Curt Mills: Trump Can Save America or Wage Another War, but He Can’t Do Both. Here’s Why.

We’ve got a choice between saving the United States or waging yet another pointless foreign war. We can’t do both. Curt Mills on neocon attempts to subvert the Trump agenda. (00:00) Pete Hegseth’s Confirmation (07:37) The Neocons’ Love for Death, War, and Bankruptcy (16:53) Why Israelis Want Benjamin Netanyahu to Resign (28:24) Everything You’ve Been Told About Iran Is a Lie (37:49) What Are the Chances the US Invades Iran? (1:05:10) Why Is Bari Weiss Protecting Mike Pompeo? Paid partnership with: Black Rifle Coffee Use promo code "Tucker" for 30% off at https://blackriflecoffee.com 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.

• 0:00Tucker Carlson?

  So it's amazing to me that over 20 years after the Iraq war, its architects and supporters are still not fully in control of America's foreign policy, but certainly influential in it. And it's shocking to me that two months after Trump's landslide victory, a race in which he ran against the neocons, the neocons are still brazen enough to try and influence and sabotage his nominations.

• 0:35Tucker Carlson?

  Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show. We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else. And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers. We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly. Check out all of our content at TuckerCarlson.com. Here's the episode. We are days, but less than a week before Tulsi Gabbard's hearings. Where are we in the below the radar war between permanent Washington's national security establishment, the neocons and the incoming Trump administration?

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I think it's unclear. So as of this recording 10 minutes ago, Mr. Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, was just confirmed on a 50-50 vote. Hegseth's an interesting character, I believe a former colleague of yours. He appears to have done a bit of a conversion on his foreign policy beliefs. And the best evidence of that is the people that he's picked so far. So his cadres, the people that will serve.

• 1:34Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, I ask you to pause it there. So what you're, this is relevant to people who know Pete Hegseth from clips on X of him from eight years ago saying things that would lead you to believe he's a pretty stout neocon.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47Tucker Carlson?

  But, okay, so that's what you're referring to?

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the available evidence is that he is like a, circa 10 years ago, was a pretty conventional Republican. And he has changed his life in more ways than one. And so he is a question mark. But the early evidence is the people that he has chosen to surround himself are stark departures from the man from 10 years ago. And so that's a big deal. And especially, especially in a place like the Pentagon, which is hard to control.

• 2:18Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, and wants no change under any circumstances, except an annually increase in the number of four-star generals.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  It's the largest bureaucracy on earth.

• 2:25Tucker Carlson?

  It is. And it exists to serve itself. It's got a pretty abysmal record of winning wars, a pretty great record of spending money. It desperately needs reform. And you're saying that based on the personnel choices you think he's making, he's now the Defense Secretary, by the way, as of right now.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:43Tucker Carlson?

  That he is like sincerely on board with Trump's foreign policy.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he did not need to make these picks. I mean, I don't think he needed to make these picks to get confirmed. I don't think he needed these picks to win any senators. He is courting, I think, minor controversy now, which is why we're having this meeting. He did not need to do this. It was, it was a move of conviction and belief and principle in his early days in office. Before even.

• 3:12Tucker Carlson?

  So give us an example. Just give us again what you're talking about.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Sure. There's going to be this Michael Domeno figure who will have the Middle East portfolio. He has been advised throughout the process by another figure named Daniel Caldwell. These are both, you know, people in their 40s or 30s, you know, basically millennials. Who are veterans of the global war on terror. They're very much in the.

• 3:36Tucker Carlson?

  So that they fought in that.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dan did. And Michael was a CIA agent. So, yeah, I mean, these are the guys that were hunting down IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps people in the forever wars that Trump and Vance ran on reforming and ending, et cetera, et cetera. And so, you know, they're very much in the Vance mold of, we went there, not really sure what the point was, and we want to roll back from that somewhat. I think you might have heard this message from Mr. Trump at least once or twice in the last 10 years.

• 4:14Tucker Carlson?

  So these, I don't know, Domeno, I know Caldwell, who I think of as a man of genuine integrity, high intelligence and principle, committed to his country. I think he's proven that.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26Tucker Carlson?

  I honestly think he's like a wonderful person. But he's being attacked by people who never served with a long, unbroken track record of destroying America as somehow anti-American?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:40Tucker Carlson?

  How does this work?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think that the tactics are pretty clear. So.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  No one reads anything.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Everybody is cynical confused.

• 4:53Tucker Carlson?

  Says the magazine editor.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:55Tucker Carlson?

  Nobody reads anything.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 4:57Tucker Carlson?

  You're right.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Get a headline out there. Call someone a naughty word. Say they're anti a country or they are radical.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  You know, if anyone sues this publication, it will take years and years and years and hope that some club member at Mar-a-Lago hands this to President Trump.

• 5:20Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  And tries to trick him and thinks that Mr. Trump is a stupid man. And this is the approach and this is what they are trying to do.

• 5:28Tucker Carlson?

  That's exactly.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  And it is a cyclone. I mean, the word has been abused by the Democrats.

• 5:33Tucker Carlson?

  They've done this to me, yes.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  But it is, this is actual disinformation.

• 5:37Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  I hate to use the word, but like.

• 5:39Tucker Carlson?

  What are the publications? Who are the people involved in this campaign of lies?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Okay, I mean, I'm not familiar and I don't know any of the people over there personally, but the big story that's going around on both Domeno and I believe Caldwell is from Jewish Insider. And again, no one really wants to be, you know, attacked by something called Jewish Insider. It doesn't sound very fun. And so they are running headlines against people and they are attacking them. And they, what they do is they don't say anything that is per se inaccurate, but they totally strip the context for everything.

• 6:20Tucker Carlson?

  So what, let's go one by one. Do you know Domeno?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Just by correspondence.

• 6:25Tucker Carlson?

  Okay. And what's yours? Is this a radical figure, anti-American figure?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  No, this is, this is somebody who, who's wants to pull back, I would say moderately from the Middle East, which I think at this point is basically bipartisan outside of the radicals within Washington DC and the Beltway.

• 6:46Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, I think this is a fair assessment. So the people who want to continue what we're doing at unsustainable cost, being a bankrupt country, by the way, sending aid to countries that are not bankrupt, those are the radicals, I think it's fair to say. So what are they saying about Domeno in this hit piece?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  They are trying to make the reader jump to the conclusion that he is anti-Israeli, that he is pro-Iranian.

• 7:11Tucker Carlson?

  He's pro-Iranian?

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Pro-Iranian, that he is somehow pro-radical Islam, you know, he's, he's pro all the scary people in the world.

• 7:18Tucker Carlson?

  Radical Islam?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Sure, whatever, it doesn't really matter.

• 7:21Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know the guy. Sounds kind of Catholic to me.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  They think, they think-

• 7:25Tucker Carlson?

  You know a lot of Shiites called Domeno, or is that a common name for Persians?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Not to my information.

• 7:30Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  And again, I think it bears repeating that this person, like, was responsible for the tracking of Revolutionary Guard Corps members in Iran, potentially sent some of them to their death. So the whole thing has an opera buffet flavor to it, that he's being attacked as-

• 7:46Tucker Carlson?

  So what you're saying is, these are people who will say anything, it doesn't, doesn't matter. They're kind of from the very white school of journalism, just like, you have an objective, something you want to achieve, and whatever it takes to get there is fine. You will say it. It doesn't, it doesn't matter. You'll call anybody anything, if it, if it serves your, your purpose.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  They are very, very willing to destroy this person with absolutely no compunction.

• 8:09Tucker Carlson?

  Is there any evidence that he's, quote, anti-Israel?

• 8:13Speaker 01

  None.

• 8:13Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  None. And in fact, there's evidence of the contrary, which he, which he praises the, the country.

• 8:18Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. So, okay.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  He is critical of aspects of the, the war, as-

• 8:27Tucker Carlson?

  It's okay to be critical of other people's wars, or your own wars. It's, it's okay to offer analysis of war.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Or to even state that it's not, in fact, our war, as the President of the United States just did on his inauguration day, emphasizing from behind the resolute desk, that it's their war, not our war.

• 8:42Tucker Carlson?

  So I read something from a guy called David Wormser, who was one of the architects of, of, of Iraq. We're not from this country, not really concerned with this country at all. And also, I think it's fair to say, you know, someone who should hang his head in shame, given a lifetime of destruction, that he's helped- Bring to our country, but describe these policies as anti-American. So I have to say, it takes a lot of balls for someone who has no interest in the United States to accuse someone whose whole orientation is helping the United States of being anti-American. But I've noticed this a lot. If you raise the question like, what are we getting out of this? You know, the endless war cycle, we're getting bankruptcy, obviously, but like, is this good for us?

• 9:27Tucker Carlson?

  They'll accuse you, you know, the Konstantin Kizan, also not an American, will accuse, that wing will accuse you of being somehow woke and you're like, left wing for asking these questions. Have you noticed this?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you raise some of these figures. We go into this all night.

• 9:42Tucker Carlson?

  I'd like to.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  They're, yeah, they're hoping.

• 9:46Tucker Carlson?

  There's no more repulsive group in American life than the people who continue to push death and bankruptcy on the United States. I think that's fair.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Can't recover from death.

• 9:56Tucker Carlson?

  No, you can't.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I, I think that they're hoping that Americans don't do the reading. They're hoping, they're hoping that, they're hoping that Americans read X-posts.

• 10:09Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  They're hoping that Americans watch random cable news hosts, that they're zoned out and they hear, they have, you know, let's say they have a positive view of, you know, certain aspects of, of America's role in the Middle East and they start tar and feathering people on the internet and that there's no pushback on it. At the same time.

• 10:32Tucker Carlson?

  But it's just, I guess the only reason I have noticed this is because it's so over the top. Rather than, look, I think a lot of these positions are legitimate. I disagree with them. You know, a ton of these people are smart people. I know almost all of them.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:48Tucker Carlson?

  And they could make like a straightforward case for their position. Like, here's why we should affect regime change in Iran, or here's why we should kill Putin. I mean, maybe there's a case to be made for that, but they never make the case. They attack anyone who stands in their way in the most brutal and dishonest ways. They have no limits at all in their behavior, at all. And I just find that repugnant and like corrosive. Even if I agreed with them, I'd be against that. Like, what is that?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  It's guerrilla warfare, the win at any costs.

• 11:15Tucker Carlson?

