The Chris Cuomo Project - FULL INTERVIEW: Tucker Carlson & Chris Cuomo on Trump, Ukraine, UFOs, Trans Rights & More

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Tucker Carlson (political commentator and founder, Tucker Carlson Network) joins Chris Cuomo for a deep-dive conversation on Donald Trump, the media, and the future of America. They debate U.S. foreign policy, the war in Ukraine, and whether government secrecy keeps the public from knowing the truth. Carlson shares his views on trans rights as a political issue, why he believes elites manipulate public perception, and how institutions have lost the trust of the American people. They also discuss the JFK assassination, Jeffrey Epstein’s connections, and what the government might be hiding about UFOs. Plus, Cuomo and Carlson examine whether America could unite after another national crisis—or if political polarization has made that impossible. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: AG1 AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out DrinkAG1.com/ccp to get this offer! RadioActive Media Learn how you can experience the power of audio marketing by also utilizing the strength of text messaging which can generate and RIO as high as 7 to 1. Text ""CHRIS"" to 511 511 or on the web at radioactivemedia.com Text rates may apply. iRestore Reverse hair loss with @iRestorelaser and get $625 off with the code chris at https://www.irestorelaser.com/chris #irestorepod Shopify Upgrade your business and get the same checkout AllBirds or Aviator Nation uses. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at SHOPIFY.COM/chrisc to upgrade your selling today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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why don't you have difficult conversations with people you don't agree with, who may know things that will help you understand what you don't right now? I'm Chris Cuomo, welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Tucker Carlson checks every box of what I just described. Do we agree on a lot of things? No, not in terms of present controversies. Does he understand why the Trump administration is doing what it does

in a way that I do not? Yes. Does he understand what is motivating them in ways that I don't accept or really understand? Yes. And that is why it was time for Cuomo and Carlson Part Deux, for Cuomo and Carlson, part two, for us to get together and show that you do not have to hate who you disagree with. And that is a matter of fact, that is fake. That saying that you hate is weakness. That not owning a position, not being able to discuss, not being able to debate,

not even being able to have a conversation that you guys can't even sit down at Thanksgiving dinner. This is what is corroding us. It's not the different opinions. It's not the ugly ideas. There've always been ugly ideas. So I wanted to sit down with Tucker Carlson to see if I could understand what I really don't get

about what motivates a lot of what got Donald Trump elected. I understand why it happened, but there is a mentality to MAGA that Carlson embodies. So let's get after it. So last time we talked was a year ago. And you somehow look younger. I feel worn out and fatter. I've been on the road for too long. The first day of Lent, I'm getting right now. But anyway, it's been a year since we talked about this.

And last time we talked, I think you were still like, and I probably was too little off balance from being vomited out of television world into this, the great beyond. But I was thinking about you this morning and I was thinking, I bet he's really grateful he's not at CNN now. So it gives me no particular joy to say this,

but you were right about it. Well, okay. Don't get used to it, it's the last time you'll hear it in this conversation. But you said, give it time, embrace doing what you're doing and don't look for the acceptance of where you were. And that was really good advice. It's not easy to do, but News Nation has been

what I would call a blessing in my life. I didn't know it at the time. So my brother's running for mayor, my bosses, and of course, they had the benefit of going to school on what happened with me at CNN. Yeah. But the embrace,

the willingness and acceptance of, wow, this is great for your family. This is great for your brother. We're excited for you guys. I thought it was like a test, that if I seemed okay about that, they'd be like, aha, we knew you. The difference, the change of one conversation

of them saying, well, we're with you, we support you. And I said, well, I'm gonna just tell the audience though I'm not gonna cover the race obviously cause I'd have a conflict. And they were like, yeah, duh. They know that if you feel like you have to say it, say it. And I realized, wow, they really believe in what I'm doing here and supporting me.

I love that. And so there's just a really profound gratitude. So there's not this weird hypocrisy where they encourage you to have your brother on because he's famous in the news, this is what CNN did to you, from my perspective watching, they encourage you, hey, Chris, call your brother, have him on.

And then like a year later, like, oh wait, you were talking to your brother, you're fired. Yeah. Because it's too fake. Look, as we both know, in every business and especially in ours, you do what you have to do to protect yourself. And if it's, you know, if it's me or you,

and I put myself in a position where I was vulnerable, then it's going to be me. And that's what happened. And I accepted. I don't blame CNN. This was really about two people making decisions about my life, not the organization. I miss the people. I wish the place well.

That is all true. But I have a connection with News Nation and these guys where I am anxious to bleed for them. I am excited about putting it all on the line every day, anywhere in the world. Because of my upbringing and my disposition, when I know you're there for me when you don't need to be, it's not necessarily, you know, there are a lot of big names that you could grab in the media right now. For NewsNation to give me the chance and to let me do it and to support me and to support me when Andrew decides that he's got to be in public service, can't put a price on it, could never be grateful enough.

So from a year ago until today, I now know that. And there is something comforting about that. It's an ugly business. It's an ugly time. The ugliest business. All the wrong things are being rewarded, but I'm in the right place for me. It's funny in, I don't wanna spend two hours beating up

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

Nowhere else in your life, you know, it's part of politics and media, right? They're certainly related, if not married. And I think that the biggest frustration, the look that you and I both know, there are lots of great men and women who do the job for the right reasons. But as a culture, it's okay in the media for me

to destroy you by a standard that I would never want imposed on me. And there is something that is really dangerous about that. Oh, I agree. When, well, I don't want you to know about my life, but you, we're going after. 100%. And that dichotomy, let's call it,

that paradox is really- Well, it's hypocrisy. Yes, and it's really dangerous. And look, unfortunately it works so well. You know, if I were to cover you in any situation and put a positive spin on it, that's a puff piece. It's weak. Cuomo's been red-pilled.

He got bought up by that preppy smiley chuckle head. And if I then say, well, I sat with Tucker and as I knew it, devil's spawn. Ooh, that was a hard-hitting piece. You know, he really came at him. They're such children. The commodity is negativity. If you wanna be a hard journalist,

you better say something negative about somebody. It's a proxy for insight. I just interviewed Sam Bankman, freed yesterday from jail, it hasn't aired yet. And I actually really enjoyed the conversation. And about five minutes in, I was like, oh shit, I haven't asked him a single mean question about his business. He's in jail for 25 years., oh shit, I haven't asked him a single mean question about his business.

Well, he's in jail for 25 years. So I thought, I don't really need to make the case that he did something wrong. A jury's already decided that. And I think it's okay to just like have a conversation with the guy. And then I thought, well, I'll probably be criticized for sucking up to Sam Bankman Fried. And I thought, I don't care, actually. Well, look, you're in a unique position, right? Because one, you have no boss.

Two, the media is already not looking to be a friend to you. But you don't think so. So you don't have to impress anybody. Okay, I'm not gonna win them over. Margaret Brennan's not gonna text me congratulations. You can do whatever you wanna do. And there's a lot of freedom in that. And of course there are challenges

of you having to support yourself and find opportunities and build your own infrastructure. You know, there's a lot of entrepreneurial stuff that you and I never had to deal with before. That's for sure. So you can just have a conversation with him because the media doesn't know what to do with digital and independent media.

The instinct was to disrespect it. No, of course. Right, marginalize it. And I think on a reporting level, that's still safe ground. I mean, what's popping on digital media isn't investigative reporting per se. There are some, Ty E. B. Schellenberg or stuff like that, but Barry Weiss at the Free Press,

but it's mostly hot takes. But now that we're realizing in our society, and I'm very excited about it, power is shifting back to people and from institutions. And that's really uncomfortable for some people. I think the Democrats are in a weird place where they seem like, which is such anathema as Mario Cuomo's kid,

he was so anti-establishment, but they seem pro-establishment defenders of the status quo. And I think that's a really dangerous place to be right now because I think power is shifting towards being disruptive of institutions and of the elites in a very real way. And digital media is much better positioned to be empowered by that

than what they're now calling legacy media. I don't buy into that as a pejorative, but I see it. And I see that people are really open to getting, two things are happening at the same time. Siloed, absolutely. But also, people are realizing that they can reach out and get different versions of events and takes on things in a way that they couldn't before.

And I think that's really exciting and the media doesn't know what to do with it. It's amazing. And I think the most influential people in media, I think you have to put Rogan at the top of that, kind of don't work for anybody. Nope. And it's just so interesting.

If you look at the ads on Margaret Brennan show, it's like Nissan and Joe Rogan, it's like prostate health cures. It's like, you know, Nissan and Joe Rogan, it's like prostate health cures. It's like the whole, guys like Rogan have become rich, famous, influential, completely outside the conventional structures. Certainly Rogan. Certainly Rogan.

But all of them. I mean, all of them. Megyn Kelly is enormously influential. I haven't seen her ads, but like. But she's still corporate backed, right? She's Sirius XM. She was Fox, as you well know, didn't work for her at NBC, which really wasn't a surprise to anybody in there.

It's being a network anchor, being a storyteller, being a host that is accommodative of broad audiences that are looking to be inoffensive. That's a very different skillset that she clearly was gonna struggle with. So I wasn't surprised by that, but she's SiriusXM. Now Rogan is Spotify, but he built that all himself. But you're wondering though, but still, I mean, Rogan is,

you know, in some sense, like bigger than Spotify, he could leave Spotify, I think Megan could leave Sirius. I was surprised he took the deal. I was surprised he took the deal. Well, it gives him a lot of freedom. But here's my question. You see every kind of mid-sized independent business

in America getting scooped up by private equity. So every veterinary practice, every dental office, each VAC places, cemetery associations. Like there is this inexorable trend toward like conglomerates. Yes. Small independents getting scooped up by some big umbrella group. That's going to happen in media, I would think.

We are presently realizing, so there was that big wave of deals that you and I missed in the podcast space where people were just throwing money to have a footprint in it, right? Rogan was the biggest footprint in it, right? Rogan was the biggest of those deals, right? But then it went away. And when I got into it, I'm all self-financed because, well, I was damaged goods, but people weren't looking to just throw money at a podcast because no one was making money on those deals. It was like relearning the Howard Stern lesson that they paid them all that money at Sirius

XM and it's like, you know, what was like relearning the Howard Stern lesson, that they paid him all that money at Sirius XM, and it's like, what was the yield? Now, different people are starting to buy a podcast that are traditional media companies, and they are the seed capital behind the private equity, behind those organizations, are starting to buy up these properties again. That freaks me out because the reason independent media are credible is because they're independent.

Yes. They're not controlled. Yes. Now, I struggle with that a little bit. That absolutely can be true. And again, Taibbi, Schellenberger, okay? Yeah. But I don't dismiss, and Barry Weiss, I don't like leaving her out.

Free Press is a really cool thing that she's building there. And I like that she's able to do something that I never saw at a news organization before, which is she's decidedly pro-Israel, okay? She's Jewish and beyond her own cultural and religious affinity, she has an ideological one. And she owns it and she's out there for it. You may disagree, that's okay.

But you know, whereas the world that you and I grew up in, media-wise, they had all these opinions, but you'd never know it. You know what I mean? You'd have to glean it from what you saw on camera. Nobody ever came out and said it, you know, that we think that this is right. We think this is wrong. Very, very rarely. So what I like about it is I believe that there's space for all of it, okay?

When I got into this business 25 years ago, they told me, you know network news is dead, right? The number one show on television is World News Tonight. So the idea that it's dead, it's not dead, it's just changing and there's stratification. But I do think there's a challenge afoot. People on every different platform have to reconnect with their constituency. Trust is at an all-time low with every kind of institution. Now, within that is a burden for the media, but also an opportunity. That's why I'm so excited that I may have been in the wrong place at other phases in my career,

but I'm in the right place right now because, like, like News Nation is like one pebble on the beach at a time of, Hey, everybody's going crazy about this, not us. Uh, tariffs are kind of scary and they can hurt prices, but Trump does this and he's looking to get something done. Let's not microanalyze him saying tariffs. Like this is definitely going to happen this way forever and let's see what happens. NewsNation were allowed to do that. Most outlets have to pick a side. Tariffs, best thing in the world, like Fox News. Tariffs are great, we can't wait,

this is going to be great, it's going to unleash the economy, get rid of the income tax. MSNBC, this is the worst, it's going to crush the economy You gotta have a take, you gotta have a side. NewsNation is able to harness the independent mentality of there's a plus minus on this, right? And we're gonna have to see here, right? There's gonna have to be some patience, right? And I love that space. It's harder, it's way harder than saying, I hate Trump

or Trump was sent by Jehovah. Those are much easier positions, but I believe in the potential. Well, honesty is kind of the point. I mean, I think you should be allowed to arrive at whatever conclusion you sincerely arrive at, and you should be able to tell people that that's your job. And if you work at a place where you know

that you can't say something you believe is true, it's the wrong place for you. I agree, but look, we're benefiting from the change. Do you feel that there are things that you, is an unfair question to ask you with the cameras going. It's the only kind you ask, Carl. Yeah, right, I'm not just specializing in that. But do you feel like there are things that you can't say?

Like if you came to a conclusion now, I don't mean about like some individual sex life or like nasty personal attacks, but I mean like a policy position that you came to that you would be like, oh, I probably can't say that. No, I'm there to say it. So really you don't feel like there are any red lines? My bosses are very worried about you advancing agendas

that you don't disclose. Me or one? Me, you know what I mean? Well, if you come to News Nation, then yes, you too. But right now it's, you know, hey, look, if you feel that way, just, you better say it. Don't just stack your show with guests that are all on one side of something.

Oh, I love that. And then pretend you're fair. So be honest. Don't do that. Yeah, be transparent. The same thing. Be transparent. And you may be wrong, right? That happens often, but own it, correct it, move on. Do not hide the ball.

They really say that? The 100%. Because also remember- Well, I admire that. I'll just say I admire that. NewsNation is owned by a company that really knows local TV, right? They own the most local TV stations.

What is, what has the most currency in media still? Visual media, local news. The boss of me directly, I have like 10 bosses starting with Dusty on up, but the Mike Korn is an ABC News pro who did every job. So he's not a corporate guy. He was in the field. He knows how to edit. He was in the control room. He was, you know, he did all the jobs. He's written the pieces. So he knows the alchemy of journalism. So he understands when someone's fake in the funk

and what's transparent versus what is trickery. So they've got a good setup there for it. However, I'm still a Cuomo. And it was really important to me when Andrew decided he was gonna run that I had to go to them and say, I'm still a Cuomo and it was really important to me when Andrew decided he was going to run that I had to go to them and say, I work for you. What do you want me to do on this? Do you want me to, I offered, do you want me to take a leave for dependency of the campaign?

I'm not running the campaign. I'm not part of the campaign. That's not going to happen. But if you think, you know, I haven't lived through this before, I don't want to hurt News Nation. What you're doing is so important, way more important than me. Do you want that?

Now, obviously, they said, no, you're being silly and traumatized. Yeah, well. But that was helpful also. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Factor. Okay, if you go to my sub stack and join, you will become part of my wellness health reclamation program and I am using Factor meals

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Yes. So I should say I know Eric Adams and I like him. Eric Adams can win. I am highly distressed by how dirty and chaotic and dangerous New York is. I'm really, really bothered. I almost don't even care what the ideology. I don't care what rent control debates or tax. I just want to be safe walking down the street.

I get it. And he doesn't seem to have been able to do that. Well let's defend Eric Adams, shall we? I have, but I'd like to hear you do it. And he doesn't seem to have been able to do that. Well, let's defend Eric Adams, shall we? I have, but I'd like to hear you do it. And so have I. Why? Your brother's running against him. That's not what my family is about. If Andrew is the better choice

for the voters in the primary, then he'll win. If he isn't, then he'll lose. And you sign up for that when you decide to get into it. Do I want him to win? Of course, he's my brother. I don't even vote in New York City. So it's, you know, this is a family thing for me, but all you gotta do is Google it.

I believe the indictment against Eric Adams was weak sauce. And yes, I heard much, much later that they had more. They never put it out. An indictment is already just probable cause. It's the lowest layer of a prosecutorial instrument. Also, it's totally immoral for the government at any level to impugn your character without charging you. If you have the evidence, charge me.

And they charged him, but they should have brought out whatever they said they had. What they said is everyone looked at the indictment and was like, wait, you accepted airline upgrades? And by the way, every member of Congress does that all the time. I believed it was weak sauce. Now other people disagreed with me, that's fine. But I didn't know my brother was doing anything politically

when I started my coverage of Mayor Adams. And I believe Trump's deal with him is not fair to Eric Adams. Should have pardoned him or dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning you can't bring them again. Because think about it, Tucker, if I had that deal with you, is right now you're fine, you do what you wanna do. But we're gonna reassess after this event in the future,

that means everything to you. And then we'll see if I'm going to prosecute you. It does seem a little like a leash. And I don't think it's fair. So, you know, your criticism, your analysis of, hey, I think he should have been doing other things. My take on that is, okay, and the voters will decide that, but the guy has the biggest gorilla in the world

staring at him like he's food, and he's supposed to focus on his job? That's fair, but you know but that was later in his term. He didn't take crime seriously, nobody did. And so my question is, let's try and take your brother and Adams out of it. If you were running for mayor of New York, what would you run on?

