Steve Witkoff’s Critical Role in Negotiating Global Peace, and the Warmongers Trying to Stop Him

Steve Witkoff has no background in diplomacy but has turned out to be the most effective American diplomat in a generation. Here’s how he’s trying to resolve the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. (00:00) What Witkoff Has Learned as Trump’s Global Negotiator (04:10) Negotiating With Israel, Hamas, and Qatar (12:50) Will We Achieve Peace Between Israel and Hamas? (23:09) Why Corporate Media Hates Witkoff (33:55) Israel’s Goals (42:47) Trump’s Plan for Gaza Paid partnerships with: Identity Guard: Get a 30-day free trial and over 60% off when you sign up at https://IdentityGuard.com/Tucker iTrust Capital: Get $100 funding bonus at https://www.iTrustCapital.com/Tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Tucker Carlson?

  Steve, thank you so much for coming. So I think you've had one of the most, maybe the most remarkable life trajectories of anyone I've ever met. And you wind up, you know, close to Trump. You campaigned with Trump. You don't, I mean, you're an intimate friend of the president's. And you could have had any job. You don't want any job because you're doing your own thing. And then he taps you as a diplomat, as a negotiator on behalf of him. And you wind up becoming, you know, probably the most effective negotiator in my lifetime. And you have, you know, you speak for the president. I think everyone acknowledges that. You're honest and people like you personally. So those are obviously the foundations of effective diplomacy.

• 1:11Tucker Carlson?

  But what have you learned about negotiating on behalf of a country in the last couple of months?

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, I think President Trump sets the table.

• 1:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  For all of us. He really does. This whole peace through strength thing, it's not just a slogan. It actually works. And so when he dispatches you to go to the Middle East, people are almost a little bit intimidated before you get there. And this goes for me and, you know, other people who are doing similar jobs. So he sets the table in a pretty powerful way. But negotiating is being outcome oriented. I talk about this a lot. It's figuring out where you want to get to. That's Trump's game plan all the time. I sit with the president and we talk often about what the end game is. Where does he want to get to? And once you decide where you want to get to, then it's all about tactically figuring out what

• 2:32Speaker 02

  that pathway is. With the Middle Eastern, you know, Tucker, when I first got in and I was talking to Brett McGurk, who was the envoy on behalf of Biden, he was a smart guy.

• 2:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  He just didn't have a great boss giving him direction. So he couldn't really speak on behalf of Biden. I was able to speak on behalf of Trump because we talked about it. We had a great conversation about it. He said to me, this is where I want to get to, Steve. And so when I went in there, I went in with the imprimatur of the president and became a, you know, that's the difference maker.

• 3:09Tucker Carlson?

  But I mean, clearly, and no one doubts that you speak for the president, that you know what the president wants because you know the president, you actually talk to him, you're not some guy he just hired. And that makes a huge difference. But it also seems like you think through where the, whoever you're negotiating with is coming from. Like, what do they want?

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Well, there's no doubt. I'm always trying to put myself in the shoes of the other person because a good deal has to work for everybody. But I want to just say this, when I say I speak for the president, it's not because I presume what he's thinking.

• 3:44Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  It's because I ask what he's thinking. He is the president. I'm in my job only because of him. And to me, I give him the respect of always asking the question, where do you want to get to, Mr. President? And so that's critical. So now I know where he stands. And now it's about tactics. From the, as you talk about, from the other side's standpoint, it's important for me to know or to have a feeling of where the Israelis want to get to. What about the Qataris? They're the mediators at the table. What do they want to accomplish here? What about Hamas? Where are they? Will they really demilitarize? Is that something they'll do? Will they take the Golden Bridge out of Gaza? All of these

• 4:27Speaker 02

  are considerations. But first I have to find out where the boss wants to end up. And the boss is President Trump.

• 4:35Tucker Carlson?

  It almost feels forbidden for you to say what you just said. So what does Israel want? Obviously, a critical, the key question. But there are other players.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 4:45Tucker Carlson?

  And what do they want?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 4:47Tucker Carlson?

  And I don't know that I've heard anybody say that out loud, ever. Any American say that out loud. And I think you've been criticized for saying that out loud.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's important to recognize that that that everybody may want something. I think in the case of the Qataris, they're criticized for not being well motivated. It's preposterous. They are well motivated. They're good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that's effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they're a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker. And I think the president realizes that, and I realize that today. But we have to know that. If they had a different agenda, it would be important for us to know that different agenda. I think if they had a different agenda, it would be fine, as long as we weren't operating blind. And operating blind is really the problem in a negotiation like this. You have to know where everybody stands.

• 5:41Tucker Carlson?

  Just laughing because what you're saying is so obviously true. It's prerequisite to getting a deal. And yet it is so different from the posture that the last couple of generations of diplomats have taken, which is like, here's what we want, shut up and do it. And I just don't think, leaving aside like moral considerations, I don't think that's been very effective.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Well, you know, here's an example. Gaza and what the president set forth is what he wanted to do with Gaza. I came back from my first trip. This is before he was inaugurated, where we had permission from the Biden administration to collaborate with them.

• 6:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  And the president said, when do you think Gaza can be reconstructed? Fifteen years was my answer, maybe twenty. And he said, why? I said, and I gave him the battlefield conditions. I was in Gaza, actually, that it's been decimated. It's been destroyed. There are tunnels underneath, so think Swiss cheese underneath. And then they got hit with bunker buster bombs. So there's no rock there anymore.

• 6:44Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  There's no place to put footings if you're going to build buildings. And yet, the whole world thought that this was a five-year reconstruction plan. And why? Because the Biden May 27th protocol, which is the operating agreement pursuant to which the negotiation between Hamas and the US government and Israel happen, talks about a five-year plan. But it's, those are, that's a false set of facts. Level-setting the facts, you have to acknowledge that it's a 15- to 20-year plan. When we first started talking 15 to 20 years, everyone said that, that we didn't know what we were talking about. Until the Journal wrote an article and said 15 to 20 years.

• 7:23Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  So, the president's plan about Gaza was all about, how do we, how do we put people back in a battle zone? Where there are munitions all over the field? Or where there are these latent conditions so that a kid could fall into a hole and go 40, 50, 60 feet down? And you'd never know that he, that he was there. Who would, who would do such a thing? If we had buildings in those conditions in New York, there would be yellow tape all around it. And no one would be allowed in. So, and then, of course, he got criticized for that as if he was looking to create a beachside community with gleaming towers and casinos. It was preposterous.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  He was being realistic about what Gaza, how you needed to consider Gaza. So, I think it's really important that when you're making these decisions, that you level-set the facts. And that was my instructions from President Trump. Go out there, level-set the facts, figure out what it is, and then we'll make decisions about where we want to see Gaza going to. And I think we've got a better, we got, that's a better program.

• 8:28Tucker Carlson?

  It's definitely a better program. I mean, operating on the basis of honesty, works. So, okay, can, um, I think the, the president's goal is pretty clear. He said it many times. He campaigned on it, he was elected on it, which is, we want stability and peace in the world. It's not good for anybody when we don't have that. But to the extent that you understand it, and since you're one of the few people who seems willing to say it out loud, can you just describe the three players in the current conflict in the Middle East, the big ones? Can you go through and tell us what you think each one wants? What's their goal?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  So Israel?

• 9:04Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Hamas?

• 9:05Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  And?

• 9:07Tucker Carlson?

  Qatar.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  And Qatar. So I think Qatar is a small nation, probably has the highest GDP per capita, per person, right, of anyone in the world, huge, huge reserves. I think they want stability. I think they want a peace treaty from the United States. Why? Because, and all the Middle East, all the GCC countries want that, by the way. This is an interesting point. Everybody thinks the peace treaty is about physical defense. What it's really about is the United States providing a security wrapper so that they're all financeable. Today, you can't borrow money in those countries. So if you want to go do a deal in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE, JP Morgan, if they are the hypothetical bank, has to underwrite war risk.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  They have to underwrite, will the Houthis in Saudi Arabia fire in a hypersonic missile and destroy that AI data center that you just bought for $200 billion? That's a real problem. So a lot of these countries want defense treaties so that they're not just building out of their pocket, they're taking their oil money, and they're actually leveraging it and creating a better economy long term. So I think the Qataris want stability, and they don't get enough credit for that motivation. It's a good motivation for their people.

• 10:21Tucker Carlson?

  Amen. But they're often accused, why, almost universally accused in the US media of being agents of Iran?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's preposterous. Look, they're a Muslim nation. In the past, they've had some views that are a little bit more radical

• 10:41Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  from an Islamist standpoint than they are today, but it's moderated quite a bit.

• 10:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  There's no doubt that they're an ally of the United States. There's no doubt about that.

• 10:51Tucker Carlson?

  They have a huge airbase there. I mean, US.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  By the way, and they pay for every dollar of it. They don't have their hand out for a thing. There is nothing that the United States has to fund with regard to that airbase. That's pretty unusual.

• 11:03Tucker Carlson?