  Win at any costs. I know I'm jumping around, but I'm exercised. I just watched what's happening to a man called Steve Witkoff. Do you know Steve Witkoff?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:23Tucker Carlson?

  You hear that? Okay. So he's a friend of Trump's. He's a real estate guy from New York. I happen to know him just for other reasons.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  How well do you know him?

• 11:29Tucker Carlson?

  Pretty well. You know, just personally, I don't know a ton about his views.

• 11:34Tucker Carlson?

  I don't sense that, you know, we probably don't agree on foreign policy in some ways.

• 11:40Tucker Carlson?

  But he was tasked by Trump, as you know, to go over and affect some kind of ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and he did. And I doubt he's anti-Israel. In fact, I know he's not, whatever that means. And he is being attacked as somehow an agent of the Islamic Republic of Qatar. And like anti-Israel Steve Witkoff.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:03Tucker Carlson?

  And I happen to really like Steve Witkoff. I think he's a, just, I just like him. He's just a great guy, actually, and he's really tough and he's just a good guy. If you had dinner with him, you'd like him, trust me. But I'm just blown away by the dishonesty. Rather than say, hey, Steve Witkoff, like I disagree with you or whatever, it's, he's working for Qatar.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:20Tucker Carlson?

  What? He's from like Long Island. What are you talking about?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  This is the higher profile. I mean, like, I mean, they're hoping again that, that Trump has learned nothing. They insult the president's intelligence.

• 12:31Tucker Carlson?

  But these people are disgusting. They're liars. And like, if there's one thing the country's had too much of, it's lying. Let's just stop lying. Let's just be honest about things.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 12:39Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  I agree. We've been corroded by lies.

• 12:41Tucker Carlson?

  Completely. The country's about to collapse because of lies. And the people pushing endless war are one of the main vectors for that lying. Like, because there's just no reference point in reality at all. If Steve Witkoff is an agent of Islamic Republic, then I just give up. Do you know what I mean?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. No.

• 13:02Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, sorry. Lex Ruben.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I mean, the Witkoff thing in some ways is what set the whole thing off, right?

• 13:07Tucker Carlson?

  Witkoff?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 13:09Tucker Carlson?

  He's like the most reasonable, moderate person in the world. No, he's not anti-Israel. He's just tough.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  I think the Witkoff thing surprised both sides, though, I would note. So, I think, so obviously you knew him before.

• 13:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Within recent years. Okay. So I think in general, the open source intelligence, to use a... Lame term, but like I would say is that the Hawks, people who want to say go all the way on Iran, did not expect Wickoff to be so pragmatic. And then additionally, the realist and restraint camp also did not expect it. Did not, all the, all the reporting from say Israeli media, say Haaretz or sides of Israel, that Wickoff went in there and sort of with both the incoming Trump administration and, you know, the remnants of the, of the Biden administration, forced Prime Minister Netanyahu into some sort of deal, a deal

• 14:03Speaker 01

  that he had turned down six months ago in May of 2024, basically identical deal. That threw most everybody in the loop for a loop. And that has set off, as far as I can infer, a climate of hysteria within Israel itself, at least among, I'm not sure Sir Netanyahu himself, but at least within the factions of his cabinet that are hardline as hell.

• 14:31Tucker Carlson?

  Okay. So they disagree, you know, they've had to give a little, everyone does.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Not a disagreement. I mean, like this will not stop unless there's pushback.

• 14:41Tucker Carlson?

  All I'm saying is when you reach an agreement, everyone gets pinched. Okay, that's just the nature of it.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:49Tucker Carlson?

  And no one likes it, you know, but like tough, that's what it is. And my read on Wickoff is that he's just not super ideological. I think he's pro Israel. I don't, you know, I wouldn't even question that. But I don't think he's an ideologue. He's a, he's a self-made real estate guy who started with like a single apartment building in Washington Heights.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 15:11Tucker Carlson?

  He's a tough human being.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:13Tucker Carlson?

  And I think you need someone who's practical and tough to affect a negotiation. You don't want someone who's captive to all kinds of theories. Trump says, hey, Wickoff, get a peace deal or, you know, get a ceasefire, you know, intermediate peace deal, first step toward one.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:27Tucker Carlson?

  And Wickoff's like, okay. And he just shows up and he's like, hey, you, you.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:31Tucker Carlson?

  You're like, that's, isn't that what you want?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  I think, I think. A lot of Israel is surprised by this. I mean, I mean, I mean, this, this was lost in the absolute cacophony of 2020, 24.

• 15:44Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  But yes, like if you, if you read, uh, I, I, I read the Israeli press, uh, daily. And, um, you know, there were members of Netanyahu's, uh, coalition. So these are members of the Prime Minister Netanyahu, people who are not in his party, who are more hardline than him. And they were saying, Trump's really talking about this endless war stuff. This might be a problem. And this was back in October and September and August, and no one was paying attention because it was Brad Summer and, uh, you know, other things were going on. Um, but this was coming and the fact that they got it done, not even before, not, not even during the transition itself also surprised people. And so, uh,

• 16:26Tucker Carlson?

  I'm sensing inflated expectations here. From this is a foreign country, obviously an ally, a close ally, the, the closest ally, I think it's fair to say, but a separate country. And so, you know, I think realistic expectations would be, we get some of what we want. We don't get everything we want because, you know, we're not in charge of the United States.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  But it's, okay, there's, but there's, there's a tension here. I mean, so, uh, first, uh, the relationship between, uh, the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel is extremely unclear.

• 16:55Tucker Carlson?

  Um, yes.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yes. I, I don't think maybe only the two of them know. Um, they've, they have disagreed, uh, since at least, uh, 2020 over the election, but they probably disagreed beforehand over strikes, um, in Iran. Uh, the last time you and I spoke publicly, um, was over the Soleimani strike in January of 2020. Um, and there were, since then, reporting in the last five years has come out that the two of them disagreed over that. Uh, Trump felt, uh, that the Israelis, uh, didn't do their part, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So for years, for at least half a decade, the well has been poisoned between Trump and Netanyahu. Doesn't mean the relationship is done. Um, but there's been an atmosphere of mistrust and

• 17:40Tucker Carlson?

  Well, he's had that, um, you know, I've watched closely and You know, interviewed him more than once and, you know, for

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Netanyahu?

• 17:48Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, for, you know, well, moving on 30 years. Because he's been in and out of office and he's had complicated relations with every president.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think the key thing to understand for your listeners, anyone who's not turning this off because we're getting into the depths of Israeli politics here. But Netanyahu's situation is unstable.

• 18:07Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  A super majority of Israelis want him out. They want him to resign. He does not want to resign because if he resigns, he may go to prison.

• 18:17Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And also, he's been a power achiever for 30 years.

• 18:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  And I've noticed that people who do that often don't like to quit.

• 18:26Tucker Carlson?

  I think that's, that's fair.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay. So he doesn't want to quit for both reasons of his freedom and, you know, the way of his life.

• 18:34Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Yes, okay.

• 18:35Tucker Carlson?

  So recognizable syndrome, I would say.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 18:38Tucker Carlson?

  Not confined to Bibi.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  It's international.

• 18:40Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, it is international.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Okay, so how does he not quit? It's pretty clear that spectacular circumstances justify his presence. It's very similar, actually. I mean, there have been comparisons between him and Churchill. It's actually fair. Only in wartime can someone like Netanyahu at this point get a position.

• 19:01Tucker Carlson?

  I get it.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  But war has to go on. So what war? So they have basically a deal with Hezbollah. I think it's not like, I think that is by far the least likely that they're going to go back in there. There are basically two options. One, once all the hostages are exchanged, then they go back into Gaza. Okay? Or, I guess one B, is to do the West Bank, which is already going on right now. Or two.

• 19:27Tucker Carlson?

  What do you mean, do the West Bank?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Invade it and exit. I mean, I mean.

• 19:31Tucker Carlson?

  What about the people who live there? Like, what happens to them?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Not Israel's problem.

• 19:36Tucker Carlson?

  What do you do while you're in the West Bank? I mean, what are you doing there? What is the point of the operation, do you know?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  To annex the territory and build developments. I mean, this is, this is, I mean, and you know, the unstated thing is that they'll either export these people or eliminate them. And so it's pretty terrifying stuff. It's not light stuff, but this is not a light interview. And so the problem is the US is the military underwriter of this. The Israelis probably can't do this without us selling them weapons. And so while Americans are tuned out and not thinking about this kind of thing, our reputation overseas is one of arms dealer. And over time, that affects your children, being able to travel abroad, that affects America's reputation overseas. It's dicey stuff.

• 20:25Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it caused 9/11, among other things, right? So, yeah, it has effects for sure.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:29Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Option two is Iran.

• 20:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Which is, which is as, I'll just quote them, I'll quote the hardline perspective itself. It's the head of the snake in the conception of the Israeli hardline and also the neoconservative right in the United States.

• 20:45Tucker Carlson?

  For sure.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  And so Israel also can't do Iran, in my view, and also in general assessments, without the help of the United States. It's usually joint US-Israeli airstrikes, or even a solo invasion of Iran by the United States is the ultimate sort of fantasy.

• 21:06Tucker Carlson?

  I'm gonna need more coffee.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:07Tucker Carlson?

  To proceed because you're blowing my mind, Kurt Mills. I was in a restaurant the other night, in fact, this weekend, and I had a little trouble hearing what people were saying. And I thought to myself, I'm a little young to go deaf. Why? Well, because I grew up shooting, bird hunting, target shooting. And I remember my father saying, just stick a Marlboro filter in your opposite ear and you'll be fine. I wish we'd had suppressors, but we didn't.

• 21:33Tucker Carlson?

  You can now. Check out Silencer Central. Silencers play a crucial role in improving accuracy, maximizing your experience, and protecting your hearing. They're not dangerous or scary. It's just the opposite. Not using them can be dangerous. Have dinner with me in a restaurant and you'll know what I mean. Silencer Central can fix your problems immediately. They will find the perfect silencer for you and make it very easy to buy one. It's not the hassle you thought it was. I know because I just went through it. So you get approved and then Silencer Central ships your order straight to your door. No hassle whatsoever. It is easy. It doesn't get any better, in fact. So if you thought it was impossible to shoot suppressed, you were wrong.

• 22:18Tucker Carlson?

