Tucker Answers the Most Controversial Questions of 2026

Will Republicans get crushed next week? Could there be a third party president in 2028? Is James Talarico the creepiest man alive? We answer these and other questions in this midterm edition of Ask Tucker. (00:00) Intro (00:32) Should We Give the Republicans One Last Chance? (09:38) Who Are the Three Best and Three Worst Politicians? (13:48) How Does the Donor Class Control Politicians? (25:03) Is Socialism Gaining Traction? To submit your question for the next edition of AskTucker, join us at tuckercarlson.com/join Paid partnerships with: Wisewell: Turn your tap into a plentiful source of safe, great-tasting water. Always fresh, always plastic free. Special TCN listener deals and promos at https://wisewell.com/tucker Paleovalley: Use code TUCKER & get 20% off your first order at https://www.paleovalley.com/tucker Brooklyn Bedding: Get 30% off sitewide with promo code TUCKER at https://brooklynbedding.comTCNetwork: Watch ‘Shadow Figures’ on TCN on November 5: https://tuckercarlson.com/shadowfigures 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

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:30Tucker Carlson?

  One of the problems with running a podcast is it's all transmit and no receive. You yap, yap, yap, yap, yap into the microphone, but you never hear what the people listening think about what you're saying. So we have a segment called Ask Tucker in which our members, people who have joined TCN, which is our movement slash network, get to ask questions and we answer them. And some of the questions are really smart and make you think maybe we should listen more and talk less. In any case, Ask Tucker is at TuckerCarlson.com. It's for members. Join us.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Jeremy G. from Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania. Tucker, like you, I'm fed up with the Republicans. I'm reluctant to support them, but I also don't want to give the DSA a win. I may regret it, but I'm going to give the Republicans one last chance. What do you think?

• 1:15Tucker Carlson?

  I get it. I don't, I mean, there's so many things about the DSA that offend me, the anti-white stuff especially. But the whole revolutionary posture, I like this country. I grew up here. I've lived here my entire life and I don't want to tear it down. I want to save it. So, and I also don't like the kind of aesthetics of DSA, like unhappy, weird, gender-transitioning, rich kids. Like, no thanks. On the other hand, you have to keep two things in mind. One, there are certain things you can't support and getting pushed by Israel into a war with Iran that destroys the American empire is high on that list. So, no, I'm not rewarding that. Second, is the DSA actually an alternative to what we have, to the uniparty? Where are they on the Iran war? They're not saying much. Where are they on the tax code? They're not saying much. Where are they on improving the life

• 2:00Tucker Carlson?

  of the average person? Not people who are here illegally, but the average American whose ancestors fought in the Civil War. I don't think they have anything to say about that. So you have to sort of wonder, like, is the DSA real, actually? Or is it just another fake alternative that we're being fed in order to disguise the truth of the system, which is it, you know, it's a tiny percentage of the population getting its way to our detriment? So I guess what I'm saying is, yes, the DSA is different from the Republican Party, for sure. But are they, how different are they on the core issues? I don't know. You tell me.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Jean R. from Houston, Texas. Tucker, any thoughts on that freak, James Talarico, running for Senate in my home state of Texas? The guy gives me the creeps.

• 2:46Tucker Carlson?

  Jean, go with your gut. I tell my kids this all the time. If someone smells creepy, he is. If you get like a weird sex vibe off someone, it's real. If you think someone is lying to you, you're right. That guy gives some of the creepiest vibes of any person in the public sphere. I don't care what you think of Ken Paxton. I don't care what you think of the Republican Party. James Talarico, who's using Christianity? That is what offends me about James Talarico, is the blasphemy. Running around telling everyone he's a Christian when he's not, when he has full contempt for biblical Christianity and hates people who adhere to it and whose program is totally anti-Christian. Running around lecturing the rest of us, but I'm a Christian. There's something infuriating about that. I will take a lecture from an atheist.

• 3:31Tucker Carlson?

  We just disagree. I think you're tragically wrong, but there's a kind of honor and the honesty about it. There is no honor at all about taking someone else's religion and using it as a cloak for subverting that same religion. So there's really no one more repulsive to me in the public sphere than James Talarico. And like Eugene, a lot of that revulsion begins on a visceral level. I look at that guy and I'm like, uh, no. You're not having dinner at my house, weirdo.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Jeff from Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. What are the chances of forming a third party called the America Party that truly represents the majority of our country? The current political machine would fight it every step of the way, but I think we live in a unique time where a third party would be taken seriously.

• 4:17Tucker Carlson?

  Jeff, I meditate on this every single day. This is like the substance of my time in the sauna, every day thinking about this exact question. Clearly, the way you framed it is the truth. Our current system doesn't represent the majority. Most people are opposed to the priorities of the Republican and Democratic Parties. It's that simple. And the promise of democracy is minority rights will be protected, of course, according to the Constitution, but the majority will get its way because it owns the country. And that hasn't happened in decades. And so we need an alternative that does exactly that. What's the majority view on things? I don't know. It's not hard to find out. We have the Gallup poll every single day. I'm not saying we should govern by polling. I'm merely saying if what the government does over decades bears no resemblance to what the majority wants, it's not a democracy.