Free pizza. You like it. Now that there are no more dollar slices? But now that you like it, you've thought about it. I do like pizza, obviously, a lot, too much. I've given up pizza for one. We both know the city very well, right? New Yorkers deserve their reputation.

It's a tough place. And it is a place where the rules have to mean something. It is too many people in too small a space to have anything chaotic. A little bit of a problem blows up really fast in that city. One, two, three, four, five things happen in the subway. It's like 5,000 things happen in the subway. The feel becomes magnified.

So having grown up, right? I mean, I'm born and bred. I remember life in the seventies and that's how people talk today. I think I could make a case that statistically it ain't the seventies in a lot of different ways for the better, but that's how they feel. And I haven't heard this talk.

I haven't seen people on the subway as I do now, unless they're in their twenties and therefore unable to look up from their screen because they've been completely destroyed by these devices. Everyone's looking around now on the subway. When you're walking on the street, eyes are up. You know, people have their hands out, just like it was when it was in the seventies.

I remember people were afraid. When you say you're going to the city, people talk to you like you need to have a plan. And that's corrosive, it hurts property values, it hurts the corporate interest in being there. So New York is a place that uniquely needs to have that sense that things are under control. And that is not an easy job, not an easy job.

Well, it just takes a fascist to do it. No, it does not. I don't mean someone. The way that just slides out of your mouth. It's true. A fascist? Yeah, like Bloomberg. I don't mean fascist.

He wasn't a fascist. I don't mean fascist in like hating people on the basis of ethnicity or anything like that. I mean like someone who enforces the rules and is not embarrassed about it at all. It's just like, I'm sorry, that's against the law. We're not putting up with it, not for one second. No, you can't.

And by the way, you're smoking weed on the street. How about no, like no. We're not a little bit of Singapore, New York City. Or honestly, as someone who travels a lot, I find it really embarrassing going to New York. I find the airport's embarrassing, the drive-in is embarrassing. I'm an American, I love my country.

LaGuardia is the number one airport. It's my brother's signature achievement. LaGuardia is the number one airport in the country now. I don't know by what standard. I think it's way better, I agree. But it took 20 years to do that. It was pathetic. It's just like build the freaking airport.

Everyone else does it. It's hard, Andrew's the only one who could get it done. I was in the freaking airport like everyone else does. It's hard. Andrew was the only one who could get it done. I was in the Doha airport two days ago. I texted my wife with this picture. I was like, this is what we could have if people would just stop being ridiculous. Build something beautiful. Maintain it.

It's not that hard. I agree, but the reason I come at you about saying you need a fascist is- I shouldn't have used the word fascist, but I mean, you need like- That's why I'm here, Doug. You just need, you need someone who's committed to protecting the weak. Yes, but here's the difference, and I know what you mean. What I'm saying is this, and it's worth examining right now with what people are worried about

with the Trump administration, is it's gotta be bigger than you. The problem with fascism is it's not about you, okay? It's not about Trump. It's not about who is the mayor of New York City. There's a system, there are institutions, there is law and order. And you gotta work within that and you've gotta be

zealous about wanting those things to work for the right people the right way, but it can't get any bigger that for the individual. Well, I would just strongly agree with that. I'm totally opposed to cults of personality. Because Bloomberg was not fascist. He was good at using the system. That's a term that I-

That's why you got three terms. Yeah, look, I think it should be legal for politicians to name things after themselves. No politicians should ever have anything named after themselves, that's my view, because we're paying these people, they're our servants. Why are they taking our money to build money to themselves?

So I'm against all self aggrandizement by anybody, actually, especially politicians. I'm just saying it's the greatest city in the greatest nation on earth. And it looks like garbage. Like it smells, it's dirty, it doesn't work very well. It's like, it's not acceptable to travel around the world. Not everyone lives like that. And we don't have to. So like, let's not acceptable to travel around the world. Not everyone lives like that.

Right. And we don't have to. So like, let's just make it worthy of the great nation that it represents. That's all I'm saying. Look, I think there are a lot of people who feel that way. And I could explain it away. There are a lot of things that would be really hard

to control that are at play in New York City, but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. It's how people feel. And look, I listened to my brother very carefully about this. As someone other than his kids, I mean, there's nobody that Andrew matters more to than me. Andrew raised me. He's not just my brother.

He's 13 years older than I am. Everything I'm into are all his hobbies and attributes. Cause he taught me all these things. My father was so committed to public service that he was away a lot when I was young. He was in Albany and we were in Queens. So Andrew taught me how to throw a ball, taught me how to ride a bike, taught me how to tackle,

taught me how to defend myself, taught me why you're there for your family and how, taught me about why you got to keep the driveway clean and how to work on cars. Like all these things, how to fish, how to boat, all these things was my brother. So I am really, really attached to him and his wellbeing. And when you hear someone that you love and care about say,

hey, I think I'm gonna go run for office again. I've got to serve. I know why that sounds great to New Yorkers, but to me, it's, you want more of that? That is the dirtiest, most unfair, savage business in the world. There's no chance, it's like he's telling me he wants to go wrestle a Komodo dragon.

You know what I mean? It's like, hey, I really gotta do this. You're gonna bleed. They're actively gonna try to hurt you with no regard for the merits. And we call it the game, but it's like Thunderdome. So as someone who loves him, why would I be excited about him wanting

to expose himself to that? Of course not. But look, when I hear him, it's like, you know, I almost tear up because it's so much like my father. My father used to describe public service. You know, my father hated that I went into the media, by the way. I'm sure there's a whole, I'm sure my therapist could have like a whole field, I don't even open that box of chocolates with my therapist

because I know I'd be paying for the rest of my life about just explaining that. But his problem with it was, why do you wanna be part of a group that just criticizes people who are trying to get things done when you could actually be trying to get something done? And that's why he believed in public service. Andrew is the same thing.

He skips right past the price of entry, which I could never get past it. I'd be like, no way I'm going to have a hundred Tucker Carlson's chewing on my ass like a dog toy every day. Not going to happen. I won't be able to handle it. I want to fight them all the time. And he goes right past that to the, all of these ideas about what he could do in that capacity and what needs to be done.

And I'm like, yeah, but you have to go through this gauntlet to get to this place just to try to do this really hard thing. And he looks at me like, and? And? So you gotta, I gotta support him. I mean, I'm for that level of intensity. You just cannot let people wreck the city. You can't let them live on the sidewalks.

That's how he feels. You can't let them smoke weed in the parks. I agree with you. I would just want somebody else to deal with it. Yeah, no. Because it's, look, it's such a hellscape right now. Look what works in politics. If I'm running against you for anything, okay? Because it's, look, it's such a hellscape right now. Look what works in politics.

If I'm running against you for anything, okay? Strategy is simple. We gotta destroy him. What can we find on him? Well, actually, I think the lesson is it doesn't work because Trump is now the president. Well, that is true. He did overcome.

I mean, they went after his family. They tried to put his sons in jail. They tried to put him in jail. They shot him. But he is a unicorn also. He is the true Teflon Don. But it's an inspiration. Like, whatever you think of Trump or what he does,

he's basically saying the same things he was saying 25 years ago. He can pull the tape on Larry King Live about tariffs, about immigration, about foreign policy. He's basically, I mean, he's changed, of course, on a lot of little things, but on the big things, exactly the same, and he just kept going. And it worked.

So, maybe Trump has a lesson that there are limits to what the personal attack can achieve. That's what I was gonna say, is that I think that he's more of a symptom than he is a cause. People, the election message was, you guys are focusing on things that don't matter to us the way you want them to.

And what does matter to us doesn't matter enough to you. And what they saw in Trump were two main things. One, the personification of this, that you are trying to destroy this guy on a basis that we are not really okay with. And the second thing is that he wants to disrupt all the things that we believe need disruption. And his views between the cancel culture and different cultural wars, as we call them,

Donald Trump, for whatever you want to say about him negatively, approximated normal to the American voters more than the Democrats did. And that's the message. Well, the trainee stuff just scared the crap out of everybody. But that's an example of what I'm saying. I think there are many examples, but that one was like so florid and crazy that, and it's still going on,

that to this day, I don't understand it. And we live in a world where there are always gonna be people who wanna wear women's clothes or whatever, find these stuff. Oh, I understand it. All right, look, you saw it. You saw it. To elevate traineeism to like the top of the agenda list? I can explain it to you very easily.

It's readily apparent. And look, we saw the same mistake on display when the president addressed Congress. Okay? That is not a time for you to be obnoxious. If he wants to be obnoxious, fine. You are there at a respect for the office. There are rules of decorum in that place. I believe there should be rules of decorum in all places,

in media and politics, but there aren't, but there are there. And they willfully and wantedly abuse them to make a point that they are against Trump. And it was a bad look for the Democrats. What is it an extension of? We as Democrats, they will tell you, we are resisting who he wants to abuse and what he wants to destroy.

Like what? Trans are a unique minority in this country. They are uniquely targeted. They need protection. We are going to protect them. Okay, but this particular aspect of the issue, guys my size who decide to become female and play against my daughter in high school, that is not what you need to protect them from or against.

That's something that doesn't make sense. Nope, we have to hold to the purity of the cause of protecting this minority group. Yeah, but you're not protecting them. You're protecting the people that are playing against them because they're 230 pounds. Yeah, it almost never happens. But if it happens once,

it's something that never needed to happen. The purity test, the absolutist nature of binary politics, that if you are for something, you have to be all in on it beyond any conception of reason. That's what we're dealing with in our politics. That's what that issue is. Well, of course, I can think of a million topics on which that is true. I think- I see that with guns on the right, by the way.

Maybe right. You know, I'm an absolutist on that. I could tell you why it's not even that interesting. But what I think, but you know, the right to self-defense is a part of natural law. The idea that a man can become a woman by wishing it so is not only a violation of natural law, it's a violation of nature itself.

It's like inherently insane. That's a denial of physical reality. And so why, so the argument is, there are people with weird sexual impulses who we shouldn't like scapegoat and hurt. I mean, I'm totally in agreement with that. It is a perversion of live and let live. So, but to force the rest of us to tell a lie.

That's the perversion. That's when you feel like, well, this is a spiritual attack actually. It doesn't have to be a lie. In the interest of live and let live, right? Which is a signature American freedom or should be, right? You don't want these people to live the way they want to live. You are infringing on their rights.

We will protect them. Now, I understand the political philosophy behind that, but once it entered a realm of where the people that you say you're trying to protect are now a problem for another group that need protection also, which are these kids, they didn't click into the common sense. No, it's more than that though. It's like The idea that the government should be involved in people's sex lives Is a shocking concept to me. I don't think it should be me either and they're promoting homosexuality

Promoting it and I'll tell you how we know that they're promoting it because its incidence has risen dramatically now when, when I was a young man, there was a debate over what percentage of the population is gay. I was never anti-gay for the record and I'm not now. But it's an interesting question. They would say, you're born that way, you're born gay. She cannot criticize someone on the basis of his immutable characteristics.

Great, I totally agree with that. But then we saw the absolute incidence of self-reported homosexuality like triple. So clearly people aren't born that way. 30% of eighth graders were born gay. No, that's not true. And so there's been this dramatic rise that none of us are allowed to notice. It's like, you can't notice that.

Well, why? Okay. Yes, I can. And I'm sort of thunderstruck by it. Like, what is that? And it clearly is a manifestation of the deeper truth, which is maybe some people are born gay, but people can also be moved towards self-identifying as gay,

and that's exactly what's happened. Anyway, I don't think that's good. I don't think that's good, and I also don't understand why the government should be taking my tax dollars to convince people that certain forms of sex are better than others, particularly non-procreative sex. Like, what the hell is that? Well, look, it's an easy legal and moral backstop that government should not be in the business

of type. Okay? That's easy. There's plenty of things that government should be doing that isn't necessary. I believe that is an extension to how people choose their own bodies and how they use them. I believe in reproductive rights.

I think it is a right. However, I see gay acceptance a little differently. The difference of a generation from our kids to us is it's much safer to say that you're gay now than it was. You used to get beat up. You used to get ostracized. You used to get excluded. That happens less now.

It still happens, but it happens less. Is there also a cultural formation that we see like in America? Everything goes in these big swings in different directions. Always reaction formation. Are we more gay friendly in our culture? Aggressively so, assertively so, than we were when we were growing up? Yes. Can that make it more attractive to young people who are struggling

and trying to figure themselves out? Maybe. And that's why I remember when I was in college, there were a lot of people who were gay in college who weren't gay afterwards. Now, a lot of them were gay in college and gay afterwards, but I think there's something to experimenting and certain people play out with identity.

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

Well, no one has isolated a gene. But you haven't noticed when you were raising your kids that there would be certain kids that you were like, I think this kid's gonna be gay. 100%, 100%. Oh, yes, absolutely. Where there were too young to be mimicking it. I did, I absolutely did notice that.

And so I'm not saying there's not a genetic component. I'm just saying, and I don't know the answer is the truth. But what I do know is if you've got a third of middle schoolers saying, I'm not heterosexual, that's not- Place to a fact more than it does. That's not inborn at all. I think that there's two things can be true.

You can have that it's easier to be accepted today. I'm not saying that it's the same. I'd still believe that when people are gay, it's like the main descriptor of them. Whereas you and I don't identify, oh, Tucker Carlson, you know him, straight guy. But when you're gay, you still get labeled that way. But I think two things can be happening at the same time,

that there is a culture of persuasion, in let's say, in a guided or misguided sense of acceptance. And I think it is safer for people to come out now than it was a generation ago. Yes, both are true. But it's, I guess the point I'm making is it's really clear that the federal government, state governments, local governments and NGOs are promoting homosexuality

among kids, obviously true to me, and transgenderism among kids. And my point is that is not acceptable. And when I was a child, if an adult went up to a kid in a park and started talking to him about his sex life, he could shoot the guy because that's not acceptable to talk to other people's children about sex, period.

And now it's not only acceptable, it's the rule and it's paid for by my tax dollars. And I'm just saying like, that's really destructive. Look, it is a very persuasive argument. I don't know. It certainly hasn't been my experience in my kids' schools, public and private, that I felt that they were being indoctrinated. They didn't have Pride week. Into any- Or Pride month or Pride celebrations. I don't remember it specifically, but even if they did, let's say they did.

I can't prove that right now, but let's say they did. That to me is not the same thing as indoctrination. I have no problem with adults and children being exposed to different belief systems and different ways and different cultures. I have no problem with tolerance. Now indoctrination is a different word. Well, pride is not tolerance.

Pride is the opposite of tolerance. Pride is a celebration. Right. And so you're celebrating certain sex acts with other people's kids. And I just think right there, you've crossed a line. Pride week doesn't have to be children, right? When you have the, you know, the St. Patrick's Day parade,

it's not making people be Irish. I totally agree. I'm talking about kids, I'm talking about schools. And by the way, I don't have any problem with heterosexual pride, gay pride. People are happy about the way that they live, that's fine. I have a huge problem with schools or governments getting involved in the sexuality of children.

Yeah, I 100% agree. But every school does it. There's not one school that doesn't have gay promotion. Their job is to keep everybody safe. No, but it's not safe, it's promoting it. No, I got you. I can't wait, it would bother you. I'm saying their job is to keep kids safe,

which means if my kid is gay, your kid can't beat them up on that basis. That's the role of the school. That's the rule of the law is, you know, people have to be able to live and be free and safe. It's different to you trying to teach my kid to be gay. If that's going on, obviously it would be a problem. I mean, I think I've I've never experienced that. A massive percentage of middle schoolers are gay. of that product. That's the key. The selling of a business often comes from the business behind the business that makes that sales experience possible. Think of Allbirds, Aviator Nation. It's all about what happens when you go there

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Let me ask you, this is most of all, let me ask you a question that for some reason seemed to have sunk beneath the waves. The JFK story 62 years ago, the president's murdered,

it's pretty clear that the story we were told isn't true. And it bothers people because it gets to a core question, which is, is the president capable of making independent decisions? Or is there a threat of physical violence against all American presidents that persists? Well, we know there's a threat of violence because we just watched our president get shot in the head.