  Go to silencercentral.com right now. Start browsing. Use the code TUCKER10 for 10% off your first purchase of Banish Suppressors. Highly recommended.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  We all hear the radio ads about the IRS. They tell you to be afraid, to be scared, and they try to frighten you into calling. I'm not here to do that. Tax Relief Advocates is different. TRA is here to tell you that if you owe money to the IRS, whether it's $5,000, $50,000, or $500,000, we have a solution. It doesn't matter if you're sitting in your car, at work, or with your kids. No matter where you are, call now. 800-576-4705. Don't lose hope. TRA can eliminate or reduce what you owe to the IRS. Generous programs are now available that can give you a fresh start. Our passion is taxes and helping individuals fix their IRS problems. We have over 1,000 5-star reviews on Google and an 8+ with the Better Business Bureau. You don't need to be afraid of the IRS any longer.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  End your tax nightmare today by visiting us online at TRA.com or call 800-576-4705. That's 800-576-4705. Tax Relief Advocates. Real solutions for real people.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Have you ever heard of the Pelosi Stock Tracker? Well, here's the stock trading app behind it. Most of us don't have access to classified information, yet our politicians seem to. For years, they've been publicly trading stocks with some being oddly timed around certain legislation. Well, this team said, "If you can't beat them, join them and build autopilot." It connects directly to your brokerage account, like a Robin Hood or Schwab, and mimics Nancy Pelosi and other politicians' stock trades automatically. So instead of debating what stocks to buy, you just trade alongside them, hands-free. And the key thing here: your money stays in your own account. The app already has 1.3 billion invested so far.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  So if you wanted to check it out, search "autopilot" in the App Store or go to joinautopilot.com. That's joinautopilot.com. Investing has risks, like the loss of principal.

• 24:36Tucker Carlson?

  Just one quick digression about Steve Wilkoff.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 24:41Tucker Carlson?

  I think it's really significant that he's not a professional foreign policy figure. He hasn't spent a career at the State Department or, you know, doing bilaterals for his career. You know, he's just a smart, tough, competent person who was charged with a task by the president and he got it done. And maybe we need more of that. I mean, you know, there are certain parts of statecraft that, you know, probably it's helpful to have experience in statecraft, but some of it's just pretty straightforward. Get a ceasefire, okay.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, I know. I mean, I think there has-

• 25:17Tucker Carlson?

  Did anyone from the State Department have done what Steve Wilkoff did, do you think?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  No, especially without the president's-

• 25:23Tucker Carlson?

  Well, of course not. But even if Trump had, like, called someone in and been like, "Okay, Mr. Career Diplomat, can you affect a ceasefire?" He'd be like, "Well, it's very complicated."

• 25:35Tucker Carlson?

  Wilkoff's just like, "Hey, ceasefire, stop."

• 25:37Speaker 01

  No, it's the same. I mean, like, international relations has been made into, they have to make it into like a pseudoscience.

• 25:45Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly. Smart, exactly, just like everything else.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like everything else.

• 25:50Tucker Carlson?

  Just like journalism or-

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:52Tucker Carlson?

  Even education, like you can't teach third grade without a master's degree.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Tucker Carlson?

  Are you kidding?

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's just needlessly complex.

• 25:58Tucker Carlson?

  When the first requirement is, do you like third graders? It's nothing to do with your master's degree. The whole thing isn't, it's absurd.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then, you know, it's the same thing of all of academia, which is like people's theses are increasingly more baroque. And like, nobody actually

• 26:10Tucker Carlson?

  Just must have

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Knows large things like the Israeli Palestinian conflict, or at least know it in a way that is applicable in power in real life. And I mean, maybe things are changing now, but like also a lot of the foreign policy establishment. It's different now in the second term, but wouldn't work with the first Trump term, wouldn't work with their team. And I think that was a discredit of the country. I think, I think that was, I think that just did not serve the country.

• 26:37Tucker Carlson?

  Well, of course it didn't serve the country. Well, we know the country hasn't been served because look at the country. And so I think, you know, we can say of all players, they didn't serve the country. That includes the media. And there have been times when I didn't serve the country, like when I advocated for the Iraq war. I mean, we're all culpable to some extent, but it's just remarkable to me that people are continuing it. So now, instead of telling us that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, or that Osama bin Laden attacked us for our freedoms, or whatever the lie of the day was. The new idea is that Iran is quite the head of the snake. How many Americans have been killed by Iranian proxies in the United States over the last 20 years, do you think?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  How many Americans in the United States?

• 27:17Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, have been killed by Iran sponsored terrorism.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Zero.

• 27:20Tucker Carlson?

  Right around zero. How many have died of fentanyl ODs? Drugs whose precursors come from China?

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Millions.

• 27:27Tucker Carlson?

  Well, more than a million.

• 27:30Tucker Carlson?

  More than a million.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:32Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, look, like to play I mean,

• 27:35Tucker Carlson?

  What are you talking about?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Iranians, the Iranians backed proxies that killed US troops in the Iraq war.

• 27:41Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, of course.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  But we shouldn't have done the Iraq war.

• 27:45Tucker Carlson?

  Well, Iran took over Iraq because we took out Saddam Hussein in a majority Shiite country. I happened to be there for that. And even I, as a 33 year old moron was like, wait a second, it's a basic interest in demographics. Like, isn't this going to go to Iran now?

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 28:01Tucker Carlson?

  Anyway, yes, right, right. But I just find it amazing that there's been no public conversation about whether or not the United States should go to war with Iran. There's been no case laid out, at least in 2002, they had the decency to lie to us in a pretty complicated, sophisticated way about weapons of mass destruction. Now it's just like, shut up, you're anti-American if you ask questions. And it feels like we're moving toward a conflict with Iran. Is that a fair?

• 28:31Speaker 01

  I think we have been moving towards one. And, you know, I think the, basically, the biggest risk of a democratic administration is a war with Russia. And the biggest risk of a Republican administration is a war with Iran.

• 28:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  So my rule is always, that's why it's more ethical to be a Republican, because at least the Iranians don't have nukes yet. So that's, that's actually like, pretty close to my first principle. Like, like, just outright.

• 28:57Tucker Carlson?

  We have simplified it, haven't we?

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. But the Iran war would be still like, the worst, and like, not something that we should pursue. And look, foreign policy experts at this point will chime in on this conversation, being like, oh, well, that's just so unrealistic, that's not actually what we want, this is actually this ridiculous externality. But I think it is worth noting that we have done wars, toppling governments throughout the region over the last 25 years. So, number one, it's happened very recently. Number two, it is kind of the explicit goal of the hardliners. And the hardliners keep moving the overture window in their direction.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  And so while this is perhaps not 100% certain, hardly, there is a hard drive towards doing this. And picking off Pentagon deputies and allowing leaders like Trump and Vance to be surrounded by hawks and no dissenting voices whatsoever.

• 29:56Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Is absolutely essential towards any road to war.

• 30:01Tucker Carlson?

  And, and I have to say, the amount of calculated deception on the right, so all of a sudden Barry Weiss, who's a leftist, becomes a conservative because she's against trannyism or something, would, you know, every normal person is against that.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:18Tucker Carlson?

  But you, it's pretty obvious that the whole purpose of her organization, The Free Press, and her career in journalism.

• 30:26Tucker Carlson?

  Is to kind of soften up the right for war with Iran and to attack anybody and she gets whole constellation of people, you know, Neil Ferguson and all these kind of people who had weight to the project, but who really are all kind of paid to flak for war with Iran and attack anyone who's not with the program. I felt the sting of this. So I didn't really understand how this worked, but then, you know, someone with like thoroughly moderate foreign policy views, I don't really want war with anybody. I'm not against anybody. And all of a sudden you're like, wow, you know, people are calling you anti-American.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Well, there's precedent for this. So what you're just, I don't know. I don't know any of the people you described personally.

• 31:05Tucker Carlson?

  But I'm just saying like there was, you said, the problem with voting Republican is you're more likely to wind up with a war with Iran. And I agree with you. I'd much rather have a war with Iran than a war with Russia, but kind of don't want either one. And it's just interesting how the groundwork, I just know, because I've been in conservative media my whole life, all of a sudden, all these new people and you're like, oh, Barry Weiss, are you really conservative? Well, not at all. Then what are you doing here? Oh, you're trying to convince me that I'm not allowed to oppose a war with Iran or I'm going to be written out of the conservative movement or something.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Okay. So a lot of people are comparing Trump to Reagan these days.

• 31:40Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  And I think it is an inaccurate comparison, but there obviously are comparisons that are, they're very different human beings, basically my position. So if you accept that Trump is the biggest cheese since Reagan.

• 31:51Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  On the Republican side, what happened in the Reagan years? So the neoconservatives, that is, people who came from the left and moved to the right, were very, very savvy, effective and reasonable at domestic policy. They were very, very good on the crime issues of the day.

• 32:12Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  And their periodicals gained currency because, hey, actually, we should clean up the streets of New York, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• 32:21Tucker Carlson?

  And some of them were, I knew a lot of them and some of them were really smart, decent people too.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:27Tucker Carlson?

  And by the way, some of their foreign policy views were not crazy at all. They were, they recognized the Soviet Union was evil. Like the first generation of neocons. Midge Decter? I mean, I kind of love Midge Decter. I don't know. Do you know what I mean? I don't think that they were all nuts at all.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but by the 90s and 2000s, you know, if you believed in, you know, some crime enforcement in New York, you also had to believe towards the march towards regime change in Iraq. And so, again, again, they don't want to.

• 32:57Tucker Carlson?

  I'm skipping that part of the buffet line.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:59Tucker Carlson?

  You don't know. I will take the safe city and the thriving economy. I'm going to leave out the forever war. Is that okay?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  But I think that is the essential pitch of this new generation of neoconservatism, which of course, does not call itself that, but it is moderation on the social issues. Let's turn down the volume.

• 33:15Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  And at the same time, over here in calm space over here, a little, little news item about what's going on in the Red Sea and why the US needs to care. And it's a drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, and it can go on for months and years and years and years. And all of a sudden, we super care about the Houthis in Yemen. We super care about

• 33:38Speaker 01

  Iran, and we have to underwrite a war in Israel until every single member of Hamas is dead. And it's just not clear that the US international, the US national interest is there, to put it lightly.

• 33:56Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, and I guess what I object to is, I mean, I'm never offended by people with different ideas.

• 34:03Tucker Carlson?

  I'm never offended by someone who makes a sincere case, affirmative case or something that I disagree with. Okay. And by the way, maybe he's right and I'm wrong. I've certainly been wrong a lot.

• 34:13Tucker Carlson?

  The part where I get enraged is the bad faith.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:17Tucker Carlson?

