
| I'm like, this is a congressman. | ||
| No way. | ||
| You pick up your own phone. | ||
| Well, everybody abandoned. | ||
| I'm like, no, everybody's busy. | ||
| The phone was ringing and I'm available. | ||
| How can I help you? | ||
| People would be so shocked Because a lot of these times it was just agitators calling to nag. | ||
| And I'm like, how can I help you? | ||
| Well, you know, Congressman, listen, I take great issue with you, but I'm actually shocked you answered your own phone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm like, I mean, what's wrong with answering your own phone? | |
| I'm not a lord with a pointy hat sitting on a throne. | ||
| I'm like, I answer my own phone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I would have very interesting conversations. | |
| I regularly, when I was not in DC, I kept a schedule of nine to five in my district office. | ||
| I showed up to work every day. | ||
| And my staff, my chief of staff would find that so strange being a veteran on the Hill. | ||
| And even my district director, who worked for Lee Selden previously for four terms, eight years, found that very odd. | ||
| Like, sir, you don't have to be here. | ||
| Do you have any events, any public agenda? | ||
| I'm like, no, but I'm on paper. | ||
| I'm on, I'm on the clock. | ||
| I'm getting paid. | ||
| So what can I do to help? | ||
| And they'd sit there very uncomfortable. | ||
| I mean, I'm the principal and I'm sitting there and it's a small space and just like all stiff on the computer. | ||
| I'm like, guys, you can act normal. | ||
| Please don't pretend you're busy. | ||
| Cause if you're not busy, then that means you're ahead on the work. | ||
| But if you, if you're backed up, let me help. | ||
| And I did constituent work. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I totally loved it. | ||
| People would walk by be like, you actually show up? | ||
| I'm like, yeah, come on in. | ||
| You want some water? | ||
| I got Diet Coke in the back. | ||
| I got snacks. | ||
| I kept a hefty stockpile of snacks on the taxpayer dime because it was for the taxpayer. | ||
| What kind of snacks? | ||
| Pirate booties was a big favorite. | ||
| Pirate booties. | ||
| It's like an organic puff of, I don't, I think it's an organic popcorn. | ||
| I'm very conscience about labels. | ||
| So seed oils or those things are no-no. | ||
| No, no extreme dyes. | ||
| So I'm like very in line with the Maha movement, right? | ||
| In Congress, I compared a Dana Nutrition Facts label from America, yogurt, and one from Europe. | ||
| Europe has five ingredients. | ||
| The American one, and for strawberry yogurt, the American one had everything but strawberries and like 19 ingredients. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So at least. | |
| So I would keep a lot of pirate booties and some Hershey kisses. | ||
| Try to keep it really fun for people. | ||
| I saw over here, you keep dry fruit. | ||
| I'm a big dry fruit guy. | ||
| I like dry fruit. | ||
| I love dry fruit. | ||
| I don't know if it's good for you, but I like it. | ||
| Mango dry fruit, the best. | ||
| Did you ever see the brand peeled? | ||
| Yeah, we've got some over there. | ||
| It's so good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I buy that by the bags. | |
| I love it. | ||
| I don't know that it's really good for you, but it's really high fructose for sure, but so good. | ||
| Yeah, I like it too much, so I know it's not good. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Anything I like, it's not good. | ||
| That's kind of me. | ||
| So you're going away in 24 days. | ||
| I asked you off camera that I know a million people going to prison. | ||
| I know more people going to prison than most people. | ||
| And I always ask everybody the same, like, you don't think you deserve the sentence. | ||
| You think you got screwed in your case. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| My first time offender. | ||
| No, it's, it's nuts. | ||
| I wasn't even given those credits. | ||
| So why not? | ||
| I mean, if they're, if the system's not going to be fair, then why do you have to play along with the system? | ||
| Why don't you just split? | ||
| I'm proud. | ||
| I'm extremely proud. | ||
| I'd rather go down with the ship. | ||
| Like the same way that I said put up or shut up and didn't leave and didn't quit. | ||
| I don't run. | ||
| I don't split. | ||
| And I could, right? | ||
| And that's why they called me a flight risk and they sequestered my passports because I'm a dual citizen by birth, but I was born here, but my parents are, you know, legal immigrants to this country. | ||
