So last time we talked was a year ago and you somehow look younger.

I feel I look like my father.

Worn out and fatter. I've been on the road for too long, but first day of Lent I'm getting right now. But anyway, it's been a year since we talked about this. And last time we talked, I think you were still like, and I probably was too little off balance from being vomited out of television world into the great beyond. But I was thinking about you this morning. And I was thinking, I bet he's really grateful he's not at CNN now.

So it gives me no particular joy to say this, but you were right about it. Well, okay. Don't get used to it. It's the last time you'll hear it in this con. You said, give it time. Embrace doing what you're doing and don't look for the acceptance of where you were.

Yes.

And that was really good advice. It's not easy to do, but News Nation has been what I would call a blessing in my life. I didn't know it at the time and like, so my brother's running for mayor. My bosses and of course they had the benefit of going to school on what happened with me at cnn. Yeah. But the embrace the willingness and acceptance of, wow, this is great for your family, you know, this is great for your brother. We're excited for you guys. I, like, I thought it was like a test, you know, that if I seemed okay about that, they'd be like, aha, we knew. We. And the difference, the change of one conversation, of them saying, well, we're with you. We support you. And I said, well, I'm going to just tell the audience, though, I'm not going to cover the race, obviously, because I'd have a conflict. And they were like, yeah, duh. Of. They know that if you feel like you have to say it, say it. And I realized, wow, they really believe in what I'm doing here and supporting me.

I love that.

And so there's just a really profound gratitude.

So there's not this weird hypocrisy where they encourage you to have your brother on because he's famous in the news is what CNN did to you. From my perspective watching, they encourage you, hey, Chris, call your brother, have him on. And then like a year later, like, oh, wait, you were talking to your brother. You're fired. Yeah, like, it's too fake.

Look, as we both know, in every business and especially in ours, you do what you have to do to protect yourself. And if it's you know, if it's me or you, and I put myself in a position where I was vulnerable, then it's going to be me. And that's what happened. And I accept it. I don't blame cnn. This was really about two people making decisions about my life, not the organization. I miss the people. I wish the place well. That is all true. But I have a connection with News Nation and these guys where I am anxious to bleed for them. I am excited about putting it all on the line every day anywhere in the world because, because of my upbringing and my disposition. When I know you're there for me when you don't need to be. It is not necessarily, you know, there are a lot of big names that you could grab in the media right now. For News Nation to give me the chance and to let me do it and to support me and to support me when Andrew decides that he's got to be in public service, can't put a price on it, could never be grateful enough.

So from a year ago until today, I now know that. And there is something comforting about that. It's an ugly business. It's an ugly time.

The ugliest business.

All the wrong things are being rewarded, but I'm in the right place for me.

It's funny, I don't want to spend two hours beating up on the media because everyone hates them already, but it is. It's been almost two years for me since I haven't worked in the media. And it's weird how you, when you do work there for your whole life, you just accept that like, yeah, everyone lies all the time and it's totally treacherous and people who claim to be your friends actually hate you. And every dispute is settled with a lawyer. It's like just, oh, it's so disgusting. But you just accept that's like the way things work. But that's not how things work outside.

The media, nowhere else in your life. You know, it's part of politics and media. Right. They're certainly related, if not married. And I think that the biggest frustration, the. Look, you and I both know there are lots of great men and women who do the job for the right reasons. But as a culture, it's okay in the media for me to destroy you by a standard that I would never want imposed on me. And there is something that is really dangerous about when, well, I don't want you to know about my life. But you we're going after 100% and that dichotomy, let's call it that Paradox is really what's hypocrisy. Yes. And it's really dangerous. And look, unfortunately it works so well. You know, if, if I were to cover you in any situation and put a positive spin on it. That's a puff piece. It's weak. Cuomo's been red pilled. He got bought up by that preppy, smiley chucklehead. And if I then say, well, sat with Tucker and as I knew it, devil spawn. Oh, that was a hard hitting piece. You know, he really came at him.

Such children.

The commodity is negativity. If you want to be a hard journalist, you better say something negative about somebody. It's a proxy for insight.

I just interviewed the bank been freed yesterday from jail. It hasn't aired yet, but. And I actually really enjoyed the conversation. And about five minutes in I was like, oh, shit. I haven't asked him a single mean question about his business. Well, he's in jail for 25 years. So I thought, I don't really need to make the case that he did something wrong. A jury's already, you know, already decided that. And I think it's okay just like have a conversation with the guy. I don't. And then I thought, well, I'll probably be criticized for sucking up to Sam Bankman Fried. And I thought, I don't care, actually.

Well, look, you're in a unique position, right, because one, you have no boss. Two, the media is already not looking to be a friend to you.

But you don't think so.

So you don't have to, you don't have to impress anybody. And you can.

I'm not going to win them over. Margaret Brennan's not going to text me, Congratulations.

You can do whatever you want to do. And there's, and there's a lot of freedom in that. And of course their challenges of you having to support yourself and find opportunities and build your own infrastructure. You know, there's a lot of entrepreneurial stuff that you and I never had to deal with before, that's for sure. So you can just have a conversation with him. Because the media doesn't know what to do with digital and independent media. The instinct was to disrespect it.

Oh, of course, right.

Marginalize it. And I think on a reporting level, that's still safe ground. I mean, what's popping on digital media isn't investigative reporting per se. There are some Taibi Schellenberger stuff like that. But Barry Weiss at the Free Press. But it's mostly hot takes. But now that we're realizing in our Society and I'm very excited about it. Power is shifting back to people and from institutions and that's really uncomfortable for some people. Yes. I think the Democrats are in a weird place where they seem like. Which is such anathema as Mario Cuomo's kid. He was so anti establishment. But they seem pro establishment defenders of the status quo. And I think that's a really dangerous place to be right now because I think power is shifting towards being disruptive of institutions and of the elites in a very real way. And. And digital media is much better positioned to be empowered by that than what they're now calling legacy media. I don't buy into that as a pejorative, but I see it and I see that people are really open to getting a div. Two things are happening at the same time. Siloed, absolutely. But also people are realizing that they can reach out and get different versions of events and takes on things in a way that they couldn't before.

And I think that's really exciting. And the media doesn't know what to do with it.

It's amazing. And I think the most influential people in media, I think you have to put Rogan at the top of that kind of don't work for anybody. And it's just so interesting. If you look at the ads on Margaret Brennan show, it's like Nissan and Joe Rogan, it's like prostate health cures. It's like the whole. Guys like Rogan have become rich, famous, influential, completely outside. Yes, the conventional.

Certainly Rogan, certainly Rogan.

But all of them, I mean all of. Megyn Kelly is enormously influential. I haven't seen her ads, but like.

But she's still corporate backed, right? She's Sirius xm. She was Fox, as you well know, didn't work for her at NBC, which really wasn't a surprise to anybody in there. You know, it's being a network Anchorage, being a storyteller, being a host that is accommodative of broad audiences that are looking to be inoffensive. Yes, that's a very different skill set that she clearly was going to struggle with. So I wasn't surprised by that. But she's Sirius XM now. Rogan is Spotify, but he built that all himself.

But you're wondering though, but still, I mean, Rogan is, you know, in some sense like bigger than Spot, where he could leave Spotify. I think Megan, I was surprised he took the deal.

I was surprised he took the.

Gives him a lot of freedom. But here's my question. You see every kind of mid sized independent business in America getting scooped up by private equity. So every veterinary practice, every dental offices, cemetery associations, like there is this inexorable trend toward like conglomerates.

Yes.

Small independents getting scooped up by some big umbrella group. That's going to happen in media, I.

Would think, we are presently realizing. So there was that big wave of deals that you and I missed in the podcast space where people were just throwing money to have a footprint in it. Right. Rogan was the biggest of those deals. Right. But then it went away and when I got into it, I'm all self financed because, well, I was damaged goods. But people weren't looking to just throw money at a podcast because no one was making money on those deals. It was like relearning the Howard Stern lesson that they paid him all that money at SiriusXM. And it's like, you know, what was the yield? Now different people are starting to buy a podcasts that are traditional media companies and they are the seed capital behind the private equity behind those organizations are starting to buy up these properties.

Again, it freaks me out because the reason independent media are credible is because they're independent.

Yes.

They're not controlled.

Yes. Now I struggle with that a little bit. That absolutely can be true. And again, Taibi Shellenberger. Okay.

Yeah.

But I don't dismiss. And Barry Weiss, I don't like leaving her out. Free Press is a really cool thing that she's building there. And I like that she's able to do something that I never saw at a news organization before, which is she's decidedly pro Israel. Okay. She's Jewish and beyond her own cultural and religious affinity, she has an ideological one and she owns it and she's out there for it. You may disagree. That's okay. But you know, whereas what the world that you and I grew up in, media wise, they had all these opinions, but you'd never know it, you know what I mean? You'd have to glean it from what you saw on camera. Nobody ever came out and said it, you know, that we think that this is right. We think this is wrong. Very, very rarely. So what I like about it is I believe that there's space for all of it. Okay. When I got into this business 25 years ago, they told me, you know, network news is dead. Right. The number one show on television is World News Tonight. So the idea that it's dead, it's not dead, it's just changing and there's stratification.

But I do think there's a challenge afoot. People in every different platform have to reconnect with their constituency. Trust is at an all time low with every kind of institution now within that is a burden for the media, but also an opportunity. That's why I'm so excited that I may have been in the wrong place at other phases in my career, but I'm in the right place right now because like, News Nation is like one pebble on the beach at a time of, hey, everybody's going crazy about this, not us. Tariffs are kind of scary and they can hurt prices. But Trump does this and he's looking to get something done. Let's not microanalyze him saying tariffs like this is definitely going happen this way forever. And let's see what happens. News Nation, we're allowed to do that. Most outlets have to pick a side. Tariffs, best thing in the world like Fox News.

Tariffs are great.

We can't wait. This is going to be great. It's going to unleash the economy, get rid of the income tax, msnbc. This is the worst. It's going to crush the economy. You got to have a take. You got to have a side. News Nation is able to harness the independent mentality of there's a plus minus on this. Right? And we're going to have to see here, right? There's going to have to be some patience, right? And I love that space. It's harder, it's way harder than saying I hate Trump or Trump was sent by Jehovah. You know, those are much easier positions. But I believe in the potential.

Well, honesty is kind of the, kind of the point. I mean, I think you should be allowed to arrive at whatever conclusion you sincerely arrive at and you should be able to tell people that that's your job. And if you work at a place where like, you know that you can't say something you believe is true, it's the wrong place for you.

I agree. But look, we're benefiting from the change.

Do you feel that there are things that you, is an unfair question to ask you with the cameras going, but.

It'S the only kind you ask to specialize in that.

But do you, do you feel like there are things that you can't say? Like if you came to a conclusion now, I don't mean about like some individual sex life or like nasty personal attacks, but I mean like a policy position that you came to that you would be like, I probably can't say that.

No, I'm there to say it.

So really you don't Feel like there are any red lines?

My bosses are very worried about you advancing agendas that you don't disclose now or one me. You know what I mean? Well, if you come to News Nation, then, yes, you too. But right now it's, you know, hey, look, if you feel that way, just. You better say it. Don't just stack your show with guests that are all on one side of something and then pretend you're fair. So don't do that. Yeah. Be transparent.

The same thing.

Be transparent and you may be wrong. Right. That happens often. But own it, correct it, move on. Do not hide the ball.

They really say that.

The 100%. Because also remember.

Well, I admire that. I'll just say I admire that.

News Nation is owned by a company that really knows local tv. Right. They own the most local TV stations. What has the most currency in media still? Visual media, Local news. The boss of me directly. I have like 10 bosses, starting with Dusty on up. But the. Mike Korn is an ABC News pro who did every job. So he's not a corporate guy. He was in the field. He knows how to edit. He was in the control room. He was, you know, he did all the jobs. He's written the pieces. So he knows the alchemy of journalism. So he understands when someone's faking the funk and what's transparent versus which is what is trickery. So they've got a good setup there for it. However, I'm still a Cuomo, and it was really important to me when Andrew decided he was going to run that I had to go to them and say, I work for you. What do you want me to do on this? Do you want me to. I offered. Do you want me to take a leave for dependency of the campaign? I'm not running the campaign. I'm not part of the campaign.

That's not going to happen. But if you think, you know, having lived through this before, I don't want to hurt News Nation. What you're doing is so important. Way more important than me. Do you want that? Now, obviously they said no, you're being silly and traumatized and, and. But that was helpful also.

So can. Can Andrew win?

Can he win? Yes.

So I should say I know Eric.

Adams, and I, and I, like Eric Adams, can win.

I am highly distressed by how dirty and chaotic and dangerous New York is. I'm really, really bothered. I almost don't even care about the ideology. I don't care what, you know, rent control debates or tax. I just. I just want to be safe walking down the street.

I get it.

And he doesn't seem to have been able to do that.

Well, let's defend Eric Adams, shall we?

I have. I'd like to hear.

You do, and so have I. Why your brother's running against him. That's. That's not what my family is about. If Andrew is the better choice for the voters in the primary, then he'll win. If he isn't, then a lose. And you sign up for that when you decide to get into it. Do I want him to win? Of course. He's my brother. I don't even vote in New York City. So it's. It's. You know, this is a family thing for me, but all you got to do is Google it. I believe the indictment against Eric Adams was weak sauce.

Yeah.

And yes, I heard much, much later that they had more. They never put it out. An indictment is already just probable cause. It's the lowest layer of a prosecutorial instrument.

It's totally immoral for the government at any level to impugn your character without charging you. If you have the evidence, charge me.

And they charged him, but they should have brought out whatever they said they had.

What they said is everyone looked at the indictment. It's like, wait, you accepted airline upgrades? And by the way, every member of Congress does that all the time.

I believed it was weak sauce. Now, other people disagreed with me. That's fine. But I didn't know my brother was doing anything politically when I started my coverage of Mayor Adams. And I believe Trump's deal with him is not fair to Eric. Adams should have pardoned him or dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning you can't bring them again. Because think about it, Tucker. If I had that deal with you is right now. You're fine. You do what you want to do, but we're going to reassess after this event in the future that means everything to you. And then we'll see if I'm going.

To seem a little like a leash.

And I don't think it's fair. So, you know, your criticism, your analysis of, hey, I think he should have been doing other things. My take on that is okay, and the voters will decide that, but the guy has the biggest gorilla in the world staring at him like he's food, and he's supposed to focus on his job.

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Www.merrestancespaymentscoalition.com that's, that's fair. But you know, that was later in his term. Like he, he didn't take crime seriously. Nobody did. And so my question is, let's try and take your brother and Adams out of it. If you were running for mayor of New York, what would you run on?

Free pizza.

You like it now that they're gonna.

Attack it, but now that you like it? You thought about.

I do like pizza. I obviously a lot. Too much. I've given up pizza for.

We both know the city very well, Right. New Yorkers deserve their reputation. It's a tough place. And it is a place where the rules have to mean something. It is too many people in too small a space to have anything chaotic. A little bit of a problem blows up really fast in that city. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things happen in the subway. It's like 5,000 things happen in the subway. The feel becomes magnified.

Yes.

So having grown up, right. I mean, I'm born and bred. I remember life in the 70s, and that's how people talk today. I think I could make a case that statistically it ain't the 70s in a lot of different ways, for the better. But that's how they feel. And I haven't heard this talk. I haven't seen people on the subway as I do now, unless they're in their 20s and therefore unable to look up from their screen because they've been completely destroyed by these devices. Everyone's looking around now on the subway, when you're walking on the street, eyes are up, you know people. People have their hands out, just like it was when it was in the. In the 70s. I remember people were afraid. When you say you're going to the city, people talk to you like, you need to have a plan.

Yeah.

And that's corrosive. It hurts property values. It hurts the corporate interest in being there. So New York is a place that uniquely needs to have that sense that things are under control. And that is not an easy job. Not an easy job.

Well, it just takes a fascist to do it. No, it does not. I don't mean the way that just.

Slides out of your mouth.

Fascist. Yeah, Like. Like Bloomberg. I don't mean.

I don't mean a fascist.