  And so you ask questions like, well, is this in our interest? Well, you hate so and so. I don't hate anybody. And I certainly don't hate that, certainly don't hate that country. I like it a lot, actually.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:28Tucker Carlson?

  But there's no room for, they don't, they're preventing discussion.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:32Tucker Carlson?

  And, and a lot of these people have the gall to describe themselves as, you know, warriors for free speech, when of course, free speech is the last thing they want. And they've gone out of their way to prevent any kind of open conversation about the most important topics in our collective life.

• 34:51Tucker Carlson?

  So I'm just, I'm just bothered by the lying. There's too much lying, don't you think?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 34:56Tucker Carlson?

  I would say, and by the way, I'll even go far, farther and say, having worked for Bill Kristol for five and a half years.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  William Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, that was, was the absolute launching point magazine of the Iraq war.

• 35:08Tucker Carlson?

  For sure. And I was there. I mean, I started the very first day of the Weekly Standard, August 1st, 1995, 30 years ago. And I thought Bill Kristol, I still would say, was a great boss, you know, interesting, fun to talk to, funny as hell. Obviously, I think he's taken a really dark turn and his life has been kind of a disaster and I feel bad for him. But one thing I'll say about Bill Kristol circa, you know, 2000, is that he would make an actual case for his views. He would say, we have to go in and take out Saddam for the following eight reasons. And he would write.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  And you say this in 95, 96, 97.

• 35:43Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, I was there for all of that. And I wasn't paying super close attention because I was dumb. And I was focused on other things. And I was like, oh yeah, it's his foreign policy hobby horse, you know, he's into that stuff. I'm not that into it. I didn't understand the stakes. I didn't really understand anything, actually. I mean, I was like a kid. But I always admired and still admire his willingness and that generation's willingness to, to make their case, to write some paper. Here's what we're for. That is gone. And now it's just like, can we censor the people? Can we call them names to the point where they get kicked off social media? So there's no counter argument.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Well, even Kristol himself has stopped writing.

• 36:19Tucker Carlson?

  Well, he could never write.

• 36:22Tucker Carlson?

  Not a genius, I will say. But, you know, an affable, amusing person in meetings, you know.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, probably the most successful political organizer of the last 30 years.

• 36:31Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. And tireless, you know? And there are good things to be said about Bill Kristol. Obviously, he's called me a Nazi like 100 times, but that's kind of the point. I'm not a Nazi. I'm not for the Nazis. I just don't, I've got different views. And that's the turn that I'm really bothered by.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:49Tucker Carlson?

  Is just the pure ad hominem.

• 36:53Tucker Carlson?

  Attempts, that's an attempt at censorship.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:56Tucker Carlson?

  And Barry Weiss engages in that relentlessly behind the scenes, using all kinds of proxies, some of whom I know. And I just want to say it out loud. I just want to say, this is deception here. Okay, so I hope people know that.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  I think it makes it impossible for the new president to do what he's promised to do if he doesn't solve this conundrum.

• 37:18Tucker Carlson?

  Well, tell me what you mean.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  So, I mean, if the president wants to send troops to the US border and the president wants to rebuild the American economy and the president wants to focus on China.

• 37:31Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  And the president wants the moral credibility to end the Russia-Ukraine war at some point.

• 37:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Expanding the war in the Middle East, even with prolonged arms sales, corrodes his political capital.

• 37:49Tucker Carlson?

  Who's going to pay for that?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  The United States.

• 37:52Tucker Carlson?

  No, but I mean, we literally are operating in the red to trillions of dollars. Like, in what world can we afford that?

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Well, it's a very complex topic.

• 38:02Tucker Carlson?

  We don't have any functioning community hospitals left.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  We have the reserve currency and we can keep writing debt until it causes an inflation crisis, which a lot of people thought would happen earlier and did not. And even our inflation crisis in the 2020s was mild by global standards. So accordingly, we've got plenty of room for the big enchilada, which is Iran war.

• 38:27Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, so this, it just feels like a big deal.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  It's a big deal.

• 38:31Tucker Carlson?

  To me, and it feels like it's worth, I mean, certainly, if you comment on this, you do ask yourself, is it really worth it? You know, do I want to get into this? By the way, a lot of people I really like and I'm friends with violently disagree. So you run the risk, which I really don't want, of rupturing friendships over it. That's the last thing I want, ever. And you think, maybe I should be quiet. But it does seem like that's a huge step. And at the very least, the public ought to understand that there are highly motivated people pushing us toward that. Do you think that we will participate in a military action against Iran?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Um, well, the big question is right now. So there's a new Iranian president. So the previous Iranian president died along with his foreign minister in a helicopter accident over the summer. A little mysterious.

• 39:22Tucker Carlson?

  Are you gonna use air quotes around accident or?

• 39:24Speaker 01

  I mean, a lot of things happened last year. It's very possible. I mean, I don't think.

• 39:30Tucker Carlson?

  Everyone got killed last year. So many accidents!

• 39:34Speaker 01

  The Iranians, the Iranians' equipment, helicopter equipment, is, to my understanding, is old. And it is a rough part of the world, and it's possible that it, it's likely that it just went down.

• 39:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  And again, I would say.

• 39:49Tucker Carlson?

  I would not fly in a helicopter with Iranian officials. I'm just telling you that.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And again, if you think it was Israel, the Israelis, pretty, pretty much, pretty much took credit or didn't deny all the other assassinations that occurred last year.

• 40:03Tucker Carlson?

  I don't, yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Leading of Hamas leadership, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• 40:07Tucker Carlson?

  Just for the record, I try to suspend judgment because I know a lot about what countries do. And I do think, this is one thing I'll say in support of Israel, I do think that it is, you know, it isn't fair to just single out Israel and say they're doing naughty stuff, like lots of people are doing naughty stuff. That's just a fact. My only, you know, the only point where I would feel like I want to say something is if the United States gets sucked into it. It's like, that, now, now we're talking about our interests, my country, where my family's from, and I think it's fair to speak up then.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the, so I guess maybe the 2025 zoom out, you would say, um, there was an election in Iran right afterwards.

• 40:48Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  A lot of people disagree with our perspective, will disagree with this term, but the more moderate candidate, people think there are no moderates within the regime, but the, the less hardcore candidate won. This is the first time this has happened since Trump left the Iran deal. And this person.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  It is not clear how much power he has within the system. The supreme leader is old. It's not clear how old. And there will be a succession crisis to succeed the supreme leader should he die.

• 41:23Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  So it is this weird situation where every time Iran is in a crisis, and they're in crisis right now, they're in electricity crisis by all reporting. Again, don't know if we can trust all the reporting, but they can't keep the lights on in Tehran fully. And what will they do? And so every time Iran is at a decision point, there is a fracas between what I will call the moderates and the hardliners within their government. The hardliners want to go for the bomb. They think we can't trust anybody.

• 41:54Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  We need to get the bomb. They also recently signed a mutual, you know, a defense pact, just short of mutual defense pact, but a security arrangement with the Russians. So they seem to have a bunker mentality right now. If US intelligence or Israeli intelligence or Western intelligence assesses that they are going for the bomb in a real way, so they can either be true or false, but if they assess it, then there will be severe pressure on the new administration to do airstrikes on Iranian nuclear.

• 42:31Tucker Carlson?

  I get it. Look, I don't want Iran to get the bomb. I don't want anyone to get the bomb. I'm against the bomb. Okay. But I was around when Pakistan got the bomb.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:40Tucker Carlson?

  And Pakistan is a country with a lot of wonderful people in it, kind of a great country in a lot of ways. Spent a fair amount of time there. However, the government of Pakistan.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Is arguably scarier than Iran's.

• 42:51Tucker Carlson?

  You think? Harbor Osama bin Laden, et cetera. ISI has been, you know, really a source of disorder in South Asia for a long time. And they've exported nuclear technology, including to North Korea. So. No one's ever said anything about that. Like, it's not a crisis that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has the bomb. Well, I don't really get it. I mean, why was that not a crisis? Why do we do nothing to do nothing to stop that?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  I guess it occurred basically when the US was still quasi pro Pakistan over India. And it was.

• 43:26Tucker Carlson?

  That was a bad bet, by the way.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  It was a Nixonian bet, actually. He really, he really didn't like Indira Gandhi. It was basically.

• 43:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, okay, well.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  He basically was.

• 43:34Tucker Carlson?

  I think we can say longitudinally, that was a bad bet.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  He just didn't like one person and it didn't really matter.

• 43:38Tucker Carlson?

  No, that was like betting on Wang computers over Apple. Like, it just kind of didn't turn out.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:43Tucker Carlson?

  Fair?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  I'm not holding a wang in my, so.

• 43:48Tucker Carlson?

  But, but the point is.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Might want to cut that.

• 43:54Tucker Carlson?

  No, we're keeping the wang in. Yeah. Look, I, all I'm saying is.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  My father sold wang computers.

• 43:59Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, did he? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make it personal.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  No, no, well, no, it's just, it's, it was, at one point, the top salesmen in the country were wang computers.

• 44:06Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, your father sold some wang's.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yes. Are we, is this actually going?

• 44:09Tucker Carlson?

  Of course it's actually going out. Are you kidding?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. R I P wang.

• 44:14Tucker Carlson?

  This is hard hitting. When we first did a deal with Black Rifle Coffee, Evan, the CEO, sent us like a case of coffee beans. And honestly, I have not had any coffee since then in the past eight months. It's not made by Black Rifle. We are obsessed. And it's not just coffee. They've got high-performance energy drinks, tons of merch that's very cool. It is the best, and we can say that as daily obsessive users of the product. Black Rifle Coffee is awesome. And by the way, Black Rifle itself is awesome. The company is filled with special forces veterans working there, bringing you the best products on the market. Black Rifle has always been more than just about must-have offerings. They're committed to supporting veterans, first responders, law enforcement.

• 44:57Tucker Carlson?

  Every purchase provides funding to those groups and gear. The people who are protecting us, who are the heart of this country. From premium coffee roast, ready drink cans, to American gear. Every item designed to give you a sense of this country. Black Rifle Coffee, blackriflecoffee.com. Use the code TUCKER for 30% off on your first order, or simply grab one of their items off your grocery shelves in your town. We drink it, we recommend it.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Honey, that flu keeping you up?

• 45:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't got this.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  You need Nyquil Intense Flu.

• 45:33Speaker 06

  Undo your flu symptoms with Nyquil Intense Flu. The nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever. Best sleep with a flu medicine. You do got this. Uses directed, keep out of reach of children.

