So I guess the first question is thank you for doing this. What,

Are we rolling?

We're rolling. Okay. Let's roll, shall we?

Good to be with you, Chuck. Nice to see you.

Hey, good. Yeah. No. I Yeah. As I've said to you privately, but I and I mean it, I think you're maybe the best reporter working.

I know you don't even think of yourself as a reporter, but a gatherer of facts and an explainer of what they mean.

I I

think you're the best. Welcome to Tucker Carlson Show. We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else, and they're not censored, of course, because we're not gate keepers. We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly. Check out all of our content at tucker carlson.com.

Here's the episode. So where do these fires first of all, how many fires are there and where do they come from?

I believe there's 5 active fires right now. And these are ignition driven fires, meaning that this these are all this is all Chaparral or, you know, scrubland Yes. You know, brush areas. So this isn't this is different than the Sierra forest.

Right. These are not forest fires.

Yeah. These are not forest fires. And that doesn't mean that you're doomed to them, but it's the it's not the same problem that we get in the Sierras. So they're ignition driven, and they're obviously wind driven. But there's nothing unusual.

You know, I just interviewed a climate scientist about this or rather a environmental forest science scientist about this. There's nothing unusual about this. I mean, it is somewhat unusual to get, you know, you have a dry period and then the Santa Ana winds in January, but it's not like that never happens. They I'm working my way there. So Of course.

Ignition. I mean, the important thing to know is that the National Weather Service put out a a fire warning on January 2nd, and a local weatherman actually forecasted on January 1st. They said we're headed towards super dangerous moment. The next day, the National Weather Service Los Angeles held a briefing to underscore that point. The day after that, the mayor flew to Ghana.

I mean, it's crazy. Like, you

need for public press conferences.

Yeah. These were oh, I mean, it's absolutely public, and it goes to the politicians first, but it's all said public. It's the National Weather Service. So that so that so that that was, like, literally on the first or second, the governor should have called out the National Guard. He should have called all of our neighboring states.

He should have called Canada and Mexico, asked for all their backup help. They should have started circling c 1 thirties that are, you know, especially retrofitted with that can dump the fire retardant or, or water. They should have had helicopter circling to see where the fires were. It should have been immediate mobilization.

Pardon my ignorance. I I didn't first of all, I didn't see that news when it happened, but I didn't know that. So it was really clear to the people who run the city and the state that you had this combination of dry conditions and heavy winds, high winds.

Yeah. And and because there's so many ignitions, because of really these 2 factors, mostly the electrical wires, you know, brushing up against, you know, vegetation and triggering a fire, that's kind of the 1 of the main ones. The other 1 is is homeless people starting fires, all over LA. Half of all fires put out by the LA fire department are started by homeless people. It's been that way for years.

Why do homeless people start fires?

Well, you know, it turns out meth heads love to start fires. You know, there's just every drug has its kind of weird element to it. But meth heads love starting fires. They love destroying things. Like, meth is like the drug of nihilism.

So it's like perfect drug for LA and California at the moment.

So it's not these are not cooking fires.

They could be cooking fires,

but starting fires to destroy things. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Methodeict.

Oh, yeah. For sure.

But it's not evil or anything.

No. Totally fine. Yeah. What could go wrong?

But using, classically starting fires and torturing animals, aren't those, like, signs of

sociopathy? Yeah. I mean, for sure. I mean, look, meth makes you psych you know, makes you psychopathic. It makes you psychotic.

It's meth induced psychosis. But, I mean, yeah, and all the crazy I mean, people behave I mean, things that people do on meth. I mean, it is like it's like they behave with, like, superhuman crazy powers, the levels of violence, the assaults, the, I mean, you just when you interview people, particularly people in recovery that describe being on meth, I mean, they're just awake for, like, weeks at a time. Like, it's not even clear how they get any sleep at all. So that's just that madness has continued.

And, you know, and mayor Bass, who's the Wait.

So just to isolate what you're saying and just to pause to I think it's really important point. Fires, at least half of fires in LA County are started by homeless people.

Yeah.

And you believe that's driven by their use of a specific drug, meth?

Not totally. I mean, I think homeless people are gonna often start fires for a lot of different reasons. I mean, drugs can start fires, but but the meth heads are like into fire, like, it's a big part of meth culture. It's just starting things on fire.

No 1 sees this in theological terms. It's like this is I know.

It's amazing.

It is amazing.

Yeah. No. It's satanic. I mean, you can go totally satanic.

Seems about as obvious as it could be.

Yeah. It's awful. So but, you know, you kind of go I mean, so first of all, that problem should have been dealt with, obviously, years ago. It should never have been allowed. So but that they knew on January 1st, January 2nd that the fires were coming.

Like, it was inevitable that there would be fires. Like, there was, like, 0 doubt among anybody that knows anything about fire in Los Angeles that the fires were coming. The fires were coming. So then, like, the governor should have been there. The mayor should have been there.

You should just, like literally, you should it's all about and it's all about prevention in part because by the time the fire trucks are having to weave their way up those little hills of

That's right.

The Pacific Palisades, it's over. I mean so the only thing to keep in mind is that okay. Well, so that's the first thing is that they just have to mobilize in advance.

So that's a feature for people who aren't aware of the geography of LA.

Oh, it's just incredible. I mean, it's why it's so beautiful. Beautiful places are dangerous.

Exactly right.

So so that was so that that's, like, the main event. So the I mean, because I knew I I did my first thing I did is I was like, look. They're gonna come out and say it was inevitable, and that's just a total lie.

Because of global warming.

Yeah. Because of global warming. And, I mean, anyway, we can get so there's so many places to go here. But just on the most practical sense, they knew the fires were coming, and they didn't do anything. The mayor leaves the country.

She flies to Ghana after having promised not to leave the country, by the way, as mayor. She's traveled 6 at least 6 times out of the country, and she promised not to travel. Why is it important the mayor be there? You're saying, hey. Well, aren't the other people in charge?

Because it's a command it's an emergency command situation. She has to be able to issue orders and to, you know, waive regulations and make things happen. The governor has to be doing that. They didn't do that. They should have had, by the way, the they get they should get the fire trucks up into the fire areas right away.

They can also start, you know, they can start clearing brush. They can start, you know, but literally, they could just be in those neighborhoods just sitting there for days at a time waiting for the fires to happen, put them out as soon as they happen. I'm not saying that they would have been able to prevent all the fires from happening, but you remember, like, the big fire in 19 in 1993, I think it was Laguna Beach or maybe it was Malibu as well, but it was, like, 700 homes. We're at 10,000, you know, structures at this point, homes and buildings gone. You know?

200,000 people evacuated. I mean, it's like it's it's madness. It never needed to get to that level. K. So that's the first thing.

They just needed to have been there before the fire started, and they didn't do that because the politicians are just they're focused on themselves. They're focused on the next political office they wanna get. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the water runs out. Right?

So every so that was the and then you hear people go, oh, well, there's nothing you can do because, like, once the homes are burned down, like, the water lines, you can see the pictures, you know, the water, like, will be spilling out, you know, of the homes, and so that lowered the water pressure. That was a total lie. There is something called the Santa Ynez water reservoir, which is the potable water, meaning the drinking water that also goes into the fire hydrant system because the fire hydrant you know, the the fire hydrant system is the drinking water system. It's the same thing. There's it's the exact same system.

That reservoir was empty, and it was the 2nd largest of the 10 potable water reservoirs that serve LA County. There let me make 1 distinction here because there's actually 2 kinds of reservoirs. There's the reservoir with the snow melt water, these really big lakes, basically, and then there's the and that's that's the, unpurified water. And then those and then they purify it, and then they feed into these reservoirs where they store the water for for all sorts of reasons for emergencies. So that is an absolute crime that that Santayna's reservoir.

Why? Because first of all, it was it's right next to the Pacific Palisades. So for people that didn't know, Pacific Palisades, of course, is, like, right near it's on your way to Malibu. It's, like, the last big neighborhood before you get to the And they're Palisades.

They're over the water.

That's right. And so they have a reservoir. You look at the Google Maps and you look at where the Sant'inae's reservoir is, it's right next to, like, a few 1000 feet, from Pacific Palisades, and it's above it's really high up. And so if you had had water coming from that, the firefighters would have had plenty of water. It would not have they would have had the water pressure even if you had lost some homes and had those those the water out.

So I mean so 2 major, failures. The first was the failure to aggressively respond days in advance even though they had very clear warnings. The second was the reservoir was empty. 1 reporter has reported that the that the, the firefighters had not been warned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that that reservoir was empty. If that's true, that's just additionally scandalous, but, 1 of the 1 of the things that we think probably happened is that they, had been required to build have a cover for the clean for the for the asantinase reservoir, which is the potable water, the cover to prevent the water from being contaminated.

In the old days, like the fifties sixties, you know, birds would poop in those reservoirs, and and they would just put a bunch of chlorine in them. Right. And then we decided, well, that the water was still had a lot of you know, it still was not it was not particularly clean, so we wanted to be cleaner. So you can just put a cover over it, which is a kind of plastic or rubber lining. It appears that there was a tear in that.

They had to repair it. They should not have removed that water ever, during the fire season. If you need to make that repair, you you do need to drain right, you know, right before you do the repair, but you would make that drain. The people that I interviewed said, look. It it would take, you know, days, if not a couple of weeks, to repair it.

It was empty for at least a year. So it was sitting there for a year, and the person I interviewed who works at a as a senior executive at a different, water utility in California said if if we had any of our reservoirs empty, we would be, like, super nervous the entire time, and you would also then have backup water systems. So it's like any catastrophe, you know, you just have multiple errors occurring in advance and at the moment, and then the fires and then the actual ignitions. You can't completely prevent ignitions, but you can significantly reduce them. 1 would be to not allow people to camp outside all over, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County with, somewhere around, I think it's 40 to 6000, homeless people in the whole county.

Madness. And then the other is the electrical wires that brush up against the vegetation and and create fire. With that, you wanna clear the vegetation from around the wires. That's obvious. And then and then you can also just stop I mean, this is a not great solution, but you could certainly do it in a pinch if you need to.

You just stop the electricity from going into those homes for some period. I mean, it's a drag. I've we haven't I live in the Berkeley Hills, which is also a dangerous fire zone. And when the winds are really strong, they'll just cut off power as a precaution so that if they're so that to prevent an ignition. So I think the the thing that the reason I wanted to come on your show, even though I'm in the midst of a huge book deadline, is because I'm really concerned about this nihilistic discourse that there's literally nothing that could be done.

I mean, that is that is exactly where the politicians wanna go. I worry that, you know, ordinary people have that idea. The problem is I mean, it's absurd. I mean, this idea that you couldn't live in Los Angeles. Right?

And it's like it's like you can say it about anywhere. You'd be like, oh, it's there's snow falls in this place during winter, you know, or hurricanes. I mean, we're in an area that's Hurricane Valley. Right? Like, huge amounts of hurricanes.

That's that's not how humans roll. Like, we're capable of living in many different environments, including with extreme weather conditions. And we're really like that.

Can't stop my kids from dying of tetanus.

Right.

Or starving to death. Right. What I mean, what Yes.

Right.

It's so nihilistic. Agency. No.

That's It's so nihilistic. And you trace it back, I mean, the the the best, the most articulate advocate of that view is a Marxist named, Mike Davis who wrote this book called City of Quartz. It's a crazy nihilistic book, but he he had an essay and also a chapter in that book called Let Malibu Burn. I mean, it's classic kind of radical left, politics. It's classic sort of envy or sour grapes.

I mean, sour grapes goes I can't remember the the parable, but basically, it's like some animal wants to eat these grapes, but they're up too high, and he says, oh, well, those grapes were sour anyway. It's a it's a consolation for your own personal weakness and failure. That's just you know, let Malibu burn. I mean, you know, you have a ideology of Marxism that is based on resentment and envy. And so then you go, well, yeah, those rich all those rich houses should go up in flames.

It's a fantasy. I mean, it's a left wing I should know. I was on the radical left. Like, the fantasy, you hate the rich people because you because you want their wealth and you you admire them in some level, but you know you can't get it. So, I mean, this is how envy works.

So you end up constructing this whole political ideology. I mean, this is what Marx has done, and it's infected, like, the citizenry. I mean, it's infected the politicians, and so there's this I think that even though you this is not consciously the politicians aren't consciously saying, oh, let's let Malibu burn. That is the con that is the the behaviors they have taken have had that impact. So I think that what you're seeing in real time in these in these fire these fires in Los Angeles, these structures of fires, is the manifestation of a nihilistic ideology.

It's an emergent quality. It happens through a 1,000,000 small steps. But this heavy focus on left wing ideology, whether it's DEI or ESG or climate apocalypse or just class resentment, manifests itself in, like, the most spectacular beautiful neighborhoods just being turned into ashes and cinders.

It's also on a more prosaic level of violation of, like, the most basic agreement there is between citizens and their government, which is I send you more than half of what I own, but you keep my house from burning down and methods from scaring my children or whatever. Like, you provide public safety, fire protection, you know, water, sewer, electricity, like, just the basic stuff seems to be totally ignored. Absolutely. I mean, why is anyone paying taxes? Why isn't there a revolution?

There should be.

Well, because, of course, they're all trapped by this ideology. I mean, these are the neighborhoods that voted overwhelmingly for Kamala. They voted overwhelmingly for Gavin Newsom. They voted overwhelmingly for Karen Bass. I mean, Tucker, I I watched I saw focus groups, in 2022 with 2, Latinos, men and women separated, Latino group and a white group.

And the Latinos were great. I mean, they were just like when they started talking about the mayoral race, they were like, well, what are their positions? And, like, what are their policies? And what do they wanna do? And whatever.

They were very rational about it. They're very as you would hope, you they were self interested. They

were Yeah. What do I

get out of this? What do

I get out

of these camps? Fair question. The white the whites, I mean, it was amazing. Like, they first of all, they every focus group when the the moderator would just be like, oh, hey. You know, just how's it going around here?

They don't even try to lead the conversation anywhere, and everybody just starts talking about the homeless situation and the crime, you know, which is basically continuous with homelessness. And And then they would be like, oh, yeah. Okay. Well, about the remedies. Oh, there's a mayoral race coming up.

I think it was in the it was, like, in the summer, you know, that these focus groups were held in

Caruso versus Bass.