Of course, but from some, from whatever group has been able to keep these files secret for 62 years. So my question to you is like, what is that? Why have these been secret for so long? Look, the idea of the deep state to me is a convenience more than it is a reality It's a boogeyman

Why don't they put it out because institutions protect themselves Tucker as we both know really and there is clearly Information in those files that are gonna make the CIA look bad. Just the CIA. Well, whatever different no, no, whatever I mean, let's I don't know is I haven't seen it. Well, so it different agencies. No, no, no, no, whatever. I mean, let's, I mean, at this point- Well, I don't know, because I haven't seen them. Okay, well, so here's- Somebody could be the FBI, could be the CIA. Okay, so I've always thought that. And then in January, you know, there was a scramble over who's gonna get what jobs in the new administration. And at one point, there was someone who was being discussed

for a job in the intel world, and a member of the SSCI, the Senate Select Committee and Intelligence, the Senate Intel Committee and Intelligence and Intel Committee went to the people making the decision and said, you cannot hire this person because this person will be certain to push for the release of the JFK files. So this is in 2025, less than two months ago,

and you have a sitting member of the United States Senate whose main goal is to keep those files secret. And then you have to ask yourself, what is that? Why? Yeah. Exactly, why? Yeah. Why? Were they even alive? Of course, no one was alive.

I was 62 years ago. Yeah, I know. And by the way, the institution, no one can even tell you who the CIA director was. And do you remember the name of the CIA director? John McComb, I think, 1963. but that person has like completely lost his history except a specialist. So, and the CIA has already been through 50 years ago, the church committee hearings in 1975, where we sort of know that they are assassinating people, dosing people with acid,

all this stuff. It's like, the CIA has already been discredited. So if you're telling me that six weeks ago, a member of the United States Senate was trying to keep someone out of a job in order to keep these files secret that is to protect the CIA. I don't believe that for a second. So what do you think it is?

I don't know, but this is, I mean, there's no one at the CIA who was involved. Actually, yeah, who's involved in the Kennedy assassination. There's no one in America who's involved in the Kennedy assassination. So here's what I know. First of all, I don't believe that the CIA has been completely discredited. I believe in the Kennedy assassinations, there's no one in America who's involved in the Kennedy assassination. So here's what I know. First of all, I don't believe that the CIA has been completely discredited.

I believe in the institutions, they have to be checked. The media used to be in the business of checking the institutions. Now we're in the business of like defending them tacitly because we have a president that attacks them all the time. But, so Mike Pompeo gets in there. He's in charge of the CIA. Trump says, I'm releasing the files, okay? Somebody says something to Mike Pompeo gets in there. He's in charge of the CIA. Trump says, I'm releasing the files, okay?

Somebody says something to Mike Pompeo that he then goes to the president of the United States and says, you can't release these things. And Trump acknowledges it. Now, do I believe that Trump did it under threat? No. I think that Trump just decided that whatever he was being told made sense.

But it's, and I'm not even speaking of Trump or Pompeo, who's a very sinister person. And you're absolutely right, Pompeo was the driver behind that, but who's driving Pompeo? I mean, it doesn't actually make sense, the story. It doesn't make sense. And by the way, we have the file numbers

of most of the files that have not been disclosed. So it's like Trump issues an executive order on January 23rd saying you're gonna release this stuff. They kind of can't not release it. And yet now it's the first week of March and they haven't released it. So pressure is currently being applied on the administration not to release those files.

It seems that way. By whom? I don't know. Some like mid-level analyst at CIA who just doesn't wanna discredit the institution he works for, I don't think so. Like, what is that? I don't know.

Who is pressuring? I don't believe it's the Rockefellers, the Pope, and no, whatever. I'm not even guessing. All I'm saying is we can say with certainty that there is a force acting on these people, a very serious force, to the point where they're embarrassing themselves

because they promised they'd release this and they haven't. Look, I don't disagree with the- So like, what the hell is that? I don't know, but it's not just that, right? Now we get this weird story about the Epstein files. Like who even cares? You know what I mean? Like who, I want it released.

I believe in transparency. I think it's the route to trust. And it's not just because I'm in the media, it's just common sense. But AG Bondi, I don't have any reason to be anti-AG Bondi. And she says she's going to release the files. And I don't even any reason to be anti-AG Bondi. And she says she's gonna release the files. And I don't even care that they released them to their pod people.

I mean, I thought that was stupid, but I mean, that's fine. They wanna do what they do it. They're playing to preference, okay. Now, then there's a story about, well, the New York FBI, they hid all the files and then we're gonna have to get them. We're gonna fire this guy who's supposedly by most accounts is a pretty solid guy that they had quit. Well, where are the files?

Where are they? And because I thought Trump was the antidote to this. And to me, the heartbreak has already come and gone. UFOs to me is the best example of what you're picking up. Can we just back up? And I totally agree. I just wanna just linger for one second on the Epstein things.

So what is that? I mean, once again, you clearly have a force that's applying measurable pressure on the people who should have the power, the elected president of the United States should have the power under our system. That's called democracy. And his appointees have derivative power from him.

But they appear to be powerless in the face of some other source of power. And the question is, what is that source? I don't know. And where's your boy, Cash Patel? I mean, he went in there to supposedly bust all this up. I can't answer that. He put out this weird tweet, you know,

that was very general, like, you know, things are gonna change and we're gonna do this and that. After we learned that someone under his control now, right, cause he's the head of the FBI, in that office that's under him, why wasn't he there? Why didn't he go there and say, give me the files? Give them to me. Weren't you just saying the deep state's not real?

I don't know, I don't believe in the deep state as a bogeyman. I don't know, like what the hell is going on? But look, they're his guys. I'm just saying, why didn't he go there and say, give me the files? So let's just use logic. I can't answer that question.

I think it's a great question. But let's just use logic. I can't answer that question. I think it's a great question. But let's just use logic for one second. Clearly, if you watch this, in my case, for the same as you, 35 years, watching this stuff carefully, and somebody gets in office, I'm gonna do this, that, and the other thing, and then like five days later, they're like,

well, actually, someone has called that person to say, there's something you didn't know, here are the consequences of doing that. Someone has applied very serious pressure on this person, pressure so serious that that person is willing to humiliate himself. So wait a minute, here's the part I don't understand. So who's that person exerting the pressure?

But you are uniquely qualified to get this answer because one of us can call the President of the United States right now and ask him. And the other one is me. So why don't you know? That's a great question. It's the only kind I ask.

So what I brought to it was the knowledge that a member of the Senate Intel Committee, I'm not guessing, called over and said, you cannot appoint this person. So why don't you expose that person first of all, so we can start chasing after him or- Tom Cotton of Arkansas did that. Tom Cotton? Yes, correct. And did you ask him? I haven't, no, I haven't asked him. I mean, what the hell is going on with you?

I'd like to, and- Kind of makes people suspicious of you by the way. Go ahead, go ahead. Because if you know that Tom Cotton said, you can't pick this person because- That is correct. And then you can't pick this person because- That is correct. And then you didn't go to him and find out why?

Well, I need to sit down with him. I'm not sure that he'll do an interview with me. With you? I'm waiting- You are like the spirit animal of that administration. No, no, no, but it's a fair, look, it's a fair question. That's a totally fair question. And the answer is, I hadn't thought to do that.

And there's a lot going on and I've been distracted and I've kind of been- Now I think you're part of the deep state. Oh, wow. And just like that- You think that? I probably wouldn't be saying any of this if I was part of the deep state.

Unless that's what they would do, is make me think that it exists, but you're not sure because it's actually you. One of the worst things that ever happened to me ever is last year when I was interviewing Putin, it was such a long interview and it was being translated and I couldn't always hear the translation very well. And apparently in it, he says,

you applied to work at CIA, which I did, not hiding that, I didn't get in. And your father worked for the Intel world and all that. I didn't hear him say that. I did not hear him say that. And I have been living with that ever since. I have nothing to do with any of that for whatever it's worth,

but the number of people have texted me, but like, oh, you're working for the CIA. It's like, no, actually nobody believes more strongly in radical reform at CIA than I do, with I would say some knowledge of the subject. Look, I mean, people can think I work for the deep state. I don't. I don't think there is a deep state.

Here's all I'm saying. Someone is applying massive pressure to elected officials and has for a very long time. And I would like to know who that is. Ask Mike Pompeo why he told you. Oh, I have. Oh, I have. And when I got into it with Mike Pompeo, no, I mean,

I've talked about this before. I don't want to be boring, but I, when- I'd tell to ask Dan Crenshaw, but he's not going to take it. No, he's not going to come back. Calling him a liberal. But you wonder, Dan Crenshaw is emotionally out of control and I feel for it. Honestly, I've not been... Well, stop provoking him then. I didn't even provoke him. I just pointed out, I just pointed out.

You provoked him, I saw it on stage. His state was just invaded by Mexico and he's worried about Ukraine. It's like, what? Wake up son, here are your duties. Let me put them in order to your family, to your community, to your voters, to your state, to your nation and maybe Ukraine down there at the bottom.

But anyway, that's all I was saying. Here's my point. Please. I am really concerned, not just because, you know, I am curious and I wanna get to the bottom of mysteries, which is true, but I'm really concerned that the failure to disclose big things like details about the murder of a president

in a democratic country, a republic, that that will convince people that our system itself is fake. And it's kind of hard to argue that it's real. I totally agree. If you can't even know who killed the president. Transparency is trust. 62 years later, Mike Pompeo was working

to keep American citizens from knowing who murdered their president. Who are you working for Mike Pompeo actually? And we just had an election. What is that? And by the way, I just wanna say one time, you cannot convince me, I'm not some world expert in the CIA, but I've certainly watched it closely

over the years, it's not the CIA. The CIA? CIA is like a huge federal agency with all kinds of different components and warring tribes within and like, there's no CIA. Bill Burns is not like calling Trump and being like, don't release the files, just credit CIA. Look, the president knows we just had an election

where he was hammering on these things. And even with UAPs or UFOs, whatever terminology you want, we couldn't get more information. These things are all over the place. Sure, some are helicopters, some are fixed wing. Okay, not all of them. And they don't know? Of course they know.

They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the programs. And then we get all our hopes up, right? The media loves mocking News Nation about this because they think that, oh, Cuomo thinks they're little green men in the basement of some building. No, we don't. It's about knowing that we spend hundreds of millions

of dollars and use special operators to do things that you won't tell us about. And at a minimum, you should say, well, here's why we won't tell you. So what are they? That's exactly right. Well, so, but what are they, do you think? I don't know what the fuck they are.

The point is that they know and they won't tell us things. And I think it is anathema to democracy. Can I, of course I agree with everything you're saying except one specific point, which is I'm not sure they know. They have programmed, they certainly know more than we do. Put it that way. They do. They may know that they don't really know,

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

He campaigned on it. It was supposed to be a no brainer. And then they put out exactly what the Biden organization. No, I'm aware of that. Administration. I'm aware of that. And I'm aware of that. Do you think'm aware of that. And I'm aware of that. I mean, that's just my view. I could be completely wrong, but I don't think it's as simple as they know exactly what's

going on and they're hiding it. Well, again, these are your people. Why don't you talk to them? They love you. Oh my gosh, I have. So what do you got for me? And I think- Come all the way down here.

We don't know. Cross all these bridges. We don't know. And I think that's kind of the scarier answer is- Flying over military bases. Shutting them down. Shutting down military bases. Yeah, and you don't shoot them down.

And then figure out what it was. Maybe you can't, you know. So that's, so look, I mean, I think we're getting to the same answer if there is a very obvious mystery that's publicly known, there's public pressure to solve the mystery, to divulge what you know, and you don't, then there's a real reason behind it.

It's not just ass covering. Or do you have the arrogance to believe that you don't have to tell me? No, not anymore, not anymore. Because now that, especially in this administration that was elected on the promise of transparency, there's a real reason. Because there's tons of counter pressure. People are aware, like, where the hell are my Kennedy files?

What's going on with these things over in New Jersey? You said they were over your house in Bedminster. What is it? And what is this Epstein thing, which all of us watched? George Stephanopoulos is having dinner with those guys. Everyone you know is over at Epstein's house. Like, Ehud Barak is there every day. Like, what the hell is this? Who killed this guy? He was clearly killed, obviously. He wasn't committed to suicide. Or look, just start there.

Show us the files that substantiated the theory of his suicide. Just show them to us. But where's your investigation into his death, which you promised Attorney General Barr that you're gonna do. Show us. And you never did. Yeah. So, I guess what I'm saying is, if you take three steps back that you're gonna do, and you never did.

I guess what I'm saying is if you take three steps back, you're like, wait, this really is, this isn't just, maybe some of the details were wrong, or certainly stories like this draw all the wackos like a bug light for sure, and they come up with these fantastical theories to explain it, but just the knowable facts, the confirmed facts suggest something really, really big. Like the moment that I never thought much about the Epstein story until I realized facts, the confirmed facts suggest something really, really big.

The moment that I never thought much about the Epstein story until I realized that the Republican, two-time Republican Attorney General Barr lied about it. I thought, why would Barr lie about this? Epstein's a big Democratic donor. Barr was not close to Trump. He's not covering for Trump. What is that? And I don't know the answer, but that was the moment where I was like, whoa.

All of a sudden, Bill Kristol's lawyer is involved in this, which he was. You know, I don't know, there's just a lot, there's a lot there. There's so much there that it starts to make you nervous and it makes you think like, maybe the, it's not just that things are screwed up on the margins, but maybe at the core

is something really dark. I don't know. I don't know. I don't either. Look, this is the problem with the vacuum of information, right, is that you then start speculating about why they won't just tell you these things. And I'm not, I'm not gonna speculate on it because I don't know,

and I don't even have like really good theories. I do have some theories, but they could be completely wrong. All I'm saying is a rational person arrives inevitably at the conclusion that there's a real reason these have not been disclosed. Maybe. It's not just entropy. Maybe, I have a conspiracy theory about it. I'm not so sure anymore.

So we love the word patriot, okay? We love it. We love to say that we're patriots, patriots. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anymore. When I look at the Trump administration, I'm not accusing anybody of anything treasonous.

I'm just saying there seems to be a lot of currency these days in destroying things. And I've never seen a president in our lifetime say that everything in government is bad. Trump is the only president, even his speech, which I thought was well written and well delivered for what he wanted to try to achieve, which is, hey, I got a lot of balls in the air. I never forget about me promising what would happen day one, stuff's going to get worse

before it gets better kind of vibe, which I get why he wanted that speech given what's happening in the polls. But justice doesn't work. The elections don't work. Wall Street is corrupt. None of the institutions of government can do everything. All the tax dollars are wasted. It's like, I keep getting the same message from them.

And Musk to me has been a huge disappointment. I believe the man is a genius, okay? He has done remarkable things. He doesn't know that the federal judiciary is able to check the executive. He doesn't know that social security, the trust fund isn't part of our debt structure. I can't believe a genius doesn't know these things.

So then why would he be messaging this way? Unless he doesn't want people to like the justice system. He doesn't want people to want social security. He doesn't want them to believe that government can do anything. And I don't understand that as a political message from a guy who's in charge of everything now. And what is underlying it in terms of your real ambition?

I think I can answer some of them. I think Elon builds electric cars and rockets and tunneling equipment and telecom, satellite-based telecom, et cetera, et cetera. He's a builder of things. He's a businessman. He's an engineer. I'm not surprised he doesn't know the details

of how social security is structured at all. And I'm not surprised that as a naturalized American, he's not, you know, didn't grow up a schoolhouse rock and does not understand the three branches perfectly. His job from what I can tell is to deal with the one thing that nobody has dealt with, which will be the end of the country, which is the country's bankruptcy.

So the debt is what? 37? 36.9, something like 37 trillion. Revenues last year, 2024, total federal revenues were under five trillion. Okay, so that doesn't work. And at a certain point, the people who are floating in the country, the bond buyers, the foreign bond buyers, like I'm not, this doesn't,. And at a certain point, the people who are floating the country, the bond buyers, the

foreign bond buyers, like I'm not, this doesn't, and everything will collapse. And that's been known for a long time. No one has dealt with it. And from what I can tell, Elon's job is to try and get the spending down and no one's been able to do that. Well, get the spending down has to be in the budgeting process. To me, it's a penny wise, pound foolish notion. I'm okay with getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse.

You and I grew up listening to both parties argue when the other one was in power, that there was all this waste, fraud and abuse and you had to curtail it. And I know it's true, it's always been true. Nobody has ever looked for it and failed to find it. I'm okay with them doing that, but I'll tell you what, if they had called up Carlson and Cuomo and said, would you guys like to serve your country and see what you can find

in terms of waste, fraud and abuse? And we said, yes, I'll tell you what we wouldn't do is keep going off half cocked every day about what we were finding when we weren't sure. We would not do that. We would have immediately come to an agreement. Yeah, we'd probably get looks. Let's find stuff, okay? And then we're gonna go to Congress and we're gonna say, look at all this shit we found.

