Rick Sanchez: Fired and Threatened With Jail for Refusing to Spout Zelensky’s Talking Points

Rick Sanchez spent a lifetime in television before becoming one of the highest rated anchors at RT. Last summer, the Biden administration forced him out of his job and threatened him with jail for refusing to repeat Zelensky’s talking points. A case study on the death of free speech. (00:00) Advice From Larry King (04:27) The Neocon Chokehold on Corporate Media (08:48) What Was It Like Working for a Russian-Owned Network During the War? (13:51) Are We Seeing the Death of Free Speech in America? (36:06) The Russian’s Perspective on the War Paid partnerships with: MeriwetherFarms: Visit https://MeriwetherFarms.com/Tucker to receive 10% off and free shipping on new monthly subscription boxes Policygenius: Head to at https://Policygenius.com/Tucker to see how much you could save Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I don't know what I'm doing. Need a break. Forget it, I quit.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Escape to Pluto TV.

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  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 0:30Tucker Carlson?

  Rick Sanchez, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for doing this.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Oh, it's a pleasure.

• 0:33Tucker Carlson?

  How did you wind up at RT and what did you think?

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Larry King gives me a call one day. Larry King, by the way, Larry's a great man.

• 0:40Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  I love Larry. He was kind. He says, Ricky, you ought to really look at this. And I'm thinking, Larry, the Russians? I mean, come on, man. I was born in Cuba. It's a communist country. I mean, just in case he wants, you know, but he, but Larry says to me, let me tell you something. Ricky, let me tell you something. That's the way Larry would say it.

• 0:59Tucker Carlson?

  That is...

• 1:00Speaker 00

  You know, they don't tell me what to say. They don't tell me what to do. They don't tell me who I have to interview. They let me be in control of my show. And I guarantee you, they really like you. They really want you. If you come here and do this show that they want you to do, they're gonna do that for you as well. And I said, really, Larry? You sure? And finally, I came to terms.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  You know, at the time, I'd been fired by CNN. I went to Miami. I decided to leave television altogether, television news. And at the time, I was, I had started a new healthcare company in South Florida, which we took public for a couple billion dollars. And it was a great story. But as the story, as that... That company was growing. I started thinking to myself, you know, I miss my calling. My calling is this.

• 2:07Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  What you do.

• 2:08Tucker Carlson?

  Plus, it's fun.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  I love to tell stories. I like finding out things that I didn't know, and I love sharing them. And doing that for a living, I think, is just a wonderful thing.

• 2:17Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  So because I was kind of missing that, when I got a call one day from an agent saying, you know, there's this group that wants to hire you, and they're a real network. Would you come up and talk to them? And then subsequently, I had the call with Larry King. Um, I said, you know what? I might want to do this. Sat down with my wife and my family, and I said, you know what? I'm going to put the healthcare company aside, and I'm going to go back to what I, what I really want to do. So I joined RT. I said, yes.

• 2:45Tucker Carlson?

  What year?

• 2:46Speaker 00

  That was five years ago.

• 2:47Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Five years ago.

• 2:49Tucker Carlson?

  2020.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, way before, uh, 2019.

• 2:53Tucker Carlson?

  2019.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Way before like this war and everything else. And the, with the footing between the United States and Russia at the time was not hostile. It wasn't necessarily overly friendly. It was just kind of

• 3:05Tucker Carlson?

  Muddy.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  In the middle. Muddy, exactly. Yeah, at the time.

• 3:09Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. So what was it like?

• 3:11Speaker 00

  It was everything Larry King said it would be.

• 3:14Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Surprisingly so.

• 3:15Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not surprised, but it's interesting, but I think others would be surprised, so.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Like you, I like dominion of my product, right?

• 3:22Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  I want to be a writer. I want to be able to talk to my producers. I want to know who my other writers are.

• 3:27Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  And so I picked my staff. I wrote my entire show. I picked my topics. I led the editorial meeting every morning, discussing what was going to be on our news agenda of the day. And can I tell you something? I never had that opportunity at CNN or Fox or NBC. I'm sorry to say this.

• 3:48Tucker Carlson?

  I've worked at all three, and I can confirm that.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you do have some sense or some liberty or journalistic independence when you work at those places, but not like this. I'll just say right now, and I hope I'm not breaking anybody's heart out there who's a big CNN fan or any cable news fans out there. But if you decide you want to interview somebody, and he's not on their list of okay interviewees. They're not gonna let you interview him. And if you wanna go down a certain path-

• 4:17Tucker Carlson?

  He's banned.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  He's banned.

• 4:19Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I've run up against that many times.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  And you're saying, "This is a good man with interesting things to say."

• 4:24Tucker Carlson?

  Or he's in the news. Like, this is a relevant person. Our viewers need to hear about this.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Sure, the Jeffrey Sachs of the world, the Mearsheimer's of the world, the Colonel McGregor's of the world. They're not allowed to be on those networks.

• 4:35Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Right? It's crazy. So I started seeing some of these things when I was at CNN. I saw them as well at MSNBC and Fox, you know, to be fair, maybe sometimes coming from a different direction. And, um, and, and sure, I was allowed to have some, you know, say in the editorial decisions, but not as much.

• 4:57Tucker Carlson?

  Can I just ask, since I worked at the same three companies that you worked at-

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, you and I worked at CNN together.

• 5:02Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly. Um, I would say the one, so people look at, you know, CNN and MSNBC are on the left.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:08Tucker Carlson?

  Fox is on the right, but the, but there's also the sense that, like, wait, maybe they're telling versions of the same story?

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:14Tucker Carlson?

  And I found over 25 years that the one thing that none of those networks would accept was anybody who questioned the neocon storyline.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 5:23Tucker Carlson?

  So I actually did have Doug McGregor, to Fox's great credit, they allowed me to have him on. Um, but I think that, I don't think he's been on since I left, and I think that we hated him. But I think Doug McGregor is as offensive to Fox executives as he is to CNN executives as he is to MSNBC executives. You think that's fair?

• 5:39Speaker 00

  I think it's very fair. And kudos to you for being the first person to put his thought process-

• 5:44Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, well, I mean-

• 5:45Speaker 00

  So different.

• 5:46Tucker Carlson?