Caruso versus Bass. And they hadn't really been thinking a ton about it, but there's a moment there where you see it dawns on the white focus group participants. And they were not, like, recruiting, like, leftists or democrats or anything. It was just supposed to be a mixed group of swing voters. And they just as soon as it dawned on them that there was a black woman running, they were like, well, I mean, that's I mean, gotta vote for the black woman.

Like, it was the most racist like, you would think, like, in the in the most racist moments in American history, you know, the stereotypes that we would have, you know, about the south or whatever, about, you know, reconstruction or something, like, people would not be as open and honest about it, but they were just, like, openly, like, well, we have to vote for the black woman. And then in the rest of the focus group, when they a lot of them knew who Caruso was because, you know, he's famous for these really spectacular, you know, housing developments Yes. And also their that kind of calling them malls is a kind of just well, sorry. Just very beautiful, like, outdoor shopping centers

Yes.

With, like, lawns and you can get, like, a you know, fantastic restaurants and you can, like, have the kids can play freely on these lawns. I mean, it's sort of tragic because, of course, it's all private. It's not public spaces, but nonetheless, you feel safe. You go in there. It's amazing place.

So they knew for that. I these white participants, I was watching them through basically over, like, the next hour, hour and a half explaining why Caruso was a bad guy for just running against this black woman. Like, it was just outrageous. And what is he trying to do? He's trying to make money, I mean, which is just crazy because, of course, he's just, you know, like, he's like a billionaire.

I mean, he's self made and, extraordinarily successful person and clearly running for mayor is an altruistic act. So it was just appalling. So, of course, I mean, I have to say, you know

What what is that? I mean, I I've been to every big white country in the last year, Australia, Canada, UK, US, obviously. And that very specific brand of self hatred, nihilism Yeah. That brain disease is everywhere. It's not just here.

It's it's throughout the Anglosphere. Yeah. What and I it's history changing and it's effects. Like Absolutely. What is that?

Why is the white world determined to kill itself? Do you have any idea? It's really noticeable.

Yeah. I mean, there's so much in that. I mean, it seems like there's, like, multiple levels. I mean, at 1 superficial level or at least a kind of psychological, sociological level, they're all competing with each other to show who's a better person.

Yes. The

more I I the more hatred I express towards white people, the better I am as a human being. Destroying your

kids is like the measure of virtue.

Oh, yeah. Denialism. Obviously, this is a very old story about decadence and of, you know, comfort, and you start to kind of believe. I mean, there's something really checked out from reality about the whole thing. I mean, it first of all, it's, the stories that get told are just, you know, like, absurd.

Like, 16/19 being the founding of America, that's just obviously wrong. The country was founded, you know, our constitution in 17/89, Declaration of Independence 17/76. And not only that, but, like, slavery was never at the heart of the United States. It was always it was a whole place committed to it was English Americans or the American English as they were referred to wanting to create a country the first time that was just founded on the enlightenment ideals of freedom and of of free expression. I mean, so important, they put us the first amendment, the insist on bill of rights.

So So you just get this completely twisted, you know, disinformation story about the United States that gets embraced. Yeah. It's nihilism. I mean

But but embraced by whites at when it's aimed.

So it

is a I mean, leaving us in fact that's, it's false, but, you know, a lot of creation myths are false, but this 1 is false in a specific way, which is, like, you suck and you should die and all the way. It's like, yeah. You're right. I should.

Right. What it's I mean, end of civilization sort of ideology, isn't it?

That's it. So, like, what? I don't I've never seen anything like it.

No. And when you read the

old It is the whites too.

Oh, yeah. No. Because the Latinos, I mean, there's more They're like, what? Yeah. They're for sure.

They're, like, working they're, like, more working class. They're more Christian. They're more they love America more. They remember where they came from more. So, yeah, I mean, it's also yeah.

So it's just in some ways, that's an old story of a civilization just at its end, I mean, including all the transgenderism. I mean, that's, you know, that's the Camille Paglia's famous writing about how that that shows up at the end of civilizations. And so, you know, every Toynbee, it's like 1 of the characteristics is when the elites stop the creative class of elites, which is, I mean, Los Angeles, they stop identifying with their own working class, and they start to identify with, you know, with outsiders, basically, with with people from foreigners from outside

the country.

That's another sign of a civilization at its end.

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You alluded a minute ago to its cause being affluence? Just generational affluence makes people Seems

like it. It

does it feels that way to me too. I'd I'm not an expert.

I mean, there's I mean, it's cliche, but I'd like a lot of cliches, Scott, truth to it is the, you know, the the good times make soft Yeah. Men and soft men make bad times. So, I mean, I there's obviously been a huge correction in the United States, which is, you know, welcome, which is a sort of reembrace of of the ideals of the United States. Yes. I mean, let's hope that this has been a wake up call for the people of Los Angeles.

I mean, it's, they are reaping what they sowed, and the people of California are reaping what we sowed. And, you know, that is, you know, I mean, it's really quite symbolic. You know, it's like the neighborhoods of the of the elites in Los Angeles that are really that really got the most effective that are having to flee. And but, again, I mean, part of the reason I wanted to come on, I've been writing about it every day and trying to surface the stories of the utility the water utility executives, and I've got a story coming out later today from a firefighter who, you know, like, basically just described I mean, the firefighters, of course, the men and women on the ground doing the hard work, they're blameless, but, I mean, the destruction there's 29 fire departments in Los Angeles, including LA County Fire Department. You know, there's 88 cities.

And people don't realize, like, Los Angeles is a city, but then there's a much larger county around it with 88 cities in it. And there's, and not all of them have fire departments. In fact, most of them don't. Right? So the ones that don't have their own fire departments, they depend on LA County fire department.

But, you know, and it's been this way for a long time, so it's not like it can't work, but it definitely introduces a level of complexity into it. I mean, the priorities of these fire departments, it's not just like a social media meme. I mean, the the it really has been DEI. Like, it really has been the priority of these fire departments. The first priority of the fire departments should be to put out fires and keep people safe and save lives, But the first priority has been DEI.

I mean, that is clearly

Is there evidence? Do we have social science that shows that lesbians are better firemen than non lesbians?

I mean I mean, the I mean, what are the chances, right, that, like, all 3 of these executives are I mean, you know, it's, like, it's also sort of, like I mean, it's it's funny because the way that the the defenders of it sort of talk about it is as though they're imposing equality. Actually, they're demanding that that it not be based on merit. I mean, there's first of all, there was never any evidence that the fire departments were, like, systematically or structurally excluding qualified people. I mean, it's not to say that never happened or there wasn't some racism. I mean, of course, there is, but it's like you're getting they got into a situation where, like, people are getting promoted who were not as qualified as other people on basis of race.

I mean, that is anathema to the American system. And by the way, the people of California have now twice rejected racial preferences. Yes. 1 of them in 1990 6, I believe, and then the other again in 20 was it 2018?

They also rejected gay marriage, but they're not allowed to get what they want, actually, it turns out. Because whenever you think of gay marriage or racial preferences or whatever, if you believe in democracy and you have a referendum system, you have to abide by the results.

Well, yeah. And they haven't. No, they haven't. I mean, the spirit the spirit of California I mean, there's a true spirit of California that I do think is very American, which is really a egalitarianism. I mean, the American creed, if you believe Daniel Bell's analysis of it, you know, it's it's liberty, it's laissez faire, it's individualism, and it's egalitarianism.

But state I grew up in. It was the most American of all states.

That's right. It's not equity. It's it's equality of opportunity. That's what egalitarian

It doesn't matter who your family

was.

We used to say when I was a kid, no 1 in California used his last name. Now why would that be? You know, you go back east as we called it. I we go in the summertime. It'll be like, hi.

I'm Michael Shellberger in California. It's like, I'm Mike. Well, my father would always say, that's because in California, it's not about the legacy of your family. It's not about cast. It's about you.

Right. Do you do it or not? Right. That seemed like a great system to me.

It's great. I mean, that's why I love I mean, it's the part I love about California is, like, I lived on the East Coast for, like, a year. It was a traumatic experience. You'd go to parties, and someone would be like, oh, what school did you go to? Totally.

And then they'd be kinda looking over your shoulder. And you're like, well, what like, who cares what school I went to? Like, you know, who am I? Exactly. Where are my passions?

And Exactly. So that was like I was like, wow. That is like, that is weird. You know, in California, it's like, what's your jam, dude? You know?

It's like, really, like, what are you into? You know? It's that's like the best of it.

Who are you as a person? Yeah.

Who are you as a person? It's the human you know, it's like, obviously, there you can get culty and whatever, but I mean, it is the the best of that human potential. Well,

you're not held responsible for the sins of people you're related to. Well, I and, you know, I I come from a complicated family, so I always love that idea. You know what I

was like?

You're judged on you. Yes. The choices that you make and the character that you have. Right. Your decency.

Which is actually radical individual responsibility.

That's what I always thought.

Yeah. I mean, that was always for me. It was like, you know, Viktor Frankl who wrote Man's Search for Meaning.

He was

just incredible a holocaust survivor. The whole thing was was like, you know, being in a death camp shouldn't control how I think about the world. I mean, that's about as radical of a Really. Of an individual mentality point of view. And now, of course, that's viewed as very right wing and very unsympathetic and whatever.

But Viktor Frankl was just loved by the existentialist California left in the sixties. I mean, he would sell out these huge auditorium in Berkeley, and they would, you know, they'd go to Esalen. And so, I mean, you go from that to basically nobody taking responsibility. I mean, it's incredible.

And everyone living under the crushing burden of history, most of it misconstrued in a lie anyway, but still the idea that the past is determining the present and the future, That's, like, the least Californian, least American idea ever.

That's so well spoken. No. No. It's totally brilliantly well spoken. Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, it's like we in in in our next book, we're doing we were working on this idea of these singularities, meaning, like, these just awful events in the past, the Holocaust, slavery, indigenous genocide, and they become like gods for secular people. They become, like, super present. Like, you know, there's, it's just everything that we do is affected by slavery and, you know, everything that this is indigenous land. I mean, I was going through the I was just going through, the all of, like, the various documents over the years of, like, water and fire and disaster in Los Angeles, and they they, like, all open with land acknowledgments.

You know, you're just like, well, yeah. Be like, literally, you think that white people don't belong here. Like, that is literally what you're saying in those land acknowledgments. You're saying, we don't belong here. And you may have seen there's a very there's a clip that went viral on social media with the deputy police, the deputy fire chief of Los Angeles, where she's sort of saying, oh, yeah, people will ask me, you know, can you carry my husband out of a house, you know, in danger?

And she's like, well, you know, your husband got himself in a place that he shouldn't have been. That was her response. It was like Was that

I saw that video, and at my first thought was that can't be was it was that real?

I I know. It looks like a parody. It's crazy. You're like, yes. That's literally your job is to be able to carry someone.

Can you imagine, like, someone be like, oh, yeah. Your father, your elderly father, you know, we couldn't carry him out of the house, and he shouldn't have been in that house when those were pretty bad.

Gets raped walking to school. Well, she shouldn't have been wearing a skirt.

Right. Yeah. Which was all that's like the left campaign. Like, when I was in college, like, that was the whole don't blame the victim. That was the whole thing.

Of course, they're all

Which I would kind of agree with, by the way. I mean, you should be able to look attractive and not get raped.

Of course.

You should be allowed to be old and immobile and not die in a fire. Like, what are we even saying?

That's civilization.

Keep it's civilization. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. What's the point of civilization?

The point of civilization is to protect the vulnerable

Right.

To make it possible for people to reproduce and continue. Right. So make it possible for you to have kids and your kids to have kids. Like, there's no reason to have it other than that. So At

the most basic level.

Yes. And so I don't understand, like, how could she say something like that and not get fired or I know.

She should have been fired as soon as that came out. I mean, and Gavin Newsom should have called for her to be fired. The mayor should have called for a fire. She's still in that job. I mean, she's that that's dangerous.

Like, it's a violation of firefighter ethics. It's that person is a danger. In other words, she's going around suggesting to all of her who that work for her that they're not responsible for saving, but I think it reflects the mentality, which is a nihilistic mentality, which is that we don't belong here. You know, we stole we stole this land. And so you so and this is this, you know, let Malibu burn.

I mean, it is definitionally nihilism. I mean, it's anti civilization nihilism. You know, there's sort of 2 forms of nihilism. 1 of them is basically anti civilization, anti human, anti, you know, modern life, And it stems from this earlier nihilism, which is that life has no meaning. We're just like animals in the famous Russian novel, fathers and sons, by Turgenev.

You know, the the nihilistic character dissects a frog and says, we're just like this frog. You know? You're just we're just matter. You know? We're just dead matter, just disassembling.

So it's a very dark nihilistic story that then leads to this just, yeah, nihilistic anti civilization ideology, which became very fashionable. I mean, City of Quartz, the Mike Davis book, I mean, it was a very fashionable book to read in places like Pacific Palisades and Hollywood and Santa Monica and, and Venice. So, yeah, I think it's, you know, I hope it's a wake up call. I don't know if it will be, but it is a completely preventable disaster. Fires are definitely not completely preventable, but that level of destruction absolutely is.

And anybody who says that it's that it is not preventable should be as far away from power as possible. Like, anybody who believes that it was inevitable to lose 10,000, homes and buildings in Los Angeles over a week. They should not be in they should be very far away from political power. They should not be in charge of any fire department, because it ends up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.

So I've taken you right to 50,000 feet, the future of the whites and all this stuff, which I'm grateful that you addressed. But just back to the and I'm I'm sorry for digressing so much. Back to the the first question. How did this start? You gave a great explanation.

Did climate change play a role? Did was this caused by climate change?

No. It's not caused by climate change. I mean, certainly, warmer weathers, all else being equal, makes the wood, you know, drier, but, there is no change in precipitation over since 18/77. They've kept very good records of rainfall, annual rainfall in the Los Angeles basin, and it's unchanged. Really?

There are I know. It's incredible. There's wet years and dry years. You You know, you look at it. I just posted it on x.

It's just people can go look at it. It's from the Almanac. No change in precipitation at all in Los Angeles. There have been Santa Ana winds in January many times in the past. There have been, you know and and by the way, like, we this we this is a dry year now, but the last 2 years were very heavy rains.

Too heavy? Yeah. So slight heavy.

Yeah. And so, you know, we're it's extremes. I mean, it's what, you know, that's why California is so beautiful. It's a place of extremes. And so we, you know, we adapt to that.