I don't mean fascist in, like, hating people on the basis of ethnicity or anything like that. I mean, like someone who enforces the rules and is not embarrassed about it at all. And it's just like, I'm sorry, that's against the law. We're not putting up with it. Not for one second. No, you can't. And by the way, you're smoking weed on the street. How about no. Like, no, we're not. A little bit of Singapore in New York City or. Honestly, as someone who travels a lot, I find it really embarrassing going to New York. I find the airports embarrassing. The drive in is embarrassing. I'm an American. I love my country.

LaGuardia is the number one airport, is my brother's signature achievement. LaGuardia is the number 1 airport in the country.

It's way. I don't know by what standard. I think it's way better. I agree. But like it took like 20 years to do that. It was pathetic. It's just like build a freaking airport like everyone else. It's hard.

Andrew was the only one who could get it done.

Two days ago I text my wife for this picture. I was like, this is what we could have if people would just stop being ridiculous. Well, but build something beautiful, maintain it.

I agree, but the reason I come at you about saying you need a fascist.

I shouldn't have used the word fascist. But I mean you like need like.

That'S why I'm here to speed.

You need someone who's, who's committed to protecting the weak.

Yes, but here's the difference. And I know what you mean. What I'm saying is this, and it's worth examining right now with what people are worried about with the Trump administration is it's gotta be bigger than you. The problem with FAST is it's not about you, okay? It's not about Trump, it's not about who the mayor of New York City. There's a system, there are institutions, there is law and order and you gotta work within that and you've gotta be zealous about wanting those things to work for the right people, the right way. But it can't get any bigger that for the individual.

Well, I would, I would just strongly agree with that. I'm totally opposed to cults because Bloomberg was not fascist.

He was good at using the system.

That's a term that I.

That's why he got three terms.

Yeah, look, I hate. I think it should be legal for politicians to name things after themselves. No politician should ever have anything named after himself. That's my view. Because we're paying these people, they're our servants. Why are they taking our money? To build money and spend to themselves. So I'm against all self aggrandizement by anybody actually, especially politicians. I'm just saying it's the greatest city in the greatest nation on earth and it looks like garbage, like it smells, it's dirty, it doesn't work very well. It's like it's not acceptable. Travel around the world. Not everyone lives like that.

Right.

And we don't have to. So like, let's just make it worthy of the great nation that it represents.

Look, I think there are a lot of people who feel that way. And I, I could explain it away. There are a lot of things that would be really hard to control that are at play in New York City, but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. It's how people feel. And look, I listen to my brother very carefully about this as someone other than his kids. I mean, there's nobody that Andrew matters more to than me. Andrew raised me. He's not just my brother. He's 13 years older than I am. Everything I'm into are all his hobbies and attributes because he taught me all these things. My father was so committed to public service that he was away a lot. When I was young, he was in Albany and we were in Queens. So Andrew taught me how to throw a ball, taught me how to ride a bike, taught me how to tackle, taught me how to defend myself, taught me why, why you're there for your family and how. Taught me about why you got to keep the driveway clean and how to work on cars. Like all these things.

How to fish, how to boat, all these things was my, was my brother. So I am really, really attached to him and his well being. And when you hear someone that you love and care about say, I think I'm gonna go run for office again. I've got to serve. I know why that sounds great to New Yorkers, but to me it's, you want more of that? That is the dirtiest, most unfair, savage business in the world. There's no chance. It's like he's telling me he wants to go wrestle a Komodo dragon. You know what I mean? It's like, hey, I really gotta do this. You're gonna bleed. They're actively gonna try to hurt you with no regard for the merits, and we call it the game, but it's like Thunderdome. So as someone who loves him, why would I be excited about him wanting to expose himself?

Of course not.

But look, when I hear him, it's like, you know, I almost tear up because it's so much like my father. My father used to describe public service. You know, my father hated that I went into the media, by the way. I'm sure there's a. Sure. I'm sure my, my therapist could have like a whole field. I don't even open that box of chocolates with my therapist because I know I'd be paying for the rest of my life about just explaining that. But his problem with it was, why do you want to be part of a group that just criticizes people who are trying to get things done when you could actually be trying to get something done. And that's why he believes in public service. Andrew is the same thing. He skips right past the price of entry, which I could never. I could never get past it. I'd be like, no way. I'm gonna have a hundred Tucker Carlson's chewing on my ass like a dog toy every day. Not gonna happen. I won't be able to handle it. I want to fight them all the time. And he goes right past that to the.

All of these ideas about what he could do in that capacity and what needs to be done. And I'm like, yeah, but you have to go through this gauntlet to get to this place just to try to do this really hard thing. And he looks at me like, and, and so you gotta. I gotta support it.

I mean, I'm for that level of intensity. You just cannot let people wreck the city. You can't let them live on the sidewalk.

That's how he feels.

Can't let him smoke weed.

I agree with you. I would just want somebody else to deal with it.

Yeah, no, because it's.

Look, it's such a hellscape right now. Look, what works in politics. If I'm running against you for anything, okay, strategy is simple. We got to destroy him. What can we find on him?

Well, actually, I think the lesson is it doesn't work because Trump is now the president.

Well, that is true. He did overcome.

They went after his family, they tried his sons in jail.

He did overcome.

Right. They shot him.

But he is. He is a unicorn also. He is the true Teflon Don.

But it's an inspiration. Like what? You know, whenever you think of Trump or what he does, he's basically saying the same things he was saying 25 years ago. You can pull the tape on Larry King Live about tariffs, about immigration, about. About foreign policy. He's basically. I mean, he's changed, of course, on a lot of little things, but on the big things, exactly the same. And he just kept going. And. And it worked so well.

I think that maybe Trump has a.

Lesson that there are limits to what the person.

That's what I was going to say is that I think that he's more of a symptom than he is a cause. People, the election message was, you guys are focusing on things that don't matter to us the way you want them to.

Right.

And what does matter to us doesn't matter enough to you. And what they saw in Trump were two main things. One, the personification of this, that you are trying to destroy this guy on a basis that we are not really okay with. And the second thing is that he wants to disrupt all the things that we believe need disruption. And his views, between the cancel culture and different cultural wars, as we call them, Donald Trump, for whatever you want to say about him, negatively approximated normal to the American voters more than the Democrats did. And that's the message, just scared the.

Crap out of everybody.

But, I mean, that's an example of what I'm saying.

I think there are many examples, but that one was like, so florid and crazy that. And it's still going on that I. To this day, I don't understand it. And we live in a world where there are always going to be people who want to wear women's clothes or whatever. Fine.

Oh, I understand it. I. Look, you saw it.

You saw Elevate trannyism to, like, the.

Top of the agenda. I can explain it to you very easily. It's readily apparent. And look, we saw the same mistake on display when the President addressed Congress. Okay, that is not a time for you to be obnoxious. If he wants to be obnoxious, fine. You are there at a respect for the office. There are rules of decorum in that place. I believe there should be rules of decorum in all places in media and politics, but there aren't. But there are there. And they willfully and wantonly abused them to make a point that they are against Trump. And it was a bad look for the Democrats. What is it an extension of we as Democrats? They will tell you we are resisting who he wants to abuse and what he wants to destroy. Like what? Trans are a unique minority in this country. They are uniquely targeted. They need protection. We are going to protect them. Okay, but this particular aspect of the issue, guys my size who decide to become female and play against my daughter in high school, that is not what you need to protect them from or against. That's something that doesn't make sense.

Nope. We have to hold to the purity of the cause of protecting this minority group. Yeah, but you're not protecting them. You're protecting the people that are playing against them because they're £230. Yeah, it almost never happens. But if it happens once, it's something that never needed to happen. The purity test, the absolutist nature of binary politics, that if you are for something, you have to be all in on it beyond any conception of reason. That's what we're dealing with in our politics.

But if that's, that's what that is. I can think of a million topics on which that is true.

I think I see that with guns on the right maybe.

Right. You know, I'm an absolutist on that. I could tell you why it's not even that interesting. But what I think. But you know, the right to self defense is a part of natural law. The idea that a man can become a woman by wishing it so is not only a violation of natural law, it's a violation of nature itself. It's like inherently insane. It's a denial of physical reality. And so why. So the argument is, you know, there are people with weird sexual impulses who we shouldn't like scapegoat and hurt. I mean, I'm totally in agreement with that.

It is a perversion of live and let live. So. But to live, the rest of us tell a lie, that's the perversion.

That's where, that's, that's when you feel like, well, this is a spiritual attack.

Well, it doesn't have to be a lie in the interest of live and let live. Right. Which is a signature American freedom or should be. Right. You don't want these people to live the way they want to live. You are infringing on their rights. We will protect them. Now I understand the political philosophy behind that. But once it entered a realm of where the people that you say you're trying to protect are now a problem for another group that need protection also, which are these kids, they didn't click into the common sense.

It's more than that though. It's like the idea that the government should be involved in people's sex lives is a shocking concept to me. I don't think it should be me either. And they're promoting homosexuality. Promoting it. And I'll tell you how we know that they're promoting it. Because its incidence has risen dramatically. Now when I was a young man, there was a debate over what percentage of the population is gay. I was never anti gay for the record, and I'm not now. But it's an interesting question. They would say you're born that way, you're born gay. So you cannot criticize someone on the basis of his immutable characteristics. Great, I totally agree with that. But then we saw the absolute incidence of self reported homosexuality, like triple. So clearly people aren't born that way. You know, 30% of 8th graders were born gay. No, that's not true. And so there has been this dramatic rise that none of us are allowed to notice it's like you can't notice that. Well, why? Okay, yes I can. And I'm sort of thunderstruck by it. Like, what is that? And it clearly is a manifestation of the deeper truth, which is maybe some people are born gay, but people can also be moved towards self identifying as gay.

And that's exactly what's happened. So why. Anyway, so like, I don't think that's good. I don't think that's good. And I also don't understand why the government should be taking my tax dollars to convince people that certain forms of sex are better than others, particularly non procreative sex. Like, what the hell is that?

Well, look, I. It's an easy legal and moral backstop that government should not be in the business of type. Okay, that's easy. There's plenty of things that government should be doing that isn't necessary. I believe that is an extension to how people choose their own bodies and how they use them. I believe in reproductive rights. I think it is a right. However, I see gay acceptance a little differently. The difference of a generation from our kids to us is it's much safer to say that you're gay now than it was used to get beat up, used to get ostracized, used to get excluded. That happens less now. It still happens, but it happens less. Is there also a cultural formation that we see? Like in America, everything goes in these big swings in different directions, always reaction formation. Are we more gay friendly in our culture, aggressively so, assertively so, than we were when we were growing up? Yes. Can that make it more attractive to young people who are struggling and trying to figure themselves out? Maybe. And that's why I remember when I was in college, there were a lot of people who were gay in college who weren't gay afterwards.

Now a lot of them were gay in college and gay afterwards. But I think there's something to experimenting and certain people play out with identity.

So it's like, okay, but I just want to get to the core question, which is where does this come from, being gay? Is it inborn? We were told you're born that way. Okay, so where's the gene? There isn't one.

I don't know the genetics, but I.

Can believe no one has isolated a gene.

But you haven't noticed when you were raising your kids that there would be certain kids that you were like, I think this could be gay 100%.

Oh yes, absolutely.

Where they were too young to be mimicking it.

I absolutely did notice that. And so I'm not saying there's not a genetic component. I'm just saying. And I don't know the answer is the truth. But what I do know is if you've got a third of middle schoolers saying I'm not heterosexual, that's not plays.

To a fad more than it does.

That's not inborn at all.

I think that there's two things can be true. You can have that. It's easier to be accepted today. I'm not saying that it's the same. I still believe that when people are gay, it's like the main descriptor of them. Whereas you and I don't identify. Oh, Tucker Carlson, you know him, Straight guy, you know. But when you're gay, you still get labeled that way. But I think two things can be happening at the same time. That there is a culture of persuasion in, let's say, in a guided or misguided sense of acceptance. And I think it is safer for people to come out now than it was a generation ago.

Yes, both are true. But I guess the point I'm making is it's really clear that the federal government, state governments, local governments and NGOs are promoting homosexuality among kids, obviously true to me, and transgenderism among kids. And my point is that is not acceptable. And when I was a child, if an adult went up to a kid in a park and started talking to him about his sex life, you could shoot the guy because that, that, that's not acceptable to talk to other people's children about sex, period. And now it's not only acceptable, it's the rule and it's paid for by my tax dollars. And I'm just saying, like, that's really destructive.

Look, it is a very persuasive argument. I don't know, it certainly hasn't been my, it hasn't been my experience in my kids schools, public and private, that I felt that they were being indoctrinated. They didn't have Pride Week into any Pride month or celebration. I don't remember it specifically, but even if they did, let's say they did. I don't, I can't prove that right now, but let's say they did. That to me is not the same thing as indoctrination. I have no problem with adults and children being exposed to different belief systems and different ways and different cultures. I have no problem with tolerance. Now, indoctrination, tolerance.

Well, pride is not tolerance. Pride is the opposite of tolerance. Pride is a celebration. Right. And so you're celebrating certain sex acts with Other people's kids. And I just think right there, you've crossed a line.

Pride Week doesn't have to be children, right? When you have the, when you have the, you know, the St. Patrick's Day parade, it's not making people be Irish.

I totally agree.

Right.

A pride kids. I'm talking about school.

You're talking about.

By the way, I don't have any problem with heterosexual pride, gay pride. You know, people are happy about the way that they live. That's fine. I have a huge problem with schools or governments getting involved in the sexuality of children.

Yeah, I 100% agree, but every school does.

It's not one school that doesn't have.

Their job is to keep everybody safe.

No, but it's not safe. It's promoting it.

No, I got, I got you. I get what would bother you. I'm saying their job is to keep kids safe, which means if my kid is gay, your kid can't beat them up on that basis. That's the role of the school. That's the rule of the law is, you know, people have to be able to live and be free and safe. It's different to you trying to teach my kid to be gay. If that's going on, obviously it would be a problem. I mean, I think if I've never.

Experienced a massive percentage of middle schoolers are gay. In general, possessions are overrated, but there are some things, things you really would not want stolen. And to me, family shotguns, including a whole bunch of them I got from my father, are at the top of that list. So I keep my dad's shotguns in a Liberty safe because it's safe and it's also really attractive. Liberty Safe just created something really cool. It's a limited edition safe that commemorates the inauguration of Donald Trump, America's 47th president. The original design celebrated celebrates Trump and his swearing in while upholding Liberty's commitment to building their safes right here in the United States. And they went all out on this one. It's the special 47 edition. It features a one of a kind artwork that pays homage to the President. It's very, very cool. Not all safes are created equal. There are plenty out there. And a lot of the manufacturers slap an American sounding name on the label. But they are not made here. They're from China or other foreign markets. Liberty safes are made in the United states. For over 30 years, Liberty has made its safes right here.

And that matters because when you buy Liberty Safe, you're supporting American workers and American Values. Their products are more than just a place to protect your dad's shotguns, for example. They are a symbol of this country. So celebrate this historic moment. Secure the things that you want to keep forever in a Liberty safe. Visit libertysafe.com or find a Liberty Dealer, a retailer near you to order your limited edition safe today. Liberty Safe. Made in America. Let me ask you a question that for some reason seems to have sunk beneath the waves. The JFK story. 62 years ago, the President's murdered. Pretty clear that the story we were told isn't true. And it bothers people because it gets to a core question which is, is the President, like, capable of making independent decisions or is there a threat of physical violence against all American presidents that persists?

Well, we know there's a threat of violence because we just watched our President get shot in the head.

Of course, but from some Oregon from whatever group has been able to keep these files secret for 62 years. So my question to you is like, what is that? Why have these been secret for so long?

Look, you know, the idea of the deep state to me is a convenience more than it is a reality. It's a boogeyman. Why don't they put it out? Because institutions protect themselves, Tucker, as we both know. Really? And there is clearly information in those files that are going to make the CIA look bad.

Just the CIA.

Well, whatever. Different agents.

No, no, not whatever. I mean, let's.

I mean, I don't know, because I haven't seen.

Okay, well, so here.

But it could be the FBI, it could be CIA.

Okay, so I've always thought that. And then in January, there was a scramble over who's going to get what jobs in the new administration. And at one point there was someone who was being discussed for a job in the intel world and a member of the ssci, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Intel Committee, went to the people making the decision and said, you cannot hire this person because this person will be certain to push for the release of the JFK files. So this is in this effect. So this is in 2025, less than two months ago. And you have a sitting member of the United States Senate whose main goal is to keep those files secret. And then you have to ask yourself why. Yeah, exactly. Why. Yeah, why, of course, this. No one was alive. I was 62 years.