  That's amazing.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Right? So they fund everything, they don't ask for much. I think I had a conversation with General Carrillo, Eric Carrillo, who runs CENTCOM, an amazing man. And I said to him, what do you think of the Qataris? He says, they're special people. So the people in the know know that they're good decent people. What does Hamas want? Well, I think they want to stay there till the end of time and they want to rule Gaza. Yes. And that's unacceptable. So we have to know that. We had to know what they wanted. What they want is unacceptable. What's acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize, then maybe they could stay there a little bit, right? Be involved politically, but they can't be involved, we can't have a terrorist organization running Gaza, because that won't be acceptable to Israel.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Then we'll just have the same exact experiences every five, 10, 15 years, we're going to have an October 27th. Yes. October 7th, pardon me. So that's what Hamas wants. That's not possible. What do they like to deal with? I've never really, I've never been in the same room as them, which is a little bit weird, wouldn't you say? Like a negotiation where you don't have the other party? Like you don't even know if the guy behind the wall is the Wizard of Oz, or he's not the Wizard of Oz, right? So how do you, I mean, without, you know, giving away anything that you can't play? I think we trust the Qataris. If I didn't trust the Qataris, then that would be really problematic, not meeting with Hamas. And of course, you know, we read-

• 12:31Speaker 02

  So you can communicate with Hamas through the Qataris? Right. And Sheikh Mohammed, the prime minister of Qatar, is a good man. He's really- He certainly is. He's a special guy. He really is. And he cares, and I've spent a lot of time with him, and broken bread with him, and he's just a good, decent human being who wants what's best for his people. But also, like what you were alluding to before, he's able to put himself in the shoes of the Israelis, of the United States, and I think explain to the Qataris, excuse me, explain to Hamas where they're going to have to get to to make a deal. And, I mean-

• 13:09Tucker Carlson?

  From an American perspective, like, it's just hard to even understand what Hamas is thinking. Or do you, but it's essential to understand. I mean, just as a procedural matter, we need to know.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 13:21Tucker Carlson?

  So, is it hard for you to understand? Like, do you feel like you can effectively communicate with them, even through proxy, and understand what they want and what their, you know, what their red lines are, or whatever? Can you negotiate with them?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Well, it's hard. You know, I'll give you an example of what makes it hard. I went to Gaza, and then I had this fabulous lunch with CENTCOM people, military guys.

• 13:47Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  I shook hands of everybody I met, because who doesn't want to shake the hand of these guys who are out in the field, you know? They protect our country. I'm talking about our military guys. And then they showed me, this is Southern Command of Israel, then showed me a film of what happened on October 7th.

• 14:04Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  And the film is horrific.

• 14:06Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  It is about mass rapes.

• 14:10Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  There's pictures of Hamas people cutting the head off of an Israeli soldier. I watched them saw the head off. I mean, it's really terrible stuff, and it's beyond what I've ever seen. And it can taint you, right? It can taint the way you're going to, you know, the way you're going to feel about these people. And I think sometimes, as a negotiator, you have to be dispassionate.

• 14:40Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  It's not easy to be, to make decisions if you're going to... But I had to see that film, Tucker. I mean, that film is a reality. I mean, we can't ignore the reality of what happened on October 7th.

• 14:52Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Now, they would tell you that they've got justification, but there's no justification for what happened that day. There just isn't. And unfortunately, there were security lapses that day that shouldn't have happened, that accentuated what happened that day.

• 15:06Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Which shouldn't have happened. But...

• 15:09Tucker Carlson?

  Do we understand that?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  I think we understand that there were security lapses, that there were some mistakes that were made.

• 15:15Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  But we're humans, we're not robots, right? We're not, we're not, you know, we're not completely overwhelmed by AI right now. So people will make mistakes. There were intelligence mistakes, but, um, but there's some really good people who were involved, uh, here. I, you know, I met some, I met some exceptional people in Israel. I mean, really some exceptional people who.

• 15:35Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  And it's a difficult situation, but, um, I think you have to know what Hamas wants, just to go back to your question.

• 15:43Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  And then you've got to figure out what you can give them that allows them to walk out, because that's what's needed here. You know, what we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological, they're prepared to die. For a whole variety of reasons, I personally, and I talked to the president about this, there's nothing I don't talk to the president about before we're going to make a decision.

• 16:06Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Because he's, he's, he is the guy.

• 16:09Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  He was elected, I was not, none of the other people were, he was elected. And I think that's how we have to function. With that said, I said to him, I don't think that, that they are as ideologically locked in, they're not ideologically intractable. I don't, I, I never believed that, by the way. I believe they strap on the suicide vests onto young kids who don't know what they're doing, right? And they tell them a story. And once you understand that, once you understand that they wanted to live, then you were able to talk to them in a more effective way.

• 16:41Tucker Carlson?

  Smart, smart. That is to, that is smart. Um, but it's, how hard was it to come to that conclusion?

• 16:48Speaker 02

  I, you know what? I get a lot of intelligence reports, so I'm able to read things. And it just felt to me that the rhythm and the cadence of the negotiation, that's part of it too, right? If, if I'm not there all the time, I'm getting secondhand information. I had to feel it for myself. I had to be able to sort of live it in, in, um, in, uh, in real time. And that's when I, I sort of came to the conclusion that they wanted alternatives. We're in a negotiation right now to maybe stop some of these Israeli strikes and maybe finish this conflict with dialogue. And if I don't have a feeling that, uh, that we can accomplish that, why would I waste my time?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Or the United States time, or, and worse yet, why would I put the, why would I come to the president, recommend to him that we could finish something with dialogue? And then effectively, we can't, and then we can't be that effective. That's a, that's a bad policy prescription. If, if, if I'm not in this thing, making those sort of assessments and being able to come back to the president and say, I think we can finish it with dialogue, or not. But it's, and those, by the way, those calculations are going to be the same with the Iranians, and they're going to be the same with the Russians and the Ukrainians, and they're going to be the same with Azerbaijan and Armenia. So it, those principles apply to all of these conflicts that, that, that, that we're gonna maybe talk about today.

• 18:19Tucker Carlson?

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• 21:33Tucker Carlson?

  I'm just gonna say this for a third time, I won't keep repeating myself, but that's just such a different way of looking at the conflict, not just in Gaza, but in all the places you just mentioned, acknowledging that, you know, we're sympathetic to one side, but both sides have an interest and like, the reason can still play a role in this, negotiation can play a role, dialogue can play a role. I just, I haven't heard anybody say that in so long. And you've taken an enormous amount of abuse. I don't even know if you're aware of it, because you're always on an airplane, but like, in US media, in social media, attacking you as like, an agent of all kinds of different foreign powers, you know, "He's working for Hamas, he's working for the Qataris." Like, does that penetrate

• 22:18Tucker Carlson?

  at all?

• 22:19Speaker 02

  You know, in the beginning, I didn't like it.

• 22:21Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I bet.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  But, um, one night, I was reflecting on what someone told me after my, um, my son Andrew died. And they said to me, "You're never gonna have a bigger hit than that in your life, losing a child. It's a bad club to be a member of."

• 22:35Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, there's nothing, nothing worse.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Nothing worse. And then I began to get like President Trump, not caring what people said. I'd wake up in the morning, read the paper, they'd, I'd read some sort of explanation about why I said something or did something. And it was preposterous, Tucker, just preposterous. So, one day, I, what's that movie, there was some movie where, um, they kept, it won the Academy, I can't remember the name, "I Just Stopped Caring."

• 23:02Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  "I Just Stopped Caring" about what the news media, news media said about me.

• 23:06Tucker Carlson?

  So, I, I've experienced a little bit of this myself, nothing compared to what you've just experienced, but it does seem like some of these criticisms of you are not actually sincere. Nobody really thinks you're like, pro Hamas or working for the Qataris. But the point is to throw you off balance and to sort of put a leash around your neck and, and control you.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  No doubt.

• 23:29Tucker Carlson?

  Right?

• 23:29Speaker 02

  That's the agenda.

• 23:30Tucker Carlson?

  That's the agenda.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  No doubt.

• 23:31Tucker Carlson?

  And it seems to have had no effect.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  From all sides.

• 23:34Tucker Carlson?

  From all sides, of course. Oh, absolutely.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  I had a, I've had a couple of experiences where first I was attacked as being pro Qatari sympathizer. By the way, Qatar is a mediator here.

• 23:47Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  They're not a party to the conflict, they're a mediator. And by the way, they've mediated all over the world. No different than the Swiss and the Norwegians. They've mediated in Russia, they've mediated in Afghanistan.

• 23:59Tucker Carlson?

  And God bless them.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  I know, and they've done an effective job. They're, they're, they're good at it. So I am, how could I not collaborate with the mediator? And, and, and be, if I'm not collaborating with the mediator, I'm bound to be ineffective. It's not even possible that I could, um, that I could do the job. I had to know everything that they knew. So that means collaboration. And that's how President Trump operates too, you know? I learned the business from, from him. I, I went into the business because of him, the real estate business. And this is his ethos. This is how he operates. And so I'm really following him in, in, in a certain respect.

• 24:36Tucker Carlson?

  I didn't realize you went into, that's so, I didn't know. I knew you'd known him forever. I didn't know that.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Oh no, I wanted to be him. By the way, everybody wanted to be him. He'd come to 101 Park Avenue where I was a lawyer. He had this swashbuckling style. I used to, I used to see him come in and I used to say, God, I want to be him. I don't want to be, I don't want to, I don't want to be the lawyer. I don't want to be the Scrivener. I want to be that man. Yeah. I can remember saying that. Yeah. He was, he was like the Michael Jordan to me, you know, of the real estate business.

• 25:08Tucker Carlson?

  It's incredible the turns your life has taken. It's just incredible. When you have a chance to sort it out, when all this is over, I think you're going to look at your own life and say, well, that was amazing.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Well, I've been blessed. I mean, it used to be that I couldn't use the word blessing because of, because of my boy.

• 25:23Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  But of his death. But now I can say, I was blessed, but for this overwhelming tragedy. And I think my son Tucker allows me to be, to have this sense of, um, I, I relate to a lot of the hostage families. You know, many of these families are never going to get their children back.