I mean, you know,

like But there's been no in the aggregate change in rainfall in 40 years?

No. Absolutely not. Not as not Yeah. No. So why are they It's actually a remarkably stable climate.

Well, it isn't I mean, anyone who's lived there can tell you that's that's its appeal. Yeah. It's it is a pretty stable climate, actually.

Yeah. I mean, it's stable climate with these amazing extremes. So, like, you know, you'll just get these I mean, the best I mean, for my favorite weather is, like, after, like, you know, 3 days of just intense rains, and you're just, like, trying to make sure that your house isn't flooded and, you know, the mud's everywhere. It's just the dogs are bringing in mud. Yeah.

And then the sun comes out, and it's just heaven on earth. I mean, that's why we're in California. Right? You're just like, so we love those we love those extremes. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's part of the I mean, it's so funny because it's like, it you the reversion back to these you know, people are cursing the weather. You know, they're blaming the weather. That's why we do

human sacrifice.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, there's another 1 was, literally just before I got here, the legislature got to its very important work of passing a bill just now that sets aside $50,000,000 for California to sue Trump. Like, literally, and they were in a special session.

They that they kept going. They were in a special session to figure out how to sue Trump while LA is burning. And meanwhile, Gavin's going out there all the time being like, oh, well, boy, it'd be really terrible if, you know, if Trump, you know, withheld disaster aid or heaven forbid, you know, required that we, you know, get our shit together. I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say in your podcast. Get our things together.

And and then, like, literally, he's like, we're gonna sue him for implementing the agenda he was elected on by a majority of the American people.

Just an MSNBC agenda. It's just a silly rich white liberal agenda. And I will say I've thought for 20 years that California will only be saved by, like, naive Bukele type figure. Some authoritarian Latino in a cape is gonna show up and just impose order on the state. And I'm not I'm not being I am white.

I'm not against whites. I love whites. My children are white, but that the fact is they can't do it in that state. Gavin Newsom can't do it. The burden of guilt and self hatred is too heavy, and you're gonna get some guy from Oaxaca who's smart is gonna be like, we're not putting up it ain't this bullshit at all.

And, no, you can't camp in LA. No. You can't do meth in LA. And, yes, we are gonna have, like, full reservoir. I mean, do

you know what I mean? It would be amazing if we had that. We I mean It's gonna happen. There was sort of an idea that Karen Bass, because she was black and because she came from the left, would be able to do things that a white guy wouldn't be able to do. That was part of the the reasoning for her.

She didn't do it. I mean, she's just I mean, look. She's very people have to remember. She's very radical. I mean, and I get it.

I mean, it was like, I was there. I left it, but, you know, she went to Cuba a bunch of times and, you know, like, admired Castro, and, you kinda thought, well, maybe that was behind her, but it's not. You know? It really isn't. I mean, this the thing where, like, you're, like, literally get a warning that the whole city's gonna go up in flames, and you're like, oh, I really gotta be in Ghana for the inauguration of the new president.

I mean, look at where your head's at. I mean, she she talks about she just loves going to Africa all the time. I love going to Africa, but I do too. You're like you're like the mayor of, like

It's just silly and selfish, really.

Really narcissistic. It's it's really vapid. So It's not good to

have people kiss your ass your whole life and tell you I mean, that is just bad as it if it ever when it happens to me, it's bad for me. Yeah. It's bad for anybody. And if some people are always being like, you've got black girl magic, like, after a while, it no. I'm serious because it's there is no black girl magic.

There's no white man magic. It's all bullshit, bullshit, actually. But if if you start to believe it, having people kiss your ass, having had many people kiss my ass, I know corrodes your soul and makes you into a bad leader, and I really think that's part of we're seeing it not just in LA, but, like, the black girl magic thing has been bad for a lot of people. You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah.

As the white man magic would be too.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I mean, then she gets I mean, they they they so the other thing was she did cut the fire department budget. Okay?

She just cut it. I mean, she just it just happened. And then literally They're

trying it.

No. So she literally goes up at a press conference, and it was word salad. I mean, it was quite impressive. I mean, she was just sort of like, like, you were like, what did she just say? I mean, she's kinda she goes, well, that was, you know, it would kinda be like, well, that was different because we just approved this other money, and she would basically just it was a non sequitur.

I mean, she's describing a totally different salary negotiation. They cut 17,500,000 from the budget. And not only that, but then they had this internal memo that leaked that said that they were looking to cut another 48,800,000, another 49 How many million? From the fire from the fire department bridge, which had already was already decimated. I mean, there's a whole story on this.

Socialist. It's, like, famous for fires.

No. It's crazy. So so then, like so they do that, and, of course, the LA Times and Politico and, I can't remember, other people, they all come out and they go they go, did she cut the budget? You know, it's complicated. You know?

I mean, it's amazing. You know? It's complicated, which is like, yeah. Yeah. She did cut she did cut the the budget.

But nobody the media was not being honest with people about what was really going on until the fire chief, the lesbians, LA County Fire Chief, to her credit, She was being actually, she was being grilled by a local Fox Television reporter who was just doing a great job, actually. I mean, just to be handed to the local TV, actually, some of the best reporting still.

But she's just Only in LA. LA has always had great local television. I don't know why.

No. I think I agree with you. Yeah. It's fallen off in the Bay Area, though. They did a little bit better on Oakland when things get really crazy.

But she just kept going after her. She just kept asking her over and over again about the about the budget cuts, and she was kinda having a high finally, she was just like, yeah. Yeah. She did. She cut that money.

And she's like, did it matter? Yeah. Yeah. It mattered. You know?

Well, she had sent on she had sent a letter. I mean, there was a letter from, I think, it was December 4th that the chief the fire chief had sent, which said specifically, this is gonna reduce our ability to deal with wildfires. She said it twice. Yes. She said it twice in the letter.

So it was a little bit like, okay. You were on the record saying it was gonna hurt your bill. So but then she was like, yes. Yes. It did hurt our ability, to deal with it.

Then she just was like I think at that point, the fire chief, she was just like, alright. You know, like, the gloves are off. So she goes on CBS and on CNN and reiterates it. And with very strong language, ICE was able to get into this piece that will come out, shortly. I was able to get into the weeds a little bit on it, but, basically, there's a 100 fire trucks that are currently, in may the maintenance shop that are just need to be fixed.

There's a 100 fire trucks missing. The person I interviewed was like, we could go buy we could have bought for a $100,000,000. We could have bought, you know, like, a 100 or 200, you know, kinda used fire trucks or whatever, just get fire trucks from wherever, maintain them, and just put them in different points all around the city. You wouldn't necessarily have the staff to deal with them, But you could then as soon as you get that fire warning, again, on January 1st or January 2nd, you can just fly in firefighters from around the country, from around the world. You just be like, look.

We're just gonna bring everybody in. We don't know what's gonna happen, and then they can just go he was this person was like, you know, we could put, like, 30 of them at Dodgers Stadium. You know, you could just, like, put these fire trucks that are well maintained, you know. But so she was like because I didn't quite understand it either because she was like, we didn't have the money for the mechanics. And you're like, well, why do you like, what do you need the mechanics for?

Well, you need the mechanics to maintain the fire engines.

Right.

So, I mean, this is what you know, it's like when civilization breaks down, it breaks down in, like, just a 1,000,000 small ways. You know? So, you know, is is there some DEI part of it? Yeah. There was they were promoting people not based on merit.

Is there budget cuts? Absolutely. I mean, they didn't you know? And what what goes wrong when you don't have those budget cuts? Everything.

You know? I mean, the other complaint, I've heard, you know, is just that it's just the the the advanced thinking. It's just getting people that can kind of be thinking in advance. That's where their focus is. That's where their priority is.

So the d the problem with the DEI is that when you're just orienting an entire organizational culture towards racial and sex quotas rather than towards okay. You know, what about the Santa Ana winds and the fire risk and whatever? It's just we all know that, like, it's it's not just time in the day. It's also mind time. It's like, what do you think about when you take a shower?

What do you think about when you put on your shoes? Like, where is your head at? Their head has been in the clouds around, you know, DEI, the larger society, ESG, climate, homelessness. I mean, I mean, the list goes on and on. But the the you know, it was on homelessness.

We now know because the state audit came out, $24,000,000,000 on homelessness since since Gavin took office in 2019. Tucker, homelessness in California increased by 40% under Gavin. 4 can you believe I mean, 40 per so because everyone goes, it's such a curious, like, it's such a curious mystery as to we spent all this money on homelessness, and yet it just increased. It's like, well, yeah, because you spent money incentivizing and subsidizing homelessness. You spent all this money to attract people from all over the United States.

I mean, I interview people in California that are on the streets, and it's like, nobody's from California. I mean, they come in.

The only reason I feel like I have any understanding what homelessness is is because the interviews that you did several years ago, which are the most I never heard of you before. I saw these interviews, and you did that, and I would recommend to our listeners to go find them because they're on YouTube. You did the thing that nobody I've never seen anybody do it before. Others have followed since you did it, but you just went and you interviewed the homeless. And, like, what are you doing here?

Tell me your story.

And they were remarkably honest. Oh, they're they wanna be. They'd see the thing is, like, homeless people, they're always lonely, you know, and so they they're, obviously, these are people in a really bad way, and they're eager to tell their story. They have a lot to say. They're not most of them are not dumb.

Some of

them are not dumb at all. I'm shocked by it.

Oh, no. And they do lie, like, at the beginning. So, I mean, you have to the secret to all great interviews, as you know, more than anybody, is is you need to have a long time. Yes. Because people tell the they lie at first, and then the truth comes out.

So, like, you'll interview people and you'll be like you're like, where are you from, brother? And they'll be like, I was raised here. And then you get, like, 30 minutes in the interview. They're like, oh, I'm from Arkansas. You know?

I'm from Texas or whatever. So, yeah, I mean, so, yeah, they're from all over. They they came here. They come you know, the most famous 1 I did with was with James Church. He he had tattoos on his face, and he was just incredible.

I just love that interview so much. I think it was, like, it's only like an hour and a half with him just holding my iPhone up to him while he's talking. But he was the 1 who was like, you know, if I'm being honest, you know, they pay people to be homeless here. And I was like I was like, what do you what do you mean by that? You know?

He's like, well, he's like, I get $650 a month, you know, in cash welfare to to be homeless here, plus a couple of $100 more in food stamps. It's a great deal. He was like, I got Netflix on my phone. I watch Amazon, you know, I watch Amazon Prime TV on my phone. You know, I still Electricity from the from the the the light pole right here.

That video, I will say, is very satisfying. I do think that played a pretty big role in the voters of San Francisco voting to get rid of cash welfare, for homeless people.

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Did it I know I I've asked you this before, but

why did it fall to you to do that?

It's well, it's because well, we know why. I mean, because it's because

you weren't a reporter. You weren't working for

a newspaper

or a TV station.

No. I mean, look, it's I for me, this is the golden age of journalism. But it is so much fun, like, I'm because, like, basically, I can go into, every story and you discover that people aren't really doing reporting. You know? I showed up at the guy I showed up at the house that the guy lived in, the guy that assaulted Nancy Pelosi's husband.

Yes.

Just to give you a sense of where journalism is at. And I show up, and I'm, like, I'm just happy to be there. And there's all these journalists there. There's, like, a bunch of, like, local TV news and, like, the local print prayer river. And I was like, I just I was like, oh, hey.

What's the call? He lived out

in Berkeley. Right?

Yeah. He's in Berkeley. Yeah. Yeah. Black Lives Matter flag in front of you.

You know, you know, abandoned school bus. They were really it was a really terrible environment. But, and I was like, oh, I was like, have you so I was like, have you guys already I was kinda, like, worried. I was like, I got here late. I was like, so you guys already, like, knocked on all the doors of the neighbors.

And they were just, like, looked at me, and they were, like, no. We're, like, not we're I can't remember 1 of them. It was, like, oh, we don't wanna be, like, rude or something, or that would be, like, inappropriate. I was, like, I was, like and at that moment,

I was, like, oh, god.

This is gonna be great. And I just, like, went and knocked on all the doors, and I get all the information. Like, oh, yeah. They went around naked out there, and they would be on drugs all the time. And, yeah, they were, like, all left wing, and it was, like, buck you know?

I was like, oh, this is amazing. Like, there's no competition. Like, it's you know, I got on the I got on the White House briefing just recently, the White House briefing on UAPs, which you and I, are both interested in, on the drones. And it was just like, you can kinda go into these stories. You start talking to people, and you just realize journalists aren't really they're not really journalists.

They're more like kind of the people that would run for, like, class president

or something.

They're kinda goody 2 shoes test.

Mask guessers. Yeah.

Yeah. They're actually very author I mean, they're the ones that wanted all the censorship.

Of course.

So they're not that that old picture of journalists. It's like this kind of cantankerous and, like, you know, crabby and and they got rid of all those people.

Anti authoritarian.

Anti authoritarian. Yeah, difficult people. I'm the son of 1 of those. Yeah.

Yeah. I grew up

around this. Classic. Right. That's, like, the greatest I mean, there's, like and you realize it's essential to the functioning of civilization. You have a bunch of disagreeable people running around asking impertinent questions.

Exactly.

So with this 1, it was like yeah. So, I mean, you basically get like, when you just look at the coverage of the fires, I mean, it was like the the the reporters that are going out and doing it, it's like their whole thing is like, oh, we've gotta make sure that the right wing doesn't take advantage of this situation to push their like, literally, that's how they think about it. So they're out there running cover for the poll I mean, it's amazing. You know? Somebody did, like, a little meme on it, but it's like that thing where it's like yeah.

It used to be that the reporter would, like, be holding the microphone up to the politicians and being, like, answer my questions. And now they're, like, demanding that the people defend themselves for their terrible votes, you know. It's like a complete reversal. It's

so true. Well, they're the praetorian guard for the powerful. Yeah. Yeah. So but 1 of the things I learned from your interviews with the homeless, which I I just cannot recommend strongly enough as a primary source of information, actual information, is the degree to which the narcotics fuel homelessness.

So you can't really disaggregate homelessness from drug addiction.

No. Of course. I mean I mean, you

say of course, but, like No.

I know. Well, no. I know. I wrote San Francisco because it was literally like because I knew drugs, like, I, you know

Me too.

I know drugs. You know, I made 3 friends from high school. I became homeless addicts. 2 are dead. It's like, you know, I'm you know, I happily avoided personally all the hard ones, but you saw your friends, like,

you know, you'd leave. You go, wow. You guys have a bad breath.