• 45:42Speaker 07

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Safford Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend Happy.

• 45:51Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, special finance manager at SaffordCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SaffordCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.

• 46:25Tucker Carlson?

  Look, all I'm saying is it's important to maybe dial back a little bit on the moral outrage and assess the world as it is, assess what you can do, you know, create a hierarchy of priorities, like we don't want other countries to get nuclear weapons. I think that's, I'm with the neocons 100% on that. But, you know, in a complicated world that we don't actually control.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:47Tucker Carlson?

  What will, you know, what can we do? What are the limits of our power? Given a lot of other factors like our domestic, our economy, the needs of our people. Like, you can't do everything. That's all I'm saying.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I mean, I, so I think Trump should complete the work of his first term, which is he revoked the JCPOA, the Obama-Iran deal.

• 47:06Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  And he should do a Trump-Iran deal.

• 47:09Tucker Carlson?

  He's sending Wicoff over to do that.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so Wicoff, the aforementioned, not only did what he did with the Israelis, he was promoted for it, per reporting. It has not been confirmed to my understanding by the transition or the White House. But per the FT and I believe another outlet, Wicoff is getting, quote, "the Iran file." Within the Trump universe, that's as much power as the president wants to give it. But- As of filming, his role is expanding. And if Trump wants a lasting legacy of peace and prosperity, there needs to be an accommodation with the de facto government of Iran.

• 47:49Tucker Carlson?

  So if, of course, there does. This is just, this is totally insane. It's counter to our interests, I guess, is what I would say. If you were Trump and you say to Steve Whitkoff, "Hey, Steve Whitkoff, go get a ceasefire in place." And he comes back like 20 minutes later with a ceasefire, wouldn't you say, "Okay"?

• 48:08Speaker 01

  We like that pace.

• 48:09Tucker Carlson?

  I like that pace. Wouldn't you send him to Iran? I would.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:14Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah. I mean, and this is actually something both Trump and Obama, who apparently get along now, at least per functionally, agreed on.

• 48:24Tucker Carlson?

  Well, they both dislike Michelle, I think.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  So they, remember Obama on the debate stage in 08, said, and he was, he was hauled down for this, whatever you think of Barack Obama, said, "We should meet with the Iranian leaders face to face." And Trump did similar maneuvers.

• 48:43Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, why wouldn't you?

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, with Kim Jong-un, et cetera, et cetera. And again.

• 48:47Tucker Carlson?

  We're sucking up to dictators. Oh, shut up.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  I mean, was North Korea policy more stable from 2017 to 2021 or 2021 to 2025?

• 48:56Tucker Carlson?

  I don't think after 25 years of this nonsense, killing dictators and watching their countries become more chaotic and more dangerous to the United States and the world, that we have any obligation to listen to people who chirp like that.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:09Tucker Carlson?

  Sucking up to dictators. Shut up.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  To link it all.

• 49:11Tucker Carlson?

  You don't know anything, actually.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Some of the, so we started this conversation with, you know, sort of the campaign against the cadres that are now serving Secretary Hekseth. The people that are leading, as far as I can infer, are oftentimes many of the people that were behind the original Iraq war.

• 49:28Tucker Carlson?

  And so, well, yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this may seem obvious.

• 49:31Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I'm 55, so this is driving me completely insane. I thought after we discovered that the pretext of the war was a lie, that those people would, I don't know, don ashes. Sackcloth and go like, sit on a pillar for 10 years.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  I think a lot of Americans assume that they did. So we do this for a living.

• 49:48Tucker Carlson?

  They didn't. They went around the World Bank and they still run the State Department. And Tori Newland, who was an architect of the Iraq war, was an architect of the Ukraine war. Like, this is just doesn't end.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  But, but most Americans have real jobs and don't know this. And so the, these people are disguised or shrouded from public view. And they are still quite effective at driving home an agenda. In fact, I would assume they will win, uh, absent pushback.

• 50:15Tucker Carlson?

  And oh, they'll definitely win absent pushback. Oh, 100%.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they are, they're still.

• 50:20Tucker Carlson?

  That's why I want an interview.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're still hegemonic. Uh, and, uh, even if, even if they're a minority government, so to speak.

• 50:28Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. And I, and I, I'm folk, cause I'm, I spent my life in the media. I'm very kind of fixated on their enablers, um, their agents in the American news media. And one of them who's working, has been working for years on their behalf, on behalf of permanent Washington, the foreign policy establishment. Every bad idea, um, is Jennifer Griffin at Fox, the Pentagon reporter. Who, um, is now, you know, basically texting, Domeno, is that the?

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Michael Domeno.

• 50:59Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. Is, you know, running around on behalf of, um, you know, her sources at the Pentagon. Doing their bidding, trying to torpedo these guys because the permanent staff doesn't want to be challenged on anything. And okay, you know, there's a role for that kind of behavior. It's called lobbying. But it's a little crazy that like a supposed news reporter would be acting like that. I'm not guessing. This is a fact. She's doing that right now. And has been doing that kind of thing for as long as I've been paying attention, like a couple, a couple of decades. How does that continue?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know her personally, but what I will say is the, the role of most Pentagon reporters has always struck me since I've, I've, I've done this as extremely hierarchical. I mean, it.

• 51:45Tucker Carlson?

  What do you mean by hierarchical?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  It almost felt like the reporters worked for the Pentagon.

• 51:48Tucker Carlson?

  Well, of course they.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, and in any place that I've worked that had a Pentagon correspondent. And, uh, that was the only way you stayed in the room. And, uh.

• 52:00Tucker Carlson?

  Isn't this a democracy? Where we have civilian command of the armed forces and the entire federal government works for the population of the country, its voters, its citizens, its constituents, shareholders, no? There's no sense of that whatsoever in Washington at all.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:17Tucker Carlson?

  It's like, what are you doing here?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  I think it's fast moving. I mean, I mean, you didn't see criticisms or skepticism of the military from the right until the very last few years, including from the new president, including from organs of conservative media. I think it started with with Mark Milley, but also the sort of

• 52:36Tucker Carlson?

  Some of us were at it before.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Troy, I know, but in the in the in the in public opinion.

• 52:40Tucker Carlson?

  It was considered a fringe position.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  It's not fringe. Yeah.

• 52:44Tucker Carlson?

  You know, I just refer you back to the pivot point in American politics in my lifetime, which was the 2016 debate in Greenville, South Carolina, where Donald Trump, home of the highest percentage of military veterans of any state famously, and Donald Trump came out against the Iraq war and all the dumbbells at the channel I work for and in Washington like, oh, he's lost it now. He'll never get the nomination. He's offended all the veterans. And of course, all the guys whose lives were destroyed fighting these wars, not on behalf of the United States, not to the benefit of the United States, they were filled with many emotions, frustration, shame, rage, sadness, and they immediately knew what he was talking about. And no one in DC knew.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  I think he overperformed his polling. So like he was polling, he was polling a certain, he was he was ahead and the Bush family came in. That's when it was, it was the last stand for for Mr. Jeb in February of 2016. And George W. Bush campaigned finally for Jeb. And it was like, we got to keep him in the race. We're going to make our stand. And he did the big fat mistake that is Iraq debate. And I think Trump is up 10 or 15. I think he won by over 20 in that debate. Don't quote me on that, but it was, it was, it was something like that. He was

• 53:58Tucker Carlson?

  It was right before the primary.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  It was over the polling. So like, not only did he not go down and still won, he went up and then clearly triumphed.

• 54:06Tucker Carlson?

  That was the moment when I was just, you know, whatever his flaws, I was for Trump because here was a guy telling a real truth, a hard truth that no one wanted him to tell. And was rewarded for it. And I just felt like that was, that's consistent with my principles and beliefs, which is you ought to tell the truth. And a healthy country rewards people who tell the truth, not people who lie.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  There's a cynical bet, though, I would say that, and it's a cynical bet on Trump, and it's a cynical bet on Americans, and it's a cynical bet on Republicans and independents, which is, I'll just, I'll just, let's use the actual language of center-left or left-wing media. It's a cult. And once the cult leader leaves, we can just go back to 2005 and implant the same old free trade, open borders.

• 55:00Tucker Carlson?

  Maybe.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Endless neoconservatism. And actually, the people that are driving the opposition to these selections in the Pentagon agree with President Trump's critics in spirit and in practice.

• 55:18Tucker Carlson?

  You know, that's an interesting analysis. I mean, it's like MSNBC-level dumb person analysis, but it's also like a real analysis. And there is a sense in which devotion to Trump has a religious quality to it. I mean, that's undeniable. I was just in DC for the inauguration. I can confirm that. And there are a lot of reasons for that. You know, I think a lot of voters feel like Trump is the only person who cares about them. He's their only option. And so they're on board regardless, because where else are they going? And I think, I think that's true, A. And B, I think that's a reflection of like, how badly the leadership of the country has failed. People will take anything other than that. But I also think saying true things out loud changes history. I think that's the lesson of history.

• 56:02Tucker Carlson?

  The only people who actually change history, not the ones who marshal the biggest armies, but the ones who speak the truth out loud. I think it's a holy act. I think it's a transformative act. And all of history is the story of that act, actually. And sometimes it, you know, it takes centuries for the consequences to unfold, but they do. It's inevitable. It changes everything. Once you, that's why there's such a, almost a crazed attempt to shut down people from speaking. Why speaking? They don't care about violence. They care about talking, because they understand correctly that that's what matters over time. Right? So once Trump has said all this stuff. There's kind of no going back.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:39Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think, I mean, that's my view. I don't know.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't, I don't agree with the cynical bet. I think it's a bad bet.

• 56:44Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Which is why the tactics are increasingly hysterical.

• 56:48Tucker Carlson?

  Hysterical.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  And marginal.

• 56:49Tucker Carlson?

  But we're, we're robbed of like a real debate. I mean, I don't know. You know, if it's, if you think it's so important to kill the leaders of Iran and get into a full-scale war with a real country, which Iran is, which is part of a real coalition.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  They won't say full scale. They'll say like.

• 57:06Tucker Carlson?

  For any war.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  They'll say that the Ayatollah has to go. It's very important to use as scary words as possible. Ayatollah, the mullahs, the Islamic Republic emphasize, you know, and again, like, basically the Bin Laden who's dead runs a country, even though these are different ethnicity and a different religion. And so it doesn't really matter. You're stupid. And we need to do this again. And like, they won't say an invasion. But again, some of the people pushing this stuff didn't say an invasion in 1996. They soft, they laid, they softened the ground for it.