• 25:40Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Their children's, their children have either been killed or may in fact get killed if we don't successfully get to a peace program in Gaza. So I think that, um, this, um, sense of, um, sensitivity or empathy that I have, I can relate to them. I- They all have my telephone numbers. I talk to them on a daily basis and I think that's been a big, it's been a big help for them, but interestingly enough, it's been a big help for me.

• 26:08Tucker Carlson?

  I believe that.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  And I talked to the president about this. I had hostage families in the Oval Office the other day. The president was tired and he said to me, he knew they were at my office and he said, "Bring them up, let me, you know, at least say hello to them and, and, and get connected to them, but, but let them know I only have a couple of minutes." Because it was a hectic day. He spent an hour and a half with them, talked to every one of them, gave them his challenge coin, every one of them, listened to their stories. People who talked about children who might not come home, many of them, many of these people were captives themselves, hostages. You know, it's a very, um, real experience when, when you sit there and you listen to what it was like. Some of these people who lived in cages

• 26:54Speaker 02

  were, were chained 24 hours a day. Had, you know, we talked about what, what it was like to find a bathroom, right? Or, or what it was like to live in the dark, or to be starving to death, you know, as some of them were, or to have, watch people be murdered. And the president, as a president, he doesn't have to do that if he doesn't want to. He could sort of get the information just from me. But he's, it's, it's up close and personal for him. And that way of doing things guides people like me who work for him. Now, I want to get up, up close and personal. That's why I went to Gaza. I was the first, um, US official to go to Gaza in 22 years. But how would you implement a peace deal if you didn't

• 27:36Speaker 02

  go to the place where the peace deal was being implemented? I mean, it's curious, right?

• 27:40Tucker Carlson?

  It is curious.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Like, who would not, who would try to get, who would get, try to get a peace deal done? And then the, it's all in the implementation. So what, what the contract says, what the writing says. Now we have to figure out that the battlefield conditions, nobody had been there. It's, it's kind of crazy.

• 27:55Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it is crazy. And it's connected to what you've been saying for the last 20 minutes, which is you have to understand all sides if you want to affect the outcome that you've decided you want.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 28:06Tucker Carlson?

  Yes. But again, that's a revolutionary, uh, development in American diplomacy. Um, and I just am thrilled to see it. So finally, the biggest player in all of this, of course, is the government of Israel. What do they want? What is the government of Israel? Leaving aside the population of Israel, I have no idea. But what is the government making these decisions want?

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Well, I think that's complicated. I think they're well motivated. I think they, they, there are things that they're trying to get done. You know, as an example, we would not be as effective in what we're doing there if Bibi did not get Nezra out of the picture in Lebanon. If he did not decapitate, because he's effectively decapitated Hezbollah. If he did not do what he did with Hamas. He's decapitated Hamas. Hamas is nowhere close to the terrorist organization that they were beforehand. Both of those events inform on, on his relationship with Iran and Iran using, continuing to use proxies and so

• 29:10Speaker 02

  forth. They're less prone to do those sorts of things today. Right? And so that, that sort of Iranian crescent, or that Islamist crescent that everybody thought was, was, was going to be effective, it's, it's been largely eliminated. So he's, he's done an exceptional job with that. But of course, the rap he gets is that he's more concerned about the fight than he is about the hostages. I think in some respects, I understand how people make that assessment, but I don't necessarily agree with it. I think that he does want to get hostages home, if he can, but he believes that, that pressure, pressuring

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Hamas is the only way to do it. I think in some respects, he's right. Look, the nuances here, the changes that happen there on a day to day basis. We were in, at the Arab Summit a week and a half ago. We made a proposal to the, to Hamas. They considered it, they rejected it the next day. We thought it was unacceptable that they rejected it. Three days later, the Israelis went in. Guess what? They're talking again. Stuff changes there, Tucker. Hour to hour, you really have to stay on top of it. I think Bibi feels that he's doing the right thing. I think he goes up against public opinion because mostly, because public opinion there wants those hostages home. That's what they-

• 30:34Tucker Carlson?

  Public opinion in Israel?

• 30:35Speaker 02

  In Israel.

• 30:36Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, you don't get that sense, I don't think, from American media, but Israel has always been, you know, there's been a robust debate- Since, you know, I started going to Israel, you know, they have a very vigorous debate internally about their government. Like, it's, you know, people feel free to say.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  I, I went, I went to, I went to Hostage Square, and I went with a detail, and my guys were afraid for me to get out. There were, I don't know, four or 5,000 people there. And I, we were passing by, and I, and I said, "Let's stop." You know, it was, there was no plan to go there. "Let's stop." We didn't have a lot of security with us. I knew it was gonna be fine. I knew it. I came in there, I spent almost an hour there. It was spiritual. All the families were there. Hostages who had been released were there. People were crying. It, look, getting the, this has infected

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Israel. It's, it's, it's fractured Israel. It's like a seam cutting right through the soul of the country. We've got to get these people back. I, I talked to, by the way, I talked to Bibi about it. I talked to Dermer about it. But, you know, they also have a view strategically about Hamas, how they have to be dealt with. I'm not sure I, in some respects, there are times that I, we agree with each other. There are times we slightly disagree. But I think they're well motivated is, is, is my point. And our policy is that Hamas cannot, cannot continue to exist here. That's the president's policy. And I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, you know, I'm someone who follows the president, because he's the one who got elected. And I, and I believe in his policy.

• 32:19Tucker Carlson?

  And he got elected on, I think, a pretty clear vision of how he wanted to manage the world to the extent that we can. And again, it was, you know, "No more chaos, and to the extent you can avoid it, no more wars." And Americans really responded to that. And the world understands that. Like, everyone kind of knows that's the agenda. And you've said many times, "We talk through what we want the outcome to be before we begin the tactical considerations." I, just in my traveling, there are a lot of Gulf countries that are,

• 32:55Tucker Carlson?

  you know, have extensive, very, much more than people understand, relations with Israel. Some have signed the accord, others haven't, but they all deal with the Israelis all the time. They're not hostile to the Israelis. But not one person I've spoken to understands what the long-term vision is. Like, what's the plan here? What are we, you know, if you get everything you want, what does it look like?

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 33:16Tucker Carlson?

  Do you understand it?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Well, I understand we have to have that notion. I understand that we have to be outcome-oriented. What would be, how, we're operating myopically if we're, if we're not outcome-oriented. If we don't, I mean, peace, stability, the Gulf Coast could be one of the most undervalued opportunities if we get peace and stability throughout the region. If we solve Iran and you can finance in that market, the Israelis are brilliant from a technological standpoint. They've got a huge technological, um, uh, base there.

• 33:52Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  They're in AI, robotics, blockchain. That's where the UAE is today.

• 33:57Tucker Carlson?

  I know.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  That's where Saudi Arabia is today. That's where Qatar is today. Can you imagine all these countries working collaboratively together and creating that type of market? It could be much bigger than Europe. Europe is dysfunctional today. Imagine if they became functional and everybody's a business guy there. It could be amazing.

• 34:14Tucker Carlson?

  Completely agree. I think the core question is the map. You know, for thousands of years, it's been about the land. What does the map look like? Who controls what? And it's clearly had a destabilizing effect on some of the poorer, more populated countries in there.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  No doubt.

• 34:31Tucker Carlson?

  Specifically, Jordan and Egypt. A hundred million people in Egypt. Um, I think it might be helpful for everybody if there was just a clear picture of when this is all done, here's what we want the map to be, and then we can debate that. Do you have any sense of what the map would look like? From Israel's perspective.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  When you say the map, you mean what? What countries?

• 34:49Tucker Carlson?

  Well, what? Okay, so Israel's moved into Lebanon and Syria. They're not part of Israel, but they control them. So when all this is over, what does the Israeli government hope to control? And then if that were clear, then I think people would say, you know, they could either live with it or they can't, but you could, it would have a calming effect if people knew what the goal was.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  So I would say the goal begins with how do we deal with Iran? That's the biggie.

• 35:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  So the first is nuclear.

• 35:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  We cannot have that.

• 35:24Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  And we can talk about it in this session, how bold it was for the president to send that letter, because many would not, and that's an important thing.

• 35:33Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  But I'll leave it to the end. So it begins with Iranian nuclear, but most importantly, because Iranian nuclear, if they were to have a bomb, that would create North Korea in the GCC.

• 35:46Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  We cannot have that. North Korea, where they are, has outsized influence as a very small nation. We can never allow someone to have a nuclear weapon and have outsized influence. That doesn't work. So if we can solve for that, which I'm hopeful that we can, and we can talk about that, too.

• 36:05Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  The next thing we need to deal with Iran is that they're being a benefactor of these proxy armies.

• 36:12Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Because we've proven that that's not existential. We, they, for all intents and purposes, destroyed Hezbollah. So they're not really an existential risk. Hamas, same thing. The Houthis, we're having, you know, we're in a conflict with them today. I think we'll prove that they won't be an existential risk either. But if we can get these terrorist organizations eliminated as risks, not existential, but still risk, they're destabilizing risks, then we'll normalize everywhere. I think Lebanon could normalize with Israel. Literally. Normalize meaning a peace treaty with the two countries. That's really possible. Syria too. The indications are that Jelani is a different person than he once was.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  And people do change. You at 55 are completely different than when than how you were at 35.

• 37:05Tucker Carlson?

  That's for sure.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  And I say to myself, I'm a different person today at 68 years old. I'm I'm not the person I knew 30 years ago. So maybe Jelani in Syria is a different guy. They've driven Iran out. Imagine if Lebanon normalizes, Syria normalizes, and the Saudis sign a normalization treaty with Israel. Because there's a peace in Gaza, they must have that as a

• 37:31Tucker Carlson?

  Without question.