I know.

And by the way, the institution. No one could even tell you who the CIA director was. And who do you remember they miss? The director, John McCone, I think. 1963. But that person is like completely lost to history except a specialist. And the CIA has already been through 50 years ago, the church committee hearings, 1975, where we sort of note they're sassing people, dosing people with acid, all this stuff. It's like the CIA has already been discredited. So if you're telling me that six weeks ago a member of the United States Senate was trying to keep someone out of a job in order to keep these files secret, that is to protect the CIA, I don't believe that for a second.

So what do you think it is?

I don't know. But this is. I mean, there's no one at the CIA who is involved, actually. Yeah. Who's involved in the Kennedy assessment. There's no one in America who's involved.

Right.

Assassination.

So here's what I know. First of all, I don't believe that the CIA has been completely discredited. I believe in the institutions. They have to be checked. You know, the media used to be in the business of checking the institutions. Now we're in the business of like defending them tacitly because we have a president that attacks them all the time. But the. So Mike Pompeo gets in there, he's in charge of the CIA. Trump says, I'm releasing the files. Okay. Somebody says something to Mike Pompeo that he then goes to the President of the United States and says, you can't release these things. And Trump acknowledges it. Now, do I believe that Trump did it under threat? No, I think that Trump just decided that whatever he was being told made sense.

But it's, it's. And I'm not even speaking of Trump or Pompeo, who's a very sinister person. And you're absolutely right, Pompeo was the driver behind that. But who was driving Pompeo? I mean, it doesn't actually make sense. The story doesn't make sense. And by the way, we have the file numbers of most of the files that have not been disclosed. So it's like Trump issues an executive order on January 23, saying, you're gonna release this stuff. They kind of can't not release it. And yet now it's the first week of March and they haven't released it. So pressure is currently being applied on the administration not to release those files.

It seems that way.

By whom? I don't know, some like mid level analyst at CIA who just doesn't want to discredit the institution he works for? I don't think so. Like, what is that?

I don't know who I don't believe it's the Rockefellers, the Pope. And I'm not. I don't believe.

I'm not even guessing. All I'm saying is we can say with certainty that there is a force acting on these people, very serious force, to the point where they're embarrassing themselves because they promise they didn't release this and they haven't.

Look, I don't. I don't disagree with.

What the hell is that?

I don't know. But it's not just that. Right now we get this weird story about the Epstein files. Like, who even cares? You know what I mean? Like who I want released. I believe in transparency. I think it's the root to trust. And it's not just because I'm in the media. It's just common sense. But AG Bondi, I don't have any reason to be anti Ag Bondi. And she says she's gonna release the files. And I don't even care that they released them to their pod people. I mean, I thought that was stupid, but I mean, that's fine. They wanna do what? They do it. They're playing the preference. Okay, now then there's a story about, well, the New York FBI. They hid all the files. And then we're gonna have to get them. We're gonna fire this guy who's supposedly, by most accounts, is a pretty solid guy that they had quit. Well, where are the files? Where are they? And because I thought Trump was the antidote to this, and to me, the heartbreak has already come and gone. UFOs, to me, is the best example of what you're picking.

Can we just back up and I totally agree. I just want to just linger for one second on the Epstein things. So what is that? I mean, once again, you clearly have a force that's applying measurable pressure on the people who should have the power. The elected President of the United States should have the power under our system. That's called democracy. And his appointees have derivative power from him, but they appear to be powerless in the face of some other source of power. And the question is, what is that source?

I don't know. And where's your boy Cash Patel? I mean, he went in there to supposedly bust all this up.

I can't answer that.

He put out this weird tweet, you know, that was very general. Like, you know, things are going to change. And we're going to do this after we learn that someone under his control now, right, because he's the head of the FBI in that office that's under him. Why wasn't he there? Why didn't he go there and say, give me the files. Give them to me?

Weren't you just saying the deep state's not real?

I don't know. I don't believe in the deep state as a boogeyman. Well, look, they're his guys. I'm just saying, why didn't he go there and say, give me the files?

So let's. Let's just use logic. I can't answer that question. I think it's a great question, but let's just use logic for one second. Clearly, if you watch this in my case for same as you, 35 years, watching the stuff carefully and somebody, you know, gets in office, I'm going to do this, that, the other thing. And then like five days later, they're like, well, actually, someone has called that person to say, there's something you didn't know. Here are the consequences of doing that. Someone has applied very serious pressure on this person, Pressure so serious that that person is willing to humiliate himself.

So wait a minute. Here's the part I don't.

So who's that person exerting pressure?

But you are uniquely qualified to get this answer because one of us can call the President of the United States right now and ask him, and the other one is me. So why don't you know?

That's a great question.

It's the only kind I ask.

So what I brought to it was the knowledge that a member of the Senate Intel Committee, I'm not guessing, called over and said, you cannot appoint this person.

So why don't you expose that person.

First of all so we can start chasing after Arkansas?

Did that Tom Cotton.

Yes. Correct.

And did you ask him?

I haven't. No, I haven't asked him what the hell with you. I'd like to. And kind of makes people suspicious of.

You, by the way, because if you know. If you know that Tom Cotton said you can't pick this person because.

Correct.

And then you didn't go to him and find out why.

Well, I need to sit down with him. I'm not sure that he'll do an interview with me.

With you.

I'm with you.

You are like the spirit animal of that administration.

No, but it's a fair. Look, it's a fair question. It's a totally fair question. And the answer is I hadn't thought to do that. And there's a lot going on and I've been distracted and I've kind of been.

Now, I think you're part of the deep state.

And just like that, I probably wouldn't be saying any of this. I was part of the deep state.

Unless that's what they would do, is make me think that it exists. But you're not sure because it's actually you.

One of the worst things that ever happened to ever is last year when I was interviewing Putin, it was such a long interview and it was being translated, and I couldn't always hear the translation very well. And apparently in it he says, you applied to work at CIA, which I did. You know, I'm not hiding that. I didn't get in. And. And your father worked for the intel world and all. I didn't hear him say that. I did not hear him say that. And I have been living with that ever since. I have nothing to do with any of that, for whatever it's worth. But the number of people have texted me, but like, oh, you're working for this here? It's like, no, actually, nobody believes more strongly in radical reform at CIA than I do, with, I would say, some knowledge of the subject. Look, I mean, people can think I work for the deep state. I don't.

I don't think there is a deep state.

Here's all I'm saying. Someone is applying massive pressure to elected officials and has for a very long time, and I would like to know who that is.

Ask Mike Pompeo why he told.

Oh, I have. Oh, I have. And when I got into it with Mike Pompeo. No, I mean, I. I've talked about this before. I don't want to be boring, but I.

When I tell you to ask Dan Crenshaw. But he's not going to take.

No, he's not going to.

He's not going to call him a.

Liberal, but you wonder. Dan Crenshaw's. Dan Crenshaw is emotionally out of control. And. And I feel for it. I honestly, I'm not.

Stop provoking him then.

I didn't even provoke him. I just pointed out. I just pointed out you provoked him. I saw it on stage. His state was just invaded by Mexico and he's worried about Ukraine. It's like, what? Wake up, son. Here are your duties. Let me put them in order. To your family, to your community, to your voters, to your state, to your nation, and maybe Ukraine down there at the bottom. But anyway, that's all I was saying. Here's my point.

Please.

I am really concerned. Not just because I am curious and I want to get to the bottom of mysteries, which is true. But I'm really concerned that the failure to disclose big things like details about the murder of a president in a democratic, democratic country, republic, that that will convince people that our system itself is fake. And it's kind of hard to argue that it's real.

I totally agree.

Can't even know who killed the president.

Transparency is trust.

62 years later, Mike Pompeii was working to keep American citizens from knowing who murdered their president. Who are you working for? Mike Pompeii.

And we just had an election.

Is that. And by the way, I just want to say one time, you cannot convince me. I'm not some world expert in the CIA, but I've certainly watched it closely over the years. It's not the CIA. The CIA. CIA is like a huge federal agency with all kinds of different components and warring tribes within. And, like, there's no CIA. Bill Burns is not like calling Trump and being like, don't release the files.

I agree.

Just credit CIA.

But look, the President knows we just had an election where he was hammering on these things. And even with UAPs or UFOs, whatever terminology you want, we couldn't get more information. These things are all over the place. Sure, some are helicopters, some are fixed wing. Okay, not all of them. And they don't know. Of course they know. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the programs. And then we get all our hopes up. Right. The media loves mocking News Nation about this because they think that, oh, Cuomo thinks they're little green men in the basement of some building. No, I don't. It's about knowing that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars and use special operators to do things that you won't tell us about. And at a minimum, you should say, well, here's why we won't tell you.

So what are they?

That's exactly right.

Well, so. But what are they, do you think?

I don't know what the they are. The point is that they know and they won't tell us things. And I think it is anathema to democracy.

Can I. Of course. I agree with everything you're saying, except one specific point, which is I'm not sure they know.

They have programmed. They certainly know more than we do. Put it that way.

They do. They may know that they don't really know, which is the scariest thing of all. And I've certainly called a lot on this topic. I've stopped talking about it in public. I've tried to stop thinking about it, because it's just one of those things that drive you crazy? But my strong impression is that they don't really know that there isn't a consensus on this and that they're not, you know, from Russia or China.

He campaigned on it. It was supposed to be a no brainer. And then they put out exactly what the Biden organ.

No, I'm, I'm aware of that.

Administration.

I'm aware of that and I'm aware of that. Do you think, I mean, that's just my view. I could be completely wrong. But I, I don't think it's as simple as. They know exactly what's going on and they're hiding it.

Well, again, these are your people. Why don't you talk to them? They love you.

Oh my gosh. I have. And so what do you got for me?

I think come all the way down.

Here, we don't, we don't cross all these. We don't know. And I think that's kind of the scarier answer is flying over military bases, shutting them down and you shutting, shutting down military.

And you don't shoot them down and then figure out what it was.

Maybe you can't, you know, so that's. So look, I mean, I think we're getting to the same answer. If, if there is a very obvious mystery that's publicly known, there's public pressure to solve the mystery, to divulge what you know and you don't.

Yes.

Then there's, there's a real reason behind it. It's not just ass cover.

Or do you have the arrogance to believe that? You don't have to tell me.

No, not anymore. Not anymore. Because now that you know, especially in this administration that was elected on the promise of transparency, there's, there's a real reason. Because there's tons of counter pressure. People are aware, like, where the hell are my Kennedy files? What's going on? These things over New Jersey, you said they were over your house in Bedminster. What is it you know? And what is this Epstein thing, which all of us watched? George Stephanopoulos is having dinner with us. Everyone you know is over at Epstein's house. Like Ehud Barak is there every day. Like, what the hell is this? Who killed this guy? He was clearly killed. Obviously he wasn't commit suicide.

Look, just start there. Show us the files that substantiated the theory of his suicide. Just show them to us.

But where's your investigation into his death which you promised Attorney General Barr that you're going to do?

Show us.

And you never did.

Yeah.

So I guess what I'm saying is if you take three steps back, you're like, wait, this really is, this isn't just maybe some of the details are wrong or certainly stories like this draw all the wackos like a bug light for sure and they come up with these fantastical theories to explain it, but just the knowable facts that confirm facts suggest something really, really big. Like the moment that I never thought much about the Epstein story until I realized that the Republican two time Republican Attorney General Barr lied about it. Why would Barr lie about this? Epstein's a big Democratic donor. Barr was not close to Trump. He's not covering for Trump. What is that? And I don't know the answer, but that was the moment where I was like, whoa, all of a sudden Bill Kristol's lawyer is involved in this, which he was, you know, I don't know, there's just a lot, There's a lot there. There's so much there that it, then it starts to make you nervous and it makes you think, like maybe the, it's not just that things are screwed up on the margins, but maybe at the core is something really dark.

I don't know.

I don't either.

Look, because, look, this is the problem with the vacuum of information, right, is that you then start speculating about why they won't just tell you these things. And, and I'm not, I'm not going.

To speculate on it because I don't, I don't know. And I don't even have like really good theories. I do have some theories, but they could be completely wrong. All I'm saying is a rational person arrives inevitably at the conclusion that there's a real reason these have not been discussed. Maybe it's not just entropy.

I have a conspiracy theory about it. I'm not so sure anymore. So we love the word patriot, okay? We love it. We love to say that we're patriots. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anymore. When I look at the Trump administration, I'm not accusing anybody of anything treasonous. I'm just saying there seems to be a lot of currency these days in destroying things. And I've never seen a president in our lifetime say that everything in government is bad. Trump is the only president, even his speech, which I thought was well written and well delivered for what he wanted to try to achieve, which is, hey, I got a lot of balls in the air. I forget about me promising what would happen day one, stuff's gonna get worse before it gets better, kind of vibe, which I get why he wanted that speech, given what's happened in the polls. But justice doesn't work. The elections don't work. Wall street is corrupt. None of the institutions of government can do everything. All the tax dollars are wasted. It's like I keep getting the same message from them. And Musk to me has been a huge disappointment.

I don't. I believe the man is a genius, okay? He has done remarkable things. He doesn't know that the federal judiciary is able to check the executive. He doesn't know that Social Security, the trust fund, isn't part of our debt structure. I can't believe a genius doesn't know these things. So then why would he be messaging this way? Unless he doesn't want people to like the justice system. He doesn't like people to want Social Security. He doesn't want them to believe that government can do anything. And I don't understand that as a political message from a guy who's in charge of everything now. And what is underlying it in terms of your real ambition?

I think I can answer some of them. I think Elon builds electric cars and rockets and tunneling equipment and telecom, satellite based telecom, et cetera, et cetera. He's a builder of things. He's a businessman, he's an engineer. You know, I'm not surprised he doesn't know the details of how Social Security is structured at all. And I'm not surprised that as a naturalized American, he's not, you know, didn't grow up with Schoolhouse Rock and doesn't understand the three branches perfectly. His job, from what I can tell, is to deal with the one thing that nobody has dealt with, which will be the end of the country, which is the country's bankruptcy. So the debt is what, 37, 36.9, something like 37 trillion revenues. Last year, 2024, total federal revenues were under 5 trillion. Okay, so that doesn't work. And at a certain point, the people who are floating the country, the bond buyers, the foreign bond buyers, like I'm not, you know, this doesn't. And everything will collapse. And that's been known for a long time. No one has dealt with it. And from what I can tell, Elon's job is to try and get the spending down.

And no one's been able to do that.

Well, get the spending down has to be in the budgeting process. To me, it's a pennywise pound foolish notion. I'm okay with getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse. You and I grew up listening to both Parties argue when the other one was in power that there was all this waste, fraud and abuse and you had to curtail it. And, and I know it's true. It's always been true. Nobody has ever looked for it and failed to find it. I'm okay with them doing that. But I'll tell you what, if they had called up Carlson and Cuomo and said, would you guys like to serve your country and see what you can find in terms of waste, fraud and abuse? And we said yes. I'll tell you what we wouldn't do, is keep going off half cocked every day about what we were finding when we weren't sure we would not do that. We would have immediately come to an agreement.

Yeah, we'd probably.

Let's look, let's find stuff. Okay. And then we're gonna go to Congress and we're gonna say, look at all this shit we found. And because we don't trust them, we would then go public with it at will. At the same time.

Yeah, I don't think that's. I. We would have a blue ribbon commission and we present our findings, but he.

Is going off half cock.

None of that's worked. And I feel like, look, we don't know if it's gonna work or not. I'm praying that it does because I think it's our last chance to see the country.

I'm working. I want it to work. I feel like he's working against his own goals by getting things wrong all the time.

Maybe, but big picture, he's right. So usaid, which I grew up around in Washington, you know, I really grew up around it. I can just tell you firsthand, having seen it, it is a force for evil in the world. I think it does probably good things on the margins, but bottom line, it is destabilizing other governments. It's a form of the ugliest kind of imperialism, totally detached from American interests. It's like really bad. And the more, you know, that's why it's so shocking to read it, all, the more indefensible it becomes.

The Secretary of State disagrees with you.