You know? It's like nuts bag.

What what time did you go to high school

in? Greeley, Colorado. Yep. You know? So, you know, my parents are psychologists.

I remember just being around my my aunt had schizophrenia. You know? Mhmm. I've told the story a long time, so I don't wanna bore you. But, basically, it was like it was just kinda like, so wait.

Everyone just thinks that this is like a housing problem. Like, that's just crazy. So, you know, you sort of needed to I needed to go do all those interviews. But, I mean, really, the first homelessness epidemic, the first time that we're modern homelessness was in the early eighties, and it was just it was basically all it was was a combination of the emptying, the final closure of all the mental hospitals where they literally, literally dumped people on the streets. Like, I thought that that was that sounded like an exaggeration when I first started.

They literally were putting, you know, schizophrenics and stuff on the streets, and then the crack epidemic.

Like, that's all it was.

It was just those 2 things. And then, of course, then, you know, left wing mayor of San Francisco and others are like, oh, well, we can't, like, we can't, like, require that people not camp outside. They're poor. The left, in reaction to Reagan then took up homelessness as as something that they claimed was caused by Reagan. Like, I mean, he'd been in office for, like, whatever, 2 or 3 years, and they would just make ridiculous claims.

You know, the Reagan budget. You know? That's why he's on the street. Yeah. So it really gets used.

So it becomes viewed by the left early on as a political propaganda tool. I also blame the comics, by the way. I mean, and just I'll name them. Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg. They did this whole thing, you may remember, comic relief Yeah.

Where they framed the whole thing as a as a problem of poverty, which is just, you know, it's just it's just such a disservice to the people on the street who need an intervention.

Right.

There's a natural like, when for addicts, there's a there's a natural progression where you you you know, whether from trauma or just because you enjoyed getting high, you your addiction gets in the way of your job and you stop going to work, and you often, you know, live at home with your parents or with friends. You lie, steal, and cheat from them repeatedly. They give you multiple warnings. They finally kick you out. That's often the route to homelessness.

You end up on the street. That's the moment where the society the parent the family and friends were not able to impose an intervention. So the way it should work is that you end up you go out camp on the street, and the cop goes, hey. You can't camp here. It's illegal to camp here.

Exactly. And they go, what am I supposed to do? And they're like, well, we're gonna take you to jail, or you you can go to rehab. Like, those are your 2 choices. Yeah.

2 choices. A natural intervention is imposed in that situation. What progressives and Democrats did for 40 years is they just removed the intervention in the name of compassion. The most compassionate thing is to impose the intervention. I mean, the thing that's most common, I'll even find this with, like, harm reduction workers.

I was just with some harm reduction workers in in Skid Row, and and 1 of them was telling me the whole usual thing. Oh, you can't make somebody get clean. They have to hit their own bottom, like, whatever. And I was like and they were like, I used to run around here, you know, on on meth. It was a, a an Asian American woman, who's doing this.

And I was like I was like, oh, wow. So what did it finally take you for you to get clean? She's like, well, I went to prison. Yeah. You know, it's like, well right.

So I have

a really close friend you had who's lived the same trajectory. I have a couple friends, but a very I have a legit close friend who's totally out of control on drugs and lost kids and all the things that happen when you're addicted and got sober in prison and rebuilt a life, a wonderful life. Yes. But yeah. No.

And they're like the by the way, the recovery addicts are like the greatest people. My favorite people. They're the funniest, most honest Yes. People. They have an equanimity about them.

I go to AA meetings when I can, not because I'm in danger of partying. Again, I'm not after 22 years, but because I like the people. Because they're so honest, and they they're honest about the 1 thing no no one's ever honest about, which is themselves. It's super easy to be honest about you. I don't like your sweater, Mike.

That's disgusting. Like, that's not hard. You've gained weight. That's not hard. Yeah.

I've gained weight. I'm wearing an ugly sweater. Those are hard. Yeah. And you find among those people, the recovered people, like, a true honesty about themselves.

It's Right. It's like the greatest church service there is.

Right. Because they're all born again in an important sense. They've all died 100%. Some say. Yeah.

No. I so that's the I mean, to deprive people

of that Yes. To encourage them to continue to use drugs and alcohol is, like I mean, don't even I mean, whatever. It's an interview of you, not me, but I just feel like sobriety has to be the goal, not just for the individual, but for the society. I really believe that. So sobriety is the greatest gift, a, b, use of drugs and alcohol causes mental illness, which nobody ever says out loud.

I've seen it, to some extent, experienced it. I know you can cause severe mental illness

Oh, sure.

By using drugs and alcohol. Like, right? Is that even controversial?

It shouldn't be.

No. That's I mean, you've done more on this than I have much more, but

it's sort of coming back a little bit. He'll talk about meth induced psychosis now Yes. More, but, yeah. It's, it's really

induced psychosis.

Oh, yeah. In the weed now, it's just so potent and dangerous and yeah.

So but you, as a someone who still lives in California, does anybody do you ever hear people say that? Like, why are we paying people to use drugs? Like, should it surprise us that things were falling apart?

I mean, I do think I do think that the the conversation has changed a bit. I'll take some credit for it with San Francisco and the videos in particular. But, yeah, it's just still that thing where it's like they kinda go, but, yeah, but there's a black woman running for mayor. And it just it's like the singularity. It's like when I always say that, it's like this just it's just hovering over people.

And it was race thing. Yeah. It's really it's really about race in a in a in a really important sense. I know. And then the guilt The

dealers are all immigrants from Central America. We can't do anything about it.

Right. Oh, Sanctuary State, Sanctuary City. That's part of what they're gonna sue on. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's just, yeah, it's a big trap. I mean, I think that it's funny because, you know, we're a guilt culture, and so, you know, like, you know, Japan's a shame culture.

Yes. And, you know, guilt is this, incredibly important part of the Christian tradition.

Yes.

Well, you stop believing in original sin and you stop believing in Christianity, you still apparently, there's still this deep desire to feel that guilt and to sort of show it as well. In other words, it is a social part of it. People want to see in that focus they want other people to see in that focus group that they

they felt guilty.

You know, it's very important to

But what's interesting is so in, you know, traditional Christianity, other, religions, you know, the guilty person atone repents atones, dons ashes sackcloth and covers himself in ashes as a way of saying, you know, I am worthy of the degradation. Yes. But we've kind of transferred that. It's almost like the homeless are in sackcloth and ashes.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I live in

the Palisades. I produce music videos. I'm doing pretty well, but I still feel guilt. So but, like, seeing somebody, like, you know, riding on the sidewalk, I'm, like, displacing my Wow.

That's really interesting. Yeah. He's well, then they talk about it that way. You know, when you talk to the activists that justify it, they're like, well, that's a you know, those people are are suffering because of capitalism

Exactly.

And, you know, slavery and

But the whole point of Christianity is no. No. You suffer. You

Right.

Like, confess your sin. You don't, like, put it off on some junky. Right.

Well, it's the part of it that's just really satanic. I mean, not to be theological about it, but it's just a complete reversal of the traditional Christian process. It's just yeah. It's exactly it's making other people,

Atone for your sin.

Yeah. It's it's crazy. It's unbelievable. It's so bad, and they're sort of on display. You know, it's the it's the it's really if you kind of read it, I mean, it's like it's like a it's like they they they wanna they want it to be on display.

They wanna sort of show it, and that's why they insist that they not be arrested or or or mandated treatment. It's wild. It is like her you know, like, you go to Skid Row, and it's still like a Hieronymus Bach. Is it Hieronymus Bosch pain? You know, it's just like you just can't you still can't believe it.

I mean, you still can't believe there's a person lying there, you know, sweating profusely passed out. You can't tell if they're alive or dead. You don't know, like, do I do an intervention? And it's just it's it's really breaking down. These are human beings.

I don't know. That's and I'm not a particularly compassionate or kind person. I'm kind of a dick, actually. But even I, like, whenever I see that, I feel such deep sadness

Oh, yeah.

Person. It's like heartbreaking, like Of course. Don't allow if that was my child, would I allow it? Not for 1 second. I would take that child and change him to the fucking radiator until he got better.

I would not allow that, my child.

It's a healthy response, by the way. Absolutely. It is. Absolutely. It's those are people that end up getting off the street.

You you raise the bottom instead of lowering the bottom.

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You'll save an additional 50% off your 1st month PureTalk, America's wireless company. We're so far, I feel for Yeah. So okay. So there are in LA County, 78? How many fire departments?

Well, there's 88 cities, and there's 29 fire departments in county and county. No. No. No. It's fine.

But yeah. So, like, literally like, once the fire starts, the I didn't even understand this until I started investigating it. The county fire chief has to call all these cities and be like, hey. Can you send a couple of trucks? We're putting together a strike team.

You know, can you send some engines or whatever? And they have to call around, and they're like, okay. We're all gonna meet no. The fire's, like, blazing away. And they're like, okay.

Well, we're all gonna meet, you know, wherever, you know, Sepulveda or whatever the streets are in in LA. You know, we'll meet in this place, and we'll all get together, and we'll sync the radios, and we'll develop a plan. I mean, this is all happening, like, while the city's burning. I mean, it's it's it's madness. Right?

The other thing is that it's I mean, there's, like, so those didn't

let have any preparation for this.

There's nothing, man. I mean, there might have been something I that we I mean, obviously, if there was, it wasn't enough.

I mean,

it's a little bit like when they go when the people that are like when the nihilists are defending what happened, they're like, well, there was nothing else we could have done, or we did everything we could have. It's like, well, no. Obviously, you didn't. Like, it doesn't matter what it is. It obviously was there's only 1 right answer, which is that you didn't do enough, you know, the the fatalism.

You know? It's a, it's a way to disavow responsibility on the 1 hand. Again, I think it expresses that nihilism, but I think it's like people just have been out of practice, but you have to this is part of the journalism too. You know, it's that you kinda it has to be like, no, no. We're we're not accepting that as an answer.

Like, you the the right attitude for the journalist is to basically be no excuses. Of course. It makes for, like I mean, maybe the journalists are being too much of a hard ass and too much of a dick about it. Maybe they need to be a little bit whatever. That's fine.

That's their role. It's like your role is to be the prosecutor against the the on the case of the failure.

Your role is

to be the investigator.

The public defender.

Yeah. The public the public defender or the prosecutor or the poll you know, but your point is to be like, oh, no. That that can't be right. So because when they go, well, we ran out of water. Well, why'd you run out of water?

Well, there wasn't enough water. No. Well, why wasn't it well, because actually, it's not 1 of the reservoirs that didn't have any water.

Is it your job to make sure there's enough water?

You know, I mean, and this is what they do when they go after Trump and stuff is that, like, because Trump will often be, like, directionally correct.

Right.

You know, like, oh, but Trump was referring to the wrong kind of reservoir, you know. The other reservoirs were full. It's like, okay, fine. But the reservoir right next to the Pacific Palisades was empty. So, you know, his basic the basic intuition, which is I think, I often talk about the importance of, you know, like, if you're defending civilization, it's a physical thing.

Right? So I'm always thinking myself as, like, like, there's a physicalism in my worldview,

which is,

like, okay, that's a that's a person. That's a body. You you need to they need to they're in somewhere they shouldn't be. They need to be somewhere else. So we can have a debate about how to move them somewhere else.

That's a totally reasonable debate to have, but they can't be there. They can't be there because they're creating fires. They're breaking the law. They're hurting themselves and others. Similarly, there's there wasn't water there.

There needed to be more water. And if you go, okay. Well, all we actually let's say let's say that they had all the reservoirs, the the potable water reservoirs. Let's say they had all been full, and they'd still run out of water. Well, then there was some other problem you needed to solve.

You maybe needed more reservoirs or maybe you needed Right. You know, you needed the preparation there. So you just have to have I mean, you know, the Bukele type that we that you'd Yeah. See or somebody, you just have to set somebody that's just, like, literally, you no excuses all the way down the line.

When you say there's a I I feel like you're on something super important. If you could flesh it out, you say there's a physicalism to your worldview. Yeah. Contrast that with the worldview currently in power.

Oh, well, this is yeah. This is exactly it's like, it's this first of all, it's like I mean, it's just so symbolic. It's the city of angels. You know? So it's like, we're up here, and you want like, the wealthier you get in LA and, like, it's with some exceptions, like, Vienna Beach, but mostly, you're you're getting up higher.

Oh, yeah.

You're moving up up up up up up. You're trying to get away from To

the cliffs of Malibu.

Yeah. And you end up in the heavens, and people talk about, I live in a little tree house. I mean, I get it. I love it. It's like, I live in the river hills.

I'm not like you know, but it's like, I'm, you know, I'm above all that. I'm away from all that. Like, I'm connected to nature up here, but also, you know, away from all the, you know, the bleeds. And so you actually I think they do it's that whole thing. We talk talk about people being a bubble.

You know? I mean, it's like the most bubbly place in the world, except for that it's not, and you're in a massive fire zone that must be constantly managed. There's consequences of living in these spectacular places. But you've got people that are it's there it's the the whole industry is a fantasy industry. I mean, it's just exist to construct a fantasy reality.

I mean, it's just exist to construct a fantasy reality. And, yeah, you would hope that that people would be able to compartmentalize. Yeah. My day job is constructing fantasies that we charge, you know, $20 to stream, But I know that when I go home, that, like, all the brush has to be cleared around my house, and I have to vote for candidates that are physicalists. I mean, look at Physicalists.

Yeah. I mean, I don't I mean, I don't know if that's the right word. There's something there

that they're saying. Yeah.

So important. As they're fantasists. I mean, they're people. I mean, I I don't wanna use the word idealist because there's too many other connotations to it, but there's just it's just a difference between being your heads your heads up in the clouds and also and then as opposed to just being really you need the firefighter view of the world. You need the cop view of the world.

Frankly, you need the homeless guys. The homeless people, like, live in a I mean, they're high a lot, so they're switching in and out, but they have to get their physical needs met. You know, there's just a yeah. So it's,

When we first had kids, I remember my wife being and I had much lower standards, but insistent on the house being clean and orderly.

Mhmm.

And I remember saying, like, it doesn't you know, the point of having kids is to instill values in them. She was, yeah. But 1 of the values is, like, order and cleanliness and,

like Right.