• 5:01Tucker Carlson?

  And I would like democracy because I, I grew up believing that we had one and that was my birthright. So, yeah, there will be a third party. Will it be the next cycle? I don't know. You know, politics is not, is not my area, believe it or not, even though I've talked about it for my entire life. I don't have a gut-level understanding of it, partly because I find it disgusting. It's utterly transactional. It's not rooted in any belief at all. It's just a way of grabbing power peacefully. They used to say if politics was a way to settle disputes peacefully, there's something peaceful about our politics. People die because of our politics, a lot, actually. So I'm not sure any of this is what I thought it was, but I do know that over time, you can't have peace in your country unless its leaders pay attention

• 5:46Tucker Carlson?

  to the desires of the majority. You're just not going to have peace. So you're, at that point, you can like suppress them and surveil them with flock cameras, or you can prepare to be overthrown. Like, that's where we're moving, right? So, yes, I am praying for a third party and I think we'll get one.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Timothy F. from Charleston, South Carolina, asks, if the Democrats win next month, does it have any effect on the wars in Ukraine and Iran?

• 6:10Tucker Carlson?

  That is a great question. And I'm not sure is the answer. So the Democratic leadership is fully on board with the war against Russia. We are waging a war against Russia. The Trump administration, like the Biden administration, is at war with Russia, the largest nuclear arms power in the world. So that's crazy and we've been sort of lulled into not noticing that, but it is happening. And it's happening because the Democrats push it. They started the war by telling Russia, we're going to bring Ukraine into NATO. That happened in February of 2022. So make no mistake, this is their priority and Republicans have signed on to it. The Iran war, same thing. Both parties have been talking for 40 years about how we need to overthrow the Iranian government for some reason, well, because they're paid to say that by Israel.

• 6:55Tucker Carlson?

  So that will not change unless the Democratic leadership is, is under extreme pressure from its own voters. And I hope that happens. I pray that that happens, that sincere Democratic voters and a lot of people who've never voted Democrat who are about to vote Democrat in this midterm because of the betrayal of the current administration, there are a lot of those. They say, wait a second, we're not going to be betrayed again. Stop the wars. I mean, people forget, they look back on the 80s and 90s as sort of a halcyon period in American history. Like, that was so nice. It must have been so great to grow up in the 80s and 90s. Well, I did and I can confirm it was. But why was it so great? Because we weren't at war, that's why. War kills your economy. It makes your society chaotic

• 7:40Tucker Carlson?

  and it causes people to become callous and desensitized and brutal toward each other. You can't kill innocents in a foreign country without changing as a country. So I pray. Number one on my list is that we will stop these wars. They're wars of choice with no reason to wage them other than a small group of people who somehow think they own Russia because their ancestors lived there or something? Get out of my country. That is, that's totally irrelevant. I'm sorry, my ancestors are from somewhere too and I'm sure they're mistreated too. But I'm not hijacking America's foreign policy to settle 100-year-old score or 300-year-old score or whatever. Stop. You just have to, that's not hate. That's love. It's love for America, for your nation.

• 8:25Tucker Carlson?

  We're, no, we're not going to use the United States military, the $1.5 trillion a year, United States military, to settle your ancient blood feud. Because this is a new country. This is the promised land. This is a country that left all that behind, that is not hostage to ancient rivalries. So anyone who can restore our foreign policy to an America-centric, pro-America posture will have my support. But I, you know, I don't see any candidates right now who are promising that. So the average water pipe in this country is over a half-century old and that means a lot of our water is not very good. It's got forever chemicals, antibiotics, pesticides, and all kinds of things in it.

• 9:10Tucker Carlson?

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• 9:53Tucker Carlson?

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• 10:07Speaker 02

  Well, Mary-Kate C. from New Paltz, New York, asks, off the top of your head, who are the three best politicians in America right now? Who are the three worst?

• 10:16Tucker Carlson?

  I would say the three best are Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, and Thomas Massey. You'll notice none of them holds office right now. Joe Kent was defeated twice in his effort to get elected to Congress from Washington State. He was defeated in...

• 10:33Tucker Carlson?

  One of the most extraordinary disinformation campaigns run by Nick Fuentes on behalf of the neocons. Nick Fuentes is a Fed and is working for the side he claims to oppose, obviously. And this came, or it's not obvious, I guess, to a lot of people because he denies the Holocaust. So he must be whatever. I don't know. Nick Fuentes is working for the neocons and always has. And so he was part of a bipartisan effort to keep Joe Kent out of the Congress because Joe Kent's wife was killed in Syria in a neocon war. He had credibility. He's reasonable. He's not a hater. He's a Christian. And they had to keep him out. Marjorie Taylor Greene was driven out of a movement she helped create because she's like, hey, why don't we release the Epstein files? Done. And Thomas Massey just noticed that like AIPAC controls 90% of members of Congress. And what is this?

• 11:17Tucker Carlson?