And because we don't trust them, we would then go public with it at well at the same time. Yeah, I don't think that's, we would have a blue ribbon commission and we present our findings He's going on they have come none of that's worked and I feel like look We don't know if it's gonna work or not. I'm praying that it does because I think it's our last chance

I'm fine with it working. I want it to work I feel like he's working against his own goals by getting things wrong all the time maybe but big picture is right So USAID which I grew up around in Washington, you know, I really grew up around it. I can just tell you firsthand, having seen it, it is a force for evil in the world. I think it does probably good things on the margins, but bottom line, it is destabilizing other governments.

It's a form of the ugliest kind of imperialism, totally detached from American interests. It's like really bad. And the more you know, that's why it's so shocking to read it all, the more indefensible it becomes. The Secretary of State disagrees with you. He may or may not. I'm just saying, you know, he's from Miami, I'm from DC. So I just tell you, I have, I think deep exposure to this. And there's no doubt. By the way, USAID gets zeroed out. How many third world

presidents complained about that? Do you see any being like, oh my gosh, we want our aid. They don't want American aid in that form because it destabilizes democratic governments. It overturns the culture of the country. Oh, you need more trans athletes. They hate it and there's nothing they can do about it. I don't think a single foreign president in a poor country complained when we shut off that aid because they can do about it. I don't think a single foreign president in a poor country complained when we shut off that aid because they didn't want it. So that tells you right there. Now that's a minuscule part of the entire federal budget.

Agreed. And he just happened to start with the agency that's investigating him. I don't think USAID has an investigative arm. Okay. Well, whatever. Elon's being attacked on many sides. This was before anything happened. Okay.

Look, I'm just saying, you and I wouldn't have picked an agency that was looking into one of us without letting people know. I'm not even aware of that. And why didn't he tell us? I just think big picture, the government is strangling the country.

I don't think there's any doubt about that. What does that mean? It means that the richest place in the United States is the one place that produces nothing but bureaucratic jobs, DC. The richest place is the highest concentration of wealth in the United States. The counties around DC are the richest. They're like the majority of the top 10 are in DC. All that money is federal money.

None of those people can ever be fired or are. It's not even clear what they're doing. A lot of their budgets are classified. The IntelliIC, it's like all... You don't even know what they're spending. They own of their budgets are classified, the IntelliIC, it's like all clay you don't even know what they're spending. They own businesses around the world, this is a fact. I mean, they'll admit it if you ask them. And basically, there's

no democratic control over any of this. The voters have no say in how this money is spent and the people spending it are beyond any kind of correction. There's nothing you can do about it. And so it's truly out of control in a way that makes democracy impossible. And it's also their acting and strong interests. And then there's the debt overhang,

which really threatens in an imminent way to make all of these conversations just irrelevant. If we're a poor country that can't support a military and can't keep up with our own infrastructure, then like none of this stuff even matters. So do you believe that the answer is to change the institutions, to destroy the institutions? What do you think the answer is? So my sense is that you're not going to get anywhere unless, and I think this was their

calculation, you come out like a freaking wild animal out of a box. So fast, so hard that you intimidate the shit out of everyone into silence long enough that you gain momentum to continue the process of paring back government. But you really have to immediately occupy the moral high ground. You need to, you can't get into debate with Benny Thompson over funding of this or that agency. You really have to get up here and look down at Benny Thompson and say, I can't believe that you're participating in this scam

for decades that hurt this country, impoverished its citizens. You did this. And it's only from that posture that you have any power to negotiate the reforms necessary. You sort of have to do what the trans lobby, the human rights campaign did, which is you sort of come out of nowhere and rather than sort of make the case that, hey, don't beat up trans kids, which I'm for, don't beat up trans kids or anybody, they come out and they're

like, you're a transphobe. We're going to picket your house and kill you if you say anything. And people are like, holy shit, they're so intimidated that they just kind of go along with your program. I think a functional country doesn't operate that way, but this is not a functional country. This is a country that is like more dysfunctional than we will admit to ourselves.

And that may be the only option for reform. But one thing that I think no honest person can disagree with, we need reform, like immediately on every level. Our military needs to be reformed.. Our military needs to be reformed. The budgeting process needs to be reformed. The way that our economy is structured clearly benefits just a tiny percentage of the population. That's not sustainable, et cetera, et cetera. Like we need reform badly.

We can't keep doing it this way. Well, we've been saying that a long time. I know. And Trump is the first, and again, I don't know if it's going to work. I'm praying that it will because this country is the last hope of the world. I really believe that more than ever, having just come back from other countries. That's why we have to make our kids travel,

because everybody thinks America is the worst place in the world until you go somewhere else. Dude, yes. And the thing that we need to preserve, I'm more convinced than them. That's why I'm a little worried about all the bashing of our institutions. Reform, sure.

Do it better, do it differently, do it less, do it more, whatever it is, sure. But the idea that there is no more justice in America, I don't believe that. All the elections are rigged, I don't believe that. We can't function, it's demonstrably false. So making things better is fine if you have the ideas and the wherewithal to make it happen.

But what I'm sensing from this administration is it's all broken, tear it all down. And that's easy to say, but I don't know that it's good. Well, it's actually easy to do. It's easy to tear things down, much easier than it is to build them. And you wanna be careful of revolutionary moments. I mean, very few improve things.

Ours did, I think in this country 250 years ago, very few others did. I can't really think of any that did. Well, we had an oppressive force, you know, interestingly, and this is something I'm very anxious for you to explain to me. So I get fired and I'm watching the Ukraine war. And it was personally maddening to me

because I had not covered a conflict since I got involved in the business. So I'm watching. The whole country is behind Ukraine. When did you get fired? Right there, like 2021, when did I get fired? Yeah. So right when the Ukraine war broke out,

I was fired and it was a real reinforcer to me about how much I had lost, right? But anyway, I was much more concerned about what was happening in Ukraine. So everyone's on board. They're blue and yellow ribbons all over my neighborhood. I was not on board at all. Well, the country was. The Republicans were and the Democrats were. And I kept hearing, boy, you know, it's like, they're kind of like us, you know, they're fighting against this oppressor and trying to shut it off so they can be their own way and get away from the kleptocracy and everything else.

And then Trump has that bad phone call with Zelensky, leads to an impeachment that I thought was a complete waste of time, you were never gonna remove them. And it's a political operation, so I didn't know why they did it. But that's their choice, they went their way. Then Biden comes in,

everybody's still doing what they were doing to try to help Ukraine. Biden is slow walking it, not giving them what they needed, the wrong kind of ambivalence. Now Trump comes back and all of a sudden, all the people who were in favor of Ukraine on the right now say that it's a kleptocracy and Zelensky is a bad guy and Putin, you know, not so bad.

Russia, not so bad. Their concerns about NATO, pretty justified. It's really NATO and America that has done the wrong thing here and forced Russia's hand. And Ukraine and Zelensky kind of did too and they're really dirty and they're stealing all our money and selling all our stuff. I don't believe any of it. And I hear it all the time. You are a big purveyor of this.

And I want to understand it. How did everything change this way? Well, it changed because politicians in general, with some exceptions, but not many, have no principles at all. And they do what's popular, what they think is popular. And they respond just to one stimulus, which is election, that's it.

And if they think something will get them reelected, they'll say it, and if they don't, they won't. And so they're just, I mean, that's just what they are. I don't think it's even worth being mad. I mean, they're like animals whose behavior is really predictable, or machines. You know, you can program to do a certain thing, and you know it's gonna do that thing every time.

So the fact that like these guys are standing up and being like, oh, Zelensky, who was my blood brother last week, is now a bad guy. Of course they're saying that. I've said the same thing I think since day one, which is this is not our interest at all and we've really hurt ourselves and we've dislodged the dollar from its preeminence and that has consequences people are not thinking through. And Russia, of course, has an interest in what happens in Ukraine. And of course, they don't want American missiles on their border, anymore that we'd want Chinese

missiles in Tijuana. Of course, that's a real thing. And moreover, the thing that you want, if you're thinking big, and you should if you run America, the thing you fear most is the alignment of Russia with China, because then you unite the world's largest country, largest nuclear arsenal with the world's largest economy and the world's largest population. That becomes a block that many others gravitate to. We're calling it the bricks now. That becomes something that you can't resist, that controls global trade routes, that controls

global currency, and that reduces you, the United States, to the bitch position very fast. Understand, but even within that, the premise is Russia bad, China potentially bad. What does bad even mean? I mean, like- Russia bad means they are consistently invested in what's bad for America. Putin is a constant- Well, they certainly are now. They're allied with China. So yeah, that was not true at the beginning of 2022. And so I would just- But invading Ukraine was wrong, what they did.

And Ukraine did not start that war. Well, the whole thing was wrong. No, Russia invaded Ukraine for one specific reason, despite all the lying from Ann Applebaum and the Atlantic Council and the professional liars and morons in Washington Who got us into the Iraq war and Libya and Syria and every other disaster I've never apologized to him penalized for it. The truth is that Russia's concern was that Ukraine remain not part of NATO. They want to control Ukraine to some extent

It's their neighbor in the same way that we want control, I don't know, Canada or Mexico. You don't have to run the municipal elections in the country, but you don't want, like if you had a government in Canada that was like bent on destroying the United States, you would overthrow the premier of Canada because you can't have that, it's your neighbor. You're a great power.

And that's how Russia sees itself. Now you could say, well, that's against international law or whatever, but that's the way nations behave. And great nations have an expectation. They're not gonna have an enemy on their border if they can help it. But NATO isn't inherently an enemy. It is to protect against the illegal

and wrongful annexation of sovereigns. Okay, Ukraine is not sovereign. And Ukraine's government was installed in a coup by the CIA in 2014. So it's not a sovereign nation. Well, the Ukraine regime. We installed their government. They're not sovereign.

Ukraine is a sovereign as you know. In what way? Russia had put a puppet in. There was a democratic revolution there that Zelensky wound up winning that election, second round of voting. That was to remove the Russian puppet who went back with a lot of money into Russia.

No, you're, yeah, whatever. I mean, you're skipping over, that's actually not at all what happened. Zelensky did not become president in 2014, which was when Maidan happened. No, but I'm saying that's, Maidan Square was a reaction to a Russian puppet regime in that country.

That's what they were against. Well, we called it a Russian puppet regime. Well, where did the guy go back to? Well, he fled to Russia on the verge of getting killed. But the bottom line is Russia wanted a friendly government in Ukraine, okay? I get it. The United States, which is nowhere near Russia or Ukraine, okay? I get it. The United States, which is nowhere near Russia or Ukraine, went

across the Atlantic Ocean to install its president in Ukraine in a coup. That's a fact. And they were caught on tape doing it. And Bob Kagan's wife was caught doing that. You can listen to the tape. And so, okay, I guess both are bad, but if you're being an adult about it, you understand that great powers have an interest in not having other people's nuclear weapons on their borders. That's just a fact. And you could say, well, it shouldn't be a fact,

but it is a fact. So if you don't have nuclear weapons on the border, the only nuclear weapon- Well, really? So NATO doesn't have nuclear, look- In Ukraine, no. Okay, their concern was. And Ukraine used to have a lot of nukes

and they agreed to get rid of them on the basis of protection from Russia. Those were Soviet nukes and that was negotiated by the United States. But, okay. All I'm saying is, if you're thinking about it from the perspective of what's good for the United States, you do not want Russia becoming in close

military alliance and economic alliance with China, you don't want that because that becomes a block that you can't defeat on this from which you will soon be taking orders. And every administration has understood this, the Biden administration went to the Munich Security Conference in February of 2022 and had the Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris say at a press conference, Tuzlensk, we want you in NATO.

NATO didn't want Ukraine. There never was a referendum in Ukraine what the Ukrainians wanted. We want you to be an American satellite with American weapons in your country. She said that knowing that was the red line. Putin's like, look, I just don't want Ukraine and NATO. You've had all these countries around my borders in NATO. I don't know why you're doing that. I still don't know to this day why we're doing that.

That's an aggressive offensive move, but you cannot have Ukraine. It's too big. It's too important. Our energy pipelines go through it. No. And they insisted on doing this. And Putin gave a speech immediately after in Russia. No Americans ever watched it.

You should. It's really interesting saying this NATO thing is too much, we have to invade and we're doing it. Those are the facts, okay? So the question is, why would you do that? Ukraine is not sovereign, it never was. You know that Ukraine cannot beat Russia in a conventional war.

Russia's got a hundred million more people in much deeper industrial capacity. And Ukraine is a sovereign, it's its own country. In what sense are they making independent decisions? I'll give you an, in April of 2022, two months after this war started, it's very clear that Russia is going to win. It's just a much bigger country, period.

And so the Ukrainians and the Russians start having peace talks and they move them around a bunch of different places they want up in Istanbul, Turkey. And they have a bunch of different data points. The first is no NATO. The second is what do we do with Crimea, which since 2014 had been like Russian aligned. They took it by the way. They took it.

What do you do with that? There's a Russian military naval base there as you know. And what do you do with Donetsk and Lugansk in the eastern part of Ukraine? They basically reached terms in Istanbul. Two months into the war, all of a sudden, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, shows up in Kiev and delivers a message from the Biden administration,

no, no peace. You are not allowed to negotiate a peace. This is telling a quote, sovereign country this. Some unemployed, indebted Brit is showing up on behalf of the United States to lecture the so-called president of Ukraine about what he can do with his own country.

It's not sovereign in any sense. They break off the peace talks. This is all like, I'm not making this up, I'm going to look it up. A million more Ukrainians die. The country is totally destroyed forever. Then Zelensky goes and changes the law in Ukraine to allow foreigners to buy farmland in Ukraine, to buy the soil of Ukraine.

So you wind up with a country whose population has just been killed that no longer owns its land. So big American companies, multinational companies, you want to just buy Ukraine. That's the total destruction of a European nation. And in the United States, we feel like, oh no, we're fighting on behalf of Churchill. No, we just destroyed Ukraine because we want to fight Russia. And now that is the core. The desire of the American foreign policy established to have a war with Russia.

That does not make any sense to me. I'm not a Putin lover or I don't speak Russian. I've got nothing to do with Russia. I just don't understand why it's in America's national interest to be at war with Russia. It's not. And these are people with very deep to do with Russia. I just don't understand why it's in America's national interest to be at war with Russia. It's not. And these are people with very deep emotional hatred of Russia. I can't even speculate as to where that comes from,

but it's real. I've certainly seen it a lot. And it's not consistent with our interests as a nation. It's not helped the United States at all. It's hurt us. We spent over a hundred billion dollars when we're bankrupt. And all we've achieved is destroying this nation that didn't really do the poor Ukrainians didn't do anything

It's horrible. Well what we've done Zelensky articulates a very different case, right? He wanted what's his case his cases he wanted America and Europe to help them fight back Russia because Russia wants to reestablish the USSR and He wants to keep Ukraine sovereign. Of course, he has cultural and geographic issues in the Eastern part of his country. And that has been an ongoing problem for them. I was in Ukraine when the Russian separatists shot down that Malaysian Airlines plane, lied about it, wouldn't let the bodies be reclaimed. It was a whole thing.

Putin installed a guy named Borovsky who was supposedly a prime minister of Donetsk, was all bullshit because that's what Putin is. So they wanted help. They wanna stay sovereign. America was helping them with that. And now all of a sudden, Zelensky's a thief. They're stealing all our money. They're selling all our weapons to Mexican cartels.

None of these things are true. Well, that is true. Why? No, it is not true. It's not true. Just, I'll just go in order. Give me the point of it, and then we can talk in particular. Ukraine, just to define sovereignty,

sovereignty is the freedom to make independent decisions. And Ukraine does not have that and has never had that since 2014 when its government was installed by an American coup. Zelensky would say he was democratically elected. Well, he's not democratically elected. He's passed his term. Wow.

And so by what authority does, hold on, let me question. By what authority does Zelensky negotiate on behalf of this country, rule his country? He just put his main political opponent under indictment and froze his personal funds under internal sanctions. He just put his main political opponent under indictment and froze his personal funds under internal sanctions, the security services of Ukraine. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I don't know. We just went through the same thing in this country. Sounds like dictatorship, by the way. No, but he's not a dictator. And that's- Then by what authority does he rule Ukraine? So here's how, he was elected, and now under their constitution,

he does have the ability to stall elections and operate under martial law during the conflict. So you're comfortable with people saying, no, he could certainly have an election if he wanted. If he wanted, but he has empowered. He doesn't want an election, you're from a political family. It's the same thing with Israel right now.

They're not having elections either because they're in the midst of an active conflict. It's not a time for transition of power. Okay. But I don't know why we make excuses for dictatorship. It's not a dictatorship. Of course it is. Any unelected leader who has the power.