• 57:45Tucker Carlson?

  Where's the debate on it? I guess that's the point.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  There wasn't a debate.

• 57:48Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, it's a little harder here too, because on the question of Russia, it's been surprisingly effective for them to just dismiss all criticism as sponsored by Putin. Like, you don't think it's a good idea to prop up.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Speed is very important.

• 58:02Tucker Carlson?

  Zelensky government, you're a Putin puppet or whatever.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  You want someone to do something.

• 58:07Tucker Carlson?

  Can you really call like a white, American, Christian guy, a puppet of the mullahs? Probably not. It's like, I don't think that works, right? Does it? I guess they're trying it with Steve Wykoff. You're a, you're a tool of Qatar.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Oh, so you're referring to, so.

• 58:24Tucker Carlson?

  The Shiites.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:26Tucker Carlson?

  I don't think as a rhetorical matter, it's quite as easy.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Should we address the actual allegation?

• 58:30Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  I mean, so Wykoff, I believe, took his, a real estate firm took some sort of investment from Qatar. And so first of all, I would say throughout the Trump entourage, a lot of them have worked with Gulf states. And as far as I'm can tell, the real estate business is rife with investments from Gulf states. And then additionally, as far as I'm aware, this is hardly that man's net worth.

• 58:54Tucker Carlson?

  Domestic, I mean, you can't buy an apartment in New York because there's so much Chinese money in the residential real estate market. So like. Okay, so the argument is what? You're only allowed to invest in your own company's country's real estate? Okay, let's start here. Let's ban foreign investment in our real estate markets. Oh, no, that's anti-capitalist. Just the whole thing doesn't make sense. What are they saying? What?

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Well, with the Qatar argument specifically, I mean, I think it's an unusual place. It was supposed to be the eighth emirate. So it is separate from the UAE. It is the most conservative of those Emirates, I would say, at least in terms of the government. They have a perspective. They spend money on media. They spend money on press junkets. They have an influence operation. No question. But the idea that this small jetting, you know, LNG dependent, you know, peninsula controls US foreign policy, hook, line and sinker, top to bottom.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  If you think that, I don't think you're extremely curious.

• 1:00:05Tucker Carlson?

  I do think it's worth having an honest, I've never seen one, there never has been one, but an honest conversation about foreign influence on American policy. I think that's a totally legitimate topic. And, you know, we've kind of done a lot of lying and pretending, for example, that Russia has like undue influence over American foreign policy. It's absurd. But, but why not have that conversation? Are there, are there foreign countries that exert influence on American policy? Whose interests supersede those of American citizens when, you know, in the minds of policymakers? And, you know, there may be some of those. What, how would we rank Qatar? You know, in terms of its influence? Maybe, maybe not in the top three.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 1:00:47Tucker Carlson?

  Right. So just having lived in DC, this whole conversation is like so infuriatingly false and just silly.

• 1:00:57Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, are they running intel operations against us? There's a lot of Qatar surveillance in Washington? A lot of Qatar agents running around the Willard Hotel? I don't think so. Maybe.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Very well disguised.

• 1:01:12Tucker Carlson?

  Like, what are you talking about? I mean, our country's doing that. Are they hacking the Pentagon's mainframes? I don't think, oh, China's doing that.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:20Tucker Carlson?

  Right, okay, so.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. But making the allegation, though, is a kind of armor, though. It makes you seem informed. It makes you seem like a sort of a spymaster. You know, like, I know something you don't. I'm more serious, quote unquote, than you.

• 1:01:36Tucker Carlson?

  Everyone traffics in that nonsense.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, like, let's not have a conversation. And it's very anti-democratic, small d. It is not agreeing to disagree. It is not saying we have different values and, you know, shaking each other's hand and walking out of the room. It is shutting down the spirit of the system.

• 1:01:53Tucker Carlson?

  Well, so that's exactly the complaint that I have. And that's the problem that I have with Barry Weiss. It's a problem I have with Jen Griffin. It's the problem I have with Washington Post. And just so much of the media coverage of foreign policy is based on insinuation and like the cruelest sort of character destroying insinuations that you're not loyal to your own country.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:18Tucker Carlson?

  And I'm sure that...

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  They reach for the biggest sword.

• 1:02:21Tucker Carlson?

  They go, man, they go right for the face. And I just think that that's beneath a great nation like ours. I think it's beneath any decent person to behave. If you have evidence that someone's selling out of his country, tell me what it is. But to start with that, to accuse Steve Whitkoff of being a tool of Qatar, it's like so over the top. I just feel like it's important to call out to people doing it and say, you're disgusting. We're not listening to you anymore. You have no influence except that that you project through aggression and threats and like...

• 1:02:53Tucker Carlson?

  We're not, we're not playing along.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  I think a lot of it is effective in Republican politics.

• 1:02:57Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Because, you know, so you were there for the inauguration, I observed a week ago. And, you know, I've always observed that is usually when I meet someone from a red state, like a deep red state, Oklahoma or Alabama, it's often their first time in Washington DC.

• 1:03:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  It's very like a Roman province, visiting Rome for the first time.

• 1:03:20Tucker Carlson?

  Totally.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  And.

• 1:03:21Tucker Carlson?

  I'm here from Gaul.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Tucker Carlson?

  Show me around.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and versus, I would say, blue state America actually has a lot, the coasts have a lot more familiarity of DC.

• 1:03:31Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Back and forth, I report access, et cetera, et cetera. So when they hear the argument going on in the Capitol, there's actually a de facto trust there that might be not as much there on the Democratic side. There's actually, there's actually more jaundiced cynicism on the Democratic side. So it's less effective. They assume that the, despite it all, despite all of the failures that you've announced, that you've reported on fairly tirelessly, they assume that the people in DC know what they're doing. And I'm not sure that's the greatest default assumption.

• 1:04:06Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I mean, I think the track record is pretty, speaks conclusively.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  I mean, look, respectfully to the President, I mean, Donald Trump, again, is the only US president who is, was not a general or a former statewide official or federal official to get the presidency. And with all due respect to the new president, a healthy country doesn't elect someone like that. It had that level of outsider, that level of outsider could only exist within a polity that was deeply sick. And I think he knows that. I think he recognizes that. And the fact that the Capitol doesn't imbibe that lesson, I think they're imbibing it

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  a little bit more, but it's like, I mean, it's still bizarre, 10 years on, I mean, Trump is, June 2015, so with June this year, 10 years of Trump, you know, longer. Obama at this point, the Trump era, in spirit, I'm in length. It's like, well, maybe there's something wrong with this country, but it's like a 5% recognition. It's not a 95%.

• 1:05:14Tucker Carlson?

  I think national, I mean, first of all, I agree completely. And I wrote a piece at the very beginning of this whole saga almost 10 years ago.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Donald Trump is shocking, vulgar and right.

• 1:05:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, he's winning because you failed. It's simple, you know, obvious. It was five years ago this month that people started to drop dead in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Five years since the beginning of COVID. And yet, for some reason, we still don't know answers to the most basic questions. And one man knows those answers. His name is Dr. Tony Fauci. And now, a documentary filmmaker called Jenner First is out with a new film explaining exactly what happened. The film is called Thank You, Dr. Fauci. We'll see it exclusively here on TCN. So, most people don't wake up in the morning and decide to feel horrible, exhausted, foggy, disconnected from themselves. But it does happen, and it happens slowly.

• 1:06:05Tucker Carlson?

  You're working hard, you're showing up, and then your energy disappears by midday. Your focus is dull, your weight won't move. A lot of people are told, that's just getting old. That's what it is. But that's not actually true. For many men and women, these are not personal affairs. They are signals tied to your metabolism, your hormones, and nutrient imbalances that go undetected for years. You don't even know you're deficient. And that's why we're happy to partner with Joy and Blokes, a company that was built for people who are all done guessing and ready to figure out what exactly is going on. And that starts with comprehensive lab work and a one-on-one consultation with a licensed clinician. An actual human being explains what's happening inside you and builds a personalized plan,

• 1:06:48Tucker Carlson?

  which includes hormone optimization, peptide therapy, targeted supplements. So, don't settle. Go to joyandblokes.com/tucker. Use the code TUCKER for 50% off your lab work and 20% off all supplements. That's joyandblokes.com/tucker. Use the code TUCKER. 50% off labs, 20% off supplements. Join Blokes. Get your edge back.

• 1:07:12Speaker 05

  Too expensive? On Ro, you can access FDA-approved GLP-1 weight loss treatment at your lowest possible price if you're covered. Start with Ro's free insurance checker. Just upload your insurance card to see if you're covered for certain GLP-1 shots. Whether you use insurance or pay cash, Ro helps you find an option that works best for you. Plus, Ro's membership plans help you save even more. See if you qualify at ro.co/health. Rx only. For side effects of GLP-1 medications, including box warning, go to ro.co/safety. Additional Ro membership fee required.

• 1:07:55Tucker Carlson?

  Anyway, I don't think DC gets it, but I also think at this point Trump is the most powerful president, certainly since Roosevelt.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:08:03Tucker Carlson?

  And the potential for achieving his promises is really high. America has greater problems than it's had since the Great Depression, maybe even bigger than it had then, and we have a chance to address them. Probably not solve all of them, but make some headway on things that could help Americans. Sealing the border, stopping the chaos, just taking a breather so we can figure out how to fix the country. And the only thing that could derail that is another foreign war.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  We can't do it with this stuff. It is an actual choice.

• 1:08:34Tucker Carlson?

  It's an actual choice.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  We cannot do the border if we do the Middle East.

• 1:08:38Tucker Carlson?

  So you had, what, 200,000 people, you're dying of drug ODs and no one said anything about it? And endless lectures about Ukraine? And it's no disrespect to the Ukrainians, who I really feel sorry for, but that's so unbelievable that that happened. It's like a bad dream. And now we've woken up from the dream and we have this chance. And I'm sorry, with respect to Barry Weiss and Jen Griffin, you can't do that to us again. It's not going to go without a fight this time. We have to reorient toward our own interests. That's no disrespect to any other country, to our allies, who we as well will help to the extent we can, but the idea that we're responsible for all these other countries when we're dying here...

• 1:09:19Tucker Carlson?