• 37:32Speaker 02

  As a prerequisite, that's a condition precedent to Saudi normalizing. But now you'd begin to have a GCC that all work together. I mean, that would be, it would be epic.

• 37:44Tucker Carlson?

  It would be, and I think it'd be good for the world. Um, for sure, it would be good for the world because Europe is dying, unfortunately. And so the United States needs allies abroad. And those are, those are all potential allies. Well, they are allies already. I couldn't agree with you more.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  And remember, Tucker, one more thing as a, as a condition in that region. You have young leadership. You have young leadership in MBS. You have relatively young leadership in the UAE. You have relatively young leadership, new leadership in Qatar. People who don't have the old sensibilities, people who want to have, want to do business.

• 38:25Tucker Carlson?

  Definitely.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Realizes, like Trump's way is people vote their pocketbook, right? So he wants to bring the bacon home to the United States. I think everybody's bought into that over in the GCC.

• 38:36Tucker Carlson?

  I agree. I mean, we're reverting to like human nature. People want stability and prosperity, for sure.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 38:41Tucker Carlson?

  But looming over all of these countries and their remarkable success, both economically and socially, they're just like great countries, in my opinion. Is this, is, you know, is the conflict in Gaza? And not just Gaza, but the idea that, wow, this could all blow up tomorrow because we don't know what the Israeli plan is. And even people who should know, don't seem to know. And do you think at some point they will articulate, like, here's our plan?

• 39:10Speaker 02

  I think so. First of all, I think that the president, President Trump's approach to Gaza has engendered a lot of lively discussion about different ways to deal with Gaza. We're now seeing an Egyptian plan. We're seeing the Saudis put together a white paper. So I think what we're going to do with Gaza is going to become much more apparent over the next six to 12 months. But Gaza is a flashpoint, and we've got to figure that out. And I agree with the president when he said the old plans don't work. The old plans, the last 40, 50 years of policy prescription in Gaza, meant war, rebuild, more war, more

• 39:54Speaker 02

  rebuilding. It's just, that's not something that made any, that made any sense, which is why the president began to say, maybe we need to think about it in a different way. Now, he got criticized for it, because that's what happens when you begin to go up against, you know, the old way of thinking, and you, you want to sort of introduce a new way of thinking.

• 40:13Tucker Carlson?

  Well, a new way of thinking is definitely needed. I think everybody realizes that. So we're not positive that cryptocurrency is the future of finance, but we do know that what we have now is broken and dangerous. Debt has never been higher in this country. Many of our so-called leaders are getting rich, serving you. It's a scam. So where does it go? Well, thankfully, there are options. Donald Trump has said repeatedly, he wants the United States to be the crypto capital of the world. He's already created the Crypto Advisory Council and recently signed an executive order to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve. This could give normal people an alternative to the government's failing system, and frankly, to the US dollar. I'm not saying put all your money outside the US dollar, but like, don't be crazy, don't be stupid here. You can see where it's going. So the

• 40:56Tucker Carlson?

  people at I Trust Capital can help you get in to this. It's complicated for people who aren't following it. They make it easy. They're based 100% in the United States of America. We looked into this. They service only American investors, and they operate the only platform that allows you to buy and sell crypto 24/7, both inside and outside of your tax-advantaged IRA. And it all happens on one easy-to-use dashboard. They also operate a closed-loop system, meaning that bad actors can't access your account and steal your money. So if you're considering adding Bitcoin if you want to, or some other cryptocurrency to your portfolio, I Trust can be trusted, and it's easy to understand.

• 41:35Tucker Carlson?

  Itrustcapital.com or click the link below.

• 41:38Speaker 00

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• 42:08Speaker 05

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• 42:12Speaker 06

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• 42:17Speaker 05

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• 42:37Tucker Carlson?

  One question, I don't know if it's answerable. I've just noticed it. I was talking to some Israeli government people yesterday. And so here you have, you know, October 7th, obviously traumatic to Israel. But you get the destruction of the leadership of Hamas. You expelled, you broke Hezbollah. Nasrallah is dead. No one ever, I was there for the 2006 war. No one ever thought that was going to happen. I didn't anyway. That happened. And Bashar Assad's gone from Syria. And there's a more kind of pro-Israel Jelani leader in Syria. So that seems like, from an Israeli perspective, those seem like massive wins that nobody thought were possible. And yet I detect in the people I know in Israel

• 43:21Tucker Carlson?

  a feeling like they feel more under threat, almost. Do you feel that?

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Well, I think, you know, I go to Israel quite often.

• 43:29Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  And I think there's a feeling of, with some, when does the violence end? At what point have we had enough of it? And I think that's the issue. And, you know, maybe the Israeli government needs to do... Look, I understand where they're coming from. Their central premise or thesis is that Hamas cannot be allowed

• 43:55Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  to live on. And I think we're talking about now demilitarizing. That's the big thing. I don't think anyone has a feeling that you can just sort of kill off Hamas. It's an idea, right? That's what Hamas is about. It's an ideological idea. But they can't be allowed to ever again ferment alongside of the Muslim Brotherhood, alongside of Islamic Jihad, these real groups that are operating in Gaza today. We just can't have an October 7th ever again. Now, October 7th was like 9/11. What 9/11 was in the United States, October 7th was the Israelis' version of...

• 44:38Tucker Carlson?

  But what's interesting is it happened at exactly the moment that it felt like things were on track to get better. I mean, the Abraham Accords have been signed. Saudi didn't sign.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:46Tucker Carlson?

  But, you know, there was some thought that they might, I think. I mean, it was. And so, like, the trajectory was like that. And all of a sudden, it just went in the opposite direction. And so then the question becomes, well, like, how do you ensure... How do you build a framework where there's enduring peace? And everyone can just go on with living their lives and building their businesses and all that?

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Well, we're gonna need a very good plan on Gaza. It's gonna begin with that. We're going to need stability on Gaza. Stability on Gaza could mean some people come back. It could mean some people don't come back. But I believe we have to get to a place where people can live a better life in Gaza, and we have to have a plan for that. That involves housing. But it also involves these people's aspirations. What is gonna happen for their children? Or their children, like our children?

• 45:41Speaker 02

  You want better for your kids. I want better for my kids. I want them to have, to go and get an education, to be self-sufficient. I don't think Gazan people have ever really feel that way about, we have, feel that way.

• 45:54Tucker Carlson?

  No.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  They don't, they don't, they don't have that opportunity for their families. We have to give them that opportunity, or find pathways for them to pursue those opportunities. That's what President Trump was talking about when he talked about a new way of thinking about Gaza. So, and we're gonna, we're gonna attempt to, you know, to ascertain different development plans for Gaza could involve the word two-state, could not involve the word two-state.

• 46:20Tucker Carlson?

  What about that? You don't hear that anymore. I mean, for my whole life, the stated aspiration was a Palestinian state, like an actual state. And then the debate was over what it would look like, and who controls utilities and airports and all that stuff, but lots of details to hammer out. But man, I haven't in the past five or six, 10 years, heard anybody in authority even mention it.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Because when you use those words,

• 46:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like a flashpoint, right? So, I use the word, I could be attacked for it. To me, it's just a word, right? What two-state to me means is, how do we have a better living prescription for Palestinians who are living in Gaza? Let's get, let's get to that place. But it's not just about housing. Maybe it's about AI coming there. Maybe it's about hyperscale data centers being seeded into that area, because we need to have that. And these people can now take advantage, and we can create jobs for them there. Maybe it's about blockchain and robotics coming there. Maybe it's about pharmaceutical manufacturing

• 47:25Speaker 02

  coming there. We need, we can't rebuild Gaza and it be based on a welfare system. We have to give people prospects, economic and financial prospects.

• 47:36Tucker Carlson?

  That's exactly right. You have to treat them like human beings, adults, you know?

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Where they have nothing.

• 47:41Tucker Carlson?

  Interesting. Um, so you think by saying two-state, I mean, that's a controversial thing to say now.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah.

• 47:51Tucker Carlson?

  But obviously you don't care. Um, so do you think the ceasefire that you on the president's behalf got the ceasefire, that was my read anyway, you went to Israel and said the president wants this and you got it. Um, but then it ended. What are the prospects now? What do you think happens next?

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Well, let me say this. We got it because they didn't want to defy him. He's a bad guy to defy.

• 48:16Tucker Carlson?

  The Israelis?

• 48:17Speaker 02

  No, President Trump.

• 48:18Tucker Carlson?

  No, but the Israelis did not want to defy Trump.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  But not just the Israelis. It was the Israelis. It was Hamas. It was Qatar wanting, you know, everybody had to know that we needed to pull in this, right? To pull in the same way. And we got every, there was a lot of miscommunication in that deal. Lots. We cleaned up the miscommunication. That was the game plan. And, uh, but it was the president's, his sort of overarching personality. He, and, and, and letting everybody know that that success was not an option. It had to be. It was a, it was a mandate. And that's, that's how we got to that place. I mean, it would take me a 10-hour interview to explain to you the ins and outs of how we actually got there, but.

• 49:04Tucker Carlson?

  I can't even imagine. But the story was that you just kind of rolled in and said, here's what we're doing. This is what the president wants.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Well, that's what he would do.

• 49:13Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  So that's what I did. Because that's what he would do. He would roll in and say, this is unacceptable. This is what we need to have happen. And that's effectively what I did. I, by the way, why not, why reinvent the wheel? Why not copy the master? He's the master.

• 49:30Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  So why not copy the strategy? It's worked effectively.

• 49:33Tucker Carlson?