He was elected. He was elected. Actually, he has a presidential term. Right. If Joe Biden just said, you know what, we're in a conflict right now. I can't have elections. I'm canceling the election. Donald Trump did the same.

But there's a constitutional provision for this. If, okay. He could have an election whenever he wanted. He could have election right now. No one doubts that actually. And his opponent was calling for that before he was just shut down by the Ukrainian Intel services a week ago.

So there's no authority. He doesn't have democratic authority over his country. What he has is a lot of NATO weapons. And to your second point, he has absolutely as a matter of fact, the Ukrainian military has sold those weapons on the black market around the world. And they have this, these are facts. They've run up in the hands of among others, the Mexican drug cartels, the Taliban, Hamas, Hamas in Gaza, fact. and a lot of other groups.

And it's incredibly destabilizing by the way. The United States did this years ago in Afghanistan, as you know, and sent them just stinger missiles to the Mahajan Dina in 1979 and 80 to fight the Soviets. And those missiles caused huge problems for all of Southwest Asia for like 20 years. And so this is a big deal. And I don't know why people feel like

they have to lie about it now. I don't know that it's about lying about it. I don't agree that those are facts. You don't believe that the Ukrainian military, you know what? I'll bet you my car that in the next year. What kind of car is it? What was some crappy.

Oh, then I'm not gonna bet. Okay. No, I don't have nice cars, I'll admit that. I've never bought a new car that I know of. I do, I do, so we're not doing a swap. Okay, but anyway, the point is, that's a fact, and as I, no one believes me, I know someone who bought some of the weapons.

I'm just, you know, whatever, I can't. Well, first of all, you would have to substantiate, you know, who it is that you knew, because do you believe the most corrupt country in Europe, which is so corrupt that NATO didn't want it as a member, you believe it's outside the realm of possibility that facing defeat, the leaders of that military would not sell the weapons that they're getting from the West? Are you kidding?

You cannot substantiate a claim on the basis of mere suspicion. It's not mere suspicion! I know someone who bought some of the weapons! I believe that you think that. What I'm saying is- I don't think that, I know it. I'm saying that, well, you know that they say it. You don't know whether they did. And I'll tell you why I'm suspicious.

Because the missiles that Russia put out those pictures of were from like 2014, and they didn't even have javelins then. So the idea that Ukraine could have been selling weapons that were taken from a different time as an obvious ploy by Russia to make them look bad is to me propaganda and not proof that they did it. Okay.

Are you texting while I'm having a conversation with you? I'm texting right now with someone. Very rude. No, no, I'm texting on WhatsApp right now on this exact subject. Tucker, I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying I'm disagreeing that it's a fact that the military there is spending weapons

that they very much need to Mexican cartels. Why does Mexico's cartels need to get weapons from Ukraine when they get them across our border with straw buyers all the time? I mean, to me, it doesn't even make sense from practicality standpoint, but it seems like- Straw buyers? You can get surface-tier missiles from straw buyers.

No, not surface-tier missiles. You can't buy those in gun stores in Texas. No, small arms, small arms. No, small arms, you can buy anywhere. No, no, no, I'm talking about weapons systems. But this is not documented stuff, and it seems to want to smear Ukraine and make them the bad guy and make Russia the good guy.

It's not a matter of smearing Ukraine. Okay, this is one of those topics that I'm just gonna- I'm not mad at you, buddy. No, no, no. It's a conversation. I'm mad because I know this is true. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying I don't know it.

It's a fact and unfortunately I can't, and maybe I shouldn't have brought it up because I can't name the person who told me this. I don't want you to expose a source. I'm not going to. What I'm saying is, look, people- Let me, let me- People do bad things with money that we give them.

I have a huge amount of knowledge on this one topic. I'm wholly ignorant of many topics. I know a lot about this topic. And you think Zelensky is a bad guy who's a dictator. What I'm telling you is the Ukrainian military has sold huge amounts of American supplied, NATO supplied weapons systems around the world and that they're purchasable now by governments

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

Look, my point is not to frustrate you, Tucker. It's to understand this mentality of framing Ukraine as the bad guy. It's not a mentality. Look, it's noting the facts. The guy's not elected. He is elected. His term has been expended constitutionally.

Would you be comfortable if we were, well, we are in a war with Russia right now. If Donald Trump, no, it is a war with Russia. Americans have died in the- It's a proxy war. It's a war that we're funding. We're not on the ground there. What do you mean?

There are many Americans in Ukraine fighting. US military is not in the ground. Yes, there are. Look, I know that there are- What are you talking about? They're not actively fighting Russian forces. What do you mean? They're guiding weapons into Russia. Yes. What do you mean they're not actively fighting Russian. What do you mean they're guiding weapons into Russia?

Yes. What do you mean they're not actively fighting? They're absolutely actively fighting. Have we declared war? Of course not. We didn't declare war in Vietnam or Korea. That doesn't mean anything. True.

Did in Iraq. We haven't declared, I guess we did. That went well. There was a congressional vote. Of course. But the point is, if Trump were to say we're at war with Russia, I can't have an election, I would say that's not legitimate.

You do not have the authority to extend, and I don't care what pretext you make up for it. You can't put your opponents in jail. You can't. But more than anything, what I'm saying is that this is scary. It's not even blaming Zelensky. There are many power centers within Ukraine. There's the military, the intel services,

there's the president's office, there are competing political groups. People say the same things about us, by the way. Of course, it's true, it's true. Especially true here, it's a huge country. I'm not even blaming Zelensky directly. I'm saying this is the largest country in Europe. We have poured billions of dollars

in pretty high tech weapons systems into this country and we're not keeping track of them. We also have bio labs throughout the country. We have bio labs. And we're about to have more of a footprint because the mineral deal will put American companies on the ground in those areas that right now are war zones. I can't even assess that. All I'm saying is we've funded the worst war Europe has seen since World War II for three

years. That entails an awful lot of weapons, including bio weapons. I'm not guessing this is a fact. Tori Nuland said it in a conversation with the now Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Senate on camera. So there are bio labs in Ukraine with biological weapons in them. Who the hell is keeping track of this stuff? That's all I'm saying.

It's not an attack on Zelensky. We have a moral obligation to keep track of this stuff? That's all I'm saying. It's not an attack on Zelensky. We have a moral obligation to keep track of this stuff. There's never been an audit. I have no problem with that. It's fucking crazy. I have no problem with keeping track of it. Talk about destabilization of the world. Like, why are we doing this?

It's one thing. So do you believe that we should just back out of what we're doing there now and let Russia take it? Russia take it? I don't know. At this point, Russia has, we're not in charge. Russia just won. They beat us in their war.

In case you haven't noticed, Russia out produced in munitions, NATO, including the United States, four to one. So we just lost the war. So we are not negotiating from position of strength. Sorry, I'm not taking Russia's side. I'm on America's side. This is terrible for us.

We've exposed how weak we are. We couldn't beat Russia, which many members of the US Senate assured me was quote a gas station with- That was McCain's line. He what a fucking idiot that guy was. What an idiot he was. Low-I-C, I knew him and I liked him,

but he was like an idiot of gas station with nuclear weapons. Really? See, I saw it the other way, which is we thought Russia was gonna roll over Ukraine and they have been unable to really move the line. They rolled over us. They took a big chunk of Eastern Ukraine

and for three years we've progressed toward bankruptcy trying to stop it and we've not been able to. They won. This is bad. It's bad for American prestige. It's bad for the projection of American power. Everyone knows what we're capable of and we're not capable of. It's divided our country.

All these dumb Ukraine, people are finding foreign flags in front of their houses. I feel that the division is forced in this country. That to me, it seems pretty basic that Russia can't have Ukraine because it doesn't stop it. What are we going to do? It doesn't stop it Ukraine. We already, okay. But at some point- Then it's Estonia and Latvia.

Estonia, you know, it's always some chick, that blonde chick, I'm president of Estonia. You know, a country of 5 million people that have vented the sauna. By the way, I'm part Finnish, I'm not against Estonia. I'm sure it's great. But the idea that some woman who's never been in the armed service, like setting military policy

for the EU, you know, we're gonna do this. You can't do anything. You don't have an army. Britain's army is smaller than the US Marine Corps. NATO, which is a coalition that includes, by the way, Turkey, it's like this huge coalition, couldn't beat Russia. That is the fact. I don't want that to be the fact. That is the fact. So Americans are like, well, we can't allow this. Well, what are you going to do about it? I don't say that it's a fact because we are not fighting in earnest in that country.

So what? Okay. So what would you, I'm just, okay, here are the terms. We have a nuclear armed power, largest nuclear arsenal in the world that is fighting for its very life, that is aligned with China, okay? Which is the largest economy in the world. Well, I don't know that Russia is fighting for its life. I think Putin forced this situation.

Okay. Whatever. Leaving aside moral culpability, I'm just saying it's a big deal for them. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side.

It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. It's on their side. is aligned with China, okay, which is the largest economy. Well, I don't know that Russia is fighting for its life. I think Putin forced this situation. Okay, whatever, leaving aside moral culpability, I'm just saying it's a big deal for them. It's on their border. It's their border, okay? So we don't like it.

We waited on the other side to fight Russia. We haven't won. So now what are our options? Like actually, what are our options? The options are what President Trump is doing right now, which is to try to get the parties to the table and draw a line in the sand and make a deal. Right? That's the only option I see.

I don't see any other options, but I'd love to hear what they are. No, I mean, there's never any other option unless you want to actively fight and take territory and occupy. Who's going to actively fight? There are no Ukrainians left. No, well, look, both sides are manpower poor, right?

You know the stories about Russia emptying the prisons. Russia has a hundred million more people. A hundred and forty million people. But they- A hundred million more people. But have you ever heard of us emptying out the prisons? I mean, why does he have to do that? He's in a desperate place.

Because he doesn't want his citizens to have to fight an unpopular war because he's worried about his popularity because he wants to stay in power. So it's easier to send convicts to the front. They have done this for centuries. I'm against it, but I'm just saying that's the fact. The point is- You think Putin is concerned about his popularity in a place where he kills all of his opponents on a regular basis?

Putin is very concerned about his popularity. Really? When he completely engineers the outcome of everything that happens in the country. Russia is a very complicated place with a lot of different competing power centers, including the FSB, which itself- Then how has he stayed in power so long?

Because he's really good at politics and he pays very close attention to what the public thinks, very close. He's got the military, just like any country. It's a, first of all- You know how lousy life is there for people, right? And not just because of the economic sanctions right now, it just has been, I mean, you know.

Have you been there recently? Recently, no, not allowed in. I've been there twice in the last year. Why are you allowed in? I don't know, I'm an American. You're a friend of Putin, that's all. I'm a friend of Putin. Because I believe in seeing things

and reaching my own conclusion. Oh, me too, I'm just, I'm not allowed in there as a journalist. I'm sure you could call right now and they will let you in and you should go my own conclusion. Oh, me too. I'm just, I'm not allowed in there as a journalist. I'm sure you could call right now and they will let you in and you should go. They just wouldn't let me out. Wind up like Paul Whalen. I think that I-

And you wouldn't be arguing my case. But look, here's the point. No, no, Russia, Putin does not have absolute control of his country and they're all kinds of potential rivals. He's been there for- You sound more sympathetic towards him than towards Zelensky. I mean- You just do. Well, I'm definitely more sympathetic to Putin than Zelensky for the following reason.

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

You think Russia is doing well? Oh, a lot better than Ukraine. I mean, a lot of Ukrainians have fled Ukraine to Russia. A lot, a lot. Well, yeah, they're under siege right now. No, but I'm just saying like, Russia actually for a country at war is thriving. You know, I think it's got deeper problems. War is not good for any economy over time Russia actually for a country at war is thriving.

You know, I think it's got deeper problems. War is not good for any economy over time or any country over time, but there's been such a massive infusion of Chinese investment into Russia in the past couple of years that people in say Moscow, city of 12 million, you know, they don't feel a privation that populations under war typically feel.

But there's a reason he made that deal with North Korea to have their people backing them up on the battle lines. I'm sure, I'm sure that's exactly right. I mean, there are a lot of theories on that. I've heard a lot of things, but here's the only point that I'm making from an American perspective. Americans fall into this trap, which is a childish trap,

where they superimpose like a really clear moral dichotomy onto foreign conflicts, where there's like a great guy and an evil guy. And they're able to do that because they don't know anything because they've never been anywhere. And they don't actually, they're leaders I'm talking about, don't kind of take the time to understand that they don't understand.

The more you know, the more you realize you really don't know. Cause do you speak Russian? I don't think so. So like, how the hell do you know what's going on? You don't know. The best you can do is like be open-minded and let evidence guide your conclusions.

So from an American perspective, what we've learned is the US capacity for projecting strength through the military is a lot less than we thought it was. We couldn't beat Russia. We didn't beat Russia. They won. You really think that America was putting the full force of its might into that situation? Short of nuclear conflict, yes. Zelensky has done nothing but complain about us not giving them what they needed.

We gave them like high Mars, everything we're giving them. I mean, you know, because you've been studying the situation, I've been there twice during the conflict and it's like World War I level warfare there. No, it's not. So it's not like we're using our most, now they're using drones from like retail. It's the most high tech warfare ever conducted. In fact, it's so high tech, it's moving so fast that I don't think most people even understand

what's going on there, but it's a war by drone. They were digging trenches, yeah. Now there's been an infusion of drone technology that they're using, but they were digging trenches. But my point is like what Americans can't, you just need to like change your mind a little bit on this. We don't have the power to do everything that we want around the world.

Agreed. We certainly can't do it simultaneous. Agreed. And my concern about entering into hot wars with anybody is that you expose your weakness. If you enter into a hot war, something you have to win, otherwise everyone knows how weak you are. And then- But you hot war, something you have to win, otherwise everyone

knows how weak you are. And then- But you don't think that's true for Russia, that they don't look really weak because they couldn't roll over Ukraine? They said it would be done in three days. I mean, the truth is, it's a silly conversation. Russia has nuclear weapons. It is hypersonic weapons. Russia could eliminate Ukraine in about 10 seconds. Well, it's bombing residential areas. It's going after infrastructure where they know civilians are.

So it's not like they're holding out. I mean, let's just be honest. And I hope they never will. And I hate war. And I hate that Ukrainians are dying. By the way, let's say, of course they could. They're nuclear capabilities. Are you joking?

They have hypersonic weapons. But they're not, so why? They could take out the entire city like that because they're not. Because that's World War III, that's why. And they wanna get out without a nuclear exchange. And what I worry, it's not a defense of Russia. By the way, anybody who's trying to avoid a nuclear exchange,

I'm on your side. Yes. And that would include almost no Republican members of the Senate, okay? They're all like full blown. They're old, they don't care. I guess they don't care about their grandkids or humanity itself or whatever.

They're totally willing to risk nuclear war. Or the Lindsey Graham just took a step backwards, which I thought was surprising. It's completely silly. He's blaming, look, a lot's gonna come out. We reached an impasse on the question of whether Ukraine is selling weapons. They are, it's a fact and I bet my house on it, okay?

I know that to be true, but I can't tell you how I know that. So I'm gonna have to just wait to be vindicated. But it's not a debate. I'm just saying that it seems that the line has shifted and now Ukraine is the bad guy. Okay, we haven't heard anything about Ukraine for the past three years. You were required, and I got fired over this, so I know.

You were required to pretend that Zelensky, who I think is a complicated person, and I got fired over this, so I know, you were required to pretend that Zelensky, who I think is a complicated person for whom I feel sorry actually, I feel like he's a pawn among bigger powers, okay? I feel bad for Zelensky, but we were required to pretend that he was Jesus and that Vladimir Putin was Satan. And my only point is that's not true actually. It's way more complicated than that. Both of them have good and bad qualities. And moreover, it's not true actually. It's way more complicated than that. Both of them have good and bad qualities. And moreover, it's not our fight. Like, what are we doing there? This whole thing is so nuts

because you're mad at Russia for some reason that you'll never say out loud. We have to take our country to war there. And by the way, can I just say something? Sure. Why, I mean, this war has, like most wars that we fight, been promoted by some of the richest people in our country. And I'll name one, Ken Griffin,

who is a hedge fund billionaire, has really pushed hard, and I've seen it, behind the scenes to force Republican politicians to support bigger payments to the Zelensky government. It's like, Ken Griffin's a multi-billionaire. He's probably, I don't know, millions of dollars on lobbying on this issue, but he hasn't spent billions on Ukraine. He could send billions of his own money to Ukraine.