  No mas. Is that, is that a radical position? That's my actual position in my heart. That's my actual position.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  I, I agree, but it's, it's, it's very upsetting not only to leaders of some foreign countries. And this is not just the Middle East. We didn't even talk about Russia, Ukraine. But like, I mean, that perspective is obviously very, very relevant for extricating the United States out of the Russia-Ukraine war. And almost every European capital is unhappy with that. And, you know, you can have a conversation with a, a nice Danish person and you might agree on immigration or trade or, or wine. But you, you mentioned like, hey, I'm not really sure the United States should be underwriting quagmire in Ukraine. And like, the conversation shuts down. It's, I mean, it is stunning.

• 1:10:03Tucker Carlson?

  Well, they're hell bent on suicide, the Western Europeans, and not Eastern Europeans or Central Europeans, but the Western Europeans are, are, you know, have decided to kill themselves. And it's, it's almost like if someone's standing on a bridge or in a window of a skyscraper and you're trying to talk them back in, it's, it's hard. And who knows why that happens? I think there's a supernatural element at work, is my personal view, but whatever you think the cause is, that's what it is. You destroy, you blow up Nord Stream, destroy the German economy, and you're not allowed to say anything about it in Germany? I don't know that we can help you at that point. Um, you know what I mean? Like, if you're that intent on self-harm, that anxious to destroy your own civilization, make it impossible for your children to live there, then you're killing yourself. You can't

• 1:10:47Tucker Carlson?

  help someone who doesn't want to help himself. Like, go ahead and jump then, kind of. That's how I feel. But just from an American perspective, like, all of this has been bad for us. There's no way to pretend otherwise, except to launch into some airy moral lecture about dictatorships and Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain or something. Just shut up, okay?

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  The Churchill thing's really...

• 1:11:08Tucker Carlson?

  It's just played out. It's played out. I mean, it's played out and...

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  But there's a, there's a, there's a gamble that some of this stuff isn't played out, though. I mean, there's, there's a gamble that, um, that this, I mean, I think people have, have... This country has a generational problem, right? Generations don't get along. I think that's fair to say.

• 1:11:29Tucker Carlson?

  For good reason.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think there's just a bet that a lot of the voters that made the decisions in the 90s and 2000s are dumb and don't care about their kids' future and will vote for the exact same thing.

• 1:11:44Tucker Carlson?

  Clearly they don't.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:46Tucker Carlson?

  Sorry.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  And will exert pressure on the new administration to do the same thing. And I think there's a bet that the president is a desperate cynical man who will do whatever it takes when he's pressured. And I think the early evidence is that it's untrue. I mean, I don't, I mean, the, the, the.

• 1:12:07Tucker Carlson?

  The evidence is that Trump is less cynical than even his supporters thought he was. I think that's the truth.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  I mean, there's, there's, do you want to discuss the Pompeo-Brian Hook stuff?

• 1:12:18Tucker Carlson?

  I would. I was just reading the Barry Weiss editorial about how pulling Pompeos.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  What did she say? I didn't read it.

• 1:12:26Tucker Carlson?

  It's outrageous. It's a betrayal of Trump's promises.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Is that what the Free Press argued?

• 1:12:33Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, that you can't, you're not allowed, you are required to pay for Mike Pompeo's security detail. And I will just say, point blank, as someone who has faced greater physical threats than Mike Pompeo, I can promise you that. I, you know, if I have security, I pay for it myself. Like, wow, why does Mike Pompeo, as a private citizen, get to stick me with the bill for his security detail? Like, how does that work, Barry Weiss? And the point is that Mike Pompeo is a faithful servant of the kind of ideas that she is here to push on the rest of us, and therefore he will be defended at all costs. But, but like, let's just be honest about what's going on. Anyway, sorry.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, details roll off. The government doesn't usually advertise it.

• 1:13:13Tucker Carlson?

  Everyone's got a detail. Fauci has a detail.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:17Tucker Carlson?

  Because he's in my dog park in Washington, and I hear about it.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  I think the interesting thing, so it's very easy to just glaze over Trump fighting with officials, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and the sort of, the, the, er, example of this is Trump versus Bolton. And we talk about that, and it's fun, but it's kind of an over, right? Bolton's not in the mix, and, or at least of Trump, and like.

• 1:13:36Tucker Carlson?

  But he's still got bits of egg in his mustache, and I don't have his cell anymore, so I can't tell him, but he needs to fix that.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, so.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Pompeo and Hook. Um, I mean, look.

• 1:13:49Tucker Carlson?

  Tell us who they are.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Mike Pompeo was the former Secretary of State, former CIA Director, former Kansas Congressman, former West Point Valedictorian.

• 1:13:59Tucker Carlson?

  Harvard graduate.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Harvard Law graduate.

• 1:14:01Tucker Carlson?

  Ozempic user. Try, I'm just doing, I'm doing the whole CV here. Okay, right.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  So, um, and he was.

• 1:14:09Tucker Carlson?

  I'm so bitchy. I'm so sorry that I said that. It's beneath me. I shouldn't have said that.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  The Bolton-Trump feud is old. The disagreement with Pompeo is potentially quite new. And so, uh, by all available information, Pompeo was in the mix uh, for Secretary of Defense, most likely, um, in the days after the election. So much so that his son, Donald Trump Jr., intervened in a sort of online campaign. Uh, and, uh, you know, other allies within that, uh, Milu, uh, stopped, uh, both Pompeo and the former UN Ambassador and South Carolinian Governor Nikki Haley from getting administration posts.

• 1:14:50Tucker Carlson?

  I, I had heard about that, yeah.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, Pompeo, um.

• 1:14:55Tucker Carlson?

  Patriotic Americans rallied as they did in Boston in the 18th century. Still act on behalf of their nation at some personal risk, but they did it anyway. Um, unsung heroes.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  One of Pompeo's former deputies, Brian Hook, who ran something called the Iran Study Group and had various other portfolios and titles at the State Department. He's actually someone Pompeo inherited from Rex Tillerson, his predecessor. He kept him on. Um, Brian Hook at, uh, various points throughout the transition in the last 100 days, um, was reported to be running the State Department's transition at some point, then was rumored, again, rumors, I don't, it's rumored, I don't, I don't post about it. I don't tweet it out. I don't write about it, but it was rumored to have been fired, very unclear. Uh, Trump, uh, in the days leading up to him taking the Oval Office, uh, oath.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  Issued essentially an enormous denunciation of fatwa against Mr. Hook extraordinary to say not only like is this guy not in the mix I hate him and he said that so that that occurred and then additionally both Hook and Pompeo's security detail was removed in the last few days.

• 1:16:18Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know that Brian Hook has served in government in four years. Why would he?

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  He definitely has not served.

• 1:16:23Tucker Carlson?

  Why would he have a security detail paid for by taxpayers?

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Not an expert on who gets Secret Service details.

• 1:16:29Tucker Carlson?

  But can I just, I just want to say again.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Actually, I can, I can actually directly answer that.

• 1:16:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  So the, the key thing here is that there is an allegation, a belief, many in the intelligence community believes this, that there were serious credible plans by the Iranians to assassinate members of the Trump High Command, as it were. So Trump, Hook, John Bolton, et cetera, et cetera, in revenge principally for the Soleimani assassination.

• 1:16:59Tucker Carlson?

  Cause they've been committing a lot of terror attacks in the United States, you've noticed. Oh, no, no, that was in Tifan.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  And so, and so that is the essential, that is the causes.

• 1:17:08Tucker Carlson?

  I'm just gonna have to scoff at all of it. I've heard a lot of this.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  The cause is belly full.

• 1:17:12Tucker Carlson?

  I hear this all the time.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  I think the key thing here is the critique on Trump always was he fired Bolton, but he didn't really understand why. So he just, he, he soured on the guy, but he didn't change any like policy, you know, he didn't learn, this, this, this is the sort of pedantic way of looking at the president. But with the Hook and Pompeo removal from his inner circle, there is, I think, very credible evidence that Trump's personal grudges are now blending quite heavily with policy. He doesn't trust the Iran hawk old guard.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  A lot of the Iran hawk old guard think tanks struck out in getting transition officials and officials in this government and again, circled around this very unlikely Pentagon, helmed by a guy who has changed his life, it appears in pretty severe ways over the last five years, both ideologically and morally, is this.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Very new Pentagon that is now being targeted by all the usual suspects. And it is the biggest story in American politics that people aren't talking about.

• 1:18:29Tucker Carlson?

  So if I could sum up what I think you're saying, it is that Donald Trump may have actually broken the grip of the neo cons on Washington.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  You, I mean, you control the Pentagon, you can, you control the military. I mean, it's, it's, I mean, it's the.

• 1:18:42Tucker Carlson?

  It just seems like this is because there was always this question about Trump. Like you, you get up and you give these speeches where you say, we don't want more pointless wars. I believe in peace through strength, not a wuss, it's not Jimmy Carter, but like, you know, you assert American power, but you don't embroil a country in wars that you can't win for no reason. It's a very moderate, sensible, common sense, I would say view. So you say those things, but then you hire John Bolton. And the question is why? And Trump would say, I've heard him say, well, I hired Bolt. I beg your pardon, I hired Bolton because he's a lunatic and he's a warmonger freak. He's obviously like watching war porn late at night and people can smell that on him.

• 1:19:26Tucker Carlson?

  And so when he goes into a negotiation, he scares the crap out of everybody and then I show up, you know, he's the heavy and I'm.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  Back up.

• 1:19:34Tucker Carlson?

  He's the backup. I mean, I've heard Trump say that and I didn't know if I believe that or not, but I was starting to think that I should have just believed him because it sounds like Trump's actual instincts are what he says they are.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the Bolton firing itself is again, ancient history, but it's, it's circled around an issue of policy.

• 1:19:54Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I remember.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, Trump had invited the Taliban, which was then the outlaw, not government of Afghanistan, as it is today, to Camp David on nine 11.

• 1:20:06Tucker Carlson?

  I just love the sound of it.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just.

• 1:20:08Tucker Carlson?

  So Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  He did. He literally did that. I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm just reporting the facts here.

• 1:20:13Tucker Carlson?

  I love, admit it's a great sentence. So Donald Trump invited the Taliban. So tonight, who, who's coming for dinner tonight at Camp David? Well, the Taliban will be here.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  Bolton, Bolton was wiped out before this meeting never happened, but it was the instigating.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Incident for the final breakdown of their relationship.

• 1:20:32Tucker Carlson?

  I do think it's important Kurt to just recognize the inherent hilarity of a lot of, you know, it's just, it is in addition to being grave and, you know, historically significant, it's very funny.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  It is quite, it is very funny.