  And that was enough to have his primary in the Commonwealth of Kentucky flooded with tens of millions of dollars from people who don't even live in the district or the country. So all three of them have been exiled from the American political system for telling the truth. And to me, the willingness to tell the truth, the bravery to tell the truth in the face of opposition is the hallmark of integrity. That's what I want. Who's the worst? Everyone else. I mean, it's just, it's like, how do you even scale them? I mean, James Talarico is the creepiest. He's the one, if he ever entered the sauna, when you were there, you would jump through the window. But it doesn't mean he's the worst because they're all kind of the same.

• 12:00Tucker Carlson?

  They're all fake. They're all totally unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the people they lead. And that is the definition of leadership, the willingness to die for the people you lead. That's a father's duty. That's an officer's duty. That's a president's duty. It's a member of Congress's duty. And none of them are willing to accept that. So they're all disgusting, as far as I'm concerned.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  I can't believe Ted Cruz didn't get an honorable mention.

• 12:22Tucker Carlson?

  Ted, I mean, Ted Cruz is like, but Ted Cruz is also like the saddest member of Congress. His life, personal life is a true disaster. No respect at all at home. And which is like, there's nothing worse than that. I'd rather get beaten in a hundred elections than have my wife and kids not respect me. There's nothing worse than that. I'd rather be dead than that. And I mean it too. And Ted's just like this sad, greasy guy who's been told his entire life that he's a genius because he has a high verbal IQ. Well, I have a higher verbal IQ than Ted Cruz, and I can promise you I'm not a genius. And this is the problem with having a high verbal IQ. It's like a party trick. I have it, so I can say this.

• 13:05Tucker Carlson?

  It's like, everyone's like, oh, you're so smart. You're so smart. But you're not actually. You're like a trained dog. Like you can, you know, identify the cup the ball is under, but it doesn't mean that you're building a power grid. You know what I mean? Making wise decisions in my personal life. It's like, there's a huge difference between facility with words and wisdom. And I've never seen a clear example. And these poor guys, and I know a ton of them, because like, of course, people who are super fluent in a language have some skill. They know everyone else who has the skill. So I know a ton of these people. And a lot of them are so angry because they've been told their whole lives, I got an 800 on the verbal SAT.

• 13:50Tucker Carlson?

  I'm a genius. And their lives haven't turned out at all, like what they had hoped. They've fallen so far short of their own expectations. And they're just filled with like self hatred and disappointment. No one appreciates how smart I am. You know, the smartest people, the wisest people know how absurd they are. And Ted Cruz doesn't know how absurd he is. Everyone else knows, however. So I just feel sorry for him.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Tom F. from Floral Park, New York. Tucker, whenever I hear you talk about the donors pulling the strings behind the scenes, I wonder how sleazy the whole process is. Can you pull back the curtain and tell us about the donor class and how they control these candidates?

• 14:33Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I mean, at the root of it is the belief that every politician has that money equals power, that you cannot, and they all feel this way, even the good ones. And I know some, I have known some decent people in politics because I've known everyone in politics. And a tiny percentage, the outliers, are decent people. But even they are captive to the lie that the amount of money you raise determines whether or not you succeed. So they all believe that. So once you believe that, you leave yourself open to manipulation. Because I believe, as Paul the Apostle told us, the worship of money is the root of all evil. And that is true in every context. And so because they believe that, they're totally vulnerable to people, you know, rolling in.

• 15:18Tucker Carlson?

  The donors, Miriam Adelson, who's not even from this country, who's living off money she inherited from her deceased husband that he got from like exploiting human weakness in the gambling industry. And the whole thing is so repulsive. But you know, she's got an agenda. Her agenda is the state of Israel and the Likud Party in Israel. Okay, I'm not mad about that. I mean, we all have our agendas. It's not her fault that our system and the players in the system, our politicians, are willing to sell out their own country because she gives them money, starting with Trump, but not just Trump, all of them. By the way, Miriam Adelson is a James Talarico donor. So why would Miriam Adelson, who's Trump's biggest donor or second biggest donor,

• 16:02Tucker Carlson?

  why is she giving money to Trump's opponent, James Talarico? Because she's agnostic. She doesn't care. Because she didn't care about the United States at all. She's not even American. Maybe in name, but she's not American. She's not from here. And I don't even know she lives here. She's using the United States to help another country. But that's true of all donors, even the ones who don't care about Israel. They're using the United States, our country, our government, our tax dollars, our military to affect some private end. They basically privatize the US government. So it's, I'm going to use the US government to help my company, help my family, help another nation I'm more loyal to. And you have to ask, like, whose fault is that? I mean, we spend a lot of time, and I do spend a lot of time, like attacking Miriam Adelson.

• 16:46Tucker Carlson?