  When I saw you do that on his behalf, my first thought was, why didn't the Biden people do this? I mean, they, they lost for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons they lost was the ongoing Gaza conflict. And that alienated a ton of their voters. I mean, that was a crisis for them. You know, Muslims in southeast Michigan voted for Trump in part because of that.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 49:54Tucker Carlson?

  And like a lot of them did. Never thought I'd live to see that. And Orthodox Jews voted for him too, which was like amazing. So why didn't, and they knew it was hurting them. Why didn't they do that?

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Because Joe Biden is not Donald Trump. It's as simple as that. So you think about it when his policymakers walked into the Oval Office, were they going to get that sort of direct mandate from him? And I was not there, so this is just a thesis. My bet is not. I walk into the Oval Office, Tucker, it's purposeful. That's what it feels like. We're there to get solutions, to agree on solutions, and then to decide on how tactically we're going to get to that place. That's what we do. We sit in the Oval Office. I could be sitting there with Susie

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Wiles, John Radcliffe, Mike Walz, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, I mean, exceptional human beings, Tulsi Gabbard, and yeah, we have some fun together because it's a very tight-knit team. He's got a great team this year, you know, that he's put into place this year, and hopefully they'll all be there for the entire term. But we're there to be solution-based, and it's a collaborative conversation with the President leading the conversation. He's interested in a lot of different opinions, which I think underscores what a great leader he is. He's not stuck on a view. He's prepared to consider different

• 51:30Speaker 02

  things. I think that makes him a great leader. I think people have that misconception about him, that, you know, he wakes up in the morning and, you know, this is the way it's going to be. No, he listens. He's intent on understanding different viewpoints.

• 51:43Tucker Carlson?

  That's for sure.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  He's prepared to be flexible in his thinking. I think that's what comes from a lifetime of experience, and I think it's a great example to all of us who work for him, because we go out with that way of thinking too, for the most part.

• 51:58Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think there's a hope for a cessation of violence in Gaza, like, soon?

• 52:06Speaker 02

  I do. I do. I mean, I'm not at liberty at this moment to talk about...

• 52:10Tucker Carlson?

  I bet you're not.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  But I think there have been signs. I think...

• 52:18Speaker 02

  The Israelis going in is in some respects unfortunate and in some respects falls into the had to be bucket. It kind of had to be. Hamas was not responding. They were not and their responses were unreasonable. And I, you know, look, I warned, I warned everybody at the Arab summit. We presented a proposal at the Arab summit 10 days ago or two weeks ago that was reasonable. That was a bridge to get to a peace deal, a bridge to get to demilitarization of Hamas and a discussion about an enduring truce.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  That's what I was presenting 10 days ago. And Hamas, their reaction was completely inappropriate. That's inappropriate is probably a light word, but I warned everybody that this was going to result in some sort of military action, not because I know, I did not know before the Israelis went in. I just sensed that that was going to be the only alternative based on Hamas's reaction. Now, that may not, we may be able to reverse things or we may use this, we may be able to use this to get Hamas to be a whole lot more reasonable because they have a lot of sway there and they impose that sway at the point of a gun, which is why we have to demilitarize them.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  We need real elections in Gaza. There has to be a whole new way of thinking. We need a real security force there to ensure to Israel that they're not going to have a problem with them long term. If Israel thinks they're going to have a problem in Gaza because Hamas is going to be there long term, this is never going to end. So the only way to deal with this conflict is to make sure that we satisfy everybody that we're not going to have, we're never going to have an October 7th ever again.

• 54:17Tucker Carlson?

  There is huge concern, as I know you know, from a lot of the neighboring countries, that the conflict in Gaza, which is of course streamed in everyone's iPhone, a lot of people may be killed in Gaza, a lot of kids, and that's inflaming the populations of some of these countries, again specifically Egypt and Jordan, to such a point that those governments could fall and cause like massive chaos, including in Europe. Is that a factor? Is that worry, is that a factor?

• 54:47Speaker 02

  Huge factor. It's a huge factor. I think King Abdullah in Jordan has done an amazing job, amazing job, of figuring out how to, how to deal with that instability. But, you know, in some respects, he's been lucky. I think Egypt is a flashpoint. All the good that happened in the Ayun election because Nasrallah and Sinwar being eliminated, that could all be reversed if we lose Egypt. What happened in Syria was a huge, was a huge data point for the region. I mean, getting him out, Assad, was a big deal, and no one

• 55:32Speaker 02

  ever expected it. But Egypt is, has a very restive, I want to say the stats in Egypt are huge unemployment among, you know, 1 to 25, like 45% unemployment. Your country can't exist like that. They're largely broke. They need a lot of help. If we have a, if we have a bad event in Egypt, it could be, it could take us back. And Saudi Arabia, also, large, you know, I mean, he's an amazing leader, MBS, but, but people are worried about his young population and how they're looking at this whole thing, which is why we've got to solve Gaza, because if we solve Gaza, which is the condition precedent to

• 56:16Speaker 02

  Saudi normalizing, then Saudi can normalize. And if they normalize...

• 56:22Speaker 02

  We're building on the framework of the Abraham Peace Accords, which of course is the president's creation. He wants the Abraham Peace Accords to be augmented, and we're in the process of doing it. We think we're going to be announcing several new countries who are joining.

• 56:41Tucker Carlson?

  So would it feels like, I don't know, I'm not there, but it feels like there's some significant unrest in Turkey.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:50Tucker Carlson?

  And this being driven by this, being driven by what's happening in Syria, which of course Turkey participated in, Erdogan is seen by some in his country as a tool of Israel, or what, I mean, if you had like real problems in Turkey, that would be like a global disaster, of course, because they've got this massive military. Is there a lot of concern about that?

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Well, I think there was, but I think the president had a great conversation with Erdogan a couple of days ago. Really transformational, I would describe it. I mean, it's, I think it's gone, I think it's been under-reported, to tell you the truth.

• 57:26Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  And I think it's under-reported because of the Houthis, because of what happened with Israel, and because of what's going on with Russia, Ukraine. It's not really, you know, a headline, but I think Tom Barak, who's the ambassador there, has done and will do an exceptional job. I think the president has a relationship with Erdogan, and that's going to be important. And I think that there's, there's, there's some good coming, there's some, just a lot of good, positive news coming out of Turkey right now as a result of that conversation. So I think you'll see that in the reporting in the coming days.

• 58:00Tucker Carlson?

  Good. So if you don't mind, I'd love to, so here's the timeline, as I understand it as an observer. So you go over, you deliver the president's message, there is a ceasefire in Gaza, which as you've said five times, is a prerequisite to a lot of other things. Like, it's hard to do anything with this open wound. So you do that, and the president says, wow, Steve Witkoff, my friend from the real estate business, like, you're really good at this, sends you to Russia.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:28Tucker Carlson?

  Is that fair?

• 58:31Speaker 02

  It's not so far from the truth.

• 58:33Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, right. So it's like, I'm watching this because I knew you before. And I was like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I'm cheering you, by the way.

• 58:42Tucker Carlson?

  Where are we there with that conflict? Would you say?

• 58:46Speaker 02

  I think we've made more progress. Again, by the way, look, I could, Tucker, it, I'm not just saying it. Every solution comes as a result of President Trump. And, and, and I don't get paid to say that. I say it because it is the absolute truth. Putin's got a huge respect for the president. And, you know, you, you saw what happened in the Oval Office with Zelensky and the president. Right? And I mean, this, like disrespecting him is, is, is not a, is not a healthy way to have, to have a good relationship.

• 59:21Tucker Carlson?

  The arrogance of small countries, it's like, get some perspective. I mean, come on, how, can you imagine acting like that?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  And, and they're dependent on us.

• 59:28Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  And, and, and we've been so good to them.

• 59:31Tucker Carlson?

  I know.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  And I think that's, but, but look, that's been corrected and that's a, that's a really good thing. It got corrected and hopefully we'll chalk it up to a misunderstanding and we'll get to the, and we'll get to a peace solution here. But I believe that we have made more progress in Russia in the last, in Russia, in this Russian, Ukraine conflict in the last eight weeks than anyone thought we could, we would ever make. I hear people describe this last conversation that the president had with, with President Putin as, you know, unsuccessful. It's preposterous, by the way. We talked throughout a two hour conversation about an ultimate ceasefire. And there are conditions that the Russians will need for an ultimate ceasefire because

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  an ultimate ceasefire is complicated. A, there's Kursk, where Ukrainian troops are surrounded, fact, and the Russians.

• 1:00:26Tucker Carlson?

  Kursk is within Russia.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  Kursk is within Russia. The Russians have taken it back.

• 1:00:30Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Speaker 02

  And they've got people trapped there and the president doesn't want to see everybody getting killed. That's a, that's a significant battlefield condition that has to be dealt with. But on top of that.

• 1:00:40Tucker Carlson?