He may or may not. I'm just saying, you know, he's from Miami, I'm from D.C. so I just tell you, I have, I think, deep exposure to this. And there's no doubt, by the way, USAID aid gets zeroed out. How many third world presidents complained about that? Do you see any being like, oh, my gosh, we want our aid. They don't want American aid in that form because it destabilizes democratic governments. It overturns the culture of the country. Oh, you need more trans athletes. They hate it, and there's nothing they can do about it. I don't think a single foreign president in a poor country complained when we shut off that aid because they didn't want it. So that tells you right there. Now, that's a minuscule part of the entire federal budget.

Agreed. And he just happened to start with the agency that's investigating him?

I don't think USAID has an investigative arm. Okay, they do. Okay, well, whatever. Elon's being, you know, attacked on many sides.

This was before anything happened. Okay, look, I'm just saying, you and I wouldn't have picked an agency that was looking into one of us without letting people know.

I'm not even aware.

Why did he tell us?

Big picture, the government is strangling the country. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

What does that mean?

It means that the richest place in the United States is the one place that produces nothing but bureaucratic jobs. D.C. it's the richest place, and it's the highest concentration of wealth in the United States. The counties around D.C. are the richest. They're like the majority of the top 10 are in D.C. and all that money is federal money. None of those people can ever be fired or are. It's not even clear what they're doing. A lot of their budgets are classified. The intel, eic, it's like all class. You don't even know what they're spending. They own businesses around the world. This is a fact. I mean, they'll admit it if you ask them. And basically, there's no democratic control over any of this. The voters have no say in how this money is spent. And the people spending it are beyond any kind of correction. There's nothing you can do about it. And so it's truly out of control in a way that makes democracy impossible. And it's also, they're acting in their own interest. And then there's the debt overhang, which really threatens, in an imminent way to make all of these conversations just irrelevant.

But if we're a poor country that can't support a military and can't keep up with our own infrastructure, then none of this stuff even matters.

So do you believe that the answer is to change the institutions, to destroy the institutions? What do you think the answer is?

Everybody loves and appreciates first responders. When things go haywire, they're the ones who show up and make you safe, protect you not just you, but the entire country. Most people agree they're heroes, but what happens if they can't show up? First responders cannot be everywhere all the time. And if there's an emergency, particularly a big emergency, there aren't enough to go around. So you have to be your own first responder before an ambulance arrives, before a doctor can help. It is up to you to protect yourself and your family. And if it's a medical emergency, you could be out of luck because you. You don't have the right medications. Most people do not have the medications they need at home. There's an answer to that. It's called the Jace case. It's a simple but smart solution to a problem most people don't even think about. It's a set of emergency prescriptive medications curated by medical experts. You've got peace of mind, knowing that no matter what happens, you are totally prepared. Even if you're a prepared kind of person with stuff stored in your cellar, you probably don't have the right medications. What if there's an infection or any kind of crisis and you don't have access to first responders?

You're going to want a Jace case. Medications on hand when they matter Most. Go to Jace.com and use code Tucker at checkout for a discount. Jace J-A S E.com Check out code Tucker. So my sense is that you're not going to get anywhere unless, and I think this was their calculation, you come out like a freaking wild animal out of a box so fast, so hard that you intimidate the shit out of everyone into silence long enough that you gain momentum to continue the process of paring back government. But you really have to immediately occupy the moral high ground. You need to. You can't, like, get into debate with Bennie Thompson over, you know, funding of this or that agency. You really have to get up here and look down at Benny Thompson and say, I can't believe that you're participating in this scam for decades that hurt this country, impoverished its citizens. You did this. And it's only from that posture that you have any power to negotiate the reforms necessary. You sort of have to do what the trans lobby, the human rights campaign did, which is you sort of come out of nowhere.

And rather than sort of make the case that, hey, don't beat up trans kids, which I'm for, don't beat up trans kids or anybody, they come out and they're like, you're a transphobe.

We're going to pick at your house.

And kill you if you say anything. And people are like, holy shit. They're so intimidated that they just kind of go along with your program. I think a functional country doesn't operate that way. But this is not a functional country. This is a country that is more dysfunctional than we will admit to ourselves. And that may be the only option for reform. But one thing that I think no honest person can disagree with. We need reform, like, immediately, on every level. Our military needs to be reformed. The budgeting process needs to be reformed. The way that our economy is structured clearly benefits just a tiny percentage of the population. That's not sustainable, et cetera, et cetera. Like, we need reform badly. We can't keep doing it this way.

Well, we've been saying that a long time.

I know. And Trump is the fir. And again, I don't know if it's going to work. I'm praying that it will, because this country is the last hope of the world. I really believe that. Than ever having just come back from other countries.

That's why we have to make our kids travel. Because everybody thinks America is the worst place in the world until you go somewhere else, dude.

Yes. You know, and the thing that we need to preserve, I'm more convinced.

That's why I'm a little worried about all the bashing of our institutions. Reform, sure. Do it better, do it differently, do it less, do it more, whatever it is, sure. But the idea that there is no more justice in America, I don't believe that all the elections are rigged. I don't believe that, you know, we can't function. It's demonstrably false. So making things better is fine if you have the ideas and the wherewithal to make it happen. But what I'm sensing from this administration is it's all broken. Tear it all down. And that's easy to say, but I don't know that it's good.

Well, it's actually easy to do. It's easy to tear things down. Much easier than it is to build them. And you want to be careful of revolutionary moments. I mean, very few improve things. Ours did, I think, in this country 250 years ago. Very few others did. I can't really think of any that did.

Well, we had an oppressive force, you know, interestingly, and this is something I'm very anxious for you to explain to me. So I get fired. And I'm watching the Ukraine war, and it was personally maddening to me because I had not. Not covered a conflict since I got involved in the business so I'm watching the whole country's behind Ukraine.

When did you get fired?

Right there, like 20, 21. When did I get fine? Yeah. So right when the Ukraine war broke out, I was fired. And it was very. It was a real reinforcer to me about how much I had lost. Right. But anyway, I was much more concerned about what was happening in Ukraine. So everyone's on board. They're blue and yellow ribbons all over my name.

I was not on board at all.

Well, the country was. The Republicans were and the Democrats. Yes. And I kept hearing, boy, you know, it's like they're kind of like us, you know, they're fighting against this oppressor and trying to shut it off so they can be their own way and get away from the kleptocracy and everything else. And then Trump has that bad phone call with Zelensky, leads to an impeachment that I thought was a complete waste of time. You were never going to remove him. And it's a political operation. So I didn't know why they did it, but that's their choice. They went their way. Then Biden comes in. Everybody's still doing what they were doing to try to help Ukraine. Biden is slow walking it, not giving them what they needed, the wrong kind of ambivalence. Now Trump comes back, and all of a sudden all the people who are in favor of Ukraine on the right now say that it's a kleptocracy and Zelensky is a bad guy, and put Putin, you know, not so bad. Russia, not so bad. Their concerns about NATO pretty justified. It's really NATO in America that has done the wrong thing here and forced Russia's hand.

And. And Ukraine and Zelensky kind of did, too. And they're really dirty and they're stealing all our money and selling all our stuff. I don't believe any of it, and I hear it all the time. You are a big purveyor of this, and I want to understand it. How did everything change this way?

Well, it changed because politicians in general, with some exceptions, but not many, have no principles at all. And they do what's popular, what they think is popular, and they respond just to one stimulus, which is election, that's it. And if they think something will get them reelected, they'll say it. And if they don't, they won't. And so they're just. I mean, that's just what they are. I don't think it's even worth being mad. I mean, they're like animals whose behavior is really predictable, or machines. You know, you can program to do a certain thing, and you know it's going to do that thing every time. So the fact that these guys are standing up and being like, oh, Zelenskyy, who was my blood brother last week, is now a bad guy, of course they're saying that. I've said the same thing, I think, since day one, which is, this is not in our interest at all, and we've really hurt ourselves and we've dislodged the dollar from its preeminence. And that has consequences people are not thinking through. And Russia, of course, has an interest in what happens in Ukraine. And of course, they don't want American missiles on their border any more than we'd want Chinese missiles in Tijuana.

Like, that's. Of course, of course, that's a real thing. And moreover, the thing that you want, if you're thinking big, and you should, if you run America, the thing you fear most is the alignment of Russia with China, because then you unite the world's largest country, the largest nuclear arsenal, with the world's largest economy and the world's largest population, and that becomes a block that many others gravitate to. We're calling it the brics now. And that becomes something that you can't resist, that controls global trade routes, that controls global currency, and that reduces you, the United States, to the bitch position very fast.

Understand? But even within that, the premise is Russia bad, China potentially bad.

What does bad even mean?

I mean, like, Russia bad means they are consistently invested in what's bad for America. Putin is a constant.

Certainly are now they're aligned with China. So, yeah, that was not true at the beginning of 2022. And so.

But invading Ukraine was wrong, what they did. And Ukraine did not start that war.

Well, the whole thing was wrong. No. Russia invaded Ukraine. Yes, for one specific reason. Despite all the lying from Anne Applebaum and the Atlantic Council and the professional liars and morons in Washington who got us into the Iraq war, war in Libya and Syria and every other disaster. I've never apologized or been penalized for it. The truth is that Russia's concern was that Ukraine remain not part of NATO. They want to control Ukraine to some extent. It's their neighbor. In the same way that we want to control, I don't know, Canada or Mexico. You don't have to run the municipal elections in the country, but you don't want. If you had a government in Canada that was bent on destroying the United States, you would overthrow the premier of Canada. Because you can't have that. It's your neighbor. You're a great power. And that's how Russia sees itself. Now, you could say, well, that's against international law or whatever, but that's the way nations behave. And great nations have an expectation they're not gonna have an enemy on their border if they can help it.

But NATO isn't inherently an enemy. It is to protect against the illegal and wrongful annexation of sovereigns.

Okay. It's okay. Ukraine is not sovereign. And Ukraine's government was installed in a coup by the CIA in 2014. So it's not a sovereign nation.

Well, the satellite of Ukraine, Ukraine's regime.

We installed their government. They're not sovereign.

Ukraine is a sovereign, as you know.

In what way?

Russia had put a puppet in. There was a democratic revolution there that Zelensky wound up winning that election. Second round of voting that was to remove the Russian puppet who went back with a lot of money into Russia.

No, you're. You're. Yeah, whatever. I mean, you're skipping over. That's actually not at all what happened. Zelensky did not become president in 2014, which was when.

No, but I'm saying that's. Maidan Square was a reaction to a Russian puppet regime in that country.

Well, that's what they were against, a Russian puppet regime.

Where did the guy go back to?

Well, he fled to Russia.

Yeah.

On the verge of getting killed. But the bottom line is Russia wanted a friendly government in Ukraine. Okay, I get it. The United States, which is nowhere near Russia or Ukraine, went across the Atlantic Ocean to install its president in Ukraine in a coup. That's a fact. And they were caught on tape doing it. And Bob Kagan's wife was. Was caught doing that. You can listen to the tape. And so, okay, I guess both are bad. But if you're being an adult about it, you understand that great powers have an interest in not having other people's nuclear weapons on their borders. That's just a fact. And you could say, well, it shouldn't be a fact, but it is a fact.

So we don't have nuclear weapons on the border. The only nuclear weapon. Well, the only way, really.

So NATO doesn't have nuke.

Look, in Ukraine.

No. Okay. Their concern was.

And Ukraine used to have a lot of nukes, and they agreed to get rid of them on the basis of protection from Russia.

Those were Soviet nukes.

Right.

That was negotiated by the United States, but.

Right.

Okay. All I'm saying is if you're thinking about it from the perspective of what's good for the United States. You do not want Russia becoming in close military alliance and economic alliance with China. You don't want that.

Agreed.

That becomes a bloc that you can't defeat from which you will soon be taking orders. And every administration has understood this. The Biden administration went to the Munich Security Conference in February of 2022 and had the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, say at a press conference Tuzlensk, we want you in NATO. NATO did not want Ukraine. There never was a referendum in Ukraine. What the Ukrainians wanted. We want you to be an American satellite with American weapons in your country. She said that knowing that was the red line. Putin's like, look, I just don't want Ukraine and NATO. That's a. You've had all these countries around my borders in NATO. I don't know why you're doing that. I still don't know to this day why we're doing that. That's an aggressive offensive move. But you cannot have Ukraine. It's too big, it's too important. Our energy pipelines go through it. No. And they insisted on doing this. And Putin gave a speech immediately after in Russia. No Americans ever watched it. You should. It's really interesting saying this NATO thing is too much. We have to invade and we're doing it. Those are the facts.

Okay, so the question is, why would you do that? Ukraine is not sovereign. It never was. You know that Ukraine cannot beat Russia in a conventional war. Russia's got 100 million more people and much deeper.

But that doesn't mean you let them roll over. And Ukraine is a sovereign. It's its own country.

In what sense are they making independent decisions? I'll give you an In April of 2022, two months after this war started, it's very clear that Russia is going to win. It's just a much bigger country, period. And so the Ukrainians and the Russians start having peace talks and they move them around a bunch of different places. They wind up in Istanbul, Turkey, and they have a bunch of different data points. The first is no NATO. The second is what do we do with Crimea? Which since 2014 had been like Russian aligned conversation, by the way. They took it. What do you do with that? There's a Russian military naval base there, as you know. And what do you do with Donetsk and Lugansk, the eastern part of Ukraine? They basically reach terms in Istanbul. Two months into the war, all of a sudden, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, Shows up in Kiev and delivers a message from the Biden administration. No, no peace. You are not allowed to negotiate a peace. This is, he's telling a sovereign, a quote, sovereign country. This. Some unemployed, you know, indebted Brit is showing up on behalf of the United States to lecture the so called President of Ukraine about what he can do with his own country, if not sovereign in any sense.

And they break off the peace talks. This is all like, I'm not making this up. Look it up and a million more Ukrainians die and the country's totally destroyed forever. And then Zelensky goes and changes the law in Ukraine to allow foreigners to buy farmland in Ukraine, to buy the soil of Ukraine. So you wind up with a country whose population has just been killed, that no longer owns its land. So big American companies, multinational companies can win and just buy Ukraine. That's the total destruction of a European nation. And in the United States, we feel like, oh, no, we're fighting on behalf of Churchill. No, we just destroyed Ukraine because we want to fight Russia. And now that is the core, the desire of the American foreign policy establishment to have a war with Russia. That does not make any sense to me. I'm not a Putin lover or I don't speak Russian. I've got nothing to do with Russia. I just don't understand why it's in America's national industry at war with Russia. It's not. And these are people with very deep emotional hatred of Russia. I can't even speculate as to where that comes from.

But it's real. I've certainly seen it a lot. And it's not consistent with our interests as a nation. Has not helped the United States at all. It's hurt us. We spent over $100 billion when we're bankrupt, and all we've achieved is destroying this nation. That didn't really do. The poor Ukrainians didn't do anything. It's horrible. Well, what we've done.

Zelensky articulates a very different case. Right. He wanted.

What's his case?

His case is he wanted America and Europe to help them fight back Russia because Russia wants to reestablish the USSR and he wants to keep Ukraine sovereign. Of course, he has cultural and geographic issues in the eastern part of his country, and that has been an ongoing problem for them. I was in Ukraine when the Russian separatists shot down that Malaysian Airlines plane. Lied about it, wouldn't let the bodies be reclaimed. It was the whole thing. Putin installed a guy named Barovsky who was supposedly the prime Minister of Donetsk was all bullshit, because that's what Putin is. So they wanted help. They want to stay sovereign. America was helping with them, them with that. And now all of a sudden, Zelensky's a thief. They're stealing all our money, they're selling all our weapons to Mexican cartels. None of these things are true.

Well, that is. That is why.

No, it's not true. But I don't even understand.

What's the point?

Give me the point of it.

And then Ukraine just to define sovereignty. Sovereignty is the freedom to make independent decisions, and Ukraine does not have that and has never had that since 2014, when its government was installed by an American coup.

Zelensky would say he was democratically elected.

Well, he's not democratically elected. He's passed his term. Well, and so by what authority. Hold on, let me question.

Go ahead.

By what authority does Zelensky negotiate on behalf of this country? Rule his country? He just. He just put his main political opponent under indictment and froze his personal funds under internal sanctions. The security services of Ukraine.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I know.