  I actually don't even dislike Miriam. I know Miriam Adelson. I don't dislike her. I'm not mad at Miriam Adelson. But there are other donors I'm mad at, right? Paul Singer or whatever. But that's kind of misplaced anger, really. What people would allow this? Like, where's our self-respect? Where's our love of our own children? I don't understand why we put up with it. I just don't understand. Like, how about no? I'm a father of four, so my role is how about no? I'm the no guy. That's my job. I don't say it with glee. I say it because I have no choice, and someone has to say it. And we're the no guys in our country. Like, how about no? You can't do that. And just say it unequivocally, not with hate and not by implying violence,

• 17:29Tucker Carlson?

  but firmly rooted in principle. And again, love of country and love of your own family. How are your kids going to do in the system? I don't think very well. So I just wish there were more of that. I really blame us, I blame myself for going along with this for all these years that I was in Washington. And I always felt like it was kind of wrong. And again, it's not just the Israel lobby, which is the most powerful, of course, and the most ruthless by far. But it's hardly alone. It's the Pharma lobby. It's crazy. The week after I got fired from Fox, Fox got all its Pharma ads back. That's a fact. I mean, my staff were still there, told me that. And they were told that at a meeting. The company's getting, the network's getting its Pharma ads back.

• 18:12Tucker Carlson?

  I was not even a particularly obsessed opponent of Pharma. I'm not an expert on Pharma. I was just like, I don't think the COVID vax works. And it seems like it's giving people I know heart attacks. Like, maybe we should slow down. I was very moderate on Pharma. Maybe we shouldn't be giving everybody SSRIs and Adderall and benzodiazepines. Like, maybe that's not helping. My criticisms were very mild, but even those were just too much. So you have a system in which the donor class really sincerely feels like they have a monopoly on speech and on action. Like, they won't tolerate any opposition at all. They're entitled. Why are they entitled? Because they've been allowed to control the system for so long

• 18:55Tucker Carlson?

  that of course they feel that way. That's how you spoil a child. And by the time the kid's 14, it's like, well, I can't, you know, they're completely unreasonable because you've catered to every whim. And so their expectation, understandably, is that every desire will be met instantaneously with what they want. You created this child. I blame the parents. And in this case, I blame our leaders for putting up with this crap. Like, where's Ted Cruz's self-respect? I was elected to Congress to serve Israel. Can you hear yourself, Tubby? I don't think you can.

• 19:25Tucker Carlson?

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• 20:10Tucker Carlson?

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• 20:32Speaker 02

  Austin from Youngstown, Ohio asks, "It seems self-reflection won't be on the ballot if the Republicans lose in November. Do you think because of Republican hubris, socialism will gain traction before 2028 as a middle finger to the right? Like it or not, it could become a movement just like Trump had in 2016."

• 20:52Tucker Carlson?

  There is no... First of all, that is such a deep and wonderful question. Thank you for that question. Will self-reflection be on the ballot? No. Self-reflection is... By the way, it's not in us. Like, you know, people have been divorced six times. They're like, yeah, had four, six bad wives. It's like, maybe you played a role in that? It's like, none of us ever wants to take responsibility for our own crappiness. And the root of wisdom is, I suck. Okay, let's just start there. Not obsessive self-hatred, that's obviously pointless, and a kind of narcissism, actually. But just like an honest comparison of yourself to who you want to be, to God. You know, we suck. So, that is the one truth that no

• 21:37Tucker Carlson?

  one ever tells. People rarely tell themselves that. And parties are just a collection of people. So, yeah, they will not learn. No one ever learns, okay? It's like Seinfeld. No learning, no growing. But they'll be taught. You know, you always hope for a world where people just, like, take subtle cues. Like, we just got wiped out in a midterm election. Maybe we should pivot and change. But unfortunately, the history of people suggests that it takes more than that. You really, you don't pull your hand back from the stove until your fingers start to melt. And you sort of hope that people would, wouldn't take that much. You wouldn't have to, like, hurt someone, or that person wouldn't have to hurt himself

• 22:18Tucker Carlson?

  in order to learn an obvious lesson. But there's little evidence of that. So, are we moving towards socialism? Obviously. Obviously. Will it be good? Probably not. I mean, if socialism, if the socialism you're telling me we're getting is 1985 Stockholm, you know, Denmark in the 70s, it's fine. It's fine. It's not what I would create, but, but if you're saying it's, you know, Poland in the 70s, then, you know, that's the worst possible thing we could have. Because, look, people are responding, voters are responding to something real, which is, it's no longer a middle-class country, and it hasn't been since Obama's

• 22:58Tucker Carlson?

  second term, 2015. The majority is no longer middle-class. That's a huge, massive change that, like, no one even noticed when it happened. I wrote a book about it, which no one seemed to read. But anyway, um, poor me. Uh, sorry, pardon for the self-pity. But I felt that was the biggest thing that happened, you know, that decade at least. And people didn't know that it happened, because the New York Times didn't put it on the front page, but they felt it. This is not, this is like a very lopsided country all of a sudden. And people who fly first class are flying, like, in a really comfortable way, and the rest of us are traveling like animals. It didn't used to be that way. There wasn't as big a difference between the way the rich lived and everybody else lived. It's become like Mexico. We used to make fun of Mexico for that. Mexicans are nice. It wasn't an attack

• 23:43Tucker Carlson?