  Is that acknowledged? Like, I don't know if the New York Times is writing that story right now.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  I, I, I think it gets lost a little bit. First of all, I think a lot of these newspaper stories are, they're agenda-driven. Yes. People start out saying, "I, I support the Ukrainians, so I'm gonna write the article in a certain way." Uh, look, we wanna, I, I wanna see Ukraine come out of this, okay? I wanna see Russia come out of it, okay? Yes. Again, we're out, outcome-oriented in this circumstance means that we need a deal that the Ukrainian people can live with. We have to sell it. There's going to be various senate approvals that may, that may, uh, that we may need here. And I mean, that's the political system we're in, that we're gonna want everybody to be, in some respect, satisfied.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  So we're gonna want the Russians to be satisfied in some respect. We're gonna want the Ukrainians to be satisfied in some respect. We're talking to the Europeans. When I say satisfied, feeling that we came out of this thing, okay, with a deal that everybody can live with. I think that we have moved, moved Russia in ways that no one thought was possible. So, in the last conversation, they agreed to a, an energy infrastructure ceasefire, uh, which means Russia is not going to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure, and Ukraine will not target Russia's energy infrastructure. They've never talked about that before. Here we are talking about that. They've never talked about reinstituting the Black Sea moratorium

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  on maritime, um, hits. Uh, Ukrainian firing, Ukraine firing on Russian ships, Russia firing on Ukrainian ships. Now, we're down to, and, and that's going to be implemented over the next week or so. There's some details that need to be discussed, but that was, that became a part of that conversation. That's big stuff, really big stuff. What do, what's the ultimate goal? The ultimate goal is a 30-day ceasefire, during which time we discuss a permanent ceasefire. We're not far away from that, but a 30-day ceasefire is something where we have to figure out what all the battlefield conditions are, which is why I began with Kursk.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  But Kursk is just the beginning of it, because there's this 2,000-kilometer, that's 1,200 miles, this 2,000-kilometer border between Ukraine and Russia, where the Russian and Ukrainian troops are involved in, I don't know, 50, 60, 70, maybe 80, firefights throughout this border with all kinds of different conditions. Putin asked me in the meeting, "What should I do in a particular area where we have people surrounded and they don't want to give up? Do I kill them? How do I get them to give up? I'm happy not to kill everybody. I'm happy to get people to wave the white flag if I can get them to wave the white flag."

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  And that one situation, Steve, this is Putin talking to me, is just one example of 70, 80, 90 different situations out there along this border, each one having different battlefield conditions, each one needing a separate conversation. That's what has to happen for a ceasefire, and yet we're talking about it. That's a big, big deal. Our technical teams are going to be meeting in Jeddah beginning Monday. That's a big deal. There's all kinds of good, positive talk coming out of Russia about their willingness to consider all of these different things. And Zelensky had a wonderful conversation with the president after President Putin's

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  conversation the next day, and I think that indicates that they've got some degree of flexibility in the way that they've been thinking about finishing up this conflict. So I am, not to sound like a forever optimist, but I am very, very optimistic that we're going to be able to bring the two sides together. We have narrowed the issues so considerably, so I'm optimistic.

• 1:04:43Tucker Carlson?

  Time for another true-life ALP story. I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday, honestly, true story, who said his girlfriend had just broken up with him over ALP. He wouldn't stop. And I thought to myself, "That's kind of sad." And he said, "No, it's not sad. Imagine if I'd married her."

• 1:04:59Tucker Carlson?

  Now I know, I was saved. Then the next day, this same friend is driving at twice the speed limit through a major American city, pulled over by a cop in a speed trap. Cop takes his license registration, goes back to patrol car, runs him, comes back, looks in the window and sees a tin of ALP on the dashboard, pauses, stunned, says to my friend, "You use ALP?" "Yeah, I do," says my friend. "So do I," says the cop, "we all do." He looks at my friend thoughtfully and goes, "Drive safely, sir," and hands back his license and registration. No ticket! So in two days, he's saved from a tragic marriage to a girl who doesn't like ALP and a speeding ticket. All true. It's more than a nicotine addiction. In a nation of 350 million, people are guessing there are about 350 million ALP stories. Email us yours.

• 1:05:44Tucker Carlson?

  We want to know and read it on the air. Email [email protected]. [email protected]. Give us your ALP story.

• 1:05:58Speaker 07

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• 1:06:22Tucker Carlson?

  So Russia, Putin, who's been in power 25 years, has been consistent for the whole duration of his presidency in one demand, which is that NATO stop encroaching on his borders and specifically that Ukraine, which is the largest country that borders Russia, not be in NATO. And that is my understanding, my certainty, is that that still remains the central demand, period. No, Ukraine and NATO can't have peace without that. In the same way that Israel doesn't want Hamas in its border. They don't want that.

• 1:06:54Tucker Carlson?

  I, what, can, can the US deliver that?

• 1:06:58Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions, Donbass, Crimea, you know, the names, Lugansk, and there's, there's two others. They're Russian-speaking.

• 1:07:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 1:07:17Speaker 02

  There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.

• 1:07:24Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  I think that's the key issue in the conflict. So, that's the first thing. When that gets settled, and we're having very, very positive conversations.

• 1:07:34Tucker Carlson?

  And Russia controls that. In fact, some of those territories are now, from the Russian perspective, part of Russia.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  Correct. That's correct. But this has always been the issue.

• 1:07:42Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  And, and it's, it's sort of, no one wants to talk about it. That's the, that's the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is, there are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory. The Russians are de facto in control of these territories.

• 1:08:00Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  The, the question is, will they be, will, will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Will it end up, can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This, this, this is, this is the central issue in the conflict. Absolutely that. On NATO, I think that Zelensky, and he's got a right-hand guy, Yermak, I think that they've largely conceded that they are not going to be a member of NATO. There's been all kinds of talk about whether they could still have quote-unquote, what, what is called Article V protection.

• 1:08:38Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  Which gives, every NATO country has this, this Article V protection. Whether Ukraine could have that in some respect from the United States or European nations without being a member of NATO, and I think that's open for discussion. But I think it's, it's accepted that Ukraine, if there's going, and Russia, if there's going to be a peace deal, Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO. I think that's largely accepted.

• 1:09:04Tucker Carlson?

  So, you spent, sort of, an amazing story that got downplayed in the media, but you go to Moscow and then you wind up meeting directly with Putin for a long time.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  Long time.

• 1:09:19Tucker Carlson?

  Kind of remarkable, I think, considering you're the president's envoy, but you're not.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  I'm not the president.

• 1:09:25Tucker Carlson?

  You're not the president.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:09:27Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly right. So the Russians are very formal, as you know, in every regard, they're very formal. And so you can imagine a scenario where it's like, well, it's not the president, so our president's not going to meet with him. But he did meet with you.

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Tucker Carlson?

  For a long time. What did you think of him?

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  I liked him.

• 1:09:42Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  I thought he was straight up with me. Of course, by the way, I've said that. And you can imagine, by the way, I say that, I get pilloried. Oh, my gosh, you're actually saying that you like the guy.

• 1:09:53Tucker Carlson?

  Every American president until Biden has said that. Every single one.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Tucker Carlson?

  Bill Clinton said that, George W. Bush said that, Barack Obama said that, every president around the world I've ever spoken to is like, they may disagree with what Russia's doing, whatever, but they're like, yeah, Putin's a straightforward guy.

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  First of all, I thought it was gracious of him to, to accept me.

• 1:10:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  To, to see me. Why would I interpret it any other way? But that was gracious. Now, I'm an emissary of the president.

• 1:10:19Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  And the president had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin in his first term. So I think Vladimir Putin knew that it was going to be hard for the president at this time to come over to Russia. I think they're going to meet in the coming few, in, in the coming months. But I think it was enormously gracious for him to accept me, and I, I need to, I need to acknowledge that. That, that's.

• 1:10:41Tucker Carlson?

  It takes balls to say that.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  I know, but by the way, that's the same way that I said that, that Sheikh Mohammed is a good guy and, and, you know, because that's not.

• 1:10:51Tucker Carlson?

  Well, he is a good guy.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, if you don't, you know, in our country, if you don't act like a lemming and just walk off the cliff like everybody else, then, you know, you get attacked. It's, by the way, how would we settle a conflict with a guy, with, with someone who is the head of a major nuclear power?

• 1:11:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Unless we establish trust and, and, and good feelings with one another. I don't know how you would do such a thing. And, and President Putin said to me in the first meeting I had, he said, Steve, do you know that I didn't talk to Joe Biden for three and a half years?

• 1:11:27Tucker Carlson?

  It's craziness.

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  How would you resolve that conflict? Tucker, can you imagine me and you having a conflict for, I don't know what it was. You live in this house, I live in that house. Okay, I think you've encroached on my land and we never have a conversation about it? I mean, who? How do you resolve things?

• 1:11:43Tucker Carlson?

  That's why I went over there last year because I thought we're moving toward a nuclear war. And I just feel like if no one's talking to Putin, like someone should at least broadcast his views to the world because we could have a war otherwise. That was my thinking anyway.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  When I came back after, before the first meeting with President Putin, when President Trump said to me, go over and have that conversation. I think we're going to have a good, healthy conversation. Before that conversation, there was no talk about a Black Sea moratorium. There was no conversation about an energy infrastructure moratorium on hits, you know, between the two countries. We were not talking about prisoner exchanges and all kinds of other stuff. After one meeting, and I am saying to you, not because of me, because this was President Trump sending a signal to President Putin that he wanted to resume his relationship together and that they were going to be two great leaders figuring out this conflict. That was the message.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  That was me coming there. That was my message to President Putin. I was directed by President Trump to deliver that message, that we were here to begin a real discussion, a productive discussion about how to end this conflict. And President Putin, to his credit, sent all kinds of signals back to the President that this is the path that he wanted to be on, including statements that he made. In the second visit that I had, it got personal. President Putin had commissioned a beautiful portrait of President Trump from the leading Russian artist and actually gave it to me and asked me to take it home to President Trump, which I brought home and delivered to him.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  It's been reported in the paper, but it was such a gracious moment. And told me a story, Tucker, about how when the President was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the President, not because he was the President of the United, he could become the President of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend. It was, I mean, can you imagine sitting there and listening to these kind of conversations? And I came home and delivered that message to our president and delivered the painting. And he was, he was clearly touched by it. So this is the kind of connection that we've been able to reestablish.

• 1:14:07Tucker Carlson?