We just. We just went through the same thing in this country.

Sounds like dictatorship, what I'm saying, by the way.

No, but he's not a dictator. And then by what authority does he rule Ukraine? Well, here's how he was elected. And now, under their constitution, he does have the ability to stall elections and operate under martial law during the conflict.

So you're comfortable with people saying, I'm going to. No. He could certainly have an election if he wanted.

If he wanted.

But he has won an election. You're from political family.

The same thing with Israel right now. They're not having elections either because they're in the midst of an active conflict. It's not a time for transition of power.

Okay, but I don't know why we make excuses for dictatorship.

It's not a dictatorship.

Of course it is. Any unelected leader who has. He was elected, actually, he has a presidential term.

Right.

If Joe Biden just said, you know what, we're in a conflict right now. I can't have elections. I'm canceling the election. Or if Donald Trump.

But there's a constitutional provision for this.

If, okay, he could have an election whenever he wanted. He could have election right now. No one doubts that, actually. And his opponent was calling for that before. He was just shut down by the Ukrainian intel services a week ago. So there's no authority. He doesn't have democratic authority over his country. What he has is a lot of NATO weapons. And to your second point, he has absolutely. As a matter of fact, the Ukrainian military has sold those weapons on the black market around the world. And they have this. These are facts. They've wound up in the hands of, among others, the Mexican drug cartels, the Taliban, Hamas. Hamas in Gaza. Fact. And. And a lot of other groups. And it's incredibly destabilizing, by the way, the United States did this years ago in Afghanistan, as you know, and sent a bunch of Stinger missiles to the Mahajideen in 1979 and 80 to fight the Soviets. And those missiles caused huge problems for all of Southwest Asia for, like, 20 years. And so this is a big deal. And I don't know why people feel like they have to lie about it now.

I don't. I don't know that it's about lying about it. I don't agree that those are facts.

You don't believe that. That the Ukrainian military. You know what? Because I'll tell you why. I'll bet you my car that in the next kind of car, is it some crappy.

Oh, then I'm not gonna bet that.

Okay, no, I don't have nice cars. I'll admit that. I bought a new car.

We're not doing a swap.

But anyway, the point is, that's a. And as I. No one believes me. I know someone who bought some of the weapons. I'm just, you know, whatever. I can't.

Well, first of all, you would have to substantiate, you know, who it is that you knew because you believe the.

Most corrupt country in Europe, which is so corrupt that NATO didn't want it as a member. You believe it's outside the realm of possibility that facing defeat, the leaders of that military would not sell the weapons that they're getting from the West.

You cannot substantiate a claim on the basis of mere suspicion that.

Because they're not mere suspicion. Hold on. I know someone. The weapon.

I believe that you think that. What I'm saying is that I know it. I'm saying that. Well, you know that they say it. You don't know whether they did. And I'll tell you why I'm suspicious. Because the. The missiles that Russia put out those pictures of were from, like, 2014, and they didn't even have javelins then. So the idea that Ukraine could have been selling weapons that were taken from a different time as an obvious ploy by Russia to make them look bad is, to me, propaganda and not proof that they did it.

Okay.

Are you texting While I'm having a.

Conversation with you, I'm texting right now.

Very rude.

No, no, very. I'm texting on WhatsApp right now on this exact subject.

Tucker, I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying I'm disagreeing that it's a fact that the military there is spending weapons that they very much need to Mexican cartels. Why does Mexico's cartels need to get weapons from Ukraine when they get them across our border with straw buyers all the time? I mean, to me it doesn't even make sense from a practicality standpoint, but it's.

You can get surface to our missiles from straw buyers.

No, no. Surface. Small arms. Small arms.

No small arms. Small arms. You know, small arms you can buy anywhere. No, no, I'm talking about weapons system.

But this is, this is not documented stuff. And it seems to want to smear Ukraine to make them the bad guy, make Russia the good guy.

Ukraine. Okay. This is one of those topics that I'm. I'm just going to.

I'm not mad at you.

No, no, no. It's a conversation mad because I know this is true.

Because I'm not saying you're wrong.

I'm saying I don't know fact and unfortunately I can't. And maybe I shouldn't have brought it up because I can't name the person.

I don't want you to expose a source.

I'm going to.

What I'm saying is, look, people, let.

Me, let me, let me do bad.

Things with money that we give a.

Huge amount of knowledge on this one topic. I'm wholly ignorant of many topics. I know a lot about this topic.

And you think Zelensky is a bad guy who's a dictator.

What I'm telling you is the Ukrainian military has sold huge amounts of American supplied, NATO supplied weapon systems around the world and that they're purchasable now by governments and armed groups and are being purchased.

And why hasn't it been documented?

I'm just telling you that if this will be documented, and I got that directly once again from someone who purchased quite a few of those weapons, who I know personally and in another country and knows a lot about this. It runs a military and it's just frustrating because I can't say.

Look, my point is not to frustrate you, Tucker, it's to understand his mentality of framing Ukraine.

It's not. Look, it's noting the facts. The guy's not elected.

He is elected. His term has been expended Constitutionally comfortable.

If we were. Well, we are in a war with Russia right now. If Donald Trump. No, it is war with Russia. Americans have died proxy. It's a war that we're funding.

We're not on the ground there.

What do you mean? There are many Americans in Ukraine fighting US Military.

There are US Military. Yes, there are. Look, I know that there are. What are you talking about?

There are.

They're not. Not actively fighting Russian.

They're guiding weapons into Russia.

Yes.

What do you mean they're not actively fighting? They're absolutely actively fighting.

Have we declared war?

Of course not. We didn't declare war in Vietnam or Korea. That doesn't mean anything.

True. Did in Iraq declare.

I guess we did. That went well.

There was a congressional vote, of course.

But the point is, if Trump were to say we're at war with Russia, I can't have an election. I would say that's not legitimate. You do not have the authority to extend and I don't care you know what pretext you make up for it. You can't put your opponents in jail. You can't. But more than anything, what I'm saying is that this is scary. It's not even blaming Zelensky. There are many power centers within Ukraine. There's the military, the intel services, there's the president's office. There are competing political people say the.

Same things about us, by the way.

Of course it's true. It's true. Especially true here. It's a huge country. I'm not even blaming Zelensky directly. I'm saying this is the largest country in Europe. We have poured billions of dollars in pretty high tech weapons systems into this country and we're not keeping track of them. We also have biolabs throughout the country.

We have biolabs and we're about to have more of a footprint because the mineral deal will put American companies on the ground in those areas that are right now war zones.

All I'm saying is we've funded the worst war Europe has seen since World War II for three years. That entails an awful lot of weapons, including bioweapons. I'm not guessing this is a fact. Tory Nuland said it in a conversation with the now Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Senate. On camera so there are biolabs in Ukraine with biological weapons in them. Who the hell is keeping track of this stuff? That's all I'm saying. It's not an attack on Zelensky. We have a moral obligation to keep track of this stuff. There's never been an audit.

I have no problem with that.

It's fucking crazy.

I have no problem with keeping track of it.

Destabilization of the world. Like, why are we doing this?

So do you believe that we should just back out of what we're doing there now and let Russia take it?

Russia take it? I don't know. At this point, Russia has, Russia has. We're not in charge. Russia just won. They beat us in their war. In case you haven't noticed. Russia out produced in munitions NATO, including the United States, 4 to 1. So we just lost the war. So we are not negotiating from a position of strength. Sorry, I'm not taking Russia's side. I'm on America's side. This is terrible for us. We've exposed how weak we are. We couldn't beat Russia, which many members of the US Senate assured me was quote a gas station with.

That was McCain's line.

What a idiot that guy was. What an idiot. He was low. I. I knew him and I liked him, but he was. He was like an idiot of gas station with nuclear weapons.

Really have you see, I saw it the other way, which is we thought Russia. We thought Russia was going to roll over Ukraine. And they have been unable to really move the line for us.

They took a big chunk of eastern Ukraine and for three years we've progressed toward bankruptcy trying to stop it, and we've not been able to. They won. This is bad. It's bad for American prestige. It's bad for the projection of American power. Everyone knows what we're capable of and we're not capable of. It's divided our country. All these dumb Ukraine people are flying foreign flags in front of their houses.

I feel that the division is forced in this country. That to me it seems pretty basic that Russia can't have Ukraine because it doesn't stop.

What are we gonna do?

It doesn't stop at Ukraine.

We already. Okay, but it's.

So then it's Estonia and Latvia and.

Estonia, you know, it's always some chick, that blonde chick. I'm president of Estonia, you know, a country of 5 million people that invented the sauna. By the way, I'm part Finnish. I'm not against Estonia. I'm sure it's great, but the idea that some woman who's never been the armed service, like setting military policy for the eu, you know, we're going to do this. We're gonna. You can't do anything. You don't have an army. Britain's army is smaller than the US Marine Corps, NATO, which is a coalition that includes, by the way, Turkey. It's like this huge coalition couldn't beat Russia. That is the fact. I don't want that to be the fact. That is the fact. So Americans are like, well, I can't allow this.

Well, what are you gonna do? I don't say that it's a fact because we are not fighting in earnest in that country.

So what? Okay, so what would you. I'm just. Okay, here, here are the terms. We have a nuclear armed power, largest nuclear arsenal in the world, that is fighting for its very life, that is aligned with China.

Okay.

Which is the largest economy.

Well, I don't know that Russia's fighting for its life. I think Putin forced this situation.

Okay, whatever. Leaving aside moral culpability, I'm just saying it's a big deal for them. It's on their border. It's their border. Ok, so we don't like it. We wade in on the other side to fight Russia. We haven't won. So now what are our options? Like, actually, what are our options?

The options are what President Trump is doing right now, which is to try to get the parties to the table and draw a line in the sand and make a deal. Right.

That's the only option I see. I don't see any other options, but I'd love to hear what they are.

No, I mean, there's never any other option. Unless you want to actively fight and take territory and occupy.

Who's going to actively fight? There are no Ukrainians left.

Well, look, both sides are manpower poor, right? You know the stories about Russia emptying the prisons. Russia has 100 million, 140 million people, but they.

100 million more people.

But have you ever heard of us emptying out the prisons? I mean, why does he have to do that? He's in a desperate case.

He doesn't want his citizens to have to fight an unpopular war because he's worried about his popularity, because he wants to stay in power so it's easier to send convicts to the front. They have done this for centuries. I'm against it, but I'm just saying that's the fact. The point is, you think Putin is.

Concerned about his popularity in a place where he kills all of his opponents on a regular basis?

Very concerned about his popularity.

Really? When he completely engineers the outcome of every thing that happens.

Russia is a very complicated place with a lot of different competing power centers, including the fsb, which.

And how has he stayed in power so long?

Because he's really good at Politics. And he pays very close attention to what the public thinks. Very close. He's got the military, like, just like any country. It's a. First of all, the.

You know, how lousy life is there for people. Right. And not just because the economic sanctions right now. It just has been. I mean, you know.

Have you been there recently?

Recently, no.

I've been there. I've been there twice in the last year.

Why are you allowed in?

I don't know. I'm an American friend of Putin.

I'm whatever friend of boat.

Because I believe in seeing things and reaching my own.

Oh, me too. I'm just. I'm not allowed in there as a journalist.

I'm sure you could call right now and they will let you in and you should go.

Just wouldn't let me out. Wind up like Paul Whalen.

I think you wouldn't be arguing my case. But look, here's the point. No, no, Russia. Putin does not have absolute control of his country, and they're all kinds of potential rivals. He's been there for.

You sound more sympathetic towards him than towards the Lansky.

I mean, you just. I'm definitely more sympathetic to Putin than Zelensky for the following reason. I judge. I'm not. And I'm not sympathetic to Putin in the sense that I don't want to move to Russia. I don't see Russia as like a close friend of mine at all or a free country or anything like that. I'm just saying I think it's fair to judge leaders on how they do for their country. They have one job. Do a good job for your country. Make it better.

And you think Russia is doing well?

A lot better than Ukraine. I mean, a lot of Ukrainians have fled Ukraine to Russia. A lot. A lot.

Well, yeah, they're under siege right now.

No, but I'm just saying, like, Russia actually, for a country at war, is thriving. You know, I think it's got deeper problems. War is not good for any economy over time or any country over time. But there's been such a massive infusion of Chinese investment into Russia in the past couple of years that people in, say, Moscow, city of 12 million, you know, they don't feel a privation that populations under war typically.

There's a reason he made that deal with North Korea, to have their people backing them up on the battle lines.

I'm sure. I'm sure that's exactly right. I mean, there are a lot of theories on that. I've heard a lot of things. But here's. But here's the only point that I'm making. From an American perspective, Americans fall into this trap, which is a childish trap, where they superimpose like a really clear moral dichotomy onto foreign conflicts. Where there's like a great guy and evil guy.

Yes.

And they're able to. Because they don't know anything. Because they've never been anywhere and they don't actually. Their leaders, I'm talking about don't kind of take the time to understand that they don't understand. The more you know, the more you realize you really don't know because. Do you speak Russian? I don't think so. So like, how the hell do you know what's going on? You don't know. The best you can do is like be open minded and let evidence guide your conclusions. So from an American perspective, what we've learned is the US capacity for projecting strength through the military is a lot less than we thought it was. We couldn't beat Russia. We didn't beat Russia. They won't.

Do you really think that America was putting the full force of its might into that situation?

Short of nuclear conflict? Yes.

Zelensky has done nothing but complain about us not giving them what they needed. We gave them like high Mars. Everything we're giving them. I mean, you know, because you've been studying the situation. I've been there twice during the conflict and it's like World War I level warfare there.

No, it's not.

So it's not like we're using our most. Now they're using drones from like retail.

High tech war warfare ever conducted. In fact, it's so high tech, it's moving so fast that I don't think most people even understand what's going on there. But it's a warfare.

They were digging trenches. Yeah. Now there's been an infusion of drone technology that they're using, but they were digging trenches.

What Americans can't. You just need to like change your mind a little bit on this. We don't have the power to do everything that we want around the world.

Agreed.

Certainly can't do it simultaneously.

Agreed.

And my concern about entering into hot wars with anybody is that you expose your weakness if you enter into a hot war. Something you have to win, otherwise everyone knows how weak you are. And then.

But you don't think that's true for Russia, that they don't look really weak because they couldn't roll over Ukraine. They said it would be done in three days.

The truth is, it's a silly conversation. Russia's Nuclear weapons. It is hypersonic weapons. Russia could eliminate Ukraine in about 10 seconds.

Well, it's bombing residential areas. It's going after infrastructure where they know civilians are. So it's not like they're holding out.

I mean, let's. Like, let's just be honest. And I hope they never will. And I hate war. And I hate.

So why haven't. By the way, let's say, of course, they could. Their nuclear. Nuclear. Jokingly.

Hypersonic weapons.

So. But they're not.

So why the entire city like that? Because.

But they're not.

Because that's World War Three. That's why.

Right.

And they want to get out without a nuclear exchange.

Right.

And what I worry, it's not a defensive Russia. By the way, anybody who's trying to avoid a nuclear change, I'm on your side.

Yes.

And that would include almost no Republican members of the Senate. Okay. They're all like full blown. They're old. They don't care. Like I said, I don't care about their grandkids or humanity itself or whatever. They're totally willing to risk nuclear war.

Although Lindsey Graham just took a step backwards, which I thought was surprising.

It's completely silly. He's blaming. Look, a lot's gonna come out. We reached an impasse on the question of whether Ukraine is selling weapons. They are. That's a fact. And I'd bet my house on it. Okay. I know that to be true, but I can't tell you how I know that. So I'm gonna have to just wait to be vindicated.

But it's not a debate. I'm just saying that it seems that the line has shifted and now Ukraine is the bad guy.

Okay, we haven't heard anything about Ukraine for the past three years. You were required in. I got fired over this, so I know. You were required to pretend that Zelenskyy, who I think is a complicated person for whom I feel sorry, actually, I feel like he's a pawn among bigger powers. Okay. I feel bad for Zelensky, but we are required to pretend that he was Jesus and that Vladimir Putin was Satan. And my only point is that's not true. Actually, it's way more complicated than that. Both of them have good and bad qualities. And moreover, it's not our. It's not our fight. Like, what are we doing there? This whole thing is so nuts. Just because you're mad at Russia for some reason that you'll never say out loud, we have to take our country to war there. And by the way, can I Just say something.