  on the Mexican people. It was an attack on their system, which was pyramid-shaped and unstable as a result. That's how they got drug cartels. That's how Venezuela collapsed, and Hugo Chavez got elected. He was elected. That's how Hitler was elected. He was also elected. So, like, a wildly unequal economic system has political consequences every single time. And unfortunately, those consequences tend to make things worse. Which is to say, I may be voting for a DSA member, a socialist, in the hope that this country will become more equal and less volatile. But what I'm almost certain to get is a system in which the connected and the already rich have much more power. Or we just get rid of the rich,

• 24:28Tucker Carlson?

  we eat the rich. Okay. You know, I'm not too upset about the destruction of the billionaire class. Actually, I secretly favor it. But I don't lie to myself and think that they're gonna be, that their money will, you know, somehow everybody will just be happier and calmer and better off. You're just getting a new billionaire class, and they're gonna be the technocrats who administer the new system. And they're gonna have guns, unlike the billionaires. So, no, I'm not hopeful at all. I'm not hopeful at all. But can I say one last thing? Because that's so grim. I do think that people's relationships have gotten better and more real in the past 10 years. I notice it in my own life, and I see it all around me. People are much clearer about what matters. There's much less frivolous

• 25:10Tucker Carlson?

  talk. I know the masses are supposedly mesmerized by professional sports and drugs and all that stuff. That may be some truth in that. But in the world I live in, people are deep and honest and loyal to each other, and families are closer. Like, that is real. Every conversation I have, it's like, yeah, I want to, my kids are moving in next to me. That was not the America I grew up in at all. It's a much better version of it. So, I think as all these terrible things are happening on a macro level, there are beautiful things happening on a personal level. And it, so I just, I just want to be grateful for that, and I want to say it out loud.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Elizabeth K. from Seattle asks, "Tucker, do you think the murder of Charlie Kirk will help or hurt the GOP in the midterms in the 2028 general election, and why?"

• 25:57Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's been a disaster. Well, for Charlie, his children, and his widow, number one. For those of us who knew him well and loved him, number two. But for the country, number three. And for the Republican Party. I mean, Charlie was the single most important organizer in the Republican Party, by far. They used to have this thing called the RNC, was the Republican National Committee, and it had power, and you knew who ran it. And Haley Barber runs the RNC. It's a big deal. People sent money to the RNC. That's all gone. No one's, no normal person would ever send money to a party organization. The parties are totally corrupt. Like, sending money to Scientology, who would do that? You know, no. Charlie filled that void. It was Turning Point. You know, you want to

• 26:38Tucker Carlson?

  get voters out? You're, you want Ken Paxton to beat that Talarico kid, whoever that guy is? Creepy guy? You send money to Turning Point, and that's all done. They destroyed Turning Point. It was completely on purpose. They destroyed MAGA. They destroyed the Republican Party. And the same people, the neocons did it. And they did it on purpose. So, Trump was elected for the second time in 2024 with the broadest coalition the Republican Party's ever had. And you had, you know, hippie, natural food moms from Napa. You had a lot of black guys, a lot of Hispanic guys, and they were guys, because it was, the promise was a masculine leadership, which is what we need, by the way. Turned out to be a re-feminized

• 27:18Tucker Carlson?

  leadership, very passive-aggressive, bitchy leadership. The last thing we need, but whatever. Anyway, you had this huge coalition of people, and in the coalition, a tiny percentage, the smallest part of the coalition, were the neocons. We're like, no, we need to use the US military to fight wars for Israel. Like, no one agrees with that. And they took over the party completely because of Trump, whatever, however they threatened Trump. Clearly, they threatened him, obviously. And he allowed it. And now they completely run the party. And it's like, anyone who's not for that is not a real Republican. Really? I'm 57. I'm the son of a Republican official. I've been a Republican my whole life. I interned in the Senate 40 years ago for a Republican. You are lecturing me about what it is to

• 28:00Tucker Carlson?

  be a Republican? I don't think so. By the way, I've been carrying the Republican line in its water on television for 35 years. So, all of a sudden, I'm a thought criminal. I mean, I don't really care. I have zero interest in, like, any of it, really, at this point. But it's, it's amazing how quickly it happened. And it's also amazing how quickly people can speak reality into existence. If you start saying something again and again, no matter how ludicrous, men can become women. No, really, they can. After a while, people accept it as true. And you're seeing Trump do this with nuclear war right now. No, it's okay to use nukes. Well, we're gonna have a nuclear exchange, then. Because that's the nature of life. Words have holy power, and also dark power, I would say. There's a reason we call them incantations or spells. Like, that's totally real. And they're talking

• 28:45Tucker Carlson?

  into existence, this new Republican Party, which has no popular support whatsoever, and shouldn't, because it's deranged.

• 28:53Tucker Carlson?