  It was, and that is really, the credit goes to, to the Murdochs who let me do that, you know? A lot of things to criticize, but they did-

• 5:52Speaker 00

  And your message was simple. "We're being told we're winning this war in Ukraine. We're not."

• 5:57Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  "And here's a man who's gonna take us through this."

• 5:59Tucker Carlson?

  Silly. No, I don't wanna make it about me. I just wanna say, I think we had the same experience, which is the red line at all three channels is exactly the same. Question neocon foreign policy, and we're done.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  So as a journalist, working at RT, going back to your question, was almost Nirvana for me.

• 6:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  It was fantastic. I reveled in this opportunity. I would get up with a, you know, with a little skip in my step every day, thinking about what we can talk about and how we're going to explain it and who we're going to talk to, as difficult as it was, because a lot of guests wouldn't want to come on because it was RT, you know? But it was really a great experience, especially comparatively speaking, to what I had experienced in the past. And my old friend Larry King was right. They generally did not mess with me. And when they did, when we had normal editorial arguments, which happen in every newsroom and should, we would talk it out and sometimes I would win and sometimes I would lose, but it would be a discussion. It wouldn't be like, this is what you're doing. So it was a great experience.

• 7:02Tucker Carlson?

  So you felt that RT, from, you know, internal editorial perspective, obviously you're the anchor, so you, you see what happens. You felt that it was freer than Fox, NBC, or MS?

• 7:14Speaker 00

  I wrote my entire show from top to bottom and nobody looked at it until it went on the air.

• 7:19Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, there you go. There you go.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Can I, you know, can, is there anything more than that? Nobody looked at my script before I went on the air, except, except me and some of the editors who had to put pictures.

• 7:30Tucker Carlson?

  Right, of course, right.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. But nobody was looking at it. Ah, no, this goes out. You can't say this. You can't say that.

• 7:35Tucker Carlson?

  That's amazing.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  Because they trusted me. I mean, look, man, I mean, I've got, I've been a part of two Peabody Award-winning teams. I've got a DuPont. I've got five Emmys. I've interviewed four US presidents. I've sat down with Fidel Castro and Mikhail Gorbachev. And yet there's not a single entity in the United States who seems to be interested in hiring me. Why?

• 7:54Tucker Carlson?

  Well, now I would say, I mean, there may be a lot of reasons, but now that you've worked at RT, I think it's illegal to hire you, right?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, it's something.

• 8:03Tucker Carlson?

  So how long were you there?

• 8:05Speaker 00

  I worked for the first three years and then left prior to the invasion.

• 8:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Because my friends back in South Florida, who were now building this 4.4 billion dollar healthcare company, and I was one of the original partners of it, said, can you come back and help us handle the marketing? I mean, we need you to just jump back in there and there's some things we want you to fix. And I was like, ah, yeah. So I left and I said, okay, I'm gonna go back and go back and do the, you know, the, uh, the job building back this healthcare company that I had built with my friends. And, uh, and while I was doing that, I then got a call from another dear friend, Ben Swan, who's a really good journalist. And, uh, he said, would you, you want, you want to do a show? I said, oh my God, I'd

• 8:53Speaker 00

  love to do a show. I miss doing a show. So after taking a little hiatus for about a year and a half, I went back and started doing a show. He said, it's not allowed to air in the United States, but you get to produce your own show and they air it all over the world and you get to do it in Spanish and in English. So suddenly I started doing the show again, Tucker. And

• 9:14Tucker Carlson?

  When, when was, that was after the Ukraine war started?

• 9:16Speaker 00

  That was after the Ukraine war started. Correct.

• 9:18Tucker Carlson?

  How was, I mean, that must have been, because that was the moment when, well, the Ukraine war is not a Ukraine war, it's a war against Russia led by the United States.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:25Tucker Carlson?

  And you're working at RT, Russia Today.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:28Tucker Carlson?

  So what was that like?

• 9:29Speaker 00

  It was tough. It was tough. But after reading enough and knowing enough and, uh, hearing some of the people that we aforementioned, the McGregor's and Sacks, and I started thinking to myself, you know, I should do this because we need to have a conversation with these people.

• 9:46Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  We need journalists and others and academics and whoever to start engaging with the journalists and the academics over there. So we can have discussions and work out a solution before we start another fricking world war here. I mean, so. This will be a good thing. Th- th- I can make the world a better place by having a show from the United States that shares the American perspective from a person who loves America.

• 10:15Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  A guy who was born in a communist country and spent all his life listening to his parents say, "We're in the greatest nation on earth," and sharing that with people around the world. And RT was gonna give me an opportunity to do that. They weren't asking me to be a Russian. They were asking me to be a journalist who happened to be American. And why wouldn't I tell that kinda story?

• 10:34Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  And that's what we grew up with. I remember as a kid watching Phil Donahue interview Brezhnev in New York, surrounded in a studio. When Brezhnev would go to the U- U- UN, he would interview him. And here he was in the studio with all these women asking this man questions. I remember, I remem- that was Phil Donahue. I remember Ted Koppel, once a week, having a, uh, a- a- a Soviet reporter on. His name escapes me, but he became very famous at the time.

• 11:02Tucker Carlson?

  Posner.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Yes. And they would go back and forth and debate ideas. Suddenly, we're living in an era where our president hasn't spoken to their president for almost four years. This isn't right.

• 11:13Tucker Carlson?

  It's lunacy, and it's, we're so diminished by it, actually, and imperiled by it, I would say. I've had every thought that you've had. That's why I've been to Russia a couple times for that exact reason.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:23Tucker Carlson?

  As a proud American who's never leaving, doesn't have another passport, hasn't served in anyone else's military.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  I've never been to Russia.

• 11:28Tucker Carlson?

  Right. Well, you should go. It's a wonderful place. But, but it doesn't make me less American. I- I love my country more than anything. But anyway, the point is, I can understand and empathize with and so strongly agree with everything you said. But I wonder, for that first year or two years, um, you know, the anti-Russian hysteria in the United States, was that like a comical pitch? Like, I- I don't think the US Open put Russian names on the screen of the players. Like, people were not allowed, Russians weren't allowed to compete in sports. It really became pretty evil, actually, I would say. And, but you- you signed back up with RT. Like, what was that like with people you know? Like, what did they say to you?

• 12:07Speaker 00

  I tried not to bring it up in polite conversation.

• 12:12Tucker Carlson?