• 1:20:43Tucker Carlson?

  A lot of this stuff is very funny.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  It's very funny. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:20:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. It's pretty great.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:48Tucker Carlson?

  So under your, your very restrained and businesslike and precise as a reporter should be, as an editor should be, but the story that you're telling, I think, I don't want to put words in your mouth, is a, is a, is a story of like real change.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:01Tucker Carlson?

  Finally, we actually appear to be getting to like a foreign policy that puts America close to the center of the, of the action.

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:11Tucker Carlson?

  Is that, is that what you're seeing?

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  No. I mean, I mean, I mean, if he sees this through, this is, this is the biggest presidency, certainly since Reagan, you alluded to FDR. I mean, it is moving the ship of state and people are going to try to stop him from doing it.

• 1:21:27Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  But they're not, they're not going to, they're not going to say that he's bad, though. They're, they're going to go after.

• 1:21:32Tucker Carlson?

  No one will ever say, right?

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no.

• 1:21:35Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I just want to counter sign them by saying, I think what you're saying is true. I think it's real and I've never admired Trump more. I don't, I don't think I'm going to ask you for on the Trump question, but this is like, America really needs this. It's just super important and it's not radical at all. It's not attacking anyone or canceling our allyship with any country at all. It's just.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  It's, you know.

• 1:22:00Tucker Carlson?

  Re-adjusting expectations for what we can achieve.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  The reason that I started covering war and foreign policy principally is that the reality is that US domestic policy is a morass. It's impossible to get anything done.

• 1:22:11Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  Obama tried to do a healthcare plan. They did six years and they couldn't even get the website working. You know, the country's hard to govern.

• 1:22:19Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  But externally, the president is imperial.

• 1:22:22Tucker Carlson?

  He's God. Yeah.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  They, quite literally the most powerful person on earth. And if you want to burnish a legacy, real quick, you do big things in foreign policy.

• 1:22:34Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's what.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  You do shocking things.

• 1:22:35Tucker Carlson?

  That's what all the Republican senators have figured out.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  You do surprising things.

• 1:22:38Tucker Carlson?

  You're John McCain, like you're, you know, whatever. You've got a lot of problems in your personal and public life, but you can bomb around Eastern Europe and get treated like an emperor.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:48Tucker Carlson?

  And feel like you're doing something. You're, you know, Jim Risch or Mike Rounds or some like US Senator nobody's ever heard of, even in his home state. But when you travel to Romania to tour a NATO base, people are like, oh, you know, Senator Risch is here. You know, it's like.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  The former chair, yeah. So.

• 1:23:06Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:08Tucker Carlson?

  So that's a, that's a big, that's a big motivator for our lawmakers, isn't it?

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  For sure. For sure. I mean, yeah, I mean.

• 1:23:17Tucker Carlson?

  You go to Idaho Falls and no one's like, oh, I can't believe you're here. But, you know.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  Chairman Risch.

• 1:23:23Tucker Carlson?

  Chairman Risch. It's like such an absurd, it's anyway, excuse me. Um, interesting. So, and I interrupted you because I can't, I can't control myself. Zero self-control. And go on the topic of pizza or neocons and I'm just out of control. Um, tell me your analysis of Trump cancelling the security details for Brian Hook and Mike Pompeo.

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  Well, he seems to have the authentic view that these people can afford it, especially, especially with Fauci. And especially with Bolton. He specifically flagged them.

• 1:24:00Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. And Pompeo, like, who's now running around being like, I'm actually a businessman.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  He's on a board of a Ukrainian company as well. And.

• 1:24:10Tucker Carlson?

  Well, he's on, I think, more than one board, but he's certainly running around, including with people I know, saying, I'm a really kind of a business guy.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, so the Pompeo's things, I mean, is like, I mean, supremely interesting because I, you know, I, I think it's somebody who probably would have positioned himself to run in a major way had Trump lost. I think it's somebody who's not going to quit being president. This is not an unintelligent man.

• 1:24:34Tucker Carlson?

  Pompeo is smart.

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  This is, yeah, this is a real fighter.

• 1:24:37Tucker Carlson?

  He's not dumb. No, I agree.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  And I don't want to say he's part of the cynical bet crowd, but he's making a bet that the Trump thing will pass and I will be able to steamroll people like Vance and even Rubio in the future because I'm more vicious. And in the meantime, you know, maybe make some money, influence the debate, et cetera, et cetera. And he's very impressive. If you don't know, I mean, I like, I mean, if you don't come in with huge foreign policy convictions as I think you and I do, he can be very persuasive.

• 1:25:11Tucker Carlson?

  Just for the record, I had no foreign policy convictions. I don't think I'm ideological on the question at all. I just think in general, our foreign policy should serve the nation.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  I am. I mean, I mean, like, I like, I mean, so I think this was very interesting about some of these Pentagon picks, not to keep linking it back, but also the vice president. A lot of these people, my generation, the millennials, fought in these wars.

• 1:25:32Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  And although the baby boomers, forget it, we're now old, you know, and we grew up, and we're quite mad about it. And it's a bipartisan thing. It's not just like a Democrat, you know, anti-Iraq war, indie music thing. It's like, young Republican people hate it too.

• 1:25:52Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  And they might hate it more, actually, which is actually the interesting thing. The, and the Republican Party, frankly, might, under Trump, might be a vessel of anti-war sentiment far more effectively than the Democrats. I mean, I didn't see a lot of protests for the Ukraine war. The Israel stuff was pretty interesting. That was probably was number one threat to Biden circa April. Remember that?

• 1:26:16Tucker Carlson?

  For sure.

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  But, you know, if you look at the conversation online, if you look at the sentiments of younger conservatives, younger Republicans, the anti-war stuff is big, and it's not going anywhere. And I think that also drives a sense of a timetable, which is, you know, we've got these older people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. They have a certain belief set. They're the people that voted for the stuff in the 90s and 2000s, and we got to get this stuff done now before the United States turns, you know, on both parties on this stuff. And this was always, this was-

• 1:26:49Tucker Carlson?

  Until we can't afford it anymore, and our allies pivot to China and sell even more defense technology to China. Yeah. I do think there, okay, so the backbone of support for these wars has been evangelicals. Let's just be blunt about it. It's everyone, you know, beats up on the neocons or whatever, these fervid intellectuals in Washington. But really, the foot soldiers of this have been Fox News viewers who are not-

• 1:27:14Tucker Carlson?

  Ideological, they're not intellectuals, they're not, they're just normal, American, patriotic, heavily evangelical people. And the truth is, I think a lot of them are beginning to recognize that their religion does not support this at all.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:28Tucker Carlson?

  It's really clear. Genesis 6, why do we have the flood? Why does God kill everything on earth? All the people except Noah and his family, all the animals except the ones in the ark. Why does he do that? He spells it right out. Because they're committing violence, that's why. So it's like, the idea that, I mean, the Iraq war breaks out and all these preachers are like, no, no, no, really, we have to fight Islam and kill all these people and that's what God wants. That's not what it says at all. And there's no mention of any specific secular government in the New Testament. Sorry, guys. And I think a lot of Christians are beginning to realize this. It doesn't, because you're a Christian doesn't mean you have a specific political agenda at all, I don't think.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Tucker Carlson?

  But if your political agenda is like violence, that's prohibited. Sorry. And I, it's just, it could not be clear, it's on every freaking page. So I don't know, the deception involved in this was just like, mind boggling, that these preachers could get up on Fox News and tell you that like, yeah, killing people is what Jesus wants. No, that's not true. And I, I just feel, among people I know, a growing recognition of that. And I think it's a huge problem for the war lobby, which has used these people as its supporters. And you see it in the Congress. You know, I'm an evangelical and I'm for another war with somebody. No, you can't do that anymore.

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  Hoping people are zoned out.

• 1:28:47Tucker Carlson?

  You do think that?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  I, yeah, I think they're hoping the country's old, tired, zoned out, can't oppose it. And they're hoping that these initiatives can be achieved piecemeal. You know, start by bombing Iran here, et cetera, et cetera, maybe the government will collapse, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:29:06Tucker Carlson?

  To be replaced by what?

• 1:29:09Tucker Carlson?

  The same people who replaced Assad and Gaddafi and Saddam and the Taliban.

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  I think, okay, I mean, to take the other side, I mean, I mean, the Assad thing is, it's like, pretty close to the best case scenario of how that could have gone. I think in Iran, it would go way, way, way worse. It's a much bigger country.

• 1:29:28Tucker Carlson?

  It's hard to know. You're rolling the dice. You know, you start killing people and things go sideways. Like, you think-

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  It's, it's pretty close to Iraq and Afghanistan combined, right?

• 1:29:36Tucker Carlson?

  It feels that way to me.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  You have urban, you have, you have, you have the capacity for major urban violence, à la Iraq. You have huge cities. The Kabul's small, but, you know, you have that. And then additionally, you have the mountain element. So any, any outlaw contingent can just flee there. I mean, and, and, and we learned this with our southern neighbor.

• 1:29:56Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:29:57Speaker 01

  Why is Mexico ungovernable? The mountains.

• 1:29:59Tucker Carlson?

  The mountains, right.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  You just, just, you just flee. I mean, the entire coastline is-

• 1:30:03Tucker Carlson?

  Why is Kentucky ungovernable? Same reason.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah, yeah, I mean, so-

• 1:30:07Tucker Carlson?

  Just kidding.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's hard to, it, it would be very, very, very difficult. And now, ask Saddam Hussein.

• 1:30:13Tucker Carlson?

  No, I-

• 1:30:13Speaker 01

  Who tried to invade Iran and didn't work out for Mr. Hussein. A lot of things didn't, so.

• 1:30:18Tucker Carlson?

  No, I, I agree completely. Well, you have actually given me, I asked you to come for this conversation. It's late at night. I was very exercised about it. You were nice enough to come. And we're in a hotel room in some city, but I thought I was going to be more depressed by the end, but actually, I feel really hurtened by what you said.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  Well, thank you for having me.

• 1:30:41Tucker Carlson?

  Well, thank you for making me feel a lot better. Kurt Mills.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Appreciate it.

• 1:30:45Tucker Carlson?

  Thank you.

• 1:30:48Tucker Carlson?

  Thanks for listening to Tucker Carlson Show. If you enjoyed it, you can go to tuckercarlson.com to see everything that we have made. The complete library. TuckerCarlson.com.