  So yeah, they wrecked it. And one of the key things that happened, whoever did it, was the murder of Charlie Kirk. I mean, you look at the Turning Point event this week, and it's all these speakers who Charlie Kirk didn't like. I'm not guessing. I knew Charlie Kirk really well. He sat at this table with me more than once. And we talked about it. And so I'm not beating up on Ben Shapiro, who I feel sorry for. I don't think Ben Shapiro has a bright future at all. But Charlie Kirk despised Ben Shapiro. And how do I know that? Because he told me. And now Ben Shapiro was speaking twice. You know, it's like, and all the people he asked to speak are not speaking. I'm not attacking anyone in particular.

• 29:34Tucker Carlson?

  The people who are on Turning Point are nice people. I know Andrew Colvett, really nice guy, trying his best. He is. I know people hate me for saying that. I know the guy. I like him. We don't even disagree on that much. But he's not, I don't think any one person is making decisions. As usual, the donors are making the decisions. And their views are fringe views. Most people disagree with them, but they're having their way. Pretty sad. So imagine the sensation of going to sleep totally sober, feeling like you're floating, and then waking up rested with no soreness from a stiff mattress. You can do that. All you got to do is switch to Brooklyn Bedding. We guess you're probably thinking, a mattress like that is super expensive and made in Bangladesh. But no, Brooklyn Bedding is

• 30:18Tucker Carlson?

  an American company, hence the name. It's got a 650,000 square foot facility in Indiana. A guy called John started it and built it from the ground up right here in the US. No college degree, by the way. Brooklyn makes mattresses for every sleep style and body type, plus uses temperature regulation to make sure that you stay cool throughout the night. No hot nights. 365 night, a full year sleep trial. So you can return your mattress if you don't love it. We don't expect that to happen, but you could. Brooklyn Bedding has been awarded the best mattress by CNET, the best hybrid mattress by Wirecutter. It's totally real and vetted. BrooklynBedding.com is the address. Use the promo code TUCKER at checkout for 30% off site wide during this fall sale. That's BrooklynBedding.com,

• 31:02Tucker Carlson?

  promo code TUCKER, 30% off site wide. If you see a survey after all of it, let them know that we sent you. Was JFK killed by a lone gunman? Is CIA remote viewing real? Is it really possible? We're putting conspiracy theories to the test to see if they're really theories at all.

• 31:25Tucker Carlson?

  Shadow Figures takes some of the world's most famous mysteries and recreates them to see if the official narrative is true. A team of elite operations veterans put the magic bullet theory to the test.

• 31:38Tucker Carlson?

  And how did the Malaysian airliner vanish in 2014? Experts analyzed whistleblower footage, and they recreate the explosion some say brought it down.

• 31:48Tucker Carlson?

  And is it possible that Atlantis was a real place?

• 31:54Tucker Carlson?

  Can psychics actually see what's going on in real time from the other side of the world? Meet Project Stargate's first recruit to learn about efforts to train potential psychic spies. So it's time we find out for certain. Our new series, Shadow Figures, at TuckerCarlson.com.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Well, Tucker, I regret to inform you that Lynette Kay from Land O' Lakes, Florida, is not happy with you.

• 32:16Tucker Carlson?

  What?

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Tucker, will you have any guilt if there's a blue wave of Islamists and Marxists in Congress due to your abandonment of Trump for hurting your feelings?

• 32:29Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I have a lot of sadness if that happens, for sure. Trump never hurt my feelings. I was in television my whole life. It's very hard to hurt my feelings. When you've been as humiliated as I have been serially over decades, there are not a lot of feelings left to hurt. So you're not going to hurt my feelings. Trump abandoned me and his voters. Trump ran on a pretty specific slate of issues and beliefs and betrayed them all. And so I believe in loyalty. I married my high school girlfriend. I'm surrounded by people I've known my whole life. So I really do believe in loyalty. And I think I display it. But I think it's got to be requited. It's not a one way thing. Trump isn't God. I don't worship men. And if Trump makes a mistake, you know, I'm not anxious to point it out.

• 33:13Tucker Carlson?

  Trump's made a lot of mistakes that I haven't mentioned, that I know a lot about. Because I feel sad. I always have loved Trump personally, you know, and I still feel that. I'm not mad at Trump, actually. He's not in charge. He's not running the country. I feel sorry for him. He's a puppet and a slave of larger forces. And that's very distressing to me as an American who believes in the democratic system. You can elect a guy to effect the change that you voted for. That's not how it works, clearly. So I feel sad about it. I feel sad for him. He's 80. I mean, does it end well for him? I mean, the whole thing is a tragedy. But my commitment is to what I think is true. And I always say that with the caveat that I sometimes don't know what's true. And I certainly have been wrong a lot before. But there doesn't shake my belief that there is truth, and that we should pursue

• 33:58Tucker Carlson?

  it, even if I see it through a glass darkly, it's still there. And if somebody lies to you, and you pretend it didn't happen, you're implicated in the lie. And I don't want to be implicated in the lie. Also, you have no self-respect. Get some self-respect. Is this what you voted for? I don't think it is. It's not what he promised. So why are you making excuses for that? What's wrong with you? I mean, it's human. I get it. We're so implicated in stuff that we don't want to admit that we've been burned. You know, the gypsy takes 100 euros from you in three card money, and you're like, oh, that didn't happen. Because you're an idiot for playing three card money with gypsies. You're going

• 34:39Tucker Carlson?

  to lose. So I get it. I get it. I feel it. I introduced Trump at the Republican National Convention on stage. I'm, you know, if anyone's implicated in this, it's me. But I think our commitment to the truth and our self-respect require us to admit the gypsy just took 100 euros from us playing three card money. Right?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  JK from Norton Shores, Michigan, asks, looking back, do you feel there was more you could have done to persuade Trump from getting us into this mess of a war with Iran? What would these midterms look like without the war?