A lot of the Ukraine war supporters could do it. They could also go fight the war. They're conscripting 50-year-old men, guys with Down syndrome. The videos are all over the internet and they're real. I hear from people in Ukraine on the subject. Those videos I've seen. Yeah. So I haven't noticed any, Bill Crystal's not fighting in Ukraine. Why is that? Why is Ken Griffin not sending billions to Ukraine? No, what they're doing is pressuring the US media, pressuring the US Congress to do something

that they themselves are not willing to do. Up to and including sending American troops, which we have in Ukraine, risking their lives. Why isn't Ken Griffin doing that? I just want to say, up to and including sending American troops, which we have in Ukraine, risking their lives. Why isn't Ken Griffin doing that? I just want to say, I think it's one of the most immoral things I've ever seen. I think that you're heading in the right direction now because I believe that- You support the war, go pay for it, go fight it. That complaint that the wealthy and powerful are feeding off the rest of us, I think is the one untapped reservoir of populist sentiment in this country.

We have a system- I don't think we're allowed to say that. Well, we have a system where the corporations, right, get to do whatever they want with the money that they make. And they get to work the system to pay as little as possible into the rest of us. They still pay more. And obviously the taxes are paid more by the wealthy

than by those who aren't wealthy, but we find ways around it. And the government then subsidizes those same corporations even though they don't take care of their own workers. And I think that how the powerful are able to leverage our government is the main fight that we need to have. So you'll have like, let's say Walmart is a great and egregious example.

They have more of their people on snap as a percentage, they're workers than any other corporation. Yet they're making a lot of money. And then what would we say? Well, they're allowed to give it to their shareholders. That's capitalism. Oh, but we, Tucker Carlson and Chris, we subsidize have to subsidize more workers. I think that that's the main fight.

Now, obviously it's not Ukraine, but what I'm saying is rich people imposing their will on the US government to do what they want for them is a real thing. I couldn't agree more. However, I think, and I agree with what you said about Walmart completely, why should I subsidize your workforce? And not just Walmart, it's all of them. I agree. Well, it's capitalism.

But I don't actually think, I don't think that that's the greatest threat to our democracy or our freedoms or our country. I think the, because look, Walmart, huge, you know, world's biggest retailer or was powerful company, obviously. It's got a board of directors, it's got shareholders, it's a publicly traded company. You can buy Walmart. There's some accountability inherent in that structure.

If you have someone like Ken Griffin, not to beat up on poor Ken Griffin, who, you know, I don't think Ken Griffin's evil. It's just silly. But, but I'll just name him again. Ken Griffin is like this independent, multi-billionaire who's got massive, and there are a lot of these guys with massive political influence because of the money that he has. And there's no accountability at all.

What you can do to Ken Griffin, there's no board of directors of Ken Griffin. He's just a billionaire. He is his own power center. And he's what we would call, if he were Russian, an oligarch. We put sanctions on him. Yeah, that's the new word in the American vernacular, and I'm okay with it.

I think it applies- No, but that's the real threat. Cause like a guy like that- I agree, I agree. Can own his own media outlets. I agree. He can own his own politicians. He can, I mean- I don't know why you're not talking about Musk

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

that are happening right now. I can answer your question. And I don't think it's an unfair question at all because I do think the world that produced Elon is a world you need to think about a little bit. I think there are some, definitely some threats. Elon specifically will always have my love because he did the most important thing,

which is restore free speech to the United States through X. And he took, because free speech doesn't mean anything if you can't actually speak to an audience. Like I can lecture the mirror in my living room, but speech doesn't mean anything if you can't actually speak to an audience. Like I can lecture the mirror in my living room, but it doesn't mean anything. I have to be able to talk to other people in order to convince them. And there was no place to do that at scale. All the social media apps were controlled, completely controlled. And he has given a real measure of free speech back to the United States, to its citizens, which is really the difference

between slavery and freedom is being able to say what you think. There's kind of like a free man can say what he believes is true and a slave can't, it's that simple. So if you want to remain free and not enslaved, then you have to have free speech. And no one else seemed to agree with that except this like South African guy,

the South African rock. Ironic. It is, it Maybe it's ironic. I don't know. I mean, I'm highly opposed to immigration, but I have to say, including my best friend, a lot of the best people I know are immigrants and they appreciate America for what actually makes it great,

which is its core freedoms. And what do you mean you're against immigration? We have too much immigration and we've made the country totally unstable. Is there a difference between too much and none? Well, I'm not against immigration. And you just said that. In theory, we need to shut down all immigration right now until we can retain or regain equilibrium

and like figure out what it is that holds us all together as a nation. It's too chaotic. It's too crazy right now. No more people, period, none. Cap it right now and then just cooling off, period. 30 or 40 years. Cooling off from what? This is all stuff that Trump has stoked

as the biggest problem we have. It is the biggest problem we have and I'll tell you exactly why, because it creates chaos and disunity. If you have a continental sized country like we do, the main question you have always every day, you're thinking about all day long, how do we hold together?

How do 50 states not become 50 countries? I mean, that will naturally happen, right? Because each governor sees himself as Caesar. So how do you keep them cohesive? And the only way to do that is short of force. You could just like get nukes and tell everyone to obey, but short of that, short of becoming a totalitarian country, it's by consent. It's because everybody thinks we're in this together,

we're all Americans, we have this in common. And it used to be race and religion, it no longer is. Okay, so what is it? Crickets, what is it? What is it that we all have in common? And no one is even trying to answer that question. And until you can answer that question, you are gonna move toward disunity. The drug cartels will take over, you know, Texas, Arizona,

New Mexico, and they'll be their own thing. And, you know, England will be its own thing. And, you know, God knows what will happen, but it'll break apart because that's just the nature of people, of human society. So we need a period where we can think through what it is to be an American, what unites us, what's our civic religion. It can't just be everyone's gay, that's not enough. Pride flag is not enough to hold a country together. What is it? And immigration makes it impossible because it's too much churn.

Things change too fast. I go, who are these people? I don't even know. It's how we've populated the country. Not at this scale. We've never had immigration like this as a portion of the population. We've never had it.

This is, and by the way, it's happening at exactly the time when technology is certain to like overturn our economy and employment structure. Like AI is gonna change everything. It's too much change at once. People's brains can't handle this much change. And whoever opened the spigot and flooded our country

with 15 or 25 million illegals in the past four years should be in prison for the rest of his life. That's the worst thing that's ever been done to this country. And I don't know if we can recover from it. And I think it'll become obvious as soon as there's an economic downturn that like the fundamentals have not been tended to at all.

But when you- I'm really worried about it. Look, I understand that you're worried about it and I understand why you would be, right? But I just wanted to say- It's been preached to you for years. No, it's not preached to me,'m really worried about it. I look, I understand that you're worried about it and I understand why you would be, right? But I just wanted to say- It's been preached to you for years. No, it's not preached to me, I noticed it. I noticed it.

Well, but I'm saying, look, this is- How many Americans want their kids to serve in the military now? Very few. Right. So that's a huge change. That's been true for a long time, by the way. Not a long time.

Longer than the last four years. Oh, for sure. Oh, it precedes Biden for sure. But not the last 20, not the last 20. I don't think you can look at immigration as an unprecedented bad in America. It is America, otherwise you don't have one. Not at this scale, not at this scale.

It's too many people and there's no effort. Even if you wanted to look at the people, even if you wanna say there are 15 million people who aren't supposed to be here, they all came in illegally. Okay, one, you see how easier it is to say that than to do something about it, right? Because he was gonna come in and round them all up in illegally. Okay. One, you see how easier it is to say that than to do something about it, right? Because he was gonna come in and round them all up. And now-

But it's an unsolvable problem. Well, the question is, is it a problem or is it a challenge and it is a mixed bag? You have 7 million open jobs in the country that are necessary. What does that tell you? You don't have enough people to fill them. Okay.

So that means that the 15 million people haven't taken everybody's jobs and- Why are they in government benefits then? you don't have enough people to fill them. Okay. So that means that the 15 million people haven't taken everybody's jobs and- Why are they in government benefits then? Saturated the market. Why are we giving government benefits to people here legally? That's a legitimate political question. Now when you-

No, no, no, it's not a political question. It's like a, it's a social question. It's like a core question. It's like, if you want them to fill these jobs, why are you subsidizing them not to work? Well, it's not that they're subsidizing not to work. Why are you subsidizing them at all? Because that was a political,

that's why I'm saying it's a political decision. They decided to do that. You could decide not to do that. Now, they don't get social security benefits. Very often you'll hear- Well, they're young people. They don't care. But you have a third of, and again,

these are all rough estimates, because to your point about tracking, we don't do this well here either. You have a third, let's say maybe close to a half of illegal entrants working in this country whose employers pay into social security for them. No, I know all these numbers. They do not get any of the benefits of that.

Right, so we should be grateful to the Haitians. No, no, no, not grateful. But you've got to see it as a mixed bag. It's not that you're a little demon seed running around. I see it as the greatest failure this country's ever presided over, which is the failure to encourage its own citizens to buy into the country sufficient to have kids. You have to have an economy that allows young people who aren't rich, whose parents aren't

rich to get married and have kids. And we haven't done that. And the middle class is another minority of the country. It's super hard for people to get married and have kids. And so rather than fix that problem, because it would, I don't know, make Larry Fink less rich, you have to import people cause, oh, we need workers. Well, what about, I mean, we both grew up in a world where people had kids and they don't know.

And whose fault is that? It's our leader's fault. That's like a core fault. That's like a true sin. Well, it's always been both, right? I'm second generation in this country. So you've always been doing both. You've been having babies and you've been bringing in people

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

You don't think Trump made a boogeyman of illegal entrance in this country by saying they're the bad hombres, they're all bringing the murders, and you know that the crime rate among that population isn't the same as the native population. A single crime by the illegal alien is unacceptable. Illegal immigration is unacceptable.

It's not a real country if you don't have borders. The one is too many is a very convenient standard. We don't use that anywhere else. You're not from here, you're not American. What are you doing here? You broke the laws of my country to get here. And you expect me to like it and me to kiss your ass and me to give you housing vouchers and food stamps

and free education for your kids. What? I didn't sign up for that. I was born here. I actually like immigrants. I'm just trying to say, Elon Musk, my best friend and business partner, a million immigrants I love, but inviting people in illegally,

immediately putting them on welfare when they have no relevant skills to a tech economy, which they don't. A lot of them can't read. We don't know the real names. How is that good for America? In no sense is it. It's the destruction of America. Everyone knows that and everyone's so paralyzed by race guilt they can't say it.

But it's not about race It's about a basic question that any country has to ask itself, which is what do I have in common with my neighbors? Why are we all in this together? I got nothing in common with my neighbors now. We don't speak the same language So how is this a country like these are not? Questions that racists ask these are questions that any Normalogical person would ask like, what is this? But that's why no one wants to fight for the country because they're attacking people who were born here.

Our wars are fought by white men from the South and the Midwest. I mean, actually fought and that's provable. That's just a fact. You have a lot of minorities in the military also. You could argue it's one of their last avenues to equality. But every war that this country has fought so far has been disproportionately fought by those two groups.

And those are exactly the groups that our leadership class hates. Hates and it's constantly diversity is designed to hurt those people. But most of the leadership class are those people. You're absolutely right about that. You're absolutely right about that. The war on whites is being waged by whites. It's 100% true. What is that about? I'm not Sigmund Freud.

I don't know. I'm just telling you that if our entire media establishment and not just our the vibe, the law, diversity is designed to discriminate against those people. So why do they fight your wars? That's just true. And then normal people, I put myself in this classroom, like I don't even know what it is that we're fighting for. More trans people or whatever. Like what is this project about? These are all answerable questions by the way.

All is not lost. I'm just saying you need to just pause and think through the basics. I think the country is the best country in the world, totally salvageable. We can turn this around. I'm not talking about the economy. I mean, the social fabric,

which is much more important than the economy, but we need to do it now and take it seriously and not just like listen to AEI and measure everything in GDP. Those people are stupid. So you don't understand what it is to be American anymore. Will you tell me? I think that- We've got 350 million people here, what unites them?

The opportunity. What opportunity, economic opportunity? Opportunity to live a life of your own making, to succeed or fail on your own merits. Okay, so the meritocracy, to be judged by what you do, not what you look like. That's right. Okay, so every institution in American life,

almost without any exception at all, has abandoned that standard and now has something called DEI, or diversity hiring, or affirmative acts. You just had an administration strip it all out. They all do, still in place. I mean, they're fighting it, but where were you when every institution decided

to hire on the basis of sex and race, which is the opposite of the standard you're describing. Why did they do that? That's a really interesting question. I mean, from my perspective, it's an attempt to destroy the West. Cause that, I mean, what is the West? You said it yourself.

What is America? You said it's a place where you can rise or fall on your own merits. And that's the one thing that's been destroyed. So I actually agree with you, but we don't have that anymore. It was destroyed. Was it destroyed when women were given the vote or when minorities were given the vote?

Of course not. Okay, because there had been a system that was limiting. But women were given the vote in 1919 and minorities were given, minorities had the vote in a lot of places, some they didn't, but the Civil Rights Act was 1965. So it's been 60 years. So the point is, look, I get that, I get what the frustration with DEI was.

I understand. No, no, no. It's not the frustration. It's that it gets to the fundamental question of what is it? I asked you, what's an American? You said, you don't want us to be American. I said, I really don't. I want to, and I think we need to an American? You said, you don't know what it is to be an American. I said, I really don't. I want to, and I think we need to figure that out. And you said, I know what it is.

It's anyone who comes here can rise or fall on his own merits. And I said, where were you when that was destroyed? It's totally destroyed. We need to rebuild it. It's not about white men being mad, white rage. Thank you, Mark Milley. It's about the principle that undergirds the whole country.

It's what it is to be American and they took it away and no one said anything about it. And anyone who did was called a racist. No, listen, I get the cancel culture concerns and- It's not cancel culture. It's like fundamental, dude. Since we don't have that- No, I'm saying being called racist

for saying what you just said is a function of cancel culture and it's unfair. Yeah, who cares about that? But what I'm saying being called racist for saying what you just said is a function of cancel culture. Yeah, who cares about that? But what I'm saying is this, you didn't have minorities being given the opportunities because they were minorities. That was something that America wanted to correct because it is the opposite of equality.

Okay. And it was the same with women. And that's what you should be trying to do. No. Not to the exclusion of anyone else, not to the exclusion of merit, same with women. And that's what you should be trying to do. No, you should- Not to the exclusion of anyone else, not to the exclusion of merit, but you don't want people held back because of who or what they are. It's really simple.

Either people, as you said, I'm just quoting you, my oracle. Thank you. That what it is to be an American is to participate in a system that judges you on the basis of what you do, not on who you are, or you came from, what your parents did,

or what they look like. Land of opportunity. Land of opportunity. Land of opportunity. And I pressed, what does that mean? And you said what I just said. And so every institution in American life to this day, the meaningful ones, the universities, the large corporations, the federal government,

to this day has abandoned that and moved aggressively in the other direction. There are federal set-asides, the ladders of success, the merit badges that we require to enter these institutions, mostly in education, totally determined by race and sex. And that's the opposite of what you said. So then, and that's been going on for 60 years.

So, okay, so clearly it's not the land of opportunity. What is it? No, I believe it's not the land of opportunity, what is it? No, I believe it is. It's a giant pinata party where the most aggressive person gets the biggest pile, so Larry Fink is the richest guy because he elbowed people in the face the hardest. I mean, that's kind of what it is, actually. There is a little bit of who and how the system gets worked,

but I would disagree that it has been destroyed. I would disagree that, because you destroyed. I would disagree that, because you still have whites in dominant positions everywhere that you can measure. It's not about whites, it's about people. It's about human beings. Are you gonna judge the person on the content of his character, the color of his skin?

But you weren't judging them on the content of their character. But you weren't judging them on the content of their character. And when you see- I don't know, it's hard to know that. If you look at corporate studies of- Corporate studies. What diversity does to them, it increases productivity, increases- You're talking about the McKinsey study from 2018, If you look at corporate studies of what diversity does to them,

it increases productivity, increases- You're talking about the McKinsey study from 2018, which has been, it's a joke. It's a joke. It's been utterly debunked. And they were selling their diversity consultant services. I'm not referring to that study, but I remember- There's no study that shows hiring people on the basis of skin color makes a company more effective.

Not on the basis of skin color, it's that you remove the restriction. There are no restrictions under- That you won't hire them as often because of their skin color. Why not just color? Then, okay, I have a simple solution if this is called standardized testing.

And it was created in order to solve the problem that you described, which is bias. And so standardized testing was a good faith effort by the Wasps, by the way, who ran the big American universities to be fair. They're trying to be fair. It's like, okay, let's just pick people on the basis of their intelligence,

their aptitudes and aptitude test. Right. And that kind of worked actually. It elevated not just Wasps, but Jews and Catholics and black people and everybody was judged on the basis. And it was imperfect, of course, but basically it worked. It's why America dominated the world, because it had the smartest people in positions of power.