| And I from where? | ||
| Brazil. | ||
| And through my grandparents, I also am legally a Belgium citizen. | ||
| So they sequestered my documents and all of that. | ||
| And here we are. | ||
| But you never seriously considered stowing away to Antwerp. | ||
| Inquire, reach out. | ||
| The RAG reached out. | ||
| I was still in office and saying that he had gotten a tip that I was planning to flee. | ||
| And this was like, I want to say June of 2023, that he had multiple sources confirming that I had plans to flee in a private jet and I was going to split the country. | ||
| And I was, I had just been indicted probably a month earlier. | ||
| And I called my comm director told me this. | ||
| I said, let's call this guy. | ||
| I put all my lawyers on the line, put the call on speaker, called him from my office phone. | ||
| I had my chief of staff, my, my, um, communications director, my deputy chief of staff, my operations director, and my, my senior advisor all sitting in the room. | ||
| And I said, hi, how can I help you? | ||
| Oh, Congressman, this is Enquirer. | ||
| I'm the chief editor, forgot the loser's name, could care less. | ||
| And he says, I have on good authority that you're planning to flee in a week or two in a private jet that you arranged. | ||
| I'm going to keep it PG here, but I said, and who told you this marvelous story, Mary Poppins? | ||
| You effing inbred? | ||
| Like, and then it went from there. | ||
| And I said, I dare you to publish it. | ||
| I will sue you. | ||
| I will bankrupt. | ||
| I will own your fucking rag. | ||
| And my, my attorney is on my ear. | ||
| He's like, Congressman, that's not, no, no, no, you're provoking him. | ||
| And then I'm like, and furthermore, I will hunt down your entire goddamn sorry lineage. | ||
| Fucking do it. | ||
| I dared him. | ||
| It never happened. | ||
| I hung up. | ||
| The entire staff goes to me. | ||
| It's like, that's not how this call was supposed to go. | ||
| I'm like, you know what? | ||
| I'm tired of playing by whatever recommendations you guys. | ||
| Well, I mean, a call like that from a journalist is almost always inspired by a call to him from somebody else. | ||
| He's doing the bidding of somebody else. | ||
| They're like, DOJ is encouraging this, right? | ||
| They want the story to be out there that you're considering fleeing the country so they can. | ||
| Just like CNN was informed that I was indicted before I was. | ||
| No way. | ||
| Two hours before we were notified of the indictment, my attorney, Joseph Murray, got a call from CNN saying, hey, I heard George Hanches is indicted. | ||
| What are you doing? | ||
| And he's like, I'm sorry. | ||
| This is news to me. | ||
| The guy goes silent. | ||
| Two hours later, he's like, hey, now I know you've been notified that he's been indicted. | ||
| And my attorney is like, what is going on? | ||
| CNN knew two hours prior to me getting indicted. | ||
| So disgusting. | ||
| How do you feel about it? | ||
| I mean, looking at this long stretch. | ||
| Tucker, can I be honest with you? | ||
| You will. | ||
| I don't know that I survive it. | ||
| They're putting me in a violent prison. | ||
| It's a medium facility. | ||
| I'm not a streetwise guy. | ||
| I don't know how to fight. | ||
| I'm a gay man. | ||
| statistics tell you what happens to gay men in prison. | ||
| I don't know that I survive this. | ||
| I'm being honest. | ||
| I mean, I can't change that. | ||
| It's sad. | ||
| I, you know, I have a family. | ||
| I have. | ||
| Are you serious? | ||
| I am genuinely serious. | ||
| People think I'm exaggerating when I say this. | ||
| I've never had to fight a day in my life. | ||
| I grew up in a very sheltered life, apartment kid in New York City. | ||
| I don't have wilderness. | ||
| I mean, my experience in wilderness, let's call it, I like skiing, you know, but it's just not me. | ||
| I'm not that guy. | ||
| I don't know that I survived this. | ||
| I mean, I am, this could be very much my last interview. | ||
| And I'm not trying to be over dramatic here. | ||
| I'm just being honest with you. | ||
| I look at this as practically a death sentence to what could occur to me. | ||
| And we've seen this. | ||
| It's not like I'm saying something out of the ordinary. | ||
| I'm not built for this. | ||
| And I'm not saying, oh, don't, don't want to do the time. | ||
| Don't do the crime. | ||
| This isn't about this. | ||
| This is about the type of punishment. | ||
| The justice system is supposed to be reformative for people, not punitive. | ||
| This is punitive. | ||