• 35:16Tucker Carlson?

  You know, no, I spoke to Trump. I mean, I don't, it's all on my calendar. But I talked to him dozens of times last winter, meaning in December, January, and February, about Iran and about Venezuela at great length. And I knew people in Venezuela, and I knew a lot of people in the Middle East, and I was in and out of the Middle East. I was in every country involved in this war in the weeks before the war. Israel, Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Jordan. I was in all those countries, like, two weeks before the war. And I was there, I know people in all those countries, and I love those countries, but I was there

• 35:56Tucker Carlson?

  talking about the war. So like, I did everything that I felt I could do. What I didn't do was admit to myself that the war was actually coming. Like, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't accept it. I never thought he would do this. He didn't want to do it. I know that because I talked to him about it at length. He had no enthusiasm for this at all. And I continued to believe against all evidence up until I woke up the morning the war started, February 28. I continued to believe he wouldn't do it. And I'm an idiot for that. And I think if I had really sincerely believed he was going to do this, by the way, there are other people around him who have the same view. They're like, he's not really going to do this. It's brinksmanship. He's not really going to, like, launch a regime change war

• 36:39Tucker Carlson?

  against Iran. We just had a war in June. You know, the 12 day war, we took out their nuclear, you know, this whole thing is so nuts. It can't happen. I felt that way about the Iraq war, by the way, in March of 2003. I knew Bush. I talked to Bush about it at the time. I was like, he's not really going to do this. Because Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. So like, why are we doing this? Because Israel wanted it, that's why. But I didn't get any of that. Anyway, my sin, at least my conception of my sin, is not being honest with myself about what was actually happening. And I think if I had known for certain he was going to do this, I would have just sounded the alarm publicly more than I did. I mean, I tried. I flew to Tel Aviv, which I didn't want to do, to talk to Huckabee about it and all these other people. I'm sorry if I sound like I'm self justifying, but that's just true.

• 37:27Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, they're gonna get crushed. This is the most unpopular war in American history and was from the first day. So why would voters reward that? They're not going to. It's not just this war. The Epstein stuff hurt a lot. Yelling at his own voters because they wanted to see the Epstein files, which he does not own. The US government doesn't own those files. We own them. We're the citizenry of this country. You're in, you're just passing through, dude. You're some federal employee or you're some politician. But those files belong to us. All of them, every single one of them. They have no right to keep those from us. And when he whipped around in that cabinet meeting and said, anyone who wants to see the files isn't MAGA. That was the moment where I was like, whoa, this is getting dark. What are you even talking? And I talked to him about it. I was like, what are you doing? You know? Oh, it's a Democrat plot.

• 38:12Tucker Carlson?

  But it was, of course, it wasn't a Democrat plot. There are other reasons that he's hidden those files. Millions of them remain unreleased, millions. And we have a right to see every single one of them. And the Department of Justice has a moral obligation to track down anyone who might have molested kids. What are you doing? Pizza and grape soda? Billionaires don't drink grape soda. No white billionaire has ever had a sip of grape soda, ever, in history. So don't tell me pizza. And by the way, Jeffrey Epstein ate a lot of pizza? I don't think so. I eat a lot of pizza. That's why I get fat every year. Jeffrey Epstein didn't have a single slice of pizza in his entire freaking life. Do you see the guy? He's like Mr. Narcissus Fitness Dude. So when you've got dozens of emails talking about pizza and grape soda, it's fair for the DOJ to call the people in who are in those emails and be like, pizza and grape soda,

• 38:56Tucker Carlson?

  tell me more. And they haven't. Why haven't they? Because they're protecting the criminals in the Epstein files. Well, okay, if you do that, I guess it's a trade, okay? Like, you're getting something out of that? I have no idea what they're getting out of it. But what they're not gonna get is voter support, because nobody's for that. Right?

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Michelle from Sacramento asks, Tucker, I've heard you say you're not interested in running for president. It's disappointing, but I understand. Can you at least persuade your brother, Uncle Buck, to run?

• 39:26Tucker Carlson?