Then at the apogee, the top, we abandoned it and we're like, oh, this isn't working. What do you mean it's not working? It's totally working. It's working because then we get the cream of all the other countries. The smartest people from around the world move here, including some of my friends, the best. And then we abandoned it and we're like,

well, that's unfair. How is it unfair? It's the definition of fairness. You're judging someone without even knowing what he looks like or his sex on the basis of his performance. How is that unfair? They never explained, they just took it away.

And now it's gone. And now in federal contracting, if you're a woman owned business, why do I have an interest in a woman owned business? I don't care who owns the business, I just want a good business. You're ignoring the impact of the Trump administration, which has been- Well, it's been six weeks.

I know, but I'm saying you strip it out, you'll see what happens. I don't think diversity is our problem. And standardized testing, I don't have a problem with it. I never said diversity was our problem, I don't think that. I'm not saying you did, I'm stating it as a proposition.

What I'm saying is that the testing assumes equal starting points. If you and I are both it as a proposition. What I'm saying is that the testing assumes equal starting points. If you and I are both gonna take a standardized test right now in an area that I am prepared for and you're not, then we're not gonna do the same. Well, go ahead and prepare for it then. I mean, I don't know what to say.

What's a better way to do it? The point, I'm not saying there's a better way. I'm saying that I don't have a problem with standardized testing. I don't have a problem with standardized testing. I don't have a problem with SATs and people having to use them to get into educational institutions. I don't have any problem with it.

I'm saying that you also have to be open to the reality that the kids aren't gonna do the same on the test when one has had a good education and one has not had a good education. But it's not, you know, there's a lot of science behind that and the truth is darker and harder to deal with. Okay, which is that intelligence is the product of environment to some extent, but it's mostly genetic.

And intelligence is a lot of factors in success but intelligence is the single most important over time in big populations. Smarter populations do better. They make more money, they go to jail less often, they stay married. Singapore is a more successful society than the United States for this reason. So that's the truth.

If you have a meritocratic society, the smartest people will have most of the money and most of the success. And that doesn't seem fair to people is the truth actually. And as we got better at sorting the smart people and sending them to Harvard and McKinsey and onto private equity, it became more obvious. No, it's true though. It became obvious that the meritocracy was producing an incredibly lopsided society

and that freaked people out and it felt unfair to them. And two people in the early 1990s wrote a book on it, Dick Harnstein and Murray, and it was called the bell curve. And it had a chapter on race in it, which was, you know, made a lot of people mad. They could have taken that chapter out and it would have been, I think, the transformative book

ever because it described what I just said, which is the meritocracy produces an outcome that you may not be ready for actually because it's rooted in nature and you can't change it. And Head Start, which was designed to increase the IQ of poor kids, didn't work and no one even wants to talk about it anymore. It's really hard to change people's intelligence and intelligence turns out to be the main predictor of economic success.

So these are super complicated questions, but I know that a system that rewards people on the basis of race and punishes others on the basis of race creates hatred and division. I don't think the point is, I don't think you have to do it that way is what I'm saying. And I understand- If I can't get into college,

if two people apply to college and they're different colors and the one with the lower SAT score is admitted because of his race, that's penalizing the one who was not admitted. I understand, which is why it's no longer the law of the country. It's true in every college in the United States, as you know, especially the selective ones,

including the one you went to. But they changed the law. They lie, and the Harvard case showed that. You can say they did this with the UC system in California, which was once a great system when I grew up in that state, and it's now a joke because of this. But they basically found out that they were just like, we have too many Asians,

can't have too many Asians. That's exactly right. What was interesting to me about the case is that it wasn't white people, it was Asian people who were saying that they were being discriminated against. Right, so basically the way they shut down the conversation is by making everyone feel guilty about slavery,

which no living person had anything to do with at all and no living person I've ever met supports. I couldn't be more opposed to it. So I'm for free speech because I'm against slavery. But it's also, it's not a coincidence that people of color, specifically African-American, are at a different socioeconomic level, given how they were introduced to the country, right?

Because race is completely fabricated. There is no such thing as race. We made it up. I don't even know what you're talking about. What do you mean there's no such thing as race? You cut open a black guy and a white guy, their genetics are the same. That's, okay.

We made race. I don't know what, I mean that's. We made it, we made it a thing. Just because you look different doesn't mean you're a different species. So we created it. Hold on, hold on. No one's saying anyone's a different species.

I'm not saying that you are. I'm saying that the- I think we may be getting into science still too deep. I don't know, I'm saying the science is very simple. We are saying- We created race. Wait, wait, hold on, wait. I don't know what you're talking about.

So you're saying that there's no, there are no differences between the races? For example, the genetic predisposition to certain diseases is fake? There are cultural, there are ethnic- How is that cultural? There are ethnic pockets, right? So Italians have certain things that are more common because of that group of animals

Breeding with each other then you'll have with Irish people or with Polish people sure sure and then as they oh so you do acknowledge Genetics is real. Of course genetics is real. Okay, so it's everything what I'm saying is that race is that race. Whoa! So genetics is everything, but race is fake. Race is a social construct. Okay, well, race is a social construct in some ways, but there's no doubt that there are significant, I mean, first of all, I think-

Look, Irish and Italians are different cultures, right? But they're the same people. They're just different cultures. Speak different ways, eat different things. They're not the same people. They don't look the same, and they're not genetically the same. That's not true. They are genetically the same people. They're just different cultures. Speak different ways, eat different things. They're not the same people. They don't look the same and they're not genetically the same. That's not true.

They are genetically the same. Well, that's untrue. It's factually untrue. And you can see it in all kinds of ways. What's the percentage of redheads in Sicily? Pretty high? I doubt it. Okay.

So what you're saying doesn't make any sense at all. But that doesn't mean it's genetics. It's just where people decide to be. No, hair color is determined by genetics. It's not a cultural construct. I know, but I'm saying that having- And neither is height or eye color or IQ, sorry. Having more redheads in Italy is not just about genetics.

It's about where people populate, right? Like you could take a huge, like look at Sicily, right? Look at the history of Sicily. When North Africa winds up being there, right? And in power, you wind up having that mixed into the chemistry of everybody who's Sicilian. Because genetics are real, that's exactly right. But race as a thing, we created.

Okay, I'm not exactly sure I understand the distinctions that you're drawing. I'm just saying that different people, different groups of people and different individuals have different genetic makeups. They're not wildly different. We're all members of the same species. We were all created by God as a Christian, I believe that.

But we didn't have these problems when people were Christian because the underlying assumption was that God created everyone, everyone has a soul. It's only when this became a secular society that hates God that you could treat people like animals and objects. Well, slavery was during a time where it was a pretty heavy Christian influence.

Slavery is nothing compared to AI and transhumanism. Nothing, nothing. How so? Well, because slavery, you know, evil though it is, it still exists by the way, around the world, but it's evil and Christians got rid of it. No other group did, Christians got rid of that because they thought it was evil

because they thought God created each person. But even under most certainly in the West, certainly in the United States, even under slavery here, evil as it was, slaves were still considered human. They didn't possess the same rights, but AI and transhumanism, transhumanists specifically, seeks to redefine what a human being is.

When you merge people with machines, then you don't acknowledge the existence of a soul. If you believe that each person has a distinct soul, that God cares about each person, like a speck of sand on the beach, each person is accounted for and watched over by God and cared for by God and has a destiny. How could you merge that person with a computer?

Because once you do that, then you don't have to acknowledge the soul. Then you can treat that person like the object that you've made them into. And of course we don't even discuss this, but ever. The point is, look, my only point is, this is a super complicated topic as I think we're proving and there are always unintended consequences

of any system that you set up. But I know from just watching the world and watching the United States, that the second you make race a key for appearance, whatever you wanna call it, genetics, a key component in awarding or punishing, then you make everybody hate each other and you wind up like Rwanda.

You don't wanna create differences. You wanna create similarities. Well, there are differences, but you wanna find commonalities. Yes, and I think that, look, that's what the land of opportunity is all about. But you treat people as individuals. Why do I give a shit if someone's a woman or black?

I care about that person, him or her. Are you a good person? Do you do a good job? I care about you. Yes. I don't care about all your, him or her. Are you a good person? Do you do a good job? I care about you. Yes. I don't care about all your ancestors, people look like you. This whole freight, this term that use community,

it's totally fake. There's no black community or white community or gay community. There are only people. No woman ever gave birth to a community. That's not a thing. God doesn't care about, he cares about people, individuals. It's a social construct.

No, but it's a way for politicians to dehumanize people, actually. I hate it. Or fragment people. But to treat them as less than human. You're not Chris Cuomo, you're part of the Italian community. You're part of the buff 50 year old community. You're part of the former talk show host community,

or whatever. Like that makes you less than who you are. No, your name is Chris Cuomo. You have a soul. God knew you before you were born. You have a destiny after you die. Like to call someone a community, fuck you actually. I get all the metaphysical aspects of it.

What I'm saying- It's the core of it. But what I'm saying is when you discover that women aren't given the opportunities because they're women, or blacks aren't given opportunities because they're black, in America, that's something that we see as corrective, that you want to address that.

Well, the correction has made the problem worse. We saw leeches as corrective too. We saw radium theory as corrective too. Like, just because you claim it's medicine doesn't mean it's not poison. And this has been poison, and this has poisoned our country. It's made everyone way more race conscious

that we're roughly the same age. People are not half as race conscious when we were kids as they are now. They weren't half as angry about race as they are now. And that's a byproduct of the system that was supposed to make things better. It made it much worse. And our politics.

I mean, look, the Trump administration, which I think is a very interesting aspect about our conversation. Think about it. You and I have sat together, I don't know how long, if it goes past like that, but we haven't even talked about anything in the news. Really, I mean, we're talking.

Sorry, I had deeper questions for you, Chris. No, no, no, and I love it, but I'm saying that's the beauty, that's the beauty, right? That's the beauty of the forum, of the freedom, of what we're able to do here, which you would never be able to do just by time, let alone by subject inclination. We are very divided and we are divided in ways that I haven't experienced before.

I agree. And I think that a big part of it is that it works. It's working for people who want power and to keep power. Division sells these days. And maybe, and maybe it always has, and that's why we know what a demagogue is, but there's no positive opposite term that the Greeks gave us. It's easy to play on people's outrage.

But when I see the Trump administration, he came in fomenting division. And I thought it was a very tricky sell for him because if what I hear about him is true, which is he wanted to win again because of legacy mode and be remembered is great. You can't be great as a divider. There's no American figure in our history

who was great because they were a divider. Every American leader has been a divider. Every leader is a divider by definition. Us versus them, the enemy versus the homeland. The first presidents of the United States drove the loyalists to Nova Scotia. Some of them were my relatives, so I know that. So you will divide. The question is on what basis?

And the thing that I worry most about in a country this diverse is racial division because it doesn't go away and those wounds just remain forever. Or certainly for generations, we've seen that with slavery, which I do think has left scars. I would not deny that. It's clearly real. So anybody who foments racial division is committing a graver sin than average. And to see Trump get the support of a multiracial coalition, which he did, is the most hopeful thing ever.

And so if in the end it becomes Trump against the people who've wrecked our country in the permanent bureaucracies, I'm, you know, I think that's pretty good outcome. When you see what he's doing right now, you don't see him as trying to break things in order to fix them? There's no question. There's no question.

There's no question. And I think you make a fair point. And in general, I am on the side of builders over destroyers because I think it's much easier that, you know, I hate vandalism and just on a gut level, I hate it. I believe in building and improving. But I do think in this case, and I think it's tough, I think it's a tough balance.

You know, you can get into a frenzy of destruction when you just break things because they're there. I can't think of anything that the administration is telling us is good and works in our society. Well, let me put it this way. I've watched vandalism in the last, really since Memorial Day 2020 when the George Floyd riots began.

I've watched vandalism on a scale I never thought I would ever see in this country, not just physical vandalism, but vandalism of our cherished institutions, whether it's the Episcopal Church that I grew up in, the St. George's High School I went to, which I love, totally destroyed by this. You got any juice with that school, by the way?

They won't let me on campus. They won't? Shoot, my daughter just applied. Oh, it's a beautiful school. I met my wife there and there's a lot about it. I sent my children there. Does she have any juice there? I don't know, she's married to me. I'm not wife there and there's a lot of, I sent my children there. Does she have any juice there? I don't know if she's married to me.

I'm not gonna, I won't use this. You see the end of funny. I won't use this, but I'm definitely asking you about it. Can I tell you one funny story? This is like my favorite. So they, some guy who I really like, who was a member in our class there, called my wife. Maybe my wife is hilarious, about five or six years ago.

And it's like, you're raising money for this new tennis center. And she was captain of the tennis team. I played tennis, mostly smoked cigarettes, but hacked around on the court. And in the eighties and like, we're trying to raise this tennis, money for tennis. She's like, how much, how much you trying to raise?

It's like, it's $11 million or something like that. My wife's like, you know, I feel for you. I've been in this position raising money for a school. You have to call these people. I love the school. I met my husband there, raising money for a school. You have to call these people. I love the school. I met my husband there, we were married there. My dad was headmaster. We love the school.

I'll just pay the whole thing. I'll just, you don't have to call anybody else. We'll cover the whole amount." He's like, really? And she goes, I just have one request that you name it the Tucker Carlson Tennis Center. The guy's like, Oh, let me check it out.

I was like, oh, you're not, you're not going to do that? And he's like, um, um, he's such a nice guy. Super uncomfortable. He knew that if you went back to the school and said, we paid for the whole tennis center with one donation. Yeah, no, they turned it down. Not that we were going to give $11 million for a tent. I don't even have $11 million, but if I did, I wouldn't give it to a tennis center or one donation. Yeah, no, they turned it down. Not that we're gonna give $11 million for a tent, I don't even have $11 million, but if I did,

I wouldn't give it to a tennis center or a boarding school. But isn't that funny? So that's how they feel about me. And you are able to laugh at it because? Because I'm happy, I've had a really happy life and we have a really close family. You also don't respect the basis of their rejection. Of course not.

And I know what my sins are. That's the key. And I've committed a lot of them. Who hasn't? I'm ashamed of myself in a lot of ways, but. Who isn't? I'm not ashamed of anything I've done there at all. But I'm saying like, who isn't?

I think it's important. I think you should be. I think you should definitely be ashamed of what you've done wrong, and I am. But I also think that you should know what you did wrong and be ashamed for the things that are wrong and not ashamed for the things that aren't wrong. You shouldn't just be ashamed because of how people see you.

I totally, exactly. I agree. And I also, look, I also agree that we're seeing things that we haven't seen in ways. Some of it is because we have reach, right? Because we have so much more media now and ability for things to be seen technologically. But we also do have a growing level of acceptance

of destructive and negative ideas. Look, what bothered me and my big boogeyman is, God forbid there was another 9-11, would we come together? I wanna say yes, I don't know. Certainly I know how President Trump would handle it. And it would not be the way President Bush. We've imported a lot of foreign conflicts into this country.

I just wanna say that. Meaning? Meaning that one of the byproducts of immigration is people bring their ancient resentments with them. And that should not be allowed. Period. Like, you want to come to our country for the opportunity, for the freedom, great. But you cannot, once you arrive, use the things that you're mad about in your home country

to influence my foreign policy. My family's been here a long time. That's not allowed. It's not your country, actually. We're welcoming you, but you can't bring your ancient hatreds with you. And a lot of different groups have. And it affects our foreign policy. welcoming you, but you can't bring your ancient hatreds with you. And a lot of different groups have, and it affects our foreign policy. I really resent it.

It's my money, my children's lives on the line, and my country. So a normal country doesn't allow that. They had a protest of Bangladeshi workers in the UAE earlier this year, and they weren't mad at the government of UAE. They were mad at some issue back in Bangladesh, and they marched down the street and the government of UAE deported them that night. Not because they're mad at them, but like we don't import foreign conflicts into our country because it's not, these aren't our problems.

And yet, and yet, here's a counterfactual. What do we see happening in Europe right now that isn't happening here? Them having huge numbers of Muslims from different ethnic extracts in that part of the globe coming into societies, not assimilating. That's certainly what the French are dealing with and what the UK is dealing with to a little bit of a lesser extent. In America, that hasn't happened. Yes, we're farther away, but hasn't happened.

Muslims come into this country, it's one of two countries on the face of the planet that have more Jews than Muslims, probably won't stay that way. But when they come into this country, they assimilate. And we don't do what the French allowed, which is to have them all living together and separate from the rest of the society. America is about assimilation.

That's historically been true. The only things, having spent a lot of time in Europe, I would say, one, I think it's unfair to blame, it's like everyone blames the European populations, like, you're Algerians or killing people with machetes on the street because you're a racist. That's not fair. It's their country. They're the indigenous population.