  It would get in play really fast.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  It's like, you're doing what? I would, you know, people would ask me, I'd say, oh, my God, Rick Sanchez, I grew up watching you on TV, you know, in Miami.

• 12:21Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Where I used to be on local television. And they say, so what are you doing now? I'd say, well, I'm doing a bunch of global stuff. Cause you just, unless, unless the person happens to be, if I recognize that it's someone who's astute and has some kind of geopolitical observations or knows the world or is kind of smart, then I tell them and they go, oh, man, that's cool. That's great. But you just don't want to, you know, have an argument with people during the day.

• 12:45Tucker Carlson?

  What did your kids say?

• 12:47Speaker 00

  They were perfectly fine with it.

• 12:48Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, good.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  They totally understood. We've taught them, Suzanne and I have really taught, well, she's a much better parent than I am, but I've done my part as well in making the kids understand that we live in a world where there's a lot of different opinions and a lot of different ways of looking at things. So you couldn't talk to my kids and come away thinking, oh, they're liberal, oh, they're conservative, or they're this, or that, they just, they're smart enough to understand and recognize things for what they are.

• 13:13Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  And I think that's important.

• 13:15Tucker Carlson?

  It sounds like you've done a great job. I couldn't agree more.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  She did, she did.

• 13:20Tucker Carlson?

  I believe you. Was there blow, was there blowback, though, at all to your personal life?

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Um, yeah. Not to mention, you always felt like if ever you wanted to do something outside, or let's suppose Fox News would call. One of your ex, you know, colleagues would call and say, hey, Rick, we were thinking about inviting you because remember you used to talk about such and such? And they'd want to book you. And you'd think they were booking you for something and you go, sure, I'd love to come on. And then all of a sudden you get that famous phone call that all bookers had to give.

• 13:54Tucker Carlson?

  We're going in a different direction.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, we changed the show. We're not going to do that story. And actually was, they found out that you work at RT.

• 14:03Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  And now they're not going to have you on simply because you work in RT, which is so prejudicial.

• 14:08Tucker Carlson?

  It's also so small minded and childish like these are, these are children who don't know anything about the world at all.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Rick Sanchez, we want you to talk about the new elections in Mexico, but we're not going to get you on because you work at RT. What the hell does one thing have to do with the other?

• 14:20Tucker Carlson?

  Well, of course. And by the way, let me just back up a bit. You said that by the time, um, so you were there from, I'm roughly speaking, like 2019 to late 2021.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  End of 21 or something like that.

• 14:34Tucker Carlson?

  And then you come back in, say, 22 or 23.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 14:37Tucker Carlson?

  After the war begins.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:39Tucker Carlson?

  Um, but by that point, you can't watch RT in the United States?

• 14:43Speaker 00

  RT is not available in the United States. It was totally banned.

• 14:46Tucker Carlson?

  So the problem there, it's not really about Russia who owns RT or its agenda. It's about the United States, which has a bill of rights. The first right enumerated is the right to free speech, the right to see, hear and say whatever you choose because.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  That had already been gotten rid of.

• 15:02Tucker Carlson?

  You're not a slave, you're a free man. So no one can control what I hear or what I think, right? Well, but Biden. How did they ban a TV network in the United States? Like, when did that happen?

• 15:12Speaker 00

  After the war in Ukraine, they decided that no one in the United States should have the right to understand the perspective, other than the Ukrainian perspective. Therefore, RT, which was possibly going to share the Russian perspective, should not be allowed to continue to operate in the United States.

• 15:33Tucker Carlson?

  But how does that happen?

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Like, oh, they just put out an edict, I think. They just, I think it went through the Treasury Department once again.

• 15:38Tucker Carlson?

  But what happened like?

• 15:39Speaker 00

  Your license is revoked and this particular entity is not allowed to operate.

• 15:43Tucker Carlson?

  But what about civil liberties? Aren't Americans allowed to hear whatever they want to hear?

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Well, that's what I thought, right? Congress shall pass no law. Freedom of speech, all that jazz. Where'd it go? But then Biden doubles down, right? And that, that, do you want me to share the, the, the, the phone call?

• 15:58Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I want to know everything. I mean, this is, but I just want to set the context. This is pure craziness and they can say Russia bad, Russia bad, Putin agent, all they want. I don't care personally, but what they can't do is end the constitution because that's not their right. It preexists their rule and it will, I hope, endure after they're long gone. So like, I don't really know the part where they were, they ended the first amendment. I don't really understand that.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  You know, it's really weird because if you watched my show, and many people did, and some Americans were watching the show because they'd, you know, back channel it somehow through the internet or something. My show was very, very popular in Latin America, one of the most popular shows in Latin America, huge in India and in different parts of the world because RT happens to be one of the most respected, you know, journalistic networks, content creators in the, in the whole world. It's a very viable, you know, they put a lot of money and they've got a lot of smart people working there. And I think they generally do a pretty good job with their product.

• 17:00Tucker Carlson?

  I will say this, I haven't, I'm not allowed to watch it. So obviously I haven't seen it that much as an American. It's forbidden for me to have those ideas or that information. But to the extent I have seen it, super interesting. Super interesting. It's not just news on a loop like the channels that we worked at are. It's like here are the eight stories of the day. We're just going to flog the shit out of them and you can't hear anything else. They have tons of interesting stuff.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. And my show was not necessarily every day about the Ukraine war, nor was it about Putin, or was it, it was US politics. It was a little bit of India. It was about the South China Sea. You know, we covered all the interesting things that were going on out there with interesting people from around the world who would love to come on and talk to us. And a lot of people found it invigorating and interesting to watch a perspective that was different than the normal perspective you get here in the United States.

• 17:47Tucker Carlson?

  Totally agree. And to hear an American perspective, which as an American you brought, is I think really cool and important.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  And it's good for us and it's good for them and it's good for just talking.

• 17:58Tucker Carlson?

  And by the way, even if it's not good, or you think it's not good, you're not allowed to, you're not allowed to get in the way of it because that's against our constitution, which is the basis of our civilization. So back off.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  A government is not allowed in this country, or so we're told, to tell us who we can work for, who we can watch, or what news entities can deliver news and which can't.

• 18:18Tucker Carlson?

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• 21:24Tucker Carlson?

  So then I'm, I just wanted to get that as a sort of foundation for the story you're about to tell. So then what happened?