  Amen.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Through, by the way, a simple word called communication, which many people would, would say, you know, I shouldn't have had because Putin is a bad guy. I don't regard Putin as a bad guy. That is a complicated situation, that war and all the ingredients that led up to it. You know, it's never just one person, right? So we're gonna, I think we're gonna figure it out.

• 1:14:32Tucker Carlson?

  It's like a marriage. I mean, you know, you can blame the other person all you want, but you're implicated in it too. So that's just a fact, that's just, it's human nature. So it does raise the question, everything you've said, I don't think any fair person, everything you've just said about Russia, Ukraine, any fair person would acknowledge, yeah, that's true. But why, there has to be some reason that none of this has been acknowledged for three and a half years. Like, why the effort to prevent Americans from hearing the other side, from understanding the conflict in its totality, not just parts of it, but the whole thing? Like, why, why the censorship designed to keep us from knowing what's actually happening?

• 1:15:11Speaker 02

  Because that's what we've been enduring.

• 1:15:13Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  Censorship.

• 1:15:15Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  We've been enduring a media that, you know, they all march together. I mean, I told you the story. I, I give interviews about President Trump and I, guess what? All the nice things I have to say about him because I believe in that, that sort of gets excised out of the, you know, out of my interviews. Not with you, I know, but because you're a fan too. I'm a great fan of his, you know, so you hear it. But guess what? Trump derangement syndrome still exists out there today. I don't, you know, he said it at the State of the Union. If I came here, and he was looking at the Democrats, if I came here, I had the cure for cancer and I could, and I had a magic pill that would cure all conflicts all over the world, nobody would cheer for me on your side.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  And it really, it really is true, by the way. Look, look at how all the different things he's involved in now. I mean, we are out there curing and solving conflicts all over the world. It's unbelievable and no one's ever seen this sort of progress before and. The Russians want to engage with us once again because we have a real decision maker. Iran is now responding to the letter. Hopefully, we can solve that. Gaza, Turkey, it's, we've got real leadership. And the world needed leadership, and we were bereft of that leadership. We didn't have it. And the Trump administration is, um, is moving forward with a strong leadership. It's a big deal.

• 1:16:45Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think, Zelensky, the question of Zelensky? I think there's, there are good things to say about Zelensky. I think he's got a kind of bravery which I admire. I think the Ukrainian military is legit brave, doomed, because they're just fighting a much bigger country. You know, he's not going to win. But I think they've behaved with, with, you know, valiance. But the Russian position is he's not elected, and so we can't sign any kind of treaty with him. Do you think there will be elections in Ukraine?

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17:18Tucker Carlson?

  You do?

• 1:17:19Speaker 02

  There will be. Yeah, they've agreed to it. There will be elections in Ukraine. And I agree with you. I think Zelensky is trying his best. I think he's in a very, very difficult position, but he's up against a nuclear nation.

• 1:17:34Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:17:35Speaker 02

  And he's also up against a nation that has four times the population that he has. And so he's got to know that they, that he's going to get ground down. Now is the best time for him to get a deal done. President Trump can deliver him the best possible deal he's ever going to get.

• 1:17:50Tucker Carlson?

  Who's giving him like the, I mean, you know, I blame Zelensky, the man, for his behavior in Washington a few weeks ago. But I also blame whoever briefed him before he went into the Oval with the President and Vice President. Whoever told him to act that way, and it's clear people did, whether it was Samantha Power, whoever it was. Those people, I mean, that was criminally bad advice. Do you think he's speaking to realistic, clear-eyed people who can, you know, who have the welfare of Ukraine in mind?

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  So without getting into names.

• 1:18:23Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  I've talked to multiple European leaders. And I've said to them, the more you encourage him not to be proactive at the peace table, the more you suggest that aid will continue without any conditions attached to it. No, no one says that we shouldn't aid Ukraine today or in the and in the reconstruction later on, but it's got to come with certain conditions. If we're going to give a lot of money to Ukraine, we want to hear the business plan of how this is going to get resolved because it's an unsustainable business plan if they don't have a plan for how it gets resolved.

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  We just can't forever give money for because they'll get ground down. And ultimately, and this is, you know, me and we've discussed this in the administration. Ultimately, what you can have here is risk of any kind of nuclear action, even the tactical nuclear action. I mean, even if it, even if it's not a big bomb explosion.

• 1:19:27Tucker Carlson?

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  Just a tactical nuke would take stock markets down all over the world.

• 1:19:31Tucker Carlson?

  They haven't been used in 80 years. They've been used exactly twice in human history.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Can't allow it to happen.

• 1:19:35Tucker Carlson?

  It's not a precedent you want at all.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  And, and, and while I think we have to get a fair deal for Ukraine, we cannot allow that country to drag us into World War III. And that's not what I'm, that's not my policy. That's President Trump's policy.

• 1:19:51Tucker Carlson?

  Then what is, if I can just say, like, what the hell is going on with European like Kier Starmer saying we're going to send British troops? Their entire military is smaller than the US Marine Corps. The country is dying economically. All those countries are dying economically. Like, what are they thinking? What is that? Is that a posture? Is it a pose?

• 1:20:08Speaker 02

  Well, I think, I think it's a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic. I think there's this. You know, this sort of notion of we've all got to be like Winston Churchill. The Russians are going to march across Europe. I think that's preposterous, by the way. We have something called NATO that we did not have in in World War II.

• 1:20:29Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think the Russians want to march across Europe?

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  A hundred percent not.

• 1:20:32Tucker Carlson?

  Right. Why would they want that? I wouldn't want those countries. Like, why would they?

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  First of all, why would they want to absorb Ukraine? For what purpose?

• 1:20:40Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  They don't need to absorb Ukraine. That would be that would be like occupying Gaza. Why do the Israelis really want to occupy Gaza for the rest of their lives? They don't. They want stability there. They don't. They don't want to deal with that. But the Russians also have what they want. They've gotten they've reclaimed these five regions. They have Crimea and they've gotten what they want. So why do they need more? He said Putin is a very smart guy. You know, someone said to me that someone I was talking to someone in the administration. They said, well, you got to watch it because he's an ex KGB guy. So I said, OK, what's what's the inference? Well, he's an ex KGB guy. He could be looking to manipulate you.

• 1:21:20Tucker Carlson?

  Says the ex CIA guy to you. Sorry.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  This was not an ex CIA guy.

• 1:21:24Tucker Carlson?

  Well, they all are.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  But effectively, and I said, look, here's how I see it. In the old days, the only people who went into the KGB were the smartest people in the nation. That's who went into the KGB. He's a super smart guy. OK? You don't want to give him the credit for it. That's OK. I give him the credit for it.

• 1:21:42Tucker Carlson?

  They must hate you for saying stuff like that.

• 1:21:45Speaker 02

  But but he is.

• 1:21:46Tucker Carlson?

  I know. I'm very aware.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  So should we ignore it? I mean, and this is what I talk about with level setting the facts like like are we now? Like Trump was elected. We're now allowed to speak freely. We were not, you know, we were we were muzzled, Tucker. No one was allowed to say what they really wanted to say.

• 1:22:03Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I'm very aware.

• 1:22:05Speaker 02

  I mean, we just came out of a of a world where a judge who was not even an elected judge could tell a man that he was going to spend 10 years in prison, you know, and he had 80 million votes in this country. Guess what? That's gone. OK, so, you know, listen, we can breathe again.

• 1:22:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, that's amazing. Um, so there is OK, so there's the negotiation that's going on between, you know, in Eastern Europe, between Russia and Ukraine, which you're obviously at the center of. But there's also an informal negotiation going on back in Washington where you have a lot of people with. You know, economic interests in this war. I mean, let's just be honest. Certainly ideological interests and all of Washington has been mobilized to fight Russia. We are at war with Russia through our proxy Ukraine. And President Trump shows up and is like, ah, you know, applies the brakes, like it stands on the brakes. But is that going to get resolved?

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:23:03Tucker Carlson?

  You do?

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:23:05Tucker Carlson?

  It's one thing to deal with the Russians, but to deal with the permanent bureaucracy, that's really tough.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  But who doesn't want to have a world where Russia and the United States are doing collaboratively good things together?

• 1:23:17Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Thinking about how to integrate their energy policies in the Arctic.

• 1:23:22Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  Share sea lanes, maybe, maybe send LNG gas into Europe together. Maybe collaborate on AI together if we can get past, you know, technology migration. Who doesn't want to see a world like that? What about being able, the presidents being able to talk to one another about Iran? Where Russia has some, some degree of influence. I mean, who doesn't want to see a world like that? To me, it's so logical.

• 1:23:51Tucker Carlson?

  I passionately want to see a world like that, not for any weird agenda other than that sounds great. Like, why wouldn't you want that?

• 1:23:57Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:23:57Tucker Carlson?

  But nobody wants that in Washington.

• 1:23:59Speaker 02

  Well, I think this is the thing. People get wedded, you know, to a prescription because they've, that's, that was what they endorsed before and it's hard for them to back off of it.

• 1:24:08Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, it is.

• 1:24:08Speaker 02

  Now.

• 1:24:09Tucker Carlson?

  But you seem confident that the entire permanent establishment in DC, and they're not all stupid, by the way, some of them are very smart and highly motivated, they can be brought around to that view.

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  Well, look at the progress that we've made in Russia. We've made tremendous progress. It's, it's nothing short of enormous. How in the world is that Putin looking to manipulate people like me or other people who may be negotiating with him? That's Putin actually reaching across the table and saying to President Trump, I'm prepared to do these things. And now the president is accepting that and he's saying, let me tell you what I'm prepared to do. And he's prepared to bring Zelensky into the conversation. And he talks to Macron, and he talks to Starmer, and he talks to the Norwegians and the Finnish. I think none of these people have been talking together before. Can you imagine a war that's been going on for three and a half years? No one was talking? This is what went on.