  So the Uncle Buck presidency would be the greatest presidency probably since George Washington, because Uncle Buck has a gut-level understanding and feel for American culture that I've never seen anybody else, like, real American culture, and a love of people. So I think leadership begins with love. I've always thought that. I think that's the core requirement of being a good dad, not that you have any clue what you're doing. I had kids at 25, no, I was drunk half the time. I had no idea what I was doing. But I always liked my kids, and so it turned out okay. And that's just true in every level of leadership. If you love the people you're leading, of course, you're gonna make mistakes and say ludicrous things and mislead them unintentionally, but you're not gonna hurt them irreparably

• 40:11Tucker Carlson?

  because you love them. And our leaders don't love us. They have total contempt for us. We're just cattle to them as a tax farm, clearly. And having a leader, and I think Uncle Buck, you know, he'd be hilarious, but I think he'd be a great president, actually, because he loves people, all people. Uncle Buck, I don't think has met anybody he hasn't sniffed. He'll sniff anybody of any race or income level or gender. He just, he loves people, not in a creepy way, but it's like, he just likes people. And the more time he spends with people, the happier he is. He just loves it. He just like rolls around in it, in other people. When was that time we had a leader like that? I can't remember.

• 40:54Tucker Carlson?

  You know, they're all kind of weirdly antiseptic, dermophobic, like, they pretend, they'll put on the hard hat or eat at the fast food restaurant, but like, ultimately, you think they care about you? Not at all. He really does. So, yeah, I'd vote for Uncle Buck in a second.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Nick O. from Georgetown, Ohio asks, why does President Trump continue to push hyperscale data centers in rural areas, which make up the strongest areas of his MAGA base? And he wonders why he's losing support.

• 41:24Tucker Carlson?

  Trump hates himself and therefore hates anyone who loves him. Okay, so let's just start there. Let me restate. Trump hates himself, therefore he despises anyone who loves him. And I think his personal life and marriage history attest to that, but his public behavior attest to it too. So the more loyalty you show to Trump, the more contempt he has for you. Loyalty's not rewarded, it's penalized. So Trump, the other day, does a podcast with Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, who went to jail, who's denounced Trump as a profession. It's what he does for a living, is denounces Trump in the most personal bitter ways, and Trump rewards that. So just know that the people Trump dislikes most are the ones who voted for him and remain loyal to him. They have no self-respect. He has contempt for that.

• 42:09Tucker Carlson?

  He hates weakness, and he hates people who love him. Fact. This is, he's not the only one who feels this way. People who hate themselves are uniformly like this. You ever wonder why? And you've known people like this. They're like much nicer to like the valet parker and the waitress in the art of their own kids and wife. It's a very familiar thing. Well, that's what that is. They're rewarding loyalty and love with hate. Anyway, um, yeah, the thing I love about data centers is how undisguised the whole project is. No one is even pretending data centers are gonna improve your life. They're like, oh, we're building a new prison, and we're gonna put you in it. And by the way, you're gonna pay for it, because humiliating you is part of our worldview or religion or whatever. I have to humiliate you. You have to dig your own grave.

• 42:54Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not just gonna execute you and throw you in a grave. You're gonna dig it. And that's what data center is. But they're not pretending otherwise. They're not like, okay, we're gonna build a data center in your county in Utah, and your life is gonna go from crappy to awesome. They're like, no, we're building a data center, and you're gonna pay for it, and that money's gonna go to people who are already richer than anyone's ever been in history, to the billionaire class, and then your life is gonna get way suckier. You won't have a job or any human autonomy. You get to make zero decisions, and the best you can hope for is like a check from the government. So you become another welfare case. And how does that work? Or inherited money case? How do inherited money people do? Like, if I cut you a check for a billion dollars at 23, would your life be happy? If I strung you along generationally on welfare, would your life be happy?

• 43:39Tucker Carlson?

  We don't have to guess. We know, we see the results. So paying people money for not doing anything is the fastest way to destroy them, whether they're at the rich end or the poor end, it doesn't matter. It's the same principle. And that's the promise of data centers. That's the best-case scenario for data centers. And they're just saying that out loud? How about I overthrow the government now? Like, are you kidding? That's what you're promising me? I know you're gonna fall short of the promise. That's the best you can ask, you can offer me. So, yeah, I think the whole thing is like amazing in that they're not bothering to disguise it. And maybe the technology gives them the confidence they don't have to disguise it. Maybe it's like, if we have enough flock cameras, when AI, you know, becomes as powerful

• 44:24Tucker Carlson?

  as we think it's becoming, your consent won't be necessary. Shut up and eat your gruel, bitch. That's kind of where I feel like we are. I don't, if we're not, like, tell me how I'm wrong. I've never seen a product roll out this perverse. When Apple rolls out a new phone, or where they'll lie to you about how great you're gonna feel when you buy their product, of course, like, you don't ever feel, it's not a transcendent experience to buy something, okay? The whole thing is fake, okay? But at least they make the effort, like, our sneakers will make you. We were just talking off-camera about Newport cigarettes' advertising campaign in the 80s and 90s, and it, the line was, get some.

• 45:06Tucker Carlson?

  And of course, the pitch was, buy a deck of Newports and you're gonna get the ladies. They're gonna be, you won't be able to keep them off you. I think that's not true, or maybe it is true, I never smoked a Newport, but at least they were like appealing to some desire you had, even if it was a base desire. The data center AI thing is like, we're gonna take all of your money and make your life way worse. I don't even, I've never seen anything like it. Of course Trump's for it. I mean, of course, that's where the money is.