• 21:29Speaker 00

  So this last year, sometime around August, I come home and I'd had a great newscast.

• 21:37Tucker Carlson?

  Last year, so 2024.

• 21:39Speaker 00

  Correct, 2024.

• 21:40Tucker Carlson?

  So right in the middle of a presidential campaign.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 21:44Tucker Carlson?

  Okay.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  In the middle of a presidential campaign. Keyword presidential campaign.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  I get this interesting phone call. I had just come home from work and I get a phone call and it's an old friend who used to work with me in mainstream news. He was a manager at CNN as a matter of fact. Ricky, what's going on? Yeah, hi, oh my God, what are you doing calling me? He goes, I just wanted to check up on you, see how things are going. I said, good, Jim, things are going pretty, really, pretty well. He says, just calling to let you know that I'm now working somewhere else. I'm no longer in news. I said, oh, okay. And where I work, a lot of people are talking about you. And I said, well, cool. That's neat. Who, where are you working? He says, like, the State Department, kind of? Come on! I'm like, no. I'm like, oh, wait.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  You work at the State Department? Um, who knows, USAID? And, um- Or other agencies? Yes. And, uh, I, the, the guys are talking about you. I said, well, good. What are they saying? Well, your show's very popular. Come on! Yeah? I said, well, uh, what do you think? He goes, well, they, they don't necessarily like some of the things that you're saying. And I said, okay. And I said, well, they're welcome to come on and tell me, whoever they are, tell me. I mean, we could have, we could have them on as a guest and we can discuss whatever it is. But throughout the conversation, he was very evasive, but was letting me know that, I guess, I guess he was letting me know that I was being watched.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  And that was part of his mission. And not only was he telling me that he was, that I was being watched, but he would kind of hope that I would somehow change what I was saying. But he wasn't coming out and exactly saying it. So when we were done with the conversation, I remember I held the phone and I thought, what the hell was that? Was that a warning or a threat? I'm not sure. Or maybe both. And then, three weeks later, all of a sudden, I'm hearing, and then it happens, the Biden administration has decided to go through the Treasury Department, this little agency called OFAC that most people have never heard of. Oh, yes.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Which controls what businesses in the United States are allowed to exist and which ones aren't. And, um, and they shut down the place where I worked. And not only that, they passed a measure within that provision that seemed to say, and I'm not a lawyer and I'm not an expert on it, but it seemed to say that any American working for this entity will go to jail or be fined if they continue working for that entity. So, and that's what happened. And the next day, man, I was on the street.

• 24:32Tucker Carlson?

  That's absolutely mind blowing. So let's just back up. You say three weeks later, they, the State Department shut down the place where you work. What does that mean?

• 24:40Speaker 00

  That means that they officially announced that RT as an entity and anybody associated with media in Russia, I think is the way they wrote it, uh, is not allowed to hire or, or even contract anyone in the United States. I, Rick Sanchez Productions, my show, had been hired by an entity to do a show that was airing on RT. I didn't work directly for RT, but I worked for a US company that was doing shows. They sold the shows and they

• 25:21Speaker 00

  sold this show to RT. So my show ended up being on RT. Well, they back channeled the, the, the, the just, the, the Treasury Department under Mr. Biden decided to follow all those little loopholes or whatever. And they went all the way back and said, not only can RT not exist in the United States, RT is not allowed to pay money to anybody in the United States for any product. They can't buy a product. They can't contract anybody. They can't, nobody can work for anybody who contracts through RT. And if any of those people are caught in the United States somehow contracting or working for RT, I don't care if you're a janitor or a carpenter or a plumber, you will be fined or even go to jail. That's

• 26:05Speaker 00

  the new law, according to Mr. Biden, three weeks afterward. And they said something in the dicta, uh, in the explanation about why they were doing this, that they thought that the Russians were once again preparing to interfere in our election, uh, as they had before in the case with Mr. Trump. So they were shutting down RT and anybody who could be in any way associated with RT, even though I wasn't doing pro-Trump stuff. In fact, I was criticizing, uh, Mr. Trump during the campaign for certain things that he did, just like I was, uh, criticizing Kamala Harris. It was totally unfair that here I am just doing a basic newscast every day, sharing it with them. That was getting garnering tens of millions of people around the world. And a lot of people thought it was fair and

• 26:49Speaker 00

  it was sharing a perspective that Americans needed to hear. And the Biden administration said, no, you cannot practice your craft as a journalist if you're in any way associated with those people.

• 27:00Tucker Carlson?

  But it wasn't airing in the United States.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  No, it wasn't.

• 27:05Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's just pure craziness.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Well, that's what happened, and it happened in America. And it hurts being a guy who was born in a communist country and has spent his whole life saying, we are so different than the rest of the world because we allow people to say and think and work wherever they want. And all of a sudden, here I was being told I couldn't work or think or, or, or say whatever I wanted.

• 27:30Tucker Carlson?

  That's, that's like unbelievable. Did anyone from the US State Department reach out to you after?

• 27:39Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 27:41Tucker Carlson?

  Did you speak again to the sinister CNN colleague who called you from the State Department after this happened?

• 27:48Speaker 00

  He, he sent me a, a Christmas card and recently.

• 27:53Tucker Carlson?

  Did he leave like a horse's head on your bed or anything like that?

• 27:56Speaker 00

  He did, we did have, no, actually, we did have a.

• 27:59Tucker Carlson?

  That's such mafia behavior. I mean, it's.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  We did have a secondary conversation and interestingly enough, he suggested that he would help me if I wanted to maybe go to work like at Fox or someplace like that, that they could make some phone calls.

• 28:14Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, he could.

• 28:17Tucker Carlson?

  So we'll welcome you back into neocon world if you'll just bow before the throne.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  Isn't that kind of the feeling you get? Is that what they were saying?

• 28:24Tucker Carlson?

  That's the reality.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  I don't know. It's just all so damn coded, man.

• 28:27Tucker Carlson?

  It's coded, but the message is clear as well.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  When you're living it and you're experiencing it, and thank God, you know, we've done well and Suzanne and I are, you know, there's other people who are affected by this, you know, guys who were producers and writers, all Americans. They hired teams of people all over Washington and, and New York, and they're good people, people who worked with you at Fox and people who worked with me at CNN and people who worked in local news, they're just regular American people, writers, producers, you know? And they're all out on their ass simply because Mr. Biden thought that the Russians might be mean to him and, you know?