This was imposed on them by their leaders. Don't blame them. A. B, Europe is just way smaller. It's way smaller. And so the United States is so big that I've spent my whole life here. There are a lot of parts of the country. I don't know what's going on there.

And I travel a lot in this country and I go to places and I'm like, what is this? It bears no resemblance to what I thought was here. Totally different. Go to Portland, Maine. It doesn't look anything like the Portland, Maine you remember. And there's no evidence people are assimilating at all.

You go to Lewiston, Maine, they imported all these Somalis there 30 years ago. They've never assimilated at all, at all, in any way. Just kind of take it over downtown Lewiston. It's a slum. It's dangerous. And there's no assimilation whatsoever. No English is spoken. And so, I think the lessons of Europe, the United States, I think, did a really good

job of assimilating immigrants to your grandparents, when the great Southern European wave of immigration came at the turn of the last century. And they really like self-conscious, like all public schools like taught civics and like this is what it is to be an American, learn English. Like did your parents even speak Italian?

Oh yeah. Oh they did. But what did my grandparents want? Be American. Exactly, no, but that's exactly right. Speak the language, be American. They were discouraged from speaking Italian except in the house,

because my grandparents didn't speak English. Exactly. And that I think was the rule. And you know, whatever the language was. So that's no longer true. Cause we're not gonna make any effort to make people American because we can't define what American is.

And we need to do that now and just require that everyone who lives here buys into the same some species, the same program. I don't think we should be North Korea about it, but we need to have a unifying idea or else we will break apart. Do you believe directionally this administration is going the right way? Well, I think they've identified some things that are really wrong and in the first six weeks have made way more progress than I ever would have thought of fighting those things.

So, but I mean, we have some very, very serious problems and are they equal to that? If anyone is, they are. They've amazed me in the first six weeks, but there's a lot coming. There could be an economic reset, probably likely will. These are cyclical to some extent. And then there's also the technology question, there's the AI question.

And I just don't understand what you're going to do with 15 million new unskilled workers in a society that doesn't need workers. And I'm really worried about that. I don't know who thought of that. Like on the cusp of the AI revolution, let's open the borders to Haiti. Like what are you doing? That's like the greatest crime that's ever been committed against this country. And I hope I'm wrong, but I'm often wrong.

So I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong here. That seems like suicidal to me. I think it is. I think that the biggest question, and look, I don't have the answer, but the biggest question is how to unify, how to take your fingers and make them into a fist.

What worried me, look, what was, I got married two months after 9-11. I got engaged 11 days after 9-11 because of 9-11, because I realized the preciousness of life. And I thought that was gonna happen all the time. I thought it was the new normal, that they were just gonna blow shit up all the time. I thought that too.

And my wife made the one bad decision that she's made since I've known her, which is she agreed to marry me. Was it a tough sell? Oh yeah, if it hadn't been 9-11, she would have never said yes. She probably- You leveraged a terror attack. She could get out of it now on the basis of impossibility contract

because of duress. So when I saw, like for me, like even like a January 6th to me was, we don't all come down on the side of what is right and wrong collectively anymore. That when George Floyd happened, people going down the streets in protest, they're gonna be angry, they're gonna say angry things, it's not gonna be peaceful in terms of speech.

Okay, destroying buildings and that's okay, taking over cities and that's okay, not okay. We should have all felt that way. We always had until that point. No, fair. January 6th, you don't do that. You don't go bust it into the Capitol. Everybody should have been on the same page.

Instead it was, well, what about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter stuff? That type of discontinuity is very unsettling to me. We all know what's right and wrong on very gross levels, okay? And when you ignore those things for advantage, you start getting into a dangerous situation. I don't know that we do. I mean, one of my core beliefs is that shouldn't kill kids. Totally opposed to abortion. I think it's like the most obviously evil thing we've ever done. And I, I know a lot of really nice nice people I like a lot who totally disagree with me.

And I don't know why they do, but they do. And that's like a core. I mean, abortion is not just like some boutique event. I'm not an evangelical by the way, for the record, but I just have always thought like, what? You can't do that. I don't care how we can be this baby. You can't do that. I don't care how we can be just a baby. You can't fucking kill babies.

But most people I know in my affluent world totally disagree. So I think, and I just would say that's like a core disagreement. So I think there are a lot of deep disagreements, like real disagreements that are preexisting and maybe haven't surfaced. Right. But here's the difference. And in terms of what it is to be America, what is our national religion?

Yeah, exactly. It is the law. The law is our natural religion. Religion is a set of rules, right? You have faith, you have faith, I have faith, I choose to have faith. Can't prove there's a basis of my faith, but I choose it. Religion is a set of rules.

Our set of rules is the law. That's what unites you in this country. That's why it's so important. That's why politicians love to fuck with it as much as they do, because they know it's the essential fabric, is that you have fairness under the law. So abortion, reproductive rights,

however you wanna term it, you can feel however you want to term it. You can feel however you want to feel about it. I can feel however I want to feel about it. Then we have the law. Right now, the law is you decide state by state, okay? It is the first reversal of a right in our lifetime, where a right had been recognized and then removed. That was very politically destabilizing,

I thought, turned out not to be in the election. Turned out, was in the midterms. It's not the first, I mean, no, we had the Volstead Act. No, but this is where there was- You had a right to drink and then you couldn't and then you could. No, that's a privilege. We had a right to run for more than two terms as president.

That again, is not a natural right. It was, it was in the constitution. There was no, you had a right to run for more than two terms as president. That again is not a natural right. It was, it was in the constitution. There was no, you had a right to run for president. But that is, that is different than. Because it doesn't have an organized, screechy, unhappy lady lobby. No, no, no, no. How many terms you have as president is-

It was guaranteed on the constitution. You can run for president if you want. But you can amend the constitution. Well, that's what I'm saying. You can amend the constitution. Well can run for president if you want. But you can amend the constitution. Well, that's what I'm saying. You can amend the constitution. We make all kinds of changes. We consider some things rights and then we decide they're not rights.

I mean, there's no natural law that would support abortion. Of course not. That's insane. You can't take- No, the natural law would be control over your own body. No, the natural law would be a person has a right to be alive. That supersedes your control of your own body. But when is natural law would be a person has a right to be alive. That supersedes your control of your own body.

But when is it a person has rights attached to it? Well, we can, well, we'll just start with when the child can live outside the womb. There's no debate there. That is not the line that was drawn even in Roe v. Wade. I'm just saying there are plenty of states. That is a more generous assessment to people who believe in reproductive rights

than the law had been under Roe v. Wade. Thousands of kids are aborted every year post-viability. It's just a fact. And they say, well, there's lots of reasons for it. Late term abortions are almost not a thing. They happen incredibly infrequently. Slavery is almost not a thing that exists. No, but I'm saying that statistically, the idea that we had to focus on late term abortion

was pure politics, not practicality. Rape on subway platforms is almost not a thing, but I'm concerned about it. I don't want it because it's wrong. And anytime a child who can live outside the womb is murdered, like I'm upset about it. And I don't care how often it happens. It happens one time.

If it even could happen, I'm opposed to it. It's a baby. It wasn't part of the law. Okay, but I'm just saying it happens. But the viability standard. The Goodmocker Institute takes the numbers and you can look it up. So anyway, I'm just saying like, okay, it's a right. No, these are political institutions

that respond to the public will or what they think it is. But what about human rights? What about natural rights that are bestowed by God that aren't supposed to be infringed on by men? Isn't one of those the control and sanctity of your own body? I don't think that's, I mean, I'm not the law school graduate here, but I'm not.

Well, they don't teach you about God-given rights in law school because that's our founding document is God-given rights. They don't teach you that? That's not a secular understanding. It says that in the document. The Constitution does not mention God. The Declaration of Independence does. Oh, sure, but that's not our operative. It says that in the documents. The constitution does not mention God. The Declaration of Independence does.

Oh, sure, but that's not our operative document. The constitution is. And our constitution does not mention God. Nothing is predicated on God except a separation of church and state. We don't identify- So how are the rights in the Bill of Rights, how are the rights-

Articulated. Explained. As a function of the collection, especially the Bill of Rights, which you just referred to, because they sent it out to the states and the states came back with the recommendation. No, no, I know the process, but like, okay. We say they're God given, but the problem with that is you live in a secular society.

So what if somebody doesn't believe in God? Do they not have rights? Of course they do. Of course they do. They're attached by the collective. Yeah, well, the, yeah, the first amendment says that the government can't have religious tests. But I guess that you could just, whatever, this rabbit hole, but I think we can just like stick with the bill of rights and just, we could start there and say that those are

the rights that our government exists to protect, right? Wherever they emanate from. And the first one is the freedom of speech. And when you see the entire leadership class, the country opposing the first right enumerated in the bill of rights, then you know, the whole project is bullshit and the people running it don't believe in it.

And you set the stage for revolution, which is really scary. Here's my problem with it. I am totally with you about having to tolerate the things that you don't like and you don't want to listen to in a democracy. 100%. Marketplace of ideas. 100%.

And I would even argue that it is better to have more ideas that are offensive because it makes it easier for the better ideas to rise to the top. I honestly believe that. I'm very worried about any kind of concerted effort to limit speech, 100%. Here's what I'm struggling with. Our jurisprudence has moved in the opposite direction as our culture. Our culture has been getting a little bit more finicky

with what it likes people talking about. Sensorious, yeah. That's cancel culture, sensorious. The law has been expanding, right? When you look back at Chaplinsky in the 1920s, 1940s jurisprudence, they used to say at the Supreme court level, you know, the first amendment wasn't created

for Tucker Carlson to figure out how to say the meanest shitty can to Chris Cuomo and be protected from it. And then you had fighting words doctrine, which is, hey, Tucker Carlson can't walk up to Chris Cuomo and say something about his mom and expect not to get a punch in the nose. And then they expanded it even more.

And then he said, well, you can't say fire in a crowded theater. Yeah, you probably can under the Supreme Court law. There's a new test of whether it's reasonably conceived to create violence. So they kept expanding the rights. So the first amendment jurisprudentially from the Supreme Court has been getting broader and broader.

And I wonder if it has come with a culture cost. And I don't like to look at Mike Tyson as any kind of philosophical basis, but he said once, social media has made people forget that sometimes what comes out of your mouth is gonna get you punched in the face. That's right. And I do wonder these days,

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

Slippery slope, I know, but I struggle. No, not slippery at all. There are two obvious points to make. One is that if you live in a society where you're not allowed to criticize the people in charge, you live in a tyranny. Yes. As in Ukraine.

Agreed. Not about Ukraine, but I agree with the principle. Murdered Gonzalo Lira for criticizing the government. So yeah, and we have done that here and I'm opposed. So that's like a super easy test. If you are not allowed to criticize the people who have more power than you do, you're not living in a free country.

I still think it's weird that you look at Ukraine and not Russia for the immediate example. Well, I'm not funding Russia. And my tax dollars are funding Ukraine. So that's kind of why I have a special interest. Any country that we fund, we have a right to look carefully at where our money's going. No issue with that.

Any country, okay. So I would say that. And the second point is, of course I think the public discourse is completely out of control. I think pornography is disgusting. And I think the cruelty that I see all the time is shocking to me and really sad and I hate it.

And there's clearly like some deep rage going on inside people. I think I understand where it comes from, but I'm totally opposed to it. And what do you do about it? Well, all I can say for myself is I try not to add to it. I certainly have added to it, you know, sometimes. And I'm sorry about that.

I really try not to now. Probably should have started a little earlier, but I still do. But anyway, I don't know what you do about it. I don't know what to do. Just try and, you know, model reasonable, decent. Last thing I'll say, I think it's the most important thing

when you're talking to another person to remember that it's a person you're talking to. I saw something happen. People are gonna get angry at me about this. But by the way, I think that as much as this is remarkable for people, I don't care about why people are interested in you and I talking to each other.

I know it's part of the solution. And it doesn't matter, people can listen to this and think everything that we both just said is completely a waste of the time that they spent watching it. I'm okay with that. I still know that it's part of it, because one, when we were working at two different places,

we would have never been allowed to do this. And part of being in those places where they'd be adversarial with each other. And you were much better at that than I was, by the way. But- I'm truly an asshole deep down. It's not that deep. But what I'm saying is I know that we're not supposed to be do this and we're some of the only ones who do.

And I appreciate you and respect you for that. I'm hanging out at a place that I love to go to during the summertime. And there are MAGA hats all over the place. A guy in the MAGA hat is a little drunk, a little out of it, and gets into it with somebody who does not have a MAGA hat on. Eventually, the guy without the MAGA hat on smacks the MAGA hat off the guy's head. The guy gets angry, punches the guy

who smacked it off his head. Cops come, arrest the MAGA hat guy because he punched the other guy in the face and there were all these other people there. And I was going to talk about it on the show and didn't because I realized that what I was going to say was not embracing of the law, but to me felt like what would have been right in the situation. And I have never really figured this out.

I could read a hundred, I could give you a hundred different arguments of what's right and what's wrong. But how I feel is when the guy smacked the hat off the head of the other guy, it seemed to me that it was not more wrong than the guy punching him. You know, it didn't seem like he had high ground. You smacked the hat off the guy's head. Before that it had been this. And there was plenty ugliness going back and forth. He then smacks the hat off. The guy punches. I mean, he didn't hit him with a two by four,

but he punched him. He opened him up. He was bleeding. And everyone I would talk to about it would say, well, come on, Chris, I mean, you can't do that. Why? Because it's the law. Okay, why is it the law?

Because we want to enforce civilization, but we're not that civilized. I get it. We give ourselves too much credit for civility, especially in America. Everything we embrace is violent and aggressive. Why does everybody like The Rock? Cause he's a great actor?

No, it's that symbology of what he represents as a male. And I know that it's wrong, but I feel like you can't be punching everybody in the face that you disagree with. I know, of course. But it's now like we empower people to be their absolute worst all the time and they gain advantage of it.

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

It's pretty clear. I mean, I, of course I know exactly what you're saying and I agree with you. And I think that none of that is an excuse for the people in power to shut down criticism of themselves as has happened in Europe and Australia. Hope it doesn't happen here. On the other hand, I do think, you know,

if you don't think of other people as human, you can, there's no limit to what you can do to them. And I do think that's like the key thing to remember is these are people, they have identical value in the eyes of God that you do. And you should always remember that, no matter how pissed you are at them. And no, you can't kill them.

No, no, no, of course. But I'm saying that, I don't know, man. I just feel like we're getting less civilized, even though the law is expanding. Can I say one last thing? Go ahead. Yeah, thank the internet for that. I am thrilled that you're enjoying yourself

outside of the confines of the business we're both in. And even if I disagree with you on certain things, I just think it's inspirational to see a free man. I appreciate you. I like coming down to see you. And I think that the point is as simple as that Tucker. We're not gonna agree on everything, okay? But that-

But I know you do, cause there's not one Sicilian man in America who doesn't love Trump. There's not one. And I don't believe you're that man. I've done a survey of every Sicilian man in America and every Sicilian man in America in his heart. Well, finally then I'm special.

I don't believe you. Because I am Sicilian and I definitely don't love Trump. You and your brother secretly love, I know that you do. And I know that if I know if I can x-ray your Sicilian soul, you'd be like, you go big orange. Big orange. What I'm saying is this,

I believe that, look, you're gonna have people say, why are you talking to that guy? I'm gonna have people say, why are you talking to that guy? I'm gonna have people say, why are you talking to that guy? And I love answering the question because conversation is the cure. You don't have to agree, but you gotta listen. And you have to feel each other out

and you gotta take it in. And I'm happy to do it with you and I look forward to doing it again. Amen. Thank you. You can agree, you can disagree, Amen. Thank you. You can agree, you can disagree. You think he had a good point here, maybe I had a point there, or you don't know why I didn't say this, and I should have clobbered him on that.

The point is not to win. It is to understand. Debating and gotchas and owning, where has it gotten us? Where? Nobody can talk about anything. Nothing gets moved forward. All we want is to stay in our silos and understand which side is worse. Doesn't work for me. Doesn't work for the project.

So I was happy for the opportunity to sit down with somebody who I don't agree with. I don't think he's the devil. I may think some of his ideas are frightening and frighteningly uninformed or not uninformed, but maybe just not embracing of reality or that they could be better. And that's all okay.

It's okay to disagree. That's why you have elections. That's why you have conversations. And I do believe it's all okay. It's okay to disagree. That's why you have elections. That's why you have conversations. And I do believe it's the cure. Thank you for subscribing and following here at The Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for checking me out at NewsNation, 8P and 11P, East, every weekday night. You want to wear your independence? Show that you're not another lemming? Great. Get the free agent gear and show that you're a critical thinker. See you soon.