| We're supposed to dispense justice. | ||
| This is punitive. | ||
| And justice is, of course, absolute. | ||
| Some things are absolutely right. | ||
| Others absolutely wrong. | ||
| But it's also a relative measure. | ||
| So if a rapist doesn't get seven years, then a guy who's accused of mishandling $50,000 in campaign contribution shouldn't get seven years. | ||
| Like that's just doesn't, I mean, that's part of justice, right? | ||
| That's the crux of it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| There's a scale of severity when we describe crimes. | ||
| The guy who threatened and plotted to kill Anna Luna Paulina and he had three years. | ||
| The guy who plotted to kill me got probation. | ||
| Seriously? | ||
| Serious? | ||
| It's public record. | ||
| A guy down in Florida. | ||
| I think Brevar County. | ||
| I chose not to ask for some punitive thing because he didn't actually do it or try, but he did devise a plan and notify me of the plan. | ||
| And that's why Capitol Police took action. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he didn't get any time. | |
| Rapists in New York City, in New York State, up in upstate New York, there was this guy who molested nine different children. | ||
| That's six months. | ||
| Six months. | ||
| They're sending me for seven years and three months to prison in a medium facility prison with known, with people there who are known gang members and people who are rapists, sex offenders. | ||
| I should at bare minimum be in a camp. | ||
| I'm not saying I'm special or I deserve special treatment. | ||
| It's just about I'm not a violent person. | ||
| I am a pacifist squared. | ||
| Like I don't get into physical altercations. | ||
| You can come in my face, spit the, I don't have the, I don't have this urge to be violent. | ||
| I'm not violent. | ||
| I'm a total nonviolent human being. | ||
| Hence, I'm also a very non-intraventionist type of person when it comes to war. | ||
| Sue, this is like so bonkers. | ||
| And there's nothing you can do. | ||
| The only thing I can do as a human being today is pray that my pardon application or clemency application, commutation, whatever, reaches the DOJ on time and President Trump can act on it. | ||
| That's literally the only thing I would like to do. | ||
| What do you think is advocating for you to do seven years? | ||
| Who's whispering in the president's ear that you need to serve seven years in prison? | ||
| A few people. | ||
| Can you name any? | ||
| Of course. | ||
| The county executive of Nassau County, Bruce Blakeman, the chairman of Nassau County, Joe Cairo, former Congressman Anthony Desposito, Congressman Nick LaLoda. | ||
| These people hate me. | ||
| It's vitriolic. | ||
| It's perfect. | ||
| Seven years in prison for nonviolent crime? | ||
| Some people said that it wasn't enough. | ||
| There were people actually saying they didn't think it was enough. | ||
| Congressman Laloda was cheering it on his social media. | ||
| Man, I think we should be careful before we cheer other people's destruction. | ||
| I completely agree. | ||
| That's a principle we should all remember. | ||
| I didn't cheer when they shot Osam bin Laden, and I didn't like Osama bin Laden. | ||
| I didn't cheer. | ||
| I don't cheer anyone's death. | ||
| I disagreed with killing Saddam Hussein. | ||
| I thought it was a mistake. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it turned out to be you were right on that. | |
| And it was a very unpopular take at the time. | ||
| Yeah, no, Iran controls the country. | ||
| Very, very, very. | ||
| None of the geniuses have ever apologized to that. | ||
| No, but just in general, wishing misfortune on other people, taking pleasure in the suffering of others is not, it's not a good thing to do. | ||
| It's very unwise. | ||
| It's bad karma. | ||
| Big time. | ||
| Big time. | ||
| And the world goes around. | ||
| I completely agree. | ||
| And karma comes with it and slaps you in the face. | ||
| It's almost like when you're on the merry-go-round and you have your hand out and you're slapping people. | ||
| That's karma on the world. | ||
| Totally agree. | ||
| It's pretty bad. | ||
| When I was in prison, you visited me. | ||
| That's what, you know, that's what we're commanded to. | ||
| So do you expect to be visited and by whom? | ||
| So I'm not allowed to, because I'm a high-profiler, they call celebrity status. | ||
| And they only allow family members. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't know what my technology situation is right now. | ||