• 29:02Tucker Carlson?

  But not even in the United States.

• 29:06Tucker Carlson?

  I will say, one of the smartest people I've ever met in my long life, and most patriotic American I've ever met in my life, certainly up there, worked at RT, just a fact. And I met on a news assignment in a foreign country years ago, and just a truly brilliant person. But anyway.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  I found the Russians in general to be, and have found them to be since I've been working with them, to be extremely transactional and extremely honest, sometimes, you know, more so than we are.

• 29:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, well, blunt, yeah.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  They say what they think, you know what they want, and when you talk to them, they're very exact about what they want. And I kind of find that admirable. It's a, it's a, it's a, you know, we're talking in generalities here, hasty generalizations are never good. There's all kinds of Russians, just like there's all kinds of Americans. But, but generally speaking, I found their mannerism to be very easy to work with and for.

• 30:08Tucker Carlson?

  So I thought, I grew up in a country that took the Second World War seriously and its lessons, our whole civilization, our whole society in the US was based on the lessons we were learned in World War II from the Nazis. That's the country I grew up in. And the one of the main, you know, so what were the lessons? We don't judge people on the basis of their appearance. Racism is bad.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:27Tucker Carlson?

  Eugenics and all that garbage, we're against that. And number two, we don't demonize whole groups of people. If an individual does something bad, we can say that, and we can punish that individual, but we can't punish his parents.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:38Tucker Carlson?

  Or his children, or his neighbors, because they didn't do anything. We don't believe in collective punishment. That's immoral, it's anti-Christian, but it's also the lesson of the Second World War. And so I totally buy that. I still believe that, truly, like in my heart, I believe that. Call me liberal, but it's so crazy to see like, our whole society doing that. And it's like, you don't like Putin, that's fine. You've got all sorts of like, things you don't like that he's doing, you want to do things he's preventing you from doing. I get it. But to turn around and say 150 million Russians are evil, or Russia is a gas station with nuclear weapons, like that low IQ buffoon McCain used to say, and all the other low IQ buffoons in the US Senate, which is like 95% of them, "It's a gas station with nuclear weapons."

• 31:23Tucker Carlson?

  Really? Have you ever read Tolstoy? Have you ever been there? Like, you may hate Russia, but to say it's a gas station? You're an idiot, actually. And to hurt, like, professional tennis players because they have Slavic last names? I don't want to live in a country that does that. Do you know what I mean?

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 31:40Tucker Carlson?

  I thought it was first they came for the so-and-so, then they came for the so-and-so, and I said nothing. It's like, that extends to all human beings. If they did that to the Malaysians, or the Chinese, or anyb- it doesn't matter, the Belgians. You can't collectively punish people.

• 31:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:56Tucker Carlson?

  Right? And we did!

• 31:58Speaker 00

  Since you made the historical reference to World War II, last time I checked, and there's no American who knows this unless we, as parents, tell them, but I hate to break it to you, but the French were not the reason that Hitler was defeated.

• 32:14Tucker Carlson?

  I'm aware.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  I know we think this, and I know every year or every couple of years, we have this, you know-

• 32:19Tucker Carlson?

  The French Resistance did it, yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, Normandy thing, where we invite everybody but the Russians. And the French president, whoever he happens to be at the time, whether it's Macron, Dimitran, sits there and says, "Oh, look what we did in Europe." Look what we did? Really?

• 32:34Tucker Carlson?

  No, I know.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  You lasted five minutes, dude. But, yeah, yeah. Part of the story.

• 32:38Tucker Carlson?

  It's just that impulse, the impulse of the crowd to call someone unpopular and then lynch him. Like, that's a human impulse. All people have that impulse. It's incredibly ugly. Civilization exists to keep it in check. It's why we're against lynching. It's why we're against war crimes. It's why we're against, like, mob behavior in general. And to see the US government encouraging that, whether it's against people who don't get vaccinated, or Russians, or just pick a group. I don't care who it's against. I'm opposed to that. Right?

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Just know this Tucker, and I think you do. Every time a bullet is spent, every time a helicopter crashes, every time a fighter plane goes down, somebody somewhere in the United States says cha-ching.

• 33:20Tucker Carlson?

  I hate that. And I mean, you're right. I know that you're right.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  Fortunately, wars and enemies are chosen for a specific reason, and more often than not, it has to do with financial reasons, and it has nothing to do with the good people of this country.

• 33:34Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Just like there are good people in Wisconsin who don't want to share their communities with tons of immigrants, and it's not because they're bad people or dislike immigrants. And they're not the ones who started the problem in Honduras or Guatemala that caused 500,000 people to leave the countryside and come to the United States.

• 33:53Tucker Carlson?

  Completely agree.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  So there are some people in our government, we, I love the United States, but there are some people in our government who do some very nefarious things, who create bad results that make the rest of us feel it and look bad. That's the shit we gotta take care of.

• 34:08Tucker Carlson?

  And hate each other, too. They inspire hate. I don't like that. I don't think a government should ever whip its population into a frenzy of hate. I think it's really scary.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 34:16Tucker Carlson?

  Even again, even against the Russians. So I'm hardly an expert on Russia. I've been there a couple of times. I don't speak Russian. I don't, you know, I'm not Russian. I'm from La Jolla, but.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  I've come to understand their perspective, and I think it's a fair perspective.

• 34:31Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you worked with them. So that's my question. You know more about Russians than I do, just because you've worked with a lot of them. What was their perspective on the war?

• 34:37Speaker 00

  Their perspective on the war was quite simple. It goes back decades where it seemed to them that NATO and the United States, which many people would argue NATO's really run out of Washington, have for years broken their promises. It's almost this simple if we were trying to explain it in very simple terms. After the Soviet Union broke apart, they were desperate for a friend, and we said we would be their friend, and we would show them how democracy and capitalism works. And we sent the brightest minds in America. And we even had James Baker say to them, don't worry, because you're no longer our

• 35:21Speaker 00

  enemy, we're not going to encroach on you. We're not going to point missiles at you. We're not going to continue NATO expansion all the way up to your border. We're just not going to do that. We promise. We're not going to do that. And then they found out over the years that that wasn't true, that every single thing that we said we would not do, we actually did. And if you actually looked at Russia and then you looked at NATO now, it's almost like they're feeling a little bit surrounded.