They will feel like things are out of control if the house isn't clean and orderly. And she's really insistent on that, and we've lived that way our whole lives. And I it it's a version of what you're saying. It's like, you can tell your kids about honesty and decency and compassion and high achievement or whatever, but, like, someone has to make the bed and vacuum the floor. If there's dog shit in the kitchen, like, it has to be cleaned up.

Right. Like, that's she understood that Right. And has imposed it to great effect, I would say.

I'm sure. No. I think that's right. And also, like, parent we all I did it too, so I'm not, like, judging. But, like, we talk too much to the kids.

Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. You see, like, new parents who are not talking to their kid, and the kid's like, what? It's like the penis is right. Like, the whole what they hear is the, as opposed to, like, could you could you set the table? You know?

Could you you know, like, the kids like I mean, we the kids like to have a job. They wanna have a chore. Chores are super like, kids love that. You know? And, so, you know, and you're you're teaching the kids to clean the classroom every morning.

Yes. I mean, the promise of specialization and the wealth, they sort of get disconnected from it.

Talk too much to the kids that way.

Do you know what I mean, though? Yeah. That's why I'm laughing. And dogs too. People deal with their dogs.

You ever see people with, like, the, like, you know, whatever. I live in the Berkeley Hills. It's like, you know, older ladies and their dogs and the you know, they're just like saying blah blah blah blah with the dogs. It's like, well, you're not holding the leash tight enough, lady. You know?

You rewarded the dog when you did something bad. You should have rewarded it when it came to you. Anyway, so all these things break down, all these storms.

Deep and true. Yeah. You just said. You're a physicalist. I I want that to become a I want intercommon usage because I think it's that is, like, really, really important.

Yeah. I think it because it's like if people will say things like practical, which is good and pragmatic, but some pragmatic got started to mean things like making shitty political compromises. Do you know what I mean? Or it's an American linguistic tradition or philosophical tradition. But, yeah, physicalist, it's like, yes.

Somebody's gotta clean up all the you know, if you have all the homeless people, you're gonna have to spend 1,000,000 of dollars on cleaning up crap Right. All the time. And, you know, the the homeless, 1 of the things you probably have observed is that I think it's a, like, probably a compensating mechanism, but they're just they're obsessed with collecting tons and tons of garbage, basically. Yes. So they'll you know, you'll clean up these homeless encampments, and you'll be

like, oh, wow. Like Yeah. They're not minimalist.

No. No. They're not living the zen lifestyle.

Banging Olsen life. It's like

Very much. No. No. It's very cluttered. Yes.

You know? And so they're probably over but so yeah. I mean, they need you need to we need to reimpose some limits. You know, there's a I'm also I just became really obsessed with the scholar I just discovered who wrote a trilogy on nationalism named Leah Greenfeld. Highly recommend her books.

Her first book is called nationalism, second book is called Spirit of Capitalism, and the 3rd book is called Mind, Madness, and Modernity. And these books are just incredible, but basically l e a It's actually l I a h and then greenfeld.

Common spelling. Yeah. L I a h.

L I a h. She's a Russian I think she's a Russian Jew who went to Israel, lived in Israel for a long time. And then her and then her and then her mentor was Edward Shills, the sociologist. So she's a sociologist, but the nationalism book is beautiful. I mean, it's like the the famous book on nationalism is by is called Imaginary Communities by Benedict Anderson, and it's he's a Marxist, and so it's all the whole thing is like him trying to explain how nationalism why it's so powerful when Marx thought it should wither away.

And but she describes so she defines nationalism the picture that people have of nationalism is completely wrong.

Yes.

She describes nationalism as a sovereign community of fundamentally equal individuals who have a shared identity. And so she's like, nationalism is fundamentally democratic. Now you might have some systems that are nationalist, but they don't have proper democracy. But really, the basic idea is that egalitarian idea that we're Americans, we live here, we have the same solidarity. I've also was, I've also become I'll come back to the the Greenfeld, but I've also been obsessed with Hannah Arendt, who I had never read until recently.

And she I don't think you're allowed to read her anymore. Well, I know. Well, she was canceled. I know. I discovered she was canceled.

Hannah, I love Hannah Arendt, so I but I didn't realize just like Freud, who was also a huge figure in my childhood. Everyone talked about Freud, alluded to Freud, and then he just kind of disappeared 1 day. And Hannah Arendt, same thing.

Oh, yeah. Totally canceled, but it's brilliant.

Yeah. She's too honest.

Well, yeah. Yeah. She was very well, it's it's really in, there's I read her 2 books. 1 is the book, and the other is Eichmann in Jerusalem. Oh.

Eichmann in Jerusalem is it's rough because she describes how the Jewish councils

is rough.

Participated in the Nazis. I mean, that was what was really controversial. But what what what really blew me away from reading, Hannah Arendt, because I was coming to the nationalism conversation. I mean, I should I've self confession because I should have been reading nationalism starting in 2016.

Oh, I know.

But, but, you know, I finally was reading on it, and it was like she was like, nationalism is a barrier to totalitarianism because totalitarianism is is attempting to destroy all relationships between people other than the relationship with the stakes.

Exactly.

And so so religion, nationalism, you know, you know, the classic de Tocqueville associative ties

Exactly. You

know, all of that is a threat to totalitarianism. Yeah. And, so that what really struck me, and and Leah Grifel kinda she has a I just interviewed her, so she has, like, a difference of opinion with with, a rant on this issue. But but, nonetheless, I was just struck by how I don't know what the right I I'm just like like, for me, like, nationalism because I come from the left, you know, from the radical left, and we would we would code our socialist yearnings as the public interest.

Yes, of course.

You know, Ralph Nader kind of took all of the Chomsky and left wing views of the early 60s and packaged them for moderate he kind of made it all seem very reasonable, you know, and the environmentalists did the same thing. So so the brilliance of the left in general, but the radical left in particular, was of just cross dressing as mainstream issues. So, so so it became so really what is a socialist movement became a consumer rights

Exactly.

Public interest. The women's rights movement.

Yep.

And you get these really radical ideologies. I mean, I'm just obsessed with this, the ways in which, like so Marxism, look back on it, I was like, wow, I can't believe the things I believed in. Marxism has this idea that the capitalists, like, what's distinct about them is that they're just super greedy, and they're thieves, and that they're stealing from their workers. And there's really no difference between the entrepreneur, the capitalist entrepreneur, like Elon Musk or Thomas Edison or Henry Ford, and they're workers. They're just meaner, and they steal from them.

And it's like it's just an amazingly audacious lie because whenever you go and actually study an entrepreneur, what's incredible is that it's not just that they are doing it's not like they're the best at what they're doing. They're the best at, like, 12 different things.

Exactly.

You may remember when when Trump and, Elon were beginning their bromance, Trump goes he goes, you know, I asked you, and I was like, I was like, what is that you're really good at? You know, you could see it was, like, probably a question that Trump is used to asking people that he interviews for job recruiting. And he goes, turned out it was a lot of different things. You know? And it's like, well, yeah, like, I mean because, of course, like, with Thomas Edison, he'll go, oh, we invented the light bulb.

He didn't invent the light bulb. He improved it. He invented a viable economic model for electricity production. I mean, he invented the electrical grid. He found the customers.

I mean, 1 of the things that impresses me so much with with Elon is, like, I'll see him you'll see him out there and he'll be selling, you know, which is kind of I mean, selling is sort of the worst part of our jobs in some ways. I mean, you can do it with pleasure, and you can do it with verve and stuff. But but, you know, you kinda like and I I do it. I mean, I'm always like, subscribe now. You know?

And and you're like, you have to do it. Like, it's part of the work. But I'm always like, wow. Elon is still he's the richest man in the world. He's probably he may be the greatest innovator in American history, certainly top 3.

And he's still out there having to hawk his products. And but and he does a great he's an amazing job of it. Like, 1 of the innovations was, you know, he just become the biggest user of Twitter rather than buying paid ads. But so this gigantic lie from Marx, which is that the the first of all, the entrepreneur, the capitalist is is just a meaner version of the worker as opposed to this gene you know, this Schumpeterian genius. And Schumpeter comes along and then his the other thing the the big lie and then Schumpeter points it out is that the owner of the company and the workers have the same fundamental interest.

In other words, Elon Musk's employees and Elon have the same interest. They want to expand their markets. They wanna expand

their products. Yeah.

So to put them opposed is just so it's just it's so dishonest, and it's so reminiscent of of what you can say feminism or radical feminism, but this idea that the interests of women are opposed by men, that the that women and men have different interests. And, of course, you trace it back. It it goes it all goes back to Simone de Beauvoir Of course. Who's a Marxist writing in the post war period. I guess it was was, like, the forties her book came out, The Second Sex.

But she's just taking this totally idiotic Marxist framework and and applying it to women and men.

Biggest lie because, I mean, it ignores the very obvious symbiosis. It's just it's it's not possible for them to exist apart, and it's not possible to re to continue the species. It's, like, so dumb that they they need each other that actually power is exerted in very subtle but powerful ways within a relationship between a man and a woman that are not at all described or even acknowledged. Right?

It's the basis of life itself.

Of course.

So it is, like, really, you trace back, like, the emergence of nihilism. It really is in Marxism. It's in feminism. And then they successfully cross dress for decades, and they get so good at it. This is the famous Long March through institutions or what they call cultural Marxism.

But they basically dress themselves up as I mean, civil you know, basically civil rights, I mean, because once you get equal rights, the work is done. Same thing with gays and lesbians. Right. But then the radical left activists then go and grab all those trappings. Because we started the conversation, this may seem like a digression, but it's important, I think, for normies and everybody to understand that I mean, this it dawned it took a long time for me to get it, but it was like, oh, right.

Like, the people that call themselves environmentalists are actually just radical leftists, slightly different from Marx because they're actually, into Malthus, this totally dystopian anti human view. But the genius of the left is that they are so successful at masking their real agenda behind something else. You know, we just want equality for people of color. We just wanna create equal opportunity for migrants. No.

Their agenda is the destruction of civilization.

I know. And you see, I on the environment working

in LA.

Well, it is it is working, and I always thought, on the environmental movement, there was woman called Julia Butterfly Hill.

Oh, yeah.

Spent more than a year in a redwood. And, you know, I always thought, you know, if you were sincere about environmentalism, like, she would be like, whatever happened to her? Nobody knows. And that was to your point about physicalism. Like, I like redwoods and, like, if there's a reason to cut them out, okay, but, like, maybe don't because they're just so beautiful.

That

that's my personal view. I always have felt that way. So, like, here was someone who is she saved a tree. That's gotta be the highest level of what they claim they're trying to do, but they totally ignored her. They don't give a shit about her at all.

She died in the tree, probably better for them. What they really wanted to do was disconnect people from nature. It was the opposite.

Right.

So why is it that every single person I know who really spends a lot of time outdoors, who's into, you know, the sporting life or whatever, lives in a rural area? I mean, their goals are the opposite of those of the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club.

Right. Do you know what I mean? Well, and also and also, I think the physicalist distinction works on that as well. I mean, here you have, I did an interview with a terrific this the scientist I mentioned, and he's just like, you know, when you're, like, dealing with fires, the main event is what is happening on the ground. Exactly.

And they're and the climate extremists are out there basically saying, no, no, no, ignore ignore this whole physical reality. We just need to reorganize the entire global economy. Exactly. Exactly. Like, we can't stop these fires.

Let Malibu burn, but give us control over the the the driver of the economy. I mean, it's such madness.

Exactly. And it's the opposite, and they don't care. I mean, what what's the pollution generated by these fires?

Oh, it's oh, it's so much I mean, it's I can't I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but it's massive. Now I mean, I will say

dangerous. Right?

Well, yeah. I mean, oh my gosh. The air in LA now. I mean, it is my daughter's at in college there. I'm worried about her.

I mean, it is absolutely toxic air. I mean, of course, it is. You know? And you have a lot of electric cars, and you have a lot of batteries going up. We don't know what that stuff is putting out in terms of particulate matter.

So, no, it's awful. I mean, you know, ostensibly, you'll get, you know, tree growth, and the carbon will be, you know, reabsorbed, and those will be reabsorbed. But yeah. No. I mean

I'm not talking about carbon. I mean, like Yeah. Poison in the air and water.

Oh, for sure. I mean, all the think of all the all the all the houses with all the plastic and electricity burning. It's terrible. No. For sure.

I mean, yeah, we it's a chance to get regrounded, I think. A chance to I mean, you know, that it is also interesting moment. Right? Because Hollywood, it's just producing garbage. It is just it is incredible how bad the cultural production is.

Just at a straight like, you know, if you're someone that just loves pop culture, like, who just loves Steven Spielberg, we're not getting that level of quality. I mean, we tried to watch something on Netflix. It's just it's just awful, and it's because they're all trying to fit it in. Artistry and creativity is transgressive. It's supposed to be Of course.

It's supposed to be break I mean, that's actually where you want your I want my transgression in my art Yes. Not in my civilization. I want a really boring civilization and really transgressive art, but it's become the opposite. The art has become boring and conformist and authoritarian, and the civilization has gotten completely transgressive. So people are not where they need to be.

The laws are not being enforced. So I mean, part of you go, god, I I do hope it is a wake up call.

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So what, speaking of the laws not being enforced, tell us what you know about looting.

Oh, I mean, it's that's kind of the standard. That's that's, like, the norm in Los Angeles, isn't it? I mean,

Even when there's not a fire burning.

No. Of course. It's I mean, obviously, they just arrested. I guess they had a couple of guys they they found a couple of guys looting Kamala's house, and then they let them go. Of course, of course.

They got the guy they found the guy that set 1 of the fires, a homeless guy that set 1 of the fires, and they let him go. I mean, it is, it's amazing. I mean, the comedians like all their best materials just, you know, in the news already. So

How could they let you're you're stealing from people in the middle of a of a profound disaster. The city's burning down, and you're stealing. People are dying, and you're stealing. Aren't you you're like a true villain, I think.

Oh, yeah. For sure. And then and then they let them go, and then that became widely publicized. Well, guess what? You know, this is the thing that people have to understand.

You know, criminals, you know, they read the news. Like, criminals are very online. It's not like criminals don't know Right. What's going on. And we have these amazing there's these amazing, like I I think it was, like, phone calls between people in the Oakland jails and their friends, and they're, like, basically, auntie Pam, the name of the DA.

They're like, the auntie Pam's gonna make sure we, you know, get off. You know? They all know where the the laws are not being enforced.