Sure.

Why? I mean this war has like most wars that we fight, been promoted by some of the richest people in our country. And I'll name one. Ken Griffin, who is a hedge fund billionaire, has really pushed hard and I've seen it behind the scenes to force Republican politicians to support bigger payments to the Zelenskyy government. And it's like Ken Griffin's a multi billionaire. He's probably, I don't know, millions of dollars on lobbying on this issue, but he hasn't spent billions on Ukraine. He could send billions of his own money to Ukraine. A lot of the Ukraine war supporters could do it. They could also go fight the war. They're conscripting 50 year old men, guys with down syndrome. The videos are all over the Internet and they're real. I hear from people in Ukraine on.

The sub, those videos I've seen.

Yeah. So I haven't noticed any. Bill Kristol's not fighting in Ukraine. Why is that? Why is Ken Griffin not sending billions to Ukraine? No, what they're doing is pressuring the US media, pressuring the US Congress to do something that they themselves are not willing to do, up to and including sending American troops, which we have in Ukraine, risking their lives. Why isn't Ken Griffin doing that? I just want to say I think it's one of the most immoral things I've ever seen.

I think that you're heading in the right direction now because I believe that that support the war, go pay for.

It, go fight it.

That complaint that the wealthy and powerful are feeding off the rest of us, I think is the one untapped reservoir of populist sentiment in this country. We have a system.

I don't think we're allowed to say that.

Well, we have a system where the corporations, right, get to do whatever they want with the money that they make and they get to work the system to pay as little as possible into the rest of us. They still pay more. And obviously the taxes are paid more by the wealthy than by those who aren't wealthy. But we find ways around it. And the government then subsidizes those same corporations even though they don't take care of their own workers. And I think that how the powerful are able to leverage our government is the main fight that we need to have. So you'll have like, let's say Walmart is a great and egregious example. They have more of their people on SNAP as a percentage, their workers, than any other corporation. Yet they're making a lot of Money. And then what would we say? Well, they're allowed to give it to their shareholders. That's capitalism. Oh, but we, Tucker Carlson and Chris have to subsidize your workers. I think that that's the main fight. Now obviously it's not Ukraine, but what I'm saying is rich people imposing their will on the US government to do what they want for them is a real thing.

I couldn't agree more. However, I think, and I agree with what you said about Walmart completely. Why should I subsidize and not just.

Walmart, it's all of them.

I agree. Well, it's capitalism, but I don't actually think, I don't think that that's the greatest threat to our democracy or our freedoms or our country. I think the. Because look, Walmart, huge world's biggest retailer or was powerful company, obviously it's got a board of directors, it's got shareholders, it's a publicly traded company. You can buy Walmart. There's some accountability inherent in that structure. If you have someone like Ken Griffin not to beat up on poor Ken Griffin, who, you know, I don't think Ken Griffin's evil, it's just silly. But I'll just name him again. Ken Griffin is like this independent multi billionaire who's got massive. And there are a lot of these guys with massive political influence because of the money that he has. And there's no accountability at all. What you can do to Ken. There's no board of directors of Ken Griffin. He just is a billionaire. He is his own power center and he's what we would call if he were Russian, an oligarch. We put sanctions on him.

Yeah, that's the new word in the American vernacular and I'm okay with it. I think it applies.

That's the real threat. Cuz like a guy like that, I agree. Can own his own media outlets, can own his own politicians, he can. I mean, I don't know why you're.

Not talking about Musk in the same way. I mean all the tech bros, which I think is a really benign and casual label for these guys. He's doing everything that we're supposed to be worried about happening in this society right now. And again, I'm not anti elon Musk. I'm not. I think he's a genius and I just, I think that there are things that are happening.

I can answer your question and I don't think it's an unfair question at all because I do think the world that produced Elon is a world you need to think about a little bit. I think there are some, definitely some threats. Elon specifically will always have my love, because he did the most important thing, which is restore free speech in the United States through X. And he took. Because, you know, free speech doesn't mean anything if you can't actually speak to an audience. Like, I can lecture the mirror in my living room, but it doesn't mean anything. I have to be able to talk to other people in order to convince them, and there was no place to do that. At scale, all the social media apps were controlled, completely controlled. And he has given a real measure of free speech back to the United States, to its citizens, which is really the difference between slavery and freedom, is being able to say what you think. There's kind of like a free man can say what he believes is true and a slave can't. It's that simple. So if you want to remain free and not enslaved, then you have to have free speech.

And no one else seemed to agree with that except this, like, South African guy. The South African ironic rock. It is it. Maybe it's ironic, I don't know. I mean, I'm highly opposed to immigration, but I have to say, including my best friend, a lot of the best people I know are immigrants and they appreciate America for, for what actually makes it great, which is its, its core freedoms and.

What do you mean you're against immigration?

We have too much immigration and we've made the country.

There's a difference between too much and none.

Well, not against immigration. You just said in theory. Okay, we need to shut down all immigration right now until we can retain or regain equilibrium and like, figure out what it is that holds us all together as a nation. It's too chaotic, it's too crazy right now. No more people, period. None. Cap it right now and then just cooling off, period, 30 or 40 years.

Cooling off from what? This is all from Trump has. Has stoked as the biggest problem we have.

It is the biggest problem we have. And I'll tell you exactly why. Because it creates chaos and disunity. If you have a continental sized country like we do, the main question you have always, every day you're thinking about all day long, how do we hold together? How do 50 states not become 50 countries? I mean, that will naturally happen, right? Because each governor sees himself as, as Caesar. So how do you keep them cohesive? And the only way to do that is short of force. You could just like get nukes and tell everyone to obey, but short of that, short of becoming A totalitarian country. It's by consent. It's because everybody thinks we're in this together. We're all Americans. We have this in common. And it used to be race and religion. It no longer is. Okay, so what is it? Crickets? What is it? What is it that we all have in common? And no one is even trying to answer that question. And until you can answer that question, you are going to move toward disunity. The drug cartels will take over Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and they'll be their own thing, and New England will be its own thing.

And God knows what will happen, but it'll break apart. Because that's just the nature of people, of human society. So we need a period where we can think through what it is to be an American, what unites us, what's our civic religion. It can't just be everyone's gay. That's not enough. Pride Flag is not enough to hold a country together. What is it? And immigration makes it impossible because it's too much churn. Things change too fast. Who are these people? I don't even know.

That's how we've populated the country.

Not at this scale. We've never had immigration like this as a portion of population. We've never had it. This is. And by the way, it's happening at exactly the time when technology is certain to, like, overturn our economy and employment structure. Like, AI is going to change everything. It's too much change at once. People's brains can't handle this much change. And whoever opened the spigot and flooded our country with 15 or 25 million illegals in the past four years should be in prison for the rest of his life. That's the worst thing that's ever been done to this country. And I don't know if we can recover from it. And I think it'll become obvious as soon as there's an economic downturn that, like, the fundamentals have not been tended to at all. But when I'm really worried about it.

I, I, look, I understand that you're worried about it, and I understand why you would be. Right.

But I just wanted to say it's.

Being preached to you for years.

No, it's not preached to me. I notice it. I notice it well.

But I'm saying, look, this is.

How many Americans want their kids to serve in the military now?

Very few.

Right. So that's a huge.

That's been true for a long time, by the way.

Not a long time.

Longer than the last four years.

Oh, for sure. Oh, it precedes Biden for sure. But not the last 20. Not the last 20.

I don't think you can look at immigration as an unprecedented bad in America. It is America. Otherwise you don't have one.

Not at this scale. Not at the scales. Too many people.

But even if you wanted to, even if you wanted to look at the people, even if you want to say they're 15 million people who aren't supposed to be here, they all came in and leaves legally. Okay, one. You see how easier it is to say that than to do something about it, right? Because he was going to come in and round them all up, and now.

It'S an unsolvable problem.

Well, it's. The question is, is it a problem or is it a challenge? And it is a mixed bag. You have 7 million open jobs in the country that are necessary. What does that tell you? You don't have enough people to fill them. Okay, so that means that the 15 million people haven't taken everybody's jobs. And why are they. Government benefits saturated the market.

Why are we giving government benefits to people here illegally?

It's a legitimate political question. Now, when you know it's not a.

Political question, it's like a. It's a social question. It's like a core question. It's like, if you want them to fill these jobs, why are you subsidizing them not to work?

Well, it's not that they're subsidizing not to. To work.

Why are you subsidizing them at all?

Because that was a political. That's what I'm saying. It's a political decision. They decided to do that. You could decide not to do that. Now, they don't get Social Security benefits very often. You'll hear, they're young people, you know, but you have a third of. And again, these are all rough estimates. Because your point about tracking. We don't do this well here either. You have a third, let's say maybe close to a half of illegal entrants working in this country whose employers pay into Social Security for them.

No, I know all these.

They do not get any of the benefits.

Right. So we should be grateful to the.

No, no, not grateful. But you got to see it as a mixed bag. It's not. They are little demon running around.

I see it as the greatest failure this country's ever presided over, which is the failure to encourage its own citizens to buy into the country sufficient to have kids. You have to have an economy that allows young people who aren't Rich, whose parents aren't rich to get married and have kids. And we haven't done that. And the middle class is another minority of the country. It's super hard for people to get married and have kids. And so rather than fix that problem because it would, I don't know, make Larry Fink less rich, you have to import people because, oh, we need workers. Well, what about, I mean, we both grew up in a world where people had kids and they don't now. And whose fault is that? It's our leader's fault. That's like a core fault. That's like a true sin.

It's always been both, right? I'm second generation in this country. So you've always been doing both. You've been having babies and you've been bringing in people because that's the American, that's the American opportunity.

No, but what you haven't had is the birth rate. Just like ending for native born Americans. Ending. And then, and then you have the thing I referred to earlier, which is the chaos of, of change. Change produces chaos. Now, hopefully there's again an equilibrium that is achieved over time.

But you don't think Trump made a boogeyman of illegal entrance in this country by saying they're the bad Elmbres, they're all bringing the murders. And you know that the crime rate among that population isn't the same as the native population.

A single crime by the illegally aliens. Unacceptable. Illegal immigration is unacceptable.

The one is too many is a very convenient standard though.

It's not, It's.

We don't use that anywhere else.

You're from here, you're not American. What are you doing here? You broke laws of my country to get here.

Yes.

And you expect me to like it? And me to kiss your ass and me to give you housing vouchers and food stamps and free education for your kids. What? I didn't sign up for that. I was born here. I'm not. I actually like immigrants. That's just trying to say Elon Musk, my best friend and business partner. Like a million immigrants I love. But inviting people in illegally, immediately, putting them on welfare when they have no relevant skills to a tech economy, which they don't. A lot of them can't read. We don't know the real names. How is that good for America? In no sense is it. It's the destruction of America and everyone knows that. And everyone's so paralyzed by race guilt they can't say it. But it's not about race. It's about a basic Question that any country has to ask itself, which is, what do I have in common with my neighbors? Why are we all in this together? I got nothing in common with my neighbors. Now, we don't speak the same language, so how is this a country? These are not questions that racists ask. These are questions that any normal, logical person would ask.

Like, what is this? That's why no one wants to fight for the country, because they're attacking people who are born here. Our wars are fought by white men from the south and the Midwest. I mean, actually fought. And that's provable. That's just a fact.

You have a lot of minorities in the military also. You could argue it's one of their last avenues in quality.

But every war that this country has fought so far has been disproportionately fought by those two groups. And those are exactly the groups that our leadership class hates, hates. And it's constantly. Diversity is designed to hurt those. To hurt those people.

But most of the leadership class are those people.

You're absolutely right about that. You're absolutely right about that. The war on whites is being waged by whites. It's 100% true. What is that about? I'm not Sigmund Freud. I don't know. I'm just telling you that if you know our entire media establishment and not just our, like, the vibe, the law, diversity is designed to discriminate against those people. So why do they fight your wars? That's just true. And then normal people I put myself in this class are like, I don't even know what it is that we're fighting for. More trans people or whatever. Like, what is this project about? These are all answerable questions, by the way. All is not lost. I'm just saying you need to just pause and think through the basics. I think the country is the best country in the world. Totally salvageable. We can turn this around. I'm not talking about the economy. I mean the social fabric, which is much more important than the economy. But we need to do it now and take it seriously and not just like, listen to AEI and measure everything in gdp. Those people are stupid.

So you don't understand what it is to be American anymore.

Will you tell me? I think we've got 350 million people here. What unites them?

The opportunity. What?

Opportunity. Economic opportunity.

Opportunity to live a life of your own making. To succeed and fail on your own merits.

Okay, so the meritocracy. To be judged by what you do, not what you look like.

That's right.

Okay? So every institution in American life, almost without any exception at all, has abandoned that standard and now has something called DEI or diversity hiring or sort of act.

You just had an administration strip it all out.

They all do. Still in place. I mean, they're fighting it. But where were you when every institution decided to hire on the basis of sex and race, which is the opposite of the standard you're describing?

Why did they do that?

That's a really interesting qu. I mean, from my perspective, yes, it's an attempt to destroy the West. And because that. I mean, what is the West? You said it yourself. What is America? You said it's a place where you can rise or fall on your own merits. And that's the one thing that's been destroyed. So I actually agree with you. But we don't have that anymore.

And it was destroyed. Was it destroyed when women were given the vote or when minorities were given the vote?

Of course not.

Okay? Because there had been a system that was limiting, but women were given the.

Vote in 1919, and minorities were given. Minorities had the vote in a lot of places. Some they didn't, but the Civil Rights act was 1965, so. So it's been 60 years.

So the point is. Look, I get that. I get what the frustration with DEI was. I understand.

No, no, it's not the frustration. It's that it gets to the fundamental question of what is it? I asked you, what's an American? You said, you don't have to be an American. I said, I really don't. I want to. And I think we need to figure that out. And you said, I know what it is. It's. Anyone who comes here can rise or fall on his own merits. And I said, where were you when that was destroyed? It's totally destroyed. We need to rebuild it. It's not bad. White rage. Thank you, Mark Milley. It's about the principle that undergirds the whole country. It's what it is to be American. And they took it away and no one said anything about it. And anyone who did was called a racist.

No, it's. Listen, I get the cancel culture concerns.

And it's not cancel culture. It's like, fundamental, dude, since we don't have.

No, I'm saying being called racist for saying what you just said is a function of cancel culture. It's unfair. But what I'm saying is this. You didn't have minorities being given the opportunities because they were minorities. That was something that America wanted to correct because it is the opposite of equality, okay? And it was the same with women. And that's what you should be trying to do. Not to the exclusion of anyone else, not to the exclusion of merit. But you don't want people held back.

Because of what they are either. People, as you said. I'm just quoting you, my oracle.

Thank you.

That what it is to be an American is to participate in a system that judges you on the basis of what you do, not who you are, where you came from, what your parents did, or what they look like.

Land of opportunity.

Land of opportunity. And I pressed, what does that mean? And you said what I just said. And so every institution in American life to this day, the meaningful ones, the universities, the large corporations, the federal government, to this day, has abandoned that and moved aggressively in the other direction. There are federal set asides, the ladders of success, the merit badges that we require to enter these institutions, mostly in education, totally determined by race and sex. And that's the opposite of what you said. So then. And that's been going on for 60 years. So, okay, so clearly it's not the land of opportunity. What is it? No, I believe it's a giant pinata party where the most aggressive person gets the biggest pile. So Larry Fink is the richest guy because he elbowed people in the face the hardest. I mean, that's kind of what it is.

There is a little bit of who and how the system gets worked. But I would disagree that it has been destroyed. I would disagree that because you still have whites in dominant positions everywhere that you can mention.

It's not about whites. It's about people. It's about human beings. Are you going to judge the person on the content of his character, the color of his skin, but you weren't.

Judging them on the content of their character. And when you know, it's hard to know.

If you.

If you look at corporate studies of corporate. What diversity does to them, it increases productivity increases.

We talked about the study from 2018, which has been. It's a joke. It's a joke. It's been utterly debunked. And they were selling their diversity consultants.

I'm not referring to that study, but.

I remember studying shows hiring people on the basis of skin color makes a company more.

On the basis of skin colors that you remove the restriction.

There are no restrictions that you.

You won't hire them as often because of their skin color.