• 35:50Tucker Carlson?

  Well, because the point of NATO is to surround them.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, from Estonia to Latvia, and there's missiles pointed there, and they started getting feared. So now you have this here, which is Ukraine, which is almost the end of the encirclement, and they finally thought to themselves as citizens and their president said, guys, this is too much. I mean, now you want to take Ukraine? We got a 4,000 year history here, going back to Catherine the Great. And it's, now you say not only do you want to take NATO, but you're already putting military hardware in there. And then there was this thing, which they believe is very true, which our government, under a woman named Victoria Nuland in 2014, helped to foment, along with Mr. Biden, who was

• 36:35Speaker 00

  vice president, a coup in, in, in, in Ukraine that caused a democratically elected president to be removed, simply because he was friendly to Russia. He wasn't necessarily a Russian, but he was friendly to Russia. In other words, he wanted to have good relations with Russia.

• 36:55Tucker Carlson?

  It's one of the world's great powers, right on his border.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 36:58Tucker Carlson?

  Be like, is the president of Mexico generally friendly to the president of the United States?

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:03Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  No choice. Right. Not on everything, but they're gonna have relations. We decided it was wrong for the president of Ukraine to have relations, certainly not friendly relations with Russia. So we went in and we started a coup, which we're, we've been known to do, as you know. And as a result of that coup, we had the guy essentially eventually removed. And that finally was the last straw. That's where the Russians, their mindset, their president, their politicians said, this is too much. This just cannot continue. And that's what led to this war. So that's their way of looking at it. Like, they were being encroached. Is it right? Is it wrong? Do they have a right to think that way?

• 37:46Speaker 00

  It's not for me to decide. Maybe historians can decide that. But there's another story besides one day, the Russians just got angry and decided to go after Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.

• 37:56Tucker Carlson?

  Because they're rebuilding the Soviet Union and they want to take Poland and it's like the dumbest storyline I've ever heard.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  And there's nothing factually to back that story up in any way.

• 38:06Tucker Carlson?

  I'm aware.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  They have been losing territory, not gaining territory, and they're fine with it and they don't want to go, they don't want to. I don't think the Russians want to run Ukraine.

• 38:15Tucker Carlson?

  Do they need more land with the Russians?

• 38:17Speaker 00

  No, but part of Ukraine is Russian.

• 38:19Tucker Carlson?

  No, I'm aware, but I'm just saying the idea that they want.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  Oh, right. The largest country in the world.

• 38:24Tucker Carlson?

  That's like extremely complicated to run. Yeah. So it's what I have noticed and it makes me sadder even than anything because ultimately I care about what happens in my country because my kids live here. And so watching the style of debate in America change to, you know, a system, an age old system, a Western system where, you know, you think one thing, I think another, we like talk it through. The guy with the best point wins, right? To a system where we just create a villain. And if we don't like what the other person is saying, we tie him to the villain and it ends the conversation. Shut up, Rick Sanchez, you're a Putin puppet.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 39:02Tucker Carlson?

  You took money from Putin.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 39:03Tucker Carlson?

  Why should I listen to you? And it's like, I, at first, when this started happening, it started happening a while ago. I was like, that's so childish. I'm not even going to acknowledge it. And then it spread like the stage for cancer that it is. And all of a sudden, everybody thinks like that. Everybody thinks like that. It's like you're connected to Russia. The latest is Qatar, which is a country of 300,000 people. It's like, oh, Qatar is running our American media. It's like so floridly insane, but also so. Like, unimpressive. Like, do you really think like that?

• 39:38Speaker 00

  There's something that bothers me so much lately. I created-

• 39:41Tucker Carlson?

  Qatar!

• 39:42Speaker 00

  I, I, I just, well, because I'm bored and I created a new podcast. It's called Journalistically Speaking. And I named it Journalistically Speaking for a reason. You know, I got a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota. I've practiced journalism most of my life. I feel good about it. I think it's an honorable profession. But I'm kinda trying to stick it in the eye of the other people who call themselves journalists, who work at all these places today. I started looking around and looking at MSNBC and CNN and Fox. How the people who work at these places were former spokespeople for the Pentagon or the State Department or President Bush or President Intel, President this or President that. And I'm thinking, and they say Russians are state TV?

• 40:25Speaker 00

  We've got literally, the person who spoke for the President of the United States is now the anchor at such and such a network.

• 40:31Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I agree.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  And they're all over the place. And, and, and what is, what is more state TV than that? And most of them didn't even study journalism and have never covered a story and wouldn't know what it looks like if they hit them in the ass.

• 40:44Tucker Carlson?

  So funny.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  And so-

• 40:46Tucker Carlson?

  There's this one chick on MSNBC who I knew, and I can't even remember her new last name. It was Nicole Devonish, Nicole Wallace is her name now.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:54Tucker Carlson?

  And she was Jeb Bush's, like, coffee girl and flack, kind of, like, in the 90s. And I, I covered Jeb Bush. I remember her very well. She was totally incompetent then, but she was incompetent in this very specific way that people in Washington are. She was totally obedient to the message.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:11Tucker Carlson?

  She had no creativity, no independent thinking, pretty low IQ, nasty. But, man, if you told her to say something, she would just say it.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:20Tucker Carlson?

  And it's so sad to see someone like that rewarded in this great country, which I guess she has been. I think she has a TV show still, right?

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Nicole Wallace?

• 41:27Tucker Carlson?

  Nicole Wallace.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 41:29Tucker Carlson?

  Is it still on the air?

• 41:29Speaker 00

  She worked for McCain.

• 41:31Tucker Carlson?

  I think she ultimately went from a king, but I knew her when she worked for Jeb Bush. And, but I just couldn't believe like, she's a journalist?

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:41Tucker Carlson?

  Like, are you joking? She's like a flack and not even a good one.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  They're either...

• 41:46Tucker Carlson?

  But obedience was her main qualification.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  And that's how they keep their jobs. And that's why the Rick Sanchez's of the world get fired from those places and the Tucker Carlson's of the world get fired from those places.

• 41:57Tucker Carlson?

  Whatever happened, there was...

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Me too, you know?