What's their job, though?

Of course. Yeah. They're rational actors. You know, the irrational ones are the rest of us. They're the ones trying to, you know, live there.

So if you're Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass, like, you're all in on the climate change explanation. Right? That's that's all you've got at this point.

I mean, they did I think they are backing off a little bit from it. I think that they're in a they're a little trapped, which is great, which is that, on the 1 hand, they can't accept responsibility because they know that if they accept responsibility, then it's just then their political futures are doomed. On the other hand, by not accepting responsibility and passing the buck, that also becomes obvious to people. So, you know, they should all go. I mean, remember, like, you know, New Orleans, like, that mayor was out of there.

I mean, like Ray Nagin. Yeah. Was there for that.

Yeah. So that should be what happens.

But New Orleans has that just accelerated the decline of the city. Yeah. I mean, it's I I was there for Katrina. I covered that, and I thought at the time 20 year, I guess, was 20 years ago. Incredibly.

Yeah. 2005. Mhmm. I thought, well, you know, it's obviously tragic, but Bush is sending over a $1,000,000,000 to rebuild it. I'm sure the city will be better, and it's been much worse ever since.

Uh-huh. That's depressing. But LA is not New Orleans.

That's our 2nd biggest city. It's the in a lot of ways, the greatest city we've ever built, and in my opinion and, like, so what happens to it now?

Well, there's no vision for it at all, you know, and and we don't have anybody visionary in there. You know, they did I mean, I think we had this guy Rick Caruso, as you were mentioning, who ran for mayor. I mean, someone found, you know, there is a video of him calling for increasing the fire department budget. I mean, kinda like that. What else do you need to know at this point?

Yeah. Can I overcome the I do think that the woke trance was broken? I mean, Trump broke it. I do. For sure.

And look at that.

I mean,

look at the catastrophe that the news media is in and the success that people like you and I are having and Joe Rogan being the most influential

Yeah. I mean,

he's like the new Walter Cronkite. Yeah. He's where so he's where he's where Mark Zuckerberg goes to confess his sentence. So it's a different world. I do have some hope for it.

I mean, the the thing about the United States that's so different from Europe is just that literally they I'm becoming like an old man because I'm talking about how great the founding fathers were, but it's like, literally, they created this incredible system that if you have free speech, if you can if you if you can protect your free speech, which we've, I think, succeeded in doing, you bake it in, you remind people of its importance, You then are, I think, gonna be able to self correct in ways that places that allow higher levels of sensitivity we're simply not gonna be able to do. I mean, just look at this impact that Elon is having right now. It's incredible. I was on some social media chat group, and somebody was like, how come we're all talking about the British grooming gangs? It's like because Elon decided that that was an issue.

The AFD in Germany may end up, you know, be I mean, I think they're they're gonna come in at least second in the elections next month because Elon has mainstreamed them. Of course. So I that gives me a lot of hope. You've got a platform now that is still just the I mean, we always knew that the media had that agenda setting power. Yes.

But it it's amazing to sort of see it so dramatic. We only can really see it when it shifts from the mainstream news media. We were we were writing last summer about how the sovereign in the United States, meaning, like, the true power center in the United States was the news media. That is now, in my view, clearly shifted to to acts. It's just I think you said something recently.

I thought I think I saw a clip of you saying the same thing. I mean, it's just clear, like, that is where

It dominates everything.

It's just everything, you know, and like Blue Sky gave it a they gave it a shot, but nobody can go on there. It's too mad. It's too insane. So I think it can be very, very positive. You know, I always compare x to, you know, it's like the when the printing press was first shows up in the end of 15th century for, like, about a 100 years, the Catholic church is like, the printing press is great.

You know, we can print bibles and give them out to all the priests. It's very cheap. The Catholic church loved the printing press, And then Martin Luther got a hold of the printing press. And it was just for the next, you know, 5 centuries was game over. I mean, the best history of the printing press, she goes back.

I think it's a Oxford history, she goes back and just looks at its impact, and she comes back and she's just like, you know, after years of study or whatever, and she's like, oh, we knew it was a big deal, but it's a much bigger deal than we thought. It's not just the Protestant Reformation. It is that it's also the scientific revolution. It's the industrial revolution. It's nationalism, and it's democracy.

I mean, so you get a huge epical change with this shift of communications technologies. And social media, we knew I mean, we, you know, Martin Gurri famously wrote this book, Revolt to the Public, about the game changing aspects of social media just on the Arab Spring, you know, which is now 14 years ago, but in some senses, it really didn't get its power until Elon came in, bought it, and held strong against people calling them a racist anti Semite for 2 years. I mean, it was just crazy. The it was, like, 2 years of the media just making him out to be the devil incarnate, and he held strong, and he ended up breaking the news media. I mean, they're just not getting the traffic.

They're done.

They're it's over.

Yeah. It's over. So where does I mean, so if I

And it couldn't have happened to a worse group of people.

They I spent my whole life among them. I can tell you that's absolutely true, and they're, you know, they're terrified. I was Yeah. I was watching John Karl who I on CBS who I've known. Someone sent me a clip this morning.

John Karl, I've known him for over 30 years. Nice guy, you know, reasonable guy. And, and then Trump comes, the business starts to collapse, and he realizes I'm speaking for him, but he realizes, oh, shit. You know, I'm a middle aged white guy. I better go along, and he becomes just this cheerleader for every stupid woke idea ever.

It was you feel sorry for him. He's a nice guy, actually, and not a stupid guy. Someone just sent me a clip of John Curl, like, basically defending Trump.

Wow.

And and it's just like I mean, again, I'm not a I'm not a

The weather the the wind moved. The wind

moved. Then you realize that most people just kinda, you know, they they're easy to easy to control. You just Yeah. Tell them what the program is, and they go along with it.

Well, yeah. It's Kent Brockman.

No. You're totally right. I welcome our new alien overlords. You know what I mean?

They're the first they're the first ones to shift. No. You're right. Right?

You're right.

Yeah. Because they're covering the news. Like, they know they they they're the first ones to know when the winds are coming.

The principle plays no role. Most people just couldn't go along with what they think the marching orders are.

It's amazing. It really reveals, doesn't it, the herd animals.

So Yeah. And did I say CBS? I think he said ABC. Whatever.

They're all

the same, and they're all going away. Yeah. But if your true entrenched power, which does exist, particularly in the intel agencies, I mean, that's where

it

really resides as far as I can tell, I don't know. It's like pretty threat you've just lost there's been a massive movement in power from the news media, which you control. That's a fact, I would say. In effect, control. News media is controlled by the intel agencies.

Fact. To something you can't control. So that's a huge loss of power

for you.

So, like, how can you let this continue?

Well, yeah. I mean, how can I stop it though? I mean, they I

don't know. I'm just feeling a little paranoid right now.

No. No. I am too.

It's too much freedom.

No. I know. No. I totally do too. You're, like, where's the when's the penny gonna drop?

Yeah. Kind of. Well, yeah. And I also kinda go, are they really gonna disclose all the stuff that they have? I mean, we were going down we just did a actually, I don't know if we published it yet, but we're just going down the list of all the all the files that we want.

Exactly. Because, you know, people are like, oh, can we have the Twitter files for the government? You're like, yes. So what? I mean, there's so much in there.

Right? So Russiagate, you know, the Russia collusion hoax, COVID origins, COVID vaccines, Hunter Biden laptop. Yep. I mean, I'm assuming there's just a bunch of stuff on Russia, Ukraine that's there. I mean, remember because they keep leaking.

They'd go they'd go, there's no bio labs in Ukraine. Like, well, there were some we were doing some help with the bio Well,

not only there are bio labs in Ukraine. There are a lot of bio labs in Ukraine, which are working on chemical on biological weapons. That's what they're not there for

Right.

Livestock vaccines. Sorry. And, you know, the thing that people don't in this country understand is that the Ukrainian military is selling about half of the arms they get from the United States into international black markets, and they're winding up in some case with the drug cartels Oh. In Latin America. That's a fact.

Okay. It's a fact. And you can you can buy them, and I spoke to someone who did buy some, actually, so I know I know this is a fact, and they're bragging about it. So they're selling conventional weapons, including weapon systems that are very dangerous and very destabilizing that would make commercial air travel impossible, for example.

Right.

And so what are they good doing with the pathogens in those biolabs, and does the Biden administration have a manifest? Do they know exactly what's in those labs, and will they turn it over to the Trump administration so we can keep track of these things? And the answer is no, actually. The answer is no. I know this.

Wow. So that's, like, the scariest thing that's ever happened. And and so, like, what you know, like, I think the Ukraine war has the potential to destabilize the world more than anything that's happened in my lifetime just because of the scale of the weapon systems and biological agents, involved in the most corrupt country in the west, which is Ukraine. Not attacking Ukraine. I feel sorry for Ukraine, but what the hell?

Yeah. And so we could use some we could use a pot that's why I'm saying this right now because I hope this is widely disseminated because I think it's, like, the scariest thing I've heard in a long, long time.

That is scary.

But it's all flowered in secrecy. That's the point. Yeah. The only reason this stuff has happened, like, this end of the world stuff has happened is because there's no disclosure at all. Everything is Right.

Oh, it's so much pent up stuff.

So much.

I mean, we're still yeah. We have the JFK files, the UFO files, UAP files, I was supposed to say.

Yeah. There's so much there. Someone about the UAP thing. Now we're so far a field, but I do think it's all connect no. It is all connected, though.

It's like none of this stuff happens except in secrecy. And this I said, let's stop playing. Like, you've been I've been talking to these people for years now. And the answer was the public is not ready for this information because it's, you know, it's just too it's too much. And what what's your view of that?

And this is someone who's pushing disclosure, by the way. This is not

I know. I don't know. Yeah. I'm worried that it's bad news.

Well, that's the point. It's bad news.

I'm worried it's bad news.

Really bad news. Yeah. Do you think that's true?

Well, I don't know.

No. I'm not even saying it because I don't know if it's true, and it is bad. It's super bad.

I mean, it seems like the dom it seems like the dominant 2 theories are now that it's nonhuman intelligence or that we or our adversaries have mastered anti gravity Uh-huh. Technology. The other scenarios of, you know, some kind of new plasma or, you know, it just kind of the the phenomenon doesn't seem to be showing up in that way.

Well, the core idea seems to be that it's that there is nonhuman intelligence, whether all these manifestations of it are that, or whether they're government programs or Chinese or whatever. It's probably a pastiche of all of them. But the core idea seems to be that there is nonhuman intelligence, which is plausible, and that it's been in interaction with the US government for quite some time, and that it plays a role in in our role.

It play

I mean Well, there are all these things that I but I don't know if what is true or what's not true. Do you think any of that is true? I know you've done work on this.

Yeah. I mean, you know, and I it's hard. I mean, you know, they I covered the New Jersey drone situation. I went to Jersey and interviewed a bunch of people. I mean, the weirdest for me, the weirdest moment is where you have John Kirby, the defense department spokesperson, and Mayorkas, basically, on the same day or at the same 48 hours, just, when they were asked about it, they just came out affirmatively, and they're like, well, we're definitely not getting any drones over the military bases or other sensitive sites.

And you're like, I was like, why would you lie about that? I couldn't I couldn't because, of course, you know, all else being equal, I think that they don't people don't wanna lie. Politicians don't wanna lie because it just creates more work or hassle for them. Complicates your life. Yeah.

Complicates your life. You know, honestly, it's the best policy. So why would they lie about that? Especially because the Wall Street Journal had, like they did this huge piece about all of the drone so called by the way, unidentified anomalous drone flyovers over the military bases and sensitive sites, which includes nuclear plants. I mean, I part of my interest in this was always, you know, I was trying to save Diablo Canyon in California.

They kept getting drone flyovers. Also, Palo Verde, which is our biggest nuclear plant, 3 beautiful reactors there in Arizona, like a lot of drone flyovers. I'm also from Northeast Colorado, which is where, you know, the ICBMs are. A lot

of

they hold they had this exact same drone situation. I believe it was December I wanna say December 2019, and they had this whole interagency task force, and they were like they were like, oh, we're gonna put a plane up. And they kinda put a plane up, and you're watching me, like, you're like, well, why are they not scrambling jets? Like, what are we, like, what are we doing here? Like, this is really bizarre.

It doesn't make any sense.

Doesn't I can't figure it out because I think the other issue is that they may not know. I mean okay. Well, so to to finish that story, so then drone migrates do that. I go out, and I'm just like, like, that's the weirdest lie because, like, it was just it's been heavily reported. I mean, the drones is I mean, the drones over sensitive military bases is really well reported, and some of the best reporting was by a, publication called The War Zone, which is I highly recommend.

Very good serious investigative reporting. They don't believe it's aliens at all. Like, they're just openly, like, anti alien. They're, like, this is and I think it's well, anyway, for whatever reason, they're just, like, this is Chinese or Russian or whatever. They're not taking it seriously.

But they do some of the best reporting because they're kinda because they can't figure out why the military is being so weird about it. So then Trump comes out, and he goes, they know what it is. I don't know why they're not telling anybody.

And I'm gonna tell everybody on the on 20th.

I mean, I first of all, I'm really happy that they're gonna disclose, and I wanna raise expectations about what the Trump administration is gonna do. We want the data and I mean, someone was criticizing me because they were like, oh, 0, because I came out. I said, oh, I'm confident the Trump administration is gonna share the data. And they're like, that just shows that Shellenberger is, you know, it's like pro Trump and whatever. And I was like, no.

I'm just like pro disclosure. I want the expectations to be high because they should be high. There is so much information they're not releasing. So, you know, they were over bed minster, and he he's talked about it twice now, by the way. So At least

he's distressed about it obviously.

He's worried about it. So we're either headed for a pretty epic moment of disclosure. There's another part of me that worries so I okay. So it seems like yeah. They could do disclosure, and we could find out what it is.

You know, is it if it's there's gonna be aliens. If it's aliens, that's just a whole can of worms, and then you have to be like, is there like, do we talk to them? And if so, who who's doing that?

Do you think we have?

I genuinely don't know. I genuinely don't know. I mean, there's, there's this guy named, I can't remember his first name, Stringfield. He wrote, this incredible thick book of UAP crashes Mhmm. Crash retrievals, and it's and he just started doing, I wanna say, fifties or sixties.