Then. Okay, I have a simple solution for this. It's called standardized testing. And it was created in order to solve the problem that you describe, which is bias. And so standardized testing was a good faith effort by the wasps, by the way, who ran the big American universities. To be fair, they're trying to be fair. It's like, okay, let's just pick people on the basis of their intelligence, their aptitude. It's an aptitude test. And that kind of worked, actually. It elevated not just WASPs, but Jews and Catholics and black people, and everybody was judged on the basis. And it was imperfect, of course, but basically it worked. And it's why America dominated the world, because it had the smartest people in positions of power. And then at the apogee, at the top, we abandoned it. And we're like, oh, this isn't working. What do you mean it's not working? It's totally working. It's working because then we get the cream of all the other countries, the smartest people from the world move here, including some of my friends, the best. And then we abandoned it and we're like, well, that's unfair. How is it unfair?

It's the definition of fairness. You're judging someone without even knowing what he looks like or his sex on the basis of his performance. How is that unfair? They never explained. They just took it away and now it's gone. And now in federal contracting, if you're a woman owned business, why do I have an interest in a woman owned business? I don't care who owns the business.

You're ignoring the impact of the Trump administration. Administration, which has been.

Well, it's been six weeks.

I know, but I'm saying they. You strip it out, you'll see what happens. I don't think diversity is our problem. And standardized testing. I don't have a problem.

I said diversity was a problem.

I'm saying you did. I'm stating it as a proposition. What I'm saying is that the, the testing assumes equal starting points. If you and I are both going to take a standardized test right now in an area that I am prepared for and you're not, then we're not gonna do the same.

Well, go ahead and prepare for it then. I mean, I don't know what to say. What's a better way to do it?

The point. I'm not saying there's a better way. I'm saying that I don't have a problem with standardized testing. I don't have a problem with sats and people having to use them to get into educational institutions. I don't have any problem with it. I'm saying that you also have to be open to the reality that the kids aren't gonna do the same on the test. When one has had a good education and one has not had a good.

Education, there's a lot of science behind that. And the truth is darker and harder to deal with, which is that intelligence is the product of environment to some extent, but it's mostly genetic. And intelligence is a lot of factors in success. But intelligence is the single most important. Over time, in big populations, smarter populations do better. They make more money, they go to jail less often, they stay married. Singapore is a more successful society than the United States for this reason. Okay, so that's the truth. If you have a meritocratic society, the smartest people will have most of the money and most of the success. And that doesn't seem fair to people is the truth, actually. And as we got better at sorting the smart people and sending them to Harvard and McKinsey and, you know, on to private equity, it became more obvious. No, it's true, though. It became obvious that the meritocracy was producing an incredibly lopsided society. And that freaked people out and it felt unfair to them. And two people in the early 1990s wrote a book on it, Dick Herrnstein and Murray, and it was called the Bell Curve, and it had a chapter on race in it, which made a lot of people mad.

They could have taken that chapter out, and it would have been, I think, the transformative book ever, because it described what I just said, which is the meritocracy produces an outcome that you may not be ready for, actually, because it's rooted in nature and you can't change it. And Head Start, which was designed to increase the IQ of poor kids, didn't work, and no one even wants to talk about it anymore. It's really hard to change people's intelligence. And intelligence turns out to be the main predictor of economic success. So these are super complicated questions, but I know that a system that rewards people on the basis of race and punishes others on the basis of race creates hatred and division.

I don't think the point is. I don't think you have to do it that way, is what I'm saying. And I understand I can't get into college.

If. If two people apply to college and they're different colors and the one with a lower SAT score is admitted because of his race, that's penalizing the.

I understand. Which is why it's no longer the law of the country.

It's true in every college in the United States, as you know, especially the selective ones, including the one you went to.

But they changed the law.

They. They lie. And the Harvard case showed that. You can say they did this with the UC system in California, which was once a great system when I grew up in that state. And it's now a joke because of this. But they basically found out that they were just like, we have too many Asians. Can't have too many Asians.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

What was interesting to me about the case is that it wasn't white people, it was Asian people who were saying that they were being discriminated against.

So basically, the way they shut down the conversation is by making everyone feel guilty about slavery, which no living person anything to do with at all and no living person I've ever met supports. I couldn't be more opposed to it. That's why I'm for free speech, because I'm against slavery.

But it's also. It's not a coincidence that people of color, specifically African American, are at a different socioeconomic level, given how they were introduced to the country. Right. Because race is completely fabricated. There is no such thing as race. We made it up.

Even know what you're talking about. What do you mean?

You cut open a black guy and a white guy. Their genetics are the same.

That's okay.

We made race.

I don't know what you're.

We made race. We made it. We made it a thing. Just because you look different doesn't mean you're a different species.

So we created. No one's saying anyone's a different species.

I'm not saying that you are. I'm saying I think we may be.

Getting into science a little too deep.

The idea. No, I'm saying the science is very simple.

Right.

She created race and.

Wait, wait, hold on. Wait. I don't know what you're talking about. So you're saying that there's no. There are no differences between the races. So you, for example, the genetic predisposition to certain diseases is fake.

There are cultural. There are cultural. They're ethnic pockets. Right. So Italians have certain things that are more common because of that group of animals breeding with each other. Then you'll have with Irish people or with Polish people. Sure, sure. And then as they.

Oh, so you acknowledge genetics is real.

Of course genetics is real. Okay, so genetics is everything. What I'm saying is that race. What I'm saying, genetics is everything.

But genetics is everything.

Race is a social construct.

Okay, well, race is a social construct in some ways.

Yeah.

But there's no doubt that there are significant. I mean, look, first of all Irish.

And Italians are different cultures, right? But they're the same people. They're just different cultures, speak different ways, eat different things.

They're not the same people. They don't look the same, and they're not genetically the same. That's not true.

They are genetically the same.

Well, that's untrue. It's factually untrue, and you can see it in all kinds of ways. What's. What's the percentage of redheads in Sicily? Pretty high.

I doubt it.

Okay, so what you're saying doesn't make any sense.

But that doesn't mean it's. If that doesn't mean it's just where people decide to be.

No. Hair color is determined by genetics. It's not a cultural.

I know, but I'm saying that having.

Neither is height or eye color or iq.

Having more redheads in Italy is not just about genetics. It's about where people. People populate, Right? Like, you could. You could take a huge, like, look at. Look at Sicily, right? Look at the history of Sicily. When North Africa winds up being there, right? And in power, you wind up having that mixed into the chemistry of everybody who's Sicilian.

Because genetics are real.

That's exactly race as a thing we created.

Okay, I'm not exactly sure I understand the distinctions that you're drawing. I'm just saying that different people, different groups of people, and different individuals have different genetic makeups, and they're not wildly different. We're all members of the same species. We are all created by God. As a Christian, I believe that. But we didn't have these problems when people were Christian because the underlying assumption was that God created everyone. Everyone has a soul. It's only when this became a secular society that hates God that you could treat people like animals and objects.

Well, slavery was during a time where it was a pretty heavy.

Christianity is nothing compared to AI and transhumanists, feminism, nothing.

How so?

Well, because slavery, you know, evil though it is, it still exists, by the way, around the world, but it's evil. And Christians got rid of it. No one, no other group did. Christians got rid of that because they thought it was evil, because they thought God created each person. But even under most, certainly in the west, certainly in the United States, even under slavery here, evil as it was, slaves were still considered human. They didn't possess the same rights. But AI and transhumanism. Transhumanism specifically seeks to redefine what a human being is. When you merge people with machines, then you don't Acknowledge the existence of a soul. If you believe that each person has a distinct soul, that God cares about each person like a speck of sand on the beach, each person is accounted for and watched over by God and cared for by God and has a destiny. How could you merge that person with a computer? Because once you do that, then you don't have to acknowledge the soul. Then you can treat that person like the object that you've made them into. And of course we don't even discuss this. But whatever.

The point is. Look, my only point is this is a super complicated topic, as I think we're proving. And there are always unintended consequences of any system that you set up. But I know from just watching the world and watching the United States that the second you make race a key for appearance, whatever you want to call it, genetics, a key component in awarding or punishing, then you make everybody hate each other and you wind up like Rwanda.

You don't want to create differences, you want to create similarities.

Well, there are differences, but you want to find commonalities.

Yes. And I think that, look, that's what, that's what the land of opportunity is all about.

If you treat people as individuals. Why do I give a shit if someone's a woman or black? I care about that person. Him or her. Are you a good person? Do you do a good job? I care about you, yes. I don't care about all your ancestors. People look like you. This whole phrase, this term that used community is totally fake. There's no black community or white community or gay community. They're only people. No woman ever gave birth to a community. That's not a thing God doesn't care about. He cares about people.

It's a social construct.

No, but it's a way for politicians to dehumanize people.

Actually, I hate it or fragment people.

But to treat them as less than human. You're not a. You're not Chris Cuomo. You're part of the Italian community. You're part of the Buff 50 year old community. You're part of the former talk show host community or whatever. Like that makes you less than who you are. No, your name is Chris Cuomo. You have a soul. God knew you before you were born. You have a destiny after you die. Like, look, ultimate community.

I get all the metaphysical aspects of it. What I'm saying, that's the core of it. But what I'm saying is when you discover that women aren't given the opportunities because they're women or blacks aren't Given opportunities because they're black in America, that's something that we see as corrective, that you.

Well, the correction has made the problem worse. We saw leeches as corrective, too. We saw radium theory as corrective, too. Just because you claim it's medicine doesn't mean it's not poison. And this has been poison. And this has poisoned our country. It's made everyone way more race conscious. We're roughly the same age. People were not half as race conscious when we were kids as they are now. They weren't half as angry about race as they are now. And that's a byproduct of the system that was supposed to make things better. It made it much worse.

And our politics, I mean, look, the Trump administration, which I think is a very interesting aspect about our conversation. Think about it. You and I have sat together, I don't know how long, if it goes past like that, but we haven't even talked about anything in the news, really. I mean, we're talking deeper questions. No, no, no. And I love it. But I'm saying that's the beauty. That's the beauty, right? That's the beauty of the forum, of the freedom of what we're able to do here, which you would never be able to do just by time letter, let alone by subject inclination. We are very divided, and we are divided in ways that I haven't experienced before.

I agree.

And I think that a big part of it is that it works. It's working for people who want power and to keep power. Division sells these days. It is, and maybe it always has, and that's why we know what a demagogue is. But there's no positive opposite term that the Greeks gave us. It's easy to play on people's outrage. But when I see the Trump administration, he came in fomenting division, and I thought it was a very tricky sell for him, because if what I hear about him is true, which is he wanted to win again because of legacy mode and be remembered, is great. You can't be great as a divider. There's no American figure in our history who was great because they were a divider.

Every American leader has been a divider. Every leader is a divider by definition. Us versus them, the enemy versus the homeland. You know, the first presidents of the United States drove a loyalist to Nova Scotia. Some of them were my relatives, so I know that. So you will divide. The question is, on what basis? And the thing that I worry most about in a country this diverse is racial Division, because it doesn't go away, and those wounds just remain forever or certainly for generations. We've seen that with slavery, which I do think has left scars. I would not deny that it's clearly real. So anybody who foments racial division is. Is committing a graver sin than average. And to see Trump get the support of a multiracial coalition, which he did, is the most hopeful thing ever. And so if in the end, it becomes Trump against the people who've wrecked our country in the permanent bureaucracies, I'm, you know, I think that's pretty good outcome.

When you see what he's doing right now, you don't see him as is trying to break things. And there's no question.

There's no question. There's no question. And I think you make a fair point. And in general, I am on the side of builders over destroyers because I think it's much easier that, you know, I hate vandalism, and just on a gut level, I hate it. I believe in building and improving, but I do think, in this case, and I think it's tough, and I think it's a tough balance. You know, you can get into a frenzy of destruction where you just break things because they're there.

Like, I can't think of anything that the administration is telling us is good and works in our society.

Well, let me put it this way. I've watched vandalism in the last. Really Since Memorial Day 2020, when the George Floyd riots began, I've watched vandalism on a scale I never thought I would ever see in this country. Not just physical vandalism, but vandalism of our cherished institutions, whether it's the Episcopal Church that I grew up in, the St. George's School, the high school I went to, which I love. Totally destroyed by this.

Got any juice with that school, by the way?

They won't let me on campus.

They won't shoot. My daughter just applied.

Oh, it's a beautiful school. I met my wife there, and there's a lot of batts at my children.

Does she have any juice there?

I don't know. She's married to me.

I'm not gonna. I won't use this. I won't use this, but I'm definitely asking about it.

Can you tell me. Funny story. This is like my favorite. So they. Some. A guy who I really like, who is a member of. In our class there, called my wife. Maybe my wife is hilarious. About five or six years ago, and it's like, you know, we're raising money for this new tennis center. And she was captain of the tennis team. And I played tennis, mostly smoked cigarettes, but hacked around on the court and in the 80s. And like, we're trying to raise his tennis money for tennis. I was like, how much? How much trying to raise. It's like, it's $11 million or something like that. My wife's like, you know, I. I feel for you. I've been in this position raising money for a school. You have to call these people. I love the school. I met my husband. They were married there. My dad was a headmaster. You know, we love the school. I'll just pay the whole thing. I'll just. You have to call anybody else. We'll cover the whole. The whole. The whole amount. He's like, really? And she goes, yeah, just have one request, that you name it. The Tucker Carlson Tennis Center.

The guy's like, let me check on that. My wife's like, oh, oh, you're not. You're not gonna do that. And he's like, he's such a nice guy. Super uncomfortable. He knew that if he went back to the school and said, we paid for the whole tennis center with one donation. Yeah, no, they turned it down. Not that we were going to give $11 million for a tent or I don't have $11 million, but if I did, I. I wouldn't give it to a tennis center in a boarding school. But isn't that funny? So that's how they feel about me.

And you are able to laugh at it because.

Because I'm happy. I've had a really happy life, and we have a really close family.

And you also don't respect the basis of their rejection.

Of course not. And I know. I know what my.

That's the key.

I know what my sins are, and I've committed a lot of them. And I.

Who hasn't?

I'm ashamed of myself in a lot of ways, but who isn't? I'm not ashamed of. Of anything I've done there, you know, at all.

But I'm saying, like, who. Who isn't?

I think it's important. I think you should be. I think you should definitely be ashamed of what you've done wrong. And I am. But I also think that you should know what you did wrong and be ashamed for the things that are wrong and not ashamed for the things that aren't wrong.

You shouldn't just be ashamed because of how people see you.

Exactly. Exactly.

I agree. And I also. Look, I also agree that we're seeing Things that we haven't seen in ways. Some of it is because we have reach, right? Because we have so much more media now and ability for things to be seen technologically. But we also do have a growing level of acceptance of destructive and negative ideas. Look, what bothered me and my big boogeyman is, God forbid there was another nine, 11, would we come together? I want to say yes. I don't know. Certainly I know how President Trump would handle it, and it would not be the way.

President Trump has a lot of foreign conflicts into this country. I just want to say that.

Meaning?

Meaning that one of the byproducts of immigration is people bring their ancient resentments with them and that should not be allowed, period. Like, you want to come to our country for the opportunity, for the freedom, great. But you cannot, once you arrive, use the things that you're mad about in your home country to influence my foreign policy. My family's been here a long time. That's not allowed. It's not your country. Actually, we're welcoming you, but you can't bring your ancient hatreds with you. And a lot of different groups have, and it affects our foreign policy. I really resent it. It's my money, my children's lives on the line and my country. So, you know, a normal country doesn't allow that. They had a protest of Bangladeshi workers in the UAE earlier this year, and they weren't mad at the government of uae. They were mad at some issue back in Bangladesh, and they marched down the street and the government of UAE deported them that night. Not because they're mad at them, but like, we don't import foreign conflicts in our country because it's not. These aren't our problems.

And yet. And yet, here's a counterfactual. What do we see happening in Europe right now that isn't happening here? Them having huge numbers of Muslims from different ethnic extracts in that part of the globe coming into societies, not assimilating.

I agree.

That's certainly what the French are dealing with and what the UK is dealing with to a little bit of a lesser extent. In America, that hasn't happened. Yes, we're farther away, but hasn't happened. Muslims come into this country. It's one of two countries on the face of the planet that have more Jews than Muslims. Probably won't stay that way. But when they come into this country, they assimilate. And we don't do what the French allowed, which is to have them all living together and separate from the rest of society. America is about assimilating.