• 42:00Tucker Carlson?

  I shouldn't even ask you this in the middle, you know, on camera, because I don't know, no idea what your answer's gonna be, but there was a guy, um...

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Well, you don't know what any of my answers are.

• 42:07Tucker Carlson?

  True. No, but this could be, but Dylan Ratigan.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:13Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, so I think I was at NBC.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  Brilliant guy.

• 42:15Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:17Tucker Carlson?

  And he was on the left and I remember thinking, oh, he's like some liberal. He was not a liberal.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  No.

• 42:23Tucker Carlson?

  Like traditional, he was like free-thinking left guy.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 42:25Tucker Carlson?

  And he started saying stuff, I think I was, worked there when this happened, and he went from being like, oh, liberal guy, whatever, abortion, abortion, abortion, to being like, hey, why don't we pay people fair wages? Which is a real thing, as far as I'm concerned. And all of a sudden, he like disappeared. We never heard from him again. Whatever. And so I thought he was impressive, but I knew that his brand of politics was not acceptable. Whatever happened to him?

• 42:52Speaker 00

  They did the same thing with him that they do, that they did with me. I mean, you know, they said, look, uh, I know you've got a new contract you signed just a little while ago, so we're gonna continue to pay you for the next two and a half or three years. And the only thing is, you can't say anything bad about us and you can't really take another job unless it's more money. And, uh, you know, it's crazy. I don't know where they get the money, but they have a lot of money, those places.

• 43:14Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know they do.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Because they just hand it out and they told Dylan Ratigan, no, we don't want you working here anymore. And it was like, they did it from one week to the next and he was gone, simply because he was challenging the status quo.

• 43:25Tucker Carlson?

  He, and he was. And I remember, like, I didn't pay any attention to Dylan Ratigan at all, but then one day I heard him say something, I was like, well, that's, I don't even know if I agreed with it or not, but it was interesting.

• 43:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:35Tucker Carlson?

  And I could tell that Dylan Ratigan was actually thinking for himself and he's smart. I totally agree. I don't know him, but I remember thinking, this guy's smart.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:41Tucker Carlson?

  And then he was gone.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got that same feeling at CNN. As soon as I started challenging certain principles, criticizing, for example, um, certain things, then the elders at CNN, those people who were in that, the, the, the row, they called it.

• 43:58Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I remember.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  They had this thing called the row. And it was like five, six, seven, eight older guys who decided what stories went on the air, why they went on the air, when they should go on the air. And I remember I wanted to start doing certain stories about some of the mistakes and foibles that we had made in Latin America, for example, that were causing this, this, this, this immigration thing that was going on. And they said, no, no, no, we're not reporting that. I said, what do you mean, we're not reporting that? I said, you know, to a certain extent, we kind of started a, a civil war in Guatemala that ended up in the deaths of 200,000 people. And we removed a democratically elected president back in the 1950s, which has led to the problems that have gone into Honduras. And as the only Hispanic anchor in America, working at your network, I'd like to tell some of these stories, not to

• 44:44Speaker 00

  be critical, so we can learn. We make mistakes. It's okay.

• 44:47Tucker Carlson?

  A hundred percent.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  They said, no, you will not do that story. Period.

• 44:52Tucker Carlson?

  Why?

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Out. I guess it made certain people in the neocon establishment look bad. And they were trying to move.

• 45:00Tucker Carlson?

  That foreign intervention, especially in a country you don't understand, has massive consequence, generational consequences.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 45:07Tucker Carlson?

  Right? Have, have some humility when you act. Like you bomb somebody's country. Everyone's like, oh, just, just bomb the country. Okay, fine. You bomb the country, kill a bunch of people, take out a nuclear site. But like, what happens then?

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And, and let's, maybe there was a good explanation for it.

• 45:23Tucker Carlson?

  I agree.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  There was something that was gonna lead, but you can't just say, well, the guy seemed to have some leftist tendencies, so we took him out. What? I mean, you know?

• 45:31Tucker Carlson?

  Especially since he was interesting. And it does make you wonder, like, the people who remain, and I like them perfectly fine. I have nothing, I always liked Wolf Blitzer, always got along with Anderson Cooper. There are a ton of people like that who've just like, kind of been there forever, at, at all the networks, not just CNN. But, and I never had any problem with any of them. Wolf was always nice to me, for example.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Yes, Wolf's a really nice guy.

• 45:53Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, totally. I completely agree. And Anderson Cooper never had any problem with him at all.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  A little weird, but he's a nice guy.

• 46:00Tucker Carlson?

  He's weird. I never got

• 46:01Speaker 00

  So are we all.

• 46:02Tucker Carlson?

  Any kind of human warmth, uh, sense from him. But whatever, you know. But. In order to stay at a channel like that for that long, the number of like, deep moral compromises you have to make

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 46:16Tucker Carlson?

  is crazy. Don't you think? Is that fair?

• 46:19Speaker 00

  I was watching you in Cuomo the other day and I thought, wow, the questions that you guys were going back and forth on, I was thinking, does he really not know? Does he really think, for example, not to bust his chops? Because I think he's a good guy and generally does a good show. He's inquisitive enough to ask good questions. But guys like him, who you think, this guy is really smart. And when he's kind of defending Zelensky as some kind of, you know, novel, perfect leader, I'm thinking, dude, really? I mean, the information's out there if you just want to look for it. Or do you not want to find it? I don't know.

• 46:55Tucker Carlson?

  Of all the New Year's resolutions you're likely to put off, the one you're most likely to put off and keep putting off is buying life insurance. And you should have life insurance. It's kind of crazy not to, because the future is unknown. You've got to have life insurance. But you may not have life insurance because it's a huge hassle and it can be a huge ripoff. But there is an answer, Policy Genius. It makes it very easy and much cheaper. You can find life insurance policies that start at just $292 per year for a million dollars of coverage. And some options, and this is the best part, are 100% online and let you avoid unnecessary medical exams. The guy with the gloves, you don't want that. If you can avoid it, and you may be able to avoid it.

• 47:40Tucker Carlson?

  40% of people wind up looking back and wishing they'd had better life insurance, or any life insurance. It could have helped their families enormously. Policy Genius can fix that for you. Peace of mind, that's what they're really selling. The address, policygenius.com/tucker, or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much money you could save and how much hassle you could save. Policygenius.com/tucker.