And I think he went for, like, multiple decades. And you just sit down with that book, and it is, like it's impressive. I mean, if it's a hoax, it's just, 1 of the greatest hoaxes of all times. You know, like, other hoaxes, you know, like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or whatever, they're they're really bad. Like, they're really you're just like, this is, like, the dumbest hoax ever.

Like, most hoaxes are not that sophisticated with all these details unless people interviewed. Of course, Roswell was the big case, but it's only apparently 1 of them. There's others. So there is this incredible, you know, gray literature never published by any academic press, by any really a little bit of commercial non nonfiction. Obviously, you have David Grush and Lou Al Zondo.

I testified in front of Congress on this in guess, I was in December or November and, you know, 2 people the 2 guys from the military when we when we were asked what are they, 2 guys said nonhuman intelligence. And then me and the NASA guy said we don't know. Because I just don't. I mean, I just What do you

think the Jones over in New Jersey were?

I mean, look. Here's here, let me tell let's just let's just let's just let's just look at the possibility that they're human. They didn't get a single 1 of them. They didn't down a single 1 of them. Not a single 1 of them crashed, and there was a lot of them.

And there was a lot of look. There's a lot of mistaken sightings. You know, it is easy to mistake things. It's totally natural. But but there was also I mean, I interviewed mayors.

2 mayors were, like 1 of them, it was like, I had an SUV sized drone flying over my house. Another 1 said he was going to a Fox News interview in New York. The car came from me, walks out his door, and there's 1 hovering right over him, and he saw that you know, felt like it was watching him, like it was there monitoring him. I mean, that's weird stuff. So we can't get a single drone down.

They're over military bases. They can't seem to get any of them. You know, do I think the Chinese could be behind or the the those are the the Chinese I mean, when the Chinese decide to, like, encroach in you in, like, in the South China Sea, when they decide you know how to, like, they'll, like, warn the United States occasionally, like, oh, you're flying over our airspace. It's all super calculated and, like, you know, like, they're make they're they're it's like a performance. The Chinese are, like, we're messing with you.

Like, you all kind of know, and they're doing it in ways where they don't want it to escalate, but they wanna get a little bit more of that space. It's all super calculated. Now there was the balloon. You know, are there Chinese balloons? Yeah.

But, I mean, to be buzzing air our military bases, it's just so aggressive. Now I've when I've said it before, I've had other people point out, they go, well, they're aggressive with the cyber attacks. I guess that's true. It as a physicalist, I guess I kinda go flying your drones over US military bases and nuclear plants, that is just a level of aggression that just doesn't seem characteristic of the chain.

Unless you were well, of course, I agree with you. An intel person told me, that that that this person believed that they were in fact Chinese, and that a Chinese satellite went down was visible to the naked eye. There was new stories about it. It evaporated, it burned up, and that this person told me that was taken down by the US government. That was a command and control satellite for these drones.

And the belief was the Chinese government was sending the following message, We're moving on Taiwan and maybe other things. Wow.

You can't

do anything about it.

Okay.

So, you know, I have no idea if that's true or not. 0.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. That just doesn't it just it just gotta say, it's just it's so aggressive. And and also but the other thing is that, like, you know

reckless, actually.

Seems really reckless. And, you know, the Chinese have not been seeking confrontations like that for the most part. Now Jesse Michaels, who is doing some of the best reporting on this issue of UAPs, he's doing YouTube videos. He just did a documentary that was incredible. Like, I think it's like an hour a couple of hours, highly recommended, that goes through the very long history of unidentified anomalous phenomena over US military bases, including all these cases of, you know, several cases of them shutting down, missile system.

Like a 65 year long history.

Yeah. Yeah. And there was this famous press conference with, like, misleers and others from military bases in in Washington, DC, I wanna say in the nineties, maybe, maybe eighties. So, you know, like, that predates any of the Chinese stuff by far. It predates all the drones, so that was going on for a really long time.

I mean, if you just kind of if you step back and you look at it, it looks like a very like, what does it communicate on a very basic level? It's definitely communicating dominance. You know, it's it's you can read in a lot of different ways, and that's similar to what the the navy pilot said around the Tic Tac, interactions off both coasts is that these were phenomena or, you know, or objects, we're gonna call them or or craft that were just demonstrating dominance over our craft. They were able to do things that our craft weren't doing. So, yeah, I mean And that

was from their perspective, the point of the behavior was to say we can do things that you can't.

Yeah. And so then it then it then it then the question would be so if it is NHI, then the question is, are they communicating something? And if they are communicating something, why would they only be doing it in that way? Like, you would you would like if you're, like, if you're trying to demonstrate your strength in adversary or something, you're trying to send some message, why would you just do that? Because you there's nothing that we can do with that information.

So then you have to wonder, okay, if it is NHI and it's behaving in that

way intelligence.

Yeah. Not human intelligence. Then is there some is there actually some other communication going on

Right.

That we don't know about? And of course, there's just a long history, and there's all these crazy stories of, you know, presidents. I mean, going back to Eisenhower.

Should just to just to bottom line your view after reporting on the lights over New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, New York, mid Atlantic drone hysteria. Do you think they were human made drones?

I I genuinely don't know. I mean, I will be I'll be I might be more shocked if they were human made because of their behaviors and they never able to get 1. I did have somebody tell me recently that they had heard I mean, again, it's always secondhand. It's so untrustworthy, but somebody told me that that the military got 1 of the the orbs, the famous orbs, and opened it up, and it was Chinese. I mean, if that's the case, then somebody has mastered anti gravity, and that's almost harder for me to believe than that it's NHI because I mean, it's just I mean, I don't know.

I mean, look. We have a I mean, here's the I I go I literally go back and forth, and you can see me doing it in the same conversation. But we have these huge black budgets in the military. I mean, just gigantic, and they've been there for decades. So is it possible to cover up something like that?

I think it might be. I mean, I'm much more after having covered the Hunter Biden laptop and I mean, Russiagate too, but really the Hunter Biden laptop, I was just impressed by how many people were involved in the conspiracy to cover it up. I mean, you had the FBI getting it, covering it up, basically working with at working with Aspen Institute to run a disinformation campaign. By the way, this is Vivian Schiller, and Garrett Graff run the disinformation campaign aimed at persuading journalists in advance of the release of the Hunter Biden laptop that it was a Russian information operation. Gerrit Graff is the guy that goes and does the big UFO book.

So these things all I mean, this was very weird. So he comes out with a big book on UFOs. I think it was last year. It's called UFO, Garrett Graff. This is somebody that is famously close with the intelligence community.

His other books were on Watergate and on 911. The book Both of which were totally legitimate. No. For sure. And I'm sure the the official story is everything we need to know.

So, you know, you sort

of go And what was his conclusion on your phone?

Well, it was very it's the the narrative is that they don't know what they are. So he doesn't fully he's not like a debunker, like these guys who are like, oh, 0, we can explain everything. So he's much more sophisticated than that. But it's basically a debunking. It's basically that it's basically that it's it's just all the, you know, typical explanations, and then maybe some US military programs, but he also just says that he just argues that the US military doesn't know what it is.

I don't believe Garrett Graff. And the reason I don't believe Garrett Graff is because I saw him participate in a disinformation campaign on Hunter Biden laptop, and I know for a fact there's something else going on at that Aspen Institute program. And Aspen Institute, of course, is a massive US government funded NGO that cosplays as a kind of, you know, bourgeois gab fest. So there I mean, so I'm like, that was for me, that was all came out on the Twitter files. I discovered that in the Twitter files.

And for me, it was like pulling back the curtain, and you actually have as a journalist, like, you you we have the emails. You know, like, you have the documents. You have the tabletop exercise where they're brainwashing journalists into believing a lie about the Hunter Biden laptop. That was so sophisticated of that because they they basically go and brainwash journalists before the story comes out because they know they're listening to Giuliani, you know, their FBI tap on Giuliani. They're listening to Giuliani.

They had they know we gotta go brainwash the journalists. They go get all the journalists from all the major outlets plus the social media platforms in these seminars where they program them. I mean, that was like for me, it was like, wow. There's like a secret government. Like, it was like there's some there's like a whole there's like a whole it's a very and it was very just sophisticated.

I don't know what else to describe it. Like, it was very everything seemed very careful. Also, with all the censorship stuff, you see these limited hangouts, right, where limited hangouts are kind of like the public relations of a covert operation of, like, a covert propaganda operation, where, like, after they get caught, they can be like, oh, no. We were totally honest about what we were doing. We were talking about it.

But they do these weird limited hangouts. You'll see these people that clearly look like either directly intelligence community or their intermediaries having these conversations they put on YouTube and, like, they're like but it's like, you know, a couple hundred views. Like, they're not promoting them in any way. And so you just kinda go, wow. There's like a whole creepy, like, world of disinformation.

What you realize is that the covert operations are really not covert, like, all the all the information's out there, actually. Right. But it's just discredited or unnoticed or no 1 collects it. Have you noticed that?

Yeah. No. I know. And then and you only can understand it, when you see the whole big picture because there's there's no smoking guns ever. So there's never something you I mean, a hunter buying a laptop got us about as close to a as a smoking gun as you can get, And it helped because it was what helped to expose it was that you it was partisan, and so it was a particular partisan weaponization.

My concern with the UAPs, I mean, it's now I guess, the strength and the weakness is that it's become bipartisan in terms of the desire. I mean, it was really I mean, Tucker, the weirdest experience I've had, I've testified now, like, 12 times or 13 times in front of Congress last few years. The weirdest experience I've had was on UAPs, seeing the Democrats and Republicans basically being aligned in wanting to get to the bottom of the UAP thing. I mean, it's beautiful. Like, I've never seen it.

I was like, I this is I've never I've heard of bipartisanship. Never thought I would see it in, you know, in the wild. So that is exciting. On the other hand, I suspect that there is also some bipartisan group that's trying to prevent that information No

doubt about that.

Reason. So, I mean, look, I mean, it is, I mean, what is gonna happen? I mean I mean, part of me is, you know, maybe it's my defensive pessimism on it because I like everybody else, I want the information. Part of me is like, there's just no way they're gonna let that information out. It's just something is too there's something about the UAP thing, like the JFK thing, where there's some secret there that they are really there is some group of people that really don't want us to know.

So, you know Well,

that's a that's a fact. Yes. I bumped up against that personally several times on both of those issues, which appear to be related. Yes. I but I don't know the answer.

All are you it's it's almost like seeing something in photographic negative. All I know for a fact confirmed is that they are willing to go to extreme lengths to keep it secret. And so that's just to tell that it's there's something profound there. It's not just a bureaucracy covering its own ass. It's more than that.

I mean, how about the clip where Pompeo is being interviewed about the JFK files, and then he, like, literally made sense goes, but, I mean, I've also seen the UFO files. And it was like, well, why why did you just switch from, like, what made you think of the UFO files on the JFK files? I don't know. I mean, so anyway, is there a secret? Has there have we developed anti gravity?

Have we developed I mean, we know that in the fifties, there were, like, there was a there's a whole book on it. It's very fascinating. But there was, like, there was an anti gravity program in the US military with our defense contractors. It made the cover of 1 of the aerospace magazines. It was like, there's like a cover of it, and then it just disappeared.

And so you can kind of go I think the official experts go, yeah, we tried that and it didn't work. It's like, well, how would that's never stopped you before.

Right.

Like, it not working, like, that's like, you know, like like, you would keep working on it if you can do anti gravity. So the other possibility is that it just went dark, and they just they kept doing it.

Well, I I wonder though about the, like, the possibility that there is a or has been technology transfer from some other realm to this realm, because there are, you know, just in the study of history, there are it's it's like, there's really no understanding in a bunch of different points of in human societal evolution, like, where did that technology come from? And you see that on a bunch of different technologies. So but nuclear, anti gravity, that kind of stuff, like, are you open to the possibility that that there's been, like, a transfer of that technology from some other I

mean, that is def there's definitely that is that is what a lot of people talk about.

Yeah.

I mean, the problem with this issue is just it's very frustrating because it's just all secondhand.

Of course, it is.

And so, like, the 100 buying a laptop is not secondhand. Like, it's firsthand, and I have the documents. Now there are a bunch of really fascinating, you know, alleged US secret US government documents on UFOs, on on alleged alien spacecraft crashes. They're called the, you know, Majestic documents or the MJ 12 documents. And so the story is that, you know, that that 1 or 2 of these craft crashed in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, and that sort of begins in you know, and there's a whole cast of characters that allegedly, you know, including Oppenheimer were involved in that program.

You know, the Why would Oppenheimer be involved? Well, why I mean, because he was the man, you know, like, he was, like, he was our greatest scientist, obviously, the father of the atomic bomb, and and, you know, Roswells were the, where we launched the the flights to bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So it's very symbolic in that sense.

Maybe more than symbolic?

Yeah. Maybe more than symbolic. I mean, they keep flying over nuclear. Like, as my wife says, she's like, the your aliens really they don't like the nuclear, you know, because I love nuclear. So and I'm kinda like I'm like, well, yeah.

I mean, like and also the most ridiculous thing is when people are like, oh, yeah. They want us to give give up our you know, the people that believe in them. They go, the aliens are here, and they want us to give up our nuclear weapons. It's like, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. The foreign space invaders would like you to give up your most powerful weapons.

But those documents, I spent a bunch of time on them, and I couldn't figure out how to report anything on it because, of course, of course, FBI was like, these are all debunked. They're all frauds. But there are first of all, there's a lot more of them. You go to majestic documents.com, and you can look at them. They're amazing.

I mean, if they are and I've also had the other and they're by the way, in those in the Garrett Graff book, they're in that book, they're also in another debunking book called, by Mark Pilkington. I'm playing on the name right now. But they they they all all the people that are the debunkers deal with these documents, and their story is not that they were all hoaxes. Their story is that they were what's called counterintelligence passage material, documents that were created by the US government, but leaked to people to ostensibly be able to smoke out double agents or people, like, you would see them I guess, you would trace these documents. Right.

Like putting dye in the water to find the leak.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, but the thing is, I mean, it is like there's, like, 1 of them is a handbook of crash retrieval, like, for, like, to like, that that that the soldiers with Austins will read to retrieve these crash. I mean, it's they the if they're hoaxes, they're incredible.