True. The only things, having spent a lot of time in Europe, I would say one, I think it's unfair to blame. It's like everyone blames the European populations. Like, you know, your Algerians are killing people with machetes on the street because you're a racist. That's not fair. It's their country. They're the indigenous population. This was imposed on them by their leaders. Don't blame them. A B, Europe is just way smaller. It's way smaller. And so the United States is so big that I've spent my whole life here. There are a lot of parts of the country. I don't know what's going on there. And I travel a lot in this country and I go to places, I'm like, what is this? It bears no resemblance to what I thought was here. Totally different. Go to Portland, Maine. It doesn't look anything like the Portland, Maine you remember. And there's no evidence people are assimilating at all. You go to Lewiston, Maine, they imported all these Somalis there 30 years ago. Never assimilated at all, at all in any way. Just kind of taking over Downtown Lewiston, it's a slum, it's dangerous. And there's no assimilation whatsoever.

No English is spoken. And so I think the lessons of Europe, the United States I think did a really good job of assimilating immigrants. Your grandparents, when the great southern European wave of immigration came at the turn of the last century and, and they really like self conscious, like all public schools, like taught civics and like this is what it's been American. Learn English. Like did your, did your parents even speak Italian?

Oh yeah, but what, what did my grandparents want? Be American exactly.

No, but that's exactly right.

But speak the language, be American. They were discouraged from speaking Italian except in the house because my, my grandparents.

Didn'T speak English exactly right. And that I think was the rule and you know, whatever the language was. So that's no longer true. Because when we make any effort to make people American because we can't define what American is, and we need to do that now and just require that everyone who lives here buys into the same, some species, the same program, I don't think we should be North Korea about it, but we need to have a unifying idea or else we will break apart.

Do you believe directionally this administration is going the right way?

Well, I think they've identified some things that are really wrong and in the first six weeks have made way more progress than I ever would have thought at fighting those things. So. But I mean, we have, we have some very, very serious problems. And will they. Are they equal to that? If anyone is they are. I, they've amazed me in the first six weeks, but there's a lot coming. There could be an economic reset, probably likely will. I mean these are cyclical to some extent. And then there's also the technology question, there's the AI question. And I just don't understand what you're going to do with 15 million new unskilled workers in a society that doesn't need workers. And I'm really worried about that. I don't know who thought of that. On the cusp of the AI revolution. Let's open the borders to Haiti. Like, what, what are you doing? That's like the greatest crime that's ever been committed against this country. And I, I hope I'm wrong. I'm often wrong. So I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong here. That seems like suicidal to me.

I think it is. I think that the biggest question, and look, I don't have the answer, but the biggest question is how to unify, how to take your fingers and make them into a fist. What worried me, look, what was I got married two months after 9 11. I got engaged 11 days after 911 because of 9 11, because I realized the preciousness of life. And I thought that was going to happen all the time. I thought it was the new normal, that they were just going to be up all the time.

I thought that too.

And my wife made the, you know, the one bad decision that she's made since I've known her, which is she agreed to marry me. And was it a tough sell? Oh yeah. If it hadn't been 9 11, she would have never said yes.

She'd probably leveraged a terror attack.

She could get out of it now on the basis of impossibility of contract because of the risk. So when I saw like, for me, like Even like a, a January 6th to me was we don't all come down on the side of what is right and wrong collectively anymore. You know that when George Floyd happened, people going down the streets and protest, they're going to be angry, they're going to say angry things. It's not going to be peaceful in terms of speech. Okay, Destroying buildings and that's okay. Taking over cities and that's okay, not okay. We should have all felt that way. We always had until that point.

No fair.

January 6th. The you don't do that. You don't go busted into the Capitol. Everybody should have been on the same page. Instead it was what about George, Floyd, the Black Lives Matter stuff. That type of discontinuity is very unsettling to me. We all know what's right and wrong on very gross levels. Okay. And when you ignore those things for advantage, you start getting into a dangerous situation.

I don't know that we do. I mean, one of my core beliefs is that shouldn't kill kids. Totally opposed to abortion. I think it's like the most obviously evil thing we've ever done. And I know a lot of really nice people I like a lot who totally disagree with me. And I don't know why they do, but they do. And that's like a core. I mean, abortion's not just like some boutique even. I'm not an evangelical, by the way, for the record, But I just have always thought, like, what? You can't do that. I don't care how inconvenient this is a baby, you can't fucking kill babies. But most people I know in my affluent world totally disagree. So I think. And that I just would say that's like a core disagreement. So I think, I think there are a lot of deep disagreements, like real disagreements that have, you know, are pre existing and maybe haven't surfaced.

Right. But here's the difference. And in terms of what it is to be America, what is our national religion?

Yeah, exactly. The law.

The law is our natural religion. Religion is a set of rules. Right. You have faith, you have faith. I have faith. I choose to have faith. Can't prove there's a basis of my faith, but I choose it. Religion is a set of rules. Our set of rules is the law. That's what unites you in this country. That's why it's so important. That's why politicians love to with it as much as they do, because they know it's the essential fabric is that you have fairness under law. So abortion, reproductive rights, however you want to term it, you can feel however you want to feel about it. I can feel however I want to feel about it. Then we have the law. Right now the law is you decide state by state. Okay. It is the first reversal of a right in our lifetime where a right had been recognized and then removed. That was very politically destabilizing, I thought. Turned out not to be in the election. Turned out, wasn't the midterms.

I mean, no, we had the Volstead Act.

No.

But this is where there was a right to drink. And then you couldn't. And then you could.

That's a privilege.

We had a right to run for more than two terms as president.

That again, is not a natural right.

It was, it was in the Constitution. There was no. You had a right to run for.

President, but that took it away. That is different than.

Because it doesn't have an organized, screechy, unhappy lady.

Oh, no, no, no. How many terms you have as president.

Is guaranteed on the Constitution. You can run for president is.

But you can amend the Constitution. Well, that's what I mean, the Constitution.

We make all kinds of changes. We consider some things rights and then we decide they're not rights. I mean, there's no, there's no natural law that would support abortion. Of course not. That's insane. You can't.

Well, then. No, the natural law would be control over your own body.

No, the natural law would be a person has a right to be alive that supersedes your control of your own body.

But when is it a person has rights attached to it?

Well, you can. Well, we'll just start with when the child go. Can live outside the womb. There's no debate there.

That, that is not the line that was drawn even in Roe v. Wade.

I'm, I'm just saying there are plenty of states that have that is a.

More generous assessment to people who believe in reproductive rights than the law had been on.

If kids are aborted every year post viability, it's just a fact. And they say, well, the child, you know, there's lots of reasons for it, but.

So, I mean, late term abortions are almost not a thing. They happen incredibly infrequently.

It's almost not a thing.

No, but I'm saying that statistically the idea that we had to focus on late term abortion, I don't know, was pure politics.

Rape on practical forms is almost not a thing. But I'm concerned about it. I don't want it because it's wrong. And anytime a child who can live outside the womb is murdered, like, I'm upset about it. And I don't care how often it happens. It happens one time. If it even could happen. I'm opposed to it. It's a baby.

It wasn't part of the law.

Okay, but I'm just saying it happens.

But the viability standard, the Good Mocker.

Institute, the numbers are. You can look it up. So anyway, I'm just saying, like, okay, it's a right. No, these are political institutions that respond to the public will or what they think it is.

But what about human rights? What about natural Rights that are bestowed by God that aren't supposed to be infringed on by men. Isn't one of those the control and sanctity of your own body?

I don't think that's. I mean I'm not the, I'm not the Yale Law School graduate here, but I, I'm not, I would.

They don't teach you about God given.

Rights in law school because that's our founding document. Is, but it is.

But that's, that's not a secular, that's not a secular understanding.

It says that in the document.

The Constitution does not mention God.

The Declaration of Independence does.

Oh sure, but that's not our operative document. The Constitution is. And our Constitution does not mention God. Nothing is predicated on God except separation of church and state. We don't, we don't identify the rights.

In the Bill of Rights. How are the rights articulated, explained as.

As a function of the collection, especially the Bill of Rights which you just referred to because they sent it out to the states and the states came.

Back with a recommendation like, okay, we.

Say they're God given, but the problem with that is you live in a secular society. So what if somebody doesn't believe in God? Do they not have rights? Of course they do. Of course they do. They're attached by the collective.

Yeah, well the, yeah. The First Amendment says that the government can't have religious tests. But I guess that you could just, whatever rabbit hole. But I think we can just stick with the Bill of Rights and just, we could start there and say that those are the rights our government exists to protect, wherever they emanate from. And the first one is the freedom of speech. And when you see the entire leadership class of the country opposing the first right enumerated in the Bill of Rights, then the whole project is bullshit and the people running it don't believe in it. And you set the stage for revolution, which is really scary.

Here's my problem with it. I am totally with you about having to tolerate the things that you don't like and you don't want to listen to in a democracy. 100% marketplace of ideas. 100%. And I would even argue that it is better to have more ideas that are offensive because it makes it easier for the better ideas to rise to the top. I honestly believe that. I'm very worried about any kind of concerted effort to limit speech 100%. Here's what I'm struggling with. Our jurisprudence has moved in the opposite direction as our culture. Our culture has been getting A little bit more finicky with what it likes. People talking about, that's cancel culture censorious. The law has been expanding. Right. When you look back at chaplinsky in the 1920s, 1940s jurisprudence, they used to say at the Supreme Court level, you know, the First Amendment wasn't created for Tucker Carlson to figure out how to say the meanest shit he can to Chris Cuomo and be protected from it. And then you had fighting words doctrine, which is, hey, Tucker Carlson can't walk up to Chris Cuomo and say something about his mom and expect not to get a punch in the nose.

And then they expanded it even more. And then he said, well, you can't say fire in a crowded theater. Yeah, you probably can. Under the Supreme Court law, there's a new test of whether it's reasonably conceived, believed to create violence. So they kept expanding the right. So the First Amendment, jurisprudentially, from the Supreme Court has been getting broader and broader. And I wonder if it has come with a culture cost. And I don't like to look at Mike Tyson as any kind of philosophical basis, but he said, once social media has made people forget that sometimes what comes out of your mouth is going to get you punched in the face.

That's right.

And I do wonder these days, maybe it's the angry old man and me coming out, but do you think we've gone too far in allowing things to be okay to be said not as political thought, but as invective as insults and how people are allowed to treat each other now? And if I do anything about it, if you do anything about it, you're the one in trouble.

I would say there. I would just make two.

Slippery slope. I know, but I struggle.

No, not slippery at all. There are two obvious points to make. One is that if you live in a society where you're not allowed to criticize the people in charge, you live in a tyranny.

Yes.

As in Ukraine.

Agreed. Not about Ukraine, but I agree with the principle.

I murdered Gonzalo Lira for criticizing the government. So, yeah. And we have done that here. And I'm opposed to. So that's like a super easy test. If you are not allowed to criticize the people who have more power than you do, you're not living in a free country.

I still think it's weird that you look at Ukraine and not Russia.

For the immediate example, I'm not funding Russia and my tax dollars are funding Ukraine. So that's kind of why I have a special interest. Any country that we fund. We have a right to look carefully at where our money's going.

No. No issue with that.

Any country. Okay. So I would say that. And the second point is, of course, I think the public discourse is completely out of control. I think pornography is disgusting. And I think the cruelty that I see all the time is shocking to me and really sad. And I hate it. And there's clearly, like, some deep rage going on inside people. I think I understand where it comes from, but I'm totally opposed to it.

What do you do about it?

Well, all I can say for myself is I try not to add to it. I certainly have added to it, you know, sometimes. And I'm sorry about that. I really try not to now. Probably should start a little earlier, but. But I. I still do. But anyway, I. I don't know what you do about it.

I don't know what to do.

Just try and, you know, model reasonable, decent. Last thing I'll say. I think it's the most important thing when you're talking to another person to remember that it's a person you're talking to.

I saw something happen. People are going to get angry at me about this. But by the way, I think that as much as this is remarkable for people, I don't care about why people are interested in you and I talking to each other. I know it's part of the solution, and it doesn't matter. People can listen to this and think everything that we both just said is completely a waste of the time that they spent watching it. I'm okay with that. I still know that it's part of it. Because one, when we were working at two different places, we would have never been allowed to do this.

Yes.

And part of being in those places where to be adversarial with each other. And you were much better at that than I was, by the way.

But I'm truly an asshole deep down.

It's not that deep, but what I'm saying is I know that we're not supposed to be doing this, and we're some of the only ones who do. Yes. And I appreciate you and respect you for that. I'm hanging out at a place that I love to go to during the summertime and there are MAGA hats all over the place. A guy in the MAGA hat is a little drunk, little out of it, and gets into it with somebody who does not have a MAGA hat on. And eventually the guy without the MAGA hat on smacks the MAGA hat off the guy's head. The guy gets angry, punches the guy who smacked it off his head. Cops come arrest the MAGA hat guy because he punched the other guy in the face. And there are all these other people there. And I was going to talk about it on the show and didn't because I realized that what I was going to say was not embracing of the law, but to me felt like what would have been right in the situation. And I have never really figured this out. I could read a hundred, I could give you a hundred different arguments of what's right and what's wrong.

But how I feel is when the guy smacked the hat off the head of the other guy, it seemed to me that it was not more wrong than the guy punching him. You know, it didn't seem like he had high ground. You smacked the hat off the guy's head before that it had been this, and there was plenty ugliness going back and forth. He then smacks the hat off, the guy, punches him. He didn't hit him with a two by four, but he punched him. He opened him up, he was bleeding. And everyone I would talk to about it would say, well, come on, Chris, I mean, you can't do that. Why? Because it's the law. Okay, why is it the law? Because we want to enforce civilization, but we're not that civilized.

I get it.

We give ourselves too much credit for civility, especially in America. Everything we embrace is violent and aggressive. Why does everybody like the Rock? Because he's a great actor? No, it's that symbology of what he represents as a male. And I, I know that it's wrong, but I feel like you can't be punching everybody in the face that you disagree with. I know, of course, but it's now like we empower people to be their absolute worst all the time and they gain advantage of it. People say things. They're not just criticizing you. They don't just criticize me.

Oh, I know.

They say horrible things about people, their families, whatever it is. And I don't know how that's making us any better. Is that just what we have to tolerate to be in a democracy? Or have we fucked it up?

I, it's pretty clear. I mean, I, of course I know exactly what you're saying and I agree with you. And I think that none of that is an excuse for the people in power to shut down criticism of themselves, as has happened in Europe and Australia. Hope it doesn't happen here. On the other hand, I do think if you don't think of other people as human, there's no limit to what you can do to them. And I do think that's the key thing to remember is these are people, they have identical value in the eyes of God that you do. And you should always remember that, no matter how pissed you are at them. And, no, you can't kill them.

No, no, no. Of course. But I'm saying that. I don't know, man. I just feel like we're getting less civilized, even though the law is Hispanic.

Can I say one last thing?

Go ahead.

Yeah. Thank the Internet for that. I am thrilled that you're enjoying yourself outside of the confines of the business we were both in. And even if I disagree with you on certain things, I just think it's a. It's. It's inspirational to see a free man.

So I appreciate you. I like coming down to see you. And I think that the point is. As simple as that. Tucker, we're not going to agree on everything. Okay, but what do you do?

Because there's not one Sicilian man in America doesn't love Trump. There's not one. And I don't believe you're that man. They're saying, I've done a survey of every Sicilian man in America, and every Sicilian man in America, in his heart.

Is like, well, finally, then I'm special.

I don't believe.

Because I don't believe Trump.

Secretly, I know that you do.

And I know you can speak for himself.

If I know. If I could just ray your Sicilian soul, you'd be like, you go, big orange.

Big orange. What I'm saying is this. I believe that. Look, you're gonna have people say, why are you talking to that guy? I'm gonna have people say, why are you talking to that guy? And I love answering the question, because conversation is the cure. You don't have to agree, but you gotta listen. And you have to feel each other out and you gotta take it in. And I'm happy to do it with you, and I look forward to doing it again.

Amen. Thank you. Good to see you. We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor. Hit, follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news things that actually matter. Telling the truth, always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.