| If I'm going to have access to technology, that's dicey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Two of my employers said that I can keep writing for them from prison. | |
| They don't mind. | ||
| They know that I can figure it out and, you know, which whatever access. | ||
| And that also helps me be able to maintain myself gainfully employed to continue to support and provide for my family, which I'm a big provider for them. | ||
| I don't know that that's all up in the air. | ||
| It's they only start talking to you two weeks out. | ||
| So next week is when we start to have these conversations. | ||
| You ever looked at prison TikTok? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Huh? | |
| You ever looked at prison TikTok? | ||
| I have not. | ||
| No. | ||
| I haven't either, but I was just hearing about it the other day. | ||
| Apparently, prisoners are all over TikTok recording their thoughts and music videos and stuff from prison. | ||
| The last thing I want to do is get caught with a phone and add more time. | ||
| That's exactly right. | ||
| Last question. | ||
| What are you doing to prepare psychologically? | ||
| I've tried everything. | ||
| I went off. | ||
| I went on a hiatus. | ||
| I haven't done media until last week when Mandami, I was on a six-week media hiatus and Chanel Rian from OAN had me to, I love Chanel. | ||
| And I said, you know what? | ||
| I'll give you one last. | ||
| We'll do a last one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And then when one of your production folks called me, I said, I answered the phone and I said her name. | ||
| And she's like, you have my phone number saved. | ||
| I'm like, of course I would. | ||
| I don't want to say her name because I don't want to dox her. | ||
| So she's like, can you do it? | ||
| I'm like, look, I can do it. | ||
| Last time you agreed to do my show, it didn't go well. | ||
| I told her that. | ||
| Sorry, sorry, sorry. | ||
| So I said, no fill-ins, right? | ||
| No surprises. | ||
| But all kidding aside, she was wonderful. | ||
| And we found, this was Thursday, and here we are today, Monday. | ||
| It's because I was having this conversation with somebody who knows you. | ||
| I was right here on this barn like last week. | ||
| And George said, I was talking to George Santos. | ||
| I said, how's George Santos doing? | ||
| And he's doing seven years. | ||
| I was like, what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Couldn't even, I'm so out of it. | ||
| And I'm just, and I've been so focused on Iran and I'm embarrassed. | ||
| I didn't fully get it. | ||
| Seven years federal? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Which means like seven years. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I said to this person, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. | ||
| Yeah, it is. | ||
| Has this gotten a lot of attention? | ||
| Not really. | ||
| No. | ||
| I haven't. | ||
| I mean, the day I got sentenced, they, they've, they wrote little, you know, oh, he sobbed in court. | ||
| You damn right I sobbed in court. | ||
| Seven years of my life. | ||
| I mean, a big thing, I'm 36. | ||
| I'm going to be 37 on July 22nd. | ||
| And three days later, I have to turn myself into federal prison for seven years. | ||
| So once the pinata party is over, once they've, you know, finished destroying you, knocking this stuffing out of you, they just, it's just, no one cares what happens next. | ||
| Your name is never spoken again. | ||
| Well, we'll be here. | ||
| And I hope you are rescued before you have to serve the time. | ||
| And I hope that if you're not, that it's redemptive. | ||
| And I hope either way you'll come back. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| George Santos, good to see you. | ||
| Dr. Carlson, thank you for having me. | ||
| So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show. | ||
| On one level, that's not surprising. | ||
| That's what they do. | ||
| But on another level, it's shocking. | ||
| With everything that's going on in the world right now, all the change taking place in our economy and our politics, with the wars on the cusp of fighting right now, Google has decided you should have less information rather than more. | ||
| And that is totally wrong. | ||
| It's immoral. | ||
| 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 is true, not intentionally deceptive. | ||
| The way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel. | ||
| Subscribe. | ||
| Hit the little bell icon to be notified when we upload and share this video. | ||
| That way you'll have a much higher chance of hearing actual news and information. |
Export Selection