• 1:25:06Tucker Carlson?

  It's insanity.

• 1:25:07Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:25:07Tucker Carlson?

  And by the way, it was inexorably marching toward nuclear conflict.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  Had to be.

• 1:25:13Tucker Carlson?

  Had to be. That's exactly right.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  Or the Russians would have just ground them down conventionally. Either way is a bad outcome for Ukraine. That makes no sense either. The Russians outstripped them four to one in population. They either would have ground them down over time, or, God forbid, you could have had some kind of tactical nuclear issue.

• 1:25:33Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  Which would have been a disaster for the world. Because as you say, we haven't had one for 80 years.

• 1:25:40Tucker Carlson?

  It's so, I can't tell you, I'm not sucking up, I mean this. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see someone, hear someone tell the truth, obvious truths. And I do think it makes a huge difference to say the truth out loud.

• 1:25:52Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's important to say the truth out loud. That's what we weren't allowed to say.

• 1:25:58Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  When I went to court with the president, I went to his criminal trial quite often. I would walk out of the criminal trial, you would see all the reporters from MSNBC, CNN, sort of like glaring at me, Tucker. Almost as if to say, "Why would you come here?" I mean, can you just imagine? We were living in a society of, "You're innocent until proven guilty." But the president had been convicted already. Well, you know what? That wasn't good enough for me. I spoke about the president, how I felt about him, my friendship with him, how I thought that trial was unfair. I testified for him in the AG trial. I led an amicus curi brief.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  Nobody was doing it in those days. Everybody was afraid. I just think we need to level set the facts and understand what the true conditions are out there. The, the true conditions in Russia is that it's complicated and Ukraine. It's a complicated conflict. They've been at each other since World War II. There's a sensibility in Russia that Ukraine is a false country.

• 1:27:06Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:27:07Speaker 02

  That they just patched together in this sort of mosaic, these regions and that what that's what, uh, that's, that's the root cause, in my opinion, of this war. That Russia regards those five regions as rightfully theirs since World War II. And that's something that nobody wants to talk about. Well, I say it out loud. How are we going to solve this thing unless we solve the, the, the central issue that

• 1:27:30Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  underpins the conflict?

• 1:27:32Tucker Carlson?

  That Khrushchev kind of just made those part of Ukraine.

• 1:27:34Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:27:35Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. I think Khrushchev was Ukrainian. Um, amazing. So I just have to ask you is just, so you were, uh, you were the, with the then candidate Trump at the trials, then you were on the road with him. I saw you, uh, you're traveling with him everywhere during the campaign and you're a very old friend of his and he trusts and he also likes you. So at that point, you can kind of have any job you want. That's the way it works, but you didn't want any job.

• 1:28:04Speaker 02

  Well, it would be arrogant for me to say that I could have any job I wanted.

• 1:28:09Tucker Carlson?

  Well, but okay, but you're well, you're better positioned than anyone else I'm aware of to get a job with the administration, but you weren't there scrambling to get one.

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  Well, I wanted if I, you know, the president, there's a lot of people who did good things for him during the campaign.

• 1:28:24Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:25Speaker 02

  But that doesn't necessarily mean that doing those good things transfers over to you being able to be a part of an administration and govern. So I never wanted to presume that I could have any job that I wanted. I, I, I think that would almost be disrespectful to my friendship.

• 1:28:40Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, that's my outside assessment.

• 1:28:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. No, no, I, I, listen, I know you're a very good friend of the president's too. So you understand.

• 1:28:47Tucker Carlson?

  You didn't seem anxious to be secretary of whatever. I guess that's my point.

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  No, I didn't want to do those jobs, actually. I wanted to do something that felt worthy to me, that felt like I was going to. Helped either save lives, solve a crisis. I talked to Jared at great length, you know, about what it was like for him to work in the Mideast. I just began to feel that that would be something very worthy for me to do. Now, I underestimated the complications in the job, that's for sure. I think I was a little bit quixotic in the way that I thought about it. Like, I'm gonna roll in there on a white horse, and no, it was anything but that, you know. But I'm so glad he gave me this opportunity. I think I tell him, I think

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  he's sort of like, he gets embarrassed when I tell him this, Tucker. I say to him all the time, "You blessed me when you gave me this job." He did. I think he blessed me. I get to feel like my life has consequence now. It's, I get to do things on behalf of other people, something bigger than just doing something on behalf of myself. So, it's really a big deal.

• 1:29:57Tucker Carlson?

  Not many people get that chance over 60. That's pretty unusual.

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  I don't know if many people get that chance at all.

• 1:30:02Tucker Carlson?

  No, you're right.

• 1:30:04Speaker 02

  And I'm so lucky, you know. So, before the end of my life, to be able to do this, I'm so grateful to him.

• 1:30:10Tucker Carlson?

  So, one last question, area, which is Iran, which unfortunately I sidetracked around it. But you said, when I asked, "What is the government of Israel's plan for the region? What are the borders it hopes to solidify at some point? Like, what are the boundaries of the country, etc., etc.? You said your first response was, "It's, we need to solve for Iran." Like, that's, that's the issue that overhangs everything. There's enormous pressure on the US, on the Trump administration, from within and from outside, to have a military conflict with Iran. Like, I know that. The president doesn't seem, that's

• 1:30:50Tucker Carlson?

  not his first, this is my read, if he, if he wanted that, we'd already have it. He seems to want a diplomatic solution first. He wants to try that first.

• 1:30:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:00Tucker Carlson?

  That's fair?

• 1:31:01Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 1:31:02Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think that that's achievable?

• 1:31:06Speaker 02

  Yes. I do. I do. Look, he sent a letter to the Iranians. Usually, it would be the Iranians sending a letter to him. Remember, the Iranians' air defenses have been eviscerated in that attack from Israel. They're open to attack today.

• 1:31:25Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Uh, they're a small country compared to ours. Uh, we, we could, I think we would, if we used overwhelming force, it would be very, very bad for them. And so you would, and this is not a threat, I'm not threatening, that's, that, so if the Iranians ever listen to this broadcast, this is not me issuing a threat, it's the president who has that authority, he would issue.

• 1:31:47Tucker Carlson?

  But you're, you're describing the reality as you understand it.

• 1:31:50Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:31:50Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  So, under those circumstances, it would be natural for the Iranians to reach out to the president to say, "I want to diplomatically solve this." Instead, it's him doing that. Now, I can tell you that he's not reaching out because he's weak, because he is not a weak man. He is a strong man, maybe one of the strongest men I've ever met in my life, maybe the strongest man I've ever met in my life, actually, I think.

• 1:32:14Tucker Carlson?

  I think at that point.

• 1:32:15Speaker 02

  I think he is that person.

• 1:32:16Tucker Carlson?

  It, that, whatever you think of Donald Trump, even Trump haters would have to acknowledge that's kind of indisputable at this point.

• 1:32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's, he is a strong man.

• 1:32:23Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:32:24Speaker 02

  And I, and I'm going to say this, the strongest man I've ever met. So with that all said, he wrote that letter. And why did he write that letter?

• 1:32:32Tucker Carlson?

  For people who aren't aware of that, can you just roughly describe what it said?

• 1:32:36Speaker 02

  It roughly said, "I'm a president of peace. That's what I want. There's no reason for us to do this militarily. We should talk. We should get, we should clear up the misconceptions. We should create a verification program so that nobody worries about weaponization of your nuclear material. And I'd like to get us to that place because the alternative is not a very good alternative. It's, that's a rough encapsulation.

• 1:33:07Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:33:07Speaker 02

  Of what was said, roughly. Um, and the president has said that. He's, he's, he's said that, so I'm not telling you anything's top secret or anything of that sort. The Iranians have reached back out. And I'm not at liberty to talk about the specifics, but clearly through, you know, back channels, through multiple countries and multiple conduits, they've reached back out. I think that it has a real possibility of being solved diplomatically, not because I've talked to anybody in Iran, but just because I think logically, it makes sense that it ought to be solved diplomatically. It should be. I think the president has acknowledged that Iran, that he's open to an opportunity to

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  clean it all up with Iran, with a comeback to the world and be a great nation once again, and not have to be sanctioned, and being able to grow their economy. Their economy, I mean, these are very smart people. Their economy was once a wonderful economy. They're being strangled and suffocated today. There's no need for that to happen. They can join the League of Nations, and we can have a better relationship and grow that relationship, and that's what he's presenting. That's the alternative he's presenting. I think he wants to deal with Iran with respect. He wants to build trust with them, if it's possible, and that's his directive to his

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  administration. And hopefully, that will be met positively by the Iranians. I'm certainly hopeful for it. I think anything can be solved with dialogue, by clearing up misconception and miscommunication and disconnects between people. I believe that, by the way. And yet, and the president is a president who doesn't want to go to war, and he'll use military action to stop a war. That's when he actually wants to use military action. In this particular case, hopefully, it won't be necessary. Hopefully, we can do it at the negotiating table. I hope for our sake, you wind up in Tehran. I hope I do too, or someone else from the administration.

• 1:35:16Speaker 02

  This is a little bit more complicated, this one, because it's nuclear and we're going to need some real technical, you know, it's just a little bit more complicated. But I think it'll begin with, it'll begin with the president, with someone from the president's team. It could be me, it could be me and other people, it could not be me and somebody else. But I am going to welcome that opportunity if I'm involved. Amazing. Steve Witkoff, Godspeed. Thank you. Thank you, Tucker. Thanks for having me.

• 1:35:53Tucker Carlson?

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