I mean, like, they have, like, they have, like, they they have, like, the people like, they have I forgot what it's called, but, like, basically, like, a manifest where they show who's checked it out and read it. They have all these different names, and they've checked those names, and those were, like, real people at those air bases that had these documents. So, and then, you know, there was 1 document in particular where it was a memo from JFK to the CIA director Dulles where he says, I wanna see you on this particular day. It was, like, July 62 or 63. I can't remember which.

And now, again, everyone's like, oh, that's a forgery. It's part of the MJ 12 documents or whatever. It's not real. But then they released the JFK files, and then sure enough, we see the Dulles calendar, and he had met with JFK twice that day, and nobody had known that they had had those meetings until we had that JFK, mem and until we had the confirmation of the memo. So that would suggest that at least either that document is real, that JFK memo to Dulles, or whoever forged it knew that he had met with Dulles that day, and nobody else had known that.

So, you know, you'd be sort of like, I guess I guess you could still put it in the this is why this is the problem with this issue is you can still there's there's still plausible deniability for a lot for all these things. You know, you can make up a reason for why these documents are all counterintelligence passage material. I don't know. That's why I just have to kinda go I I don't know. I mean, I talk to a lot of people and, yeah, it's just a lot of secondhand information and the documents are secondhand.

So you kind of go there's, like, my world of, like, the Hunter Biden laptop, which still a bunch of my progressive and Democrat friends and family don't believe. You know, they still they still think the Russians were somehow involved. But, like, I actually have the documents and we can prove what happened there. On the UAP stuff, it's just still just surrounded in

But the incoming president has said he just said, I'm gonna tell you what those drones were about.

He was very relaxed about it too. I mean, I was struck that when they when he he did she said it twice. He said it again recently, like, last week. Right? And but then he said it in December.

He was, I don't know why they're buying like, I don't know why they're not telling people what they are. They know what they are. And I was like I was like I mean, it was a really he made it sound like it's no big deal. Like, we should just tell people what it is. But if Trump knew what it is, and if he if it's NHI, and Trump knows that, he seemed very relaxed about that.

Because, of course, the I mean, the the main the dominant the conventional wisdom on people that follow this who think it's NHI is that it's bad news. That it's not a great that it's not a great story. That if it were good news and that they were just friendly space brothers, you know, offering us, you know, advanced tech, then and they'd be like, and there's no strings attached or whatever. That would be a much easier story to sell. But if there's some bad news in that story, then that might explain why they're so secret.

Well, clearly, there's some bad news. My theory is that the reason that permanent Washington or deep state or whatever, people who administer the system hate Trump is not because of any of his policies, which they're probably agnostic on, but because they fear that he will disclose information. I think it's everything's about disclosure. Look at the federal government, what's its defining quality is secrecy. Right?

Yes. A 1000000000 classified documents. Why is that? Right. It's not good.

It's never good. Your kids behave like that, it's not good. No. They're using drugs or whatever. You know what I mean?

Right. They're having sex they shouldn't be having. There's never a good reason for that kind of secrecy. It's not privacy. It's secrecy.

So Right. Yes. And there's something about Trump that makes everybody nervous that he might say more of what he knows than he should.

Well, they don't control him, obviously. So that's that's very nerve wracking. I mean, how much do you think that they're just worried that he's gonna pull out of NATO? How much of it is that?

That's I mean, I of course, that's that's in my daily prayers that he would do that. I don't think he's in danger doing that. I hope certainly hope so, but I think it's even more fundamental. It's like this guy could say the truth. Mhmm.

Because Trump is not much of a liar, actually, by Washington Sanders. He's an exaggerator, of course. But actually, it's defining quality is, like, saying the truth.

He's being honest about kind of the issues.

The big issues.

So what do you, so you think he knows what it is? The UAP stuff?

Yeah. I do think that. Yes.

And and you think it's a NHI?

You know, I he hasn't told me, but yeah. And I do think he knows. I'm pretty sure pretty sure he knows. And I'm pretty sure that everybody I've ever spoken to who I think knows a lot more than I do, I mean, what does it mean to know? Like, do we really know anything?

I don't know. I'm I'm not sure anybody fully understands this or even partially understands it, but the people who who I'm confident have a lot more information than I have Mhmm. To a person are very, very uncomfortable about it. Yeah. Since not in public and private Mhmm.

Which is another tell. That I'm just not I mean, you've talked to a lot of people. I

mean yeah. No. I mean, it's there it's very, yeah. I mean, I say my prayers. I'm still Christian.

I mean, you know, it's interesting. Joe, when I was on Joe Rogan's podcast last time I mean, here, you know, Joe was like, I think that they're extraterrestrials. You know, he's openly saying that.

Yes, Donald.

So you kind of

not the case.

Well, okay. Or NHI. I guess NHI. Yeah. But I mean, here, you and Joe are like the 2 big most influential podcasters in the country, and you both think that it's not just a government secret tech or that it's not just plasmas.

And Joe's very close with Elon. Loves Elon. You know, like me, I think probably like you, believes that Elon deserves a huge amount of credit for saving free speech in this country. Elon says there's nothing there, never sees anything, and they've got an amazing rocket system that sees a lot of things. I'm not sure.

I've talked to Elon about this a number of times, and I'm not sure he said that.

Okay. I thought he did say that. No. I thought he said if I see if there's any aliens

He jokes about it, which is a tell. Trump does too. And they all they joke in the same way. I mean, I of course, I love them both, obviously, and I feel like,

you

know, I feel like they both have really been great for this country, you know, net net, as they say. But, no. They joke about it in the same way that a lot of people joke about. They're like, no. There are no flying saucers from Mars.

Right.

Of course, they're not from Mars. They're not from another planet. They're from here. They've always been here. These are spiritual entities.

This is my view, and I I sincerely believe it. Can't prove it. But since you asked, so he is I've never heard Elon say that's not true. Indismissive. That there's nothing there.

He just said that we monitor space. That's what they do. Right? And this is self evident. If there were there have been so many sightings in this country and around the world that if they were from another galaxy far, far away, there would be some satellite evidence of that.

They'd be picked up coming into our atmosphere, and, of course, that's not as far as I know, true.

We do have some photos. I mean, there's that 1 photo of the 1, I can't remember. It's like it's in the James Fox documentary. So there are some of those apparently. Coming from space in here.

And certainly, I've been told there's a lot more of those photos and images. But yeah. I mean, there's also

not surprised me though. I mean, it's clear that these things reside, you know, deep in the earth, under the water, and in the in the atmosphere. So,

I mean Why the elusiveness then? Why the secrecy? Well, that's the question.

That is the question. I mean, why is everybody who again, I don't know what anybody really knows. I don't know anything.

I

just wanna start every sentence by admitting I don't know anything. I don't know what happens when you die. I don't know how the brain works. I don't know anything. I don't know what sleep is for.

Mhmm. None of us do.

That's a really interesting 1. That's a surprisingly interesting 1, actually.

But it's such a it's so revealing of the limits of human knowledge. It's like, oh, science has solved this. Really? What's sleep for? Tell me how that benefits us.

Sleep. Really? But, anyway so I just always wanna say and remind myself of the limits of my knowledge, which are profound, so I don't know anything. But once again, every person I've talked to who I believe has deeper knowledge on this question than I have has seemed burdened by it.

Mhmm.

Have you noticed this? Yeah. Yeah. It's not funny anymore. Making money from it.

No.

These are not people trying to get famous from it. These are people who just seem to have this knowledge and they're they're bothered by it. So that's And

I don't think it's I don't think it's to cover up a secret weapons program. I mean, in other words, like, I don't think that's how you would do it. It's so, like yeah. I don't believe it. A secret weapons program.

Yeah. Sorry.

It's much deeper. Like, weapons programs come and go. Right. Weapons that we thought were fearsome when I was a child are a joke now. We're we're watching weapons technology change so fast in the Ukraine war that people can't even get their brains around.

And you wouldn't need this elaborate and also, like, if you're doing passage material, like, just to go back to those cases, like, why would it be that? And why would there be so much of it? Why would it why wouldn't it be something, anyway, it's a very curiously large body of passage material Yes. On this particular topic.

Well, that's right. Well, that's that's what I was saying. Like, I do think all the puzzle pieces are sort of in plain sight.

Did you ask Putin about it?

I I did not ask Putin about it. I would never have done it on air Mhmm. Because I did ask him a bunch of questions off off camera about you know, he has access to of course, he controls the Soviet archives, which and the the Soviets are great archivists, And we know that from the, you know, couple of I'm interested in Soviet leadership and government and all that stuff. There have been a couple amazing books written. The Court of the Red Czar being, I think the greatest of them about Stalin, for example.

And 1 thing you learn from me in the book is they kept records on everything, almost like the Nazis, like crazy level records. And, you know, most of them have never been disclosed. So I had I did have some questions for Putin about that, about Rudolf Hess, specifically. It's 1 of the great stories in history that doesn't make any sense at all. The number 2 guy in Nazi Germany flying into Scotland in a plane by himself and bailing out,

you

know, right before the US entry into the war and had at least things to say that were wild. And 1 of the things he apparently said in his debriefs was he believed that Hitler was being influenced by demonic spirits that he had summoned through the occult. That's not worth knowing more about.

There's a lot of stuff on that.

There's a lot. There's a lot. But Hess said that. So I immediately asked Putin about that off camera. I don't wanna seem like a wacko having unauthorized questions, but I did ask about that.

He did not get a satisfactory answer, but I did not ask about UFOs.

Well, I thought also the you know, you may have seen Marc Andreessen recently so that when he met with White House officials who said that they wanted to take all the they want to take control over all AI, that they said to him something like, we've we've declassified whole, areas of science since 19 fifties, and I was like, that just seemed like a reference to this stuff. At least at least at least at least the antigravity, if not to some of the UAP stuff.

I think the modern Western mind, the post 1945 Western mind is incapable of understanding some of the stuff because we lack the language of, you know, metaphysics, and I think that's, you know, just been a feature of human thinking from the cave period

Right.

Until we drop the atom bomb, in which case, it just, like, turned off. And we're like, oh, only the material world is real, but no 1 else has ever thought that because that's not true.

Well, like, for a 100 years. Right? Really? From Darwin, nearly a 150 years or something.

Yeah. But I don't think I mean, even before before the war, before dropping those bombs, which really were I mean, I do think that's like the pivot point in history more than anything else. But, yeah, there have been secular movements, you know, rich people always think they're God, and so they wanna eliminate any rivals from the public from the conversation. But those bombs, man, everything changed. Mhmm.

Don't think?

Well, it sure seemed like it. I mean, there's a really positive side of it though, which is that we haven't had these awful wars. Yes. Brutal. I mean, when you look at the death toll that was going up from up and up and up from wars all throughout 19th 20th centuries, it's awful.

So Yeah. We've it's they've spared us that, but it took something apocalyptic.

Well, it's been 80 years. We'll see. Yeah. So last question. Sorry.

I've got can you imagine sitting next to me at dinner? Like, can't you? So I never got anything done. And you're, I think,

1 of

the most knowledgeable people in the country on, like, all the most interesting topics. So

In 2 kinds.

No. It's well, it's just it's just a fact. In fact, if there's anything in this conversation, I think, is, like, provoked in people's desire to hear more Michael Shellenberger. So Oh, thank you. Do you think it's possible that what we're seeing in LA, which does feel like the destruction of our 2nd biggest city

Mhmm.

From which maybe there's no recovery, I don't know, I hope. But do you think it's an act of war in some sense?

You mean from a foreign power or

I do.

Oh, like, what what's the evidence for that?

It happened, and it happened between Trump's election and his inauguration, and it's crazy. Yeah. The second Trump got elected, I had this instinct, like, oh, man. I bet a lot there's gonna be bad bad stuff that happens.

I mean, I was more struck by that on the UAP on the drone Yeah.

Well, exactly. It's of a piece. Yeah. Bizarre Tesla explosion in Las Vegas

Very weird.

Mass shooting, like, there's just Yeah. If there's a 2 month period in my whole life, 55 years, where more more weird shit's been packed into 2 months, I can't think of it. Yeah. Can you?

No. It's freaking me out a little bit. Me too. Honestly. I mean, the the I spent a much time on the Livels, burger.

That's the guy that killed himself in the Tesla in Las Vegas. I mean, you definitely have cases of PTSD causing people to do things, and people are surprised by suicides. But, yeah, it was a weird 1, you know, and I was skeptical of his emails because, you know, he sent these emails to Sean Ryan. He's another excellent podcaster now. I think you've had him on or you've been on there.

I he's a friend of mine. I I can just for the record, I consider him an honest

Oh, no. I did too.

Ryan is an honest man. No. No. For sure. CIA operative.

Oh, shut up.

No. No. No. I was like I I was like, injured because because I believe in Sean, and and I didn't I'm sure he did not fake that. So, you know, and then they and then the FBI did confirm that those emails were real.

On either hand, you know, that was a weird 1 too because, also, it felt like he was like, oh, the the those were Chinese drones. They've mastered gravitic. It just felt like he didn't really know what he's talking about either. So there's just a lot of a lot of people the word gravitic before? I mean, I've I thought it was anti gravity is what I've heard.

But I never well, you're a writer. You're a word person. I never heard that word or seen that word. I think like

he was using it wrong. That was my instincts.

Thought too. I looked it up.

Yeah. No. I mean, I guess, I I look at it. I just think, Nietzsche really nailed it, which is that when people, you know, when people start believing in traditional religions, they become they they unconsciously, you know, develop, you know, they develop a new sense of guilt, a new vision of the apocalypse, they invent a new soul. I mean, people think that there's this thing called gender, which is separate from your body.

It's kinda like a soul. My friend, Abigail Schrier, pointed that out. And so we just end up recreating Christianity, but in a deformed and deranged way. And and the emergent quality of it is this destructive fire, like, you don't it's actually more powerful because nobody got out there and said, you know, let's let I mean, somebody did say, let's let Malibu burn, but that was never like the explicit policy of the government of LA. It's just something that emerges after years of budget cuts, after years of self hating ideologies, like DEI, like climate apocalypse, like the homeless apocalypse.

It just emerges kind of deep from deep within us from some from some self destructive part of us. So for me, if there's a foreign invasion, it came through the human psyche, not from outside of it.

Michael Shellenberger, how can people find you?

Public dot news and at shellenberger on x.

The best. Thanks for having me, Tucker.

I really appreciate you much.

Yeah. Thanks for listening to Tucker Carlson Show. If you enjoyed it, you can go to tucker carlson.com to see everything that we have made, the complete library. Tucker carlson.com.