• 48:09Speaker 07

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• 48:39Speaker 03

  Honey, that flu keeping you up? Yeah, I don't got this. You need Nyquil Intense Flu.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Undo your flu symptoms with Nyquil Intense Flu. The nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever, best leave with a flu medicine. You do got this. Use as directed. Keep out of reach of children.

• 48:52Tucker Carlson?

  What is that? Do you think that it is a kind of instinctive deference to true power that keeps people in line? Is there some kind of conference call I've never been invited on? Like, how does everybody know?

• 49:07Speaker 00

  It kind of comes up.

• 49:08Tucker Carlson?

  What the red line is?

• 49:09Speaker 00

  When you are hired in the United States of America as a communicator, one of the first things you adhere to is the principle of power. So having access, if you're a local reporter in Wichita, to the police chief, so that you can go out on the buy busts that they're going to do, or the investigation on a local politician, you yearn for that connection. Somewhere along the line, that never seems to be broken for some people. It's like, if all I gotta do to be a good communicator is get tight with the mayor's office, the police chief, the... and then as you grow, maybe you end up at CNN.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  Now it's the State Department.

• 49:56Tucker Carlson?

  No, it's totally right.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  CIA. The... as a journalist, I represent power. And somewhere along the line, somebody needs to slap the shit out of all of us and say, no, you don't. No, you don't. Your job is not to represent... Your job is to represent the people down there, the workers, the people who pay the taxes.

• 50:15Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, and your audience.

• 50:16Speaker 00

  Those people.

• 50:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  They are the people you need to work for. Your audience, the average American. And they're not. They're like, yeah, the average Americans here, but the people that I really want to impress are over here because that's what gives me access. And access is everything. Access is growth, and it gets me the next job. And that's a strange little thing that we've developed in this country.

• 50:36Tucker Carlson?

  Did you ever know Jen Griffin at Fox? The Pentagon reporter?

• 50:41Speaker 00

  I'm, I think I may have met her, but no.

• 50:42Tucker Carlson?

  I don't want to single her out. She's perfectly nice. Um, that's not true, actually.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  Pentagon reporters are usually salutists.

• 50:49Tucker Carlson?

  Whoa. And what's interesting is, um, she just carries the, she lies and she carries the Pentagon line, not the kind of top, you know, not the defense secretary line. He's a political appointee, but the permanent Pentagon, the interests of this agency, the largest government agency. And she just carries her on no matter what, no matter what. It doesn't matter how implausible it is. It's, and it's a neo con line. It's a very strict

• 51:13Speaker 00

  And when you challenge her, when she's on your show, which I'm sure you had this happen, because I had this happen at CNN, I'd, you know, have the Pentagon reporter on and I'd challenge her on a question, she would complain to management and then management would call me in and say, hey, take it easy with your questioning and what you were doing.

• 51:30Tucker Carlson?

  Are you serious?

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Oh, I remember John Klein calling me the president of CNN. You remember John?

• 51:35Tucker Carlson?

  Do I remember John?

• 51:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  We want to go in a rabbit hole here?

• 51:41Tucker Carlson?

  No, I'm not gonna.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  But John would call me and say, Rick, such and such says you gotta really back off on this stuff. It's like, why? It's a perfectly legitimate question. Well, she's upset.

• 51:51Tucker Carlson?

  Was attested of my personal decency and religious principles because I was so mistreated by John Klein and the most dishonest, no one's ever been that dishonest with me, ever in my life, that when John Klein got fired, which was of course inevitable from CNN, I called him to say, you know, I just, I heard you get fired and I'm just so grateful that you did get fired because you deserve it.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  Did you say that?

• 52:13Tucker Carlson?

  I didn't. So I called him on a cell. This was years later. He picks up and then I was like, that's really, don't do that to somebody. Like, I'm a Christian. Don't act like that to somebody. You know, kick him when he's down. Don't do that. So I just hung up. He's like, hello, Tucker? Hello? And I hung up. And that was the best I could do.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:31Tucker Carlson?

  What I should have done as a Christian is call them and say, you know, John, I, I've, we had the promise between us, but I know what it feels like to be fired. I'm really sorry. I, I could, I wasn't man enough to do that.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 52:41Tucker Carlson?

  But I did pull back.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  What a moment.

• 52:43Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  That, that, that middle moment, that, that half a second on the phone of silence must have been.

• 52:48Tucker Carlson?

  Be that person. I don't want to kick the suffering man. I'm glad about your cancer, Doug.

• 52:51Speaker 00

  Damn.

• 52:52Tucker Carlson?

  I don't want to be that person, but boy, I was tempted. Because I mean, John Klein is, I've never dealt with anybody that dishonest. Like literally, I resigned my job at CNN. I went to lunch with my brother at the Palm on 19th Street. I'll never forget this is like back when you didn't check your cell phone all the time. I get back to my office and I have a call from Dave Bowder at the AP. He's the AP writer and he's like, call me back right away. He's like, um, I'm sorry. You just got fired from CNN. We have a statement from John Klein. I was like, what do you mean fired? I resigned this morning. I didn't get fired. What are you talking about? He said, no, no, John Klein called me while I was at lunch.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 53:29Tucker Carlson?

  I was like, are you kidding? So I called John Klein. I was like, is this real? And he said, and I'm quoting as God watches, he goes, it's just business.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  It's just business.

• 53:37Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know why I'm telling this story. I've never told that story to anybody, but that was, yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  That's a great story.

• 53:41Tucker Carlson?

  So John, no, but that's how the business.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Sounds a little like the mafia.

• 53:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, well, it totally is. And I'm sorry that I.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  It's just business.

• 53:48Tucker Carlson?

  Now.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  No, you and I have had interesting.

• 53:50Tucker Carlson?

  25 years later, it's like, of course that's what happened. It doesn't bother me at all, but.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  And we're both better for it.

• 53:55Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I completely agree. And anyone who's shocked by that kind of stuff is it, is it naive? And I don't want to be naive. So, but, um, so you, so I'm totally stepped over your story because you triggered me with John Klein.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  Well, here, let me help you. So, um, after the Biden administration decides that they think this entity, which they really don't even understand, but apparently they thought my show was too popular and they didn't want me to be popular on a network other than the BBC or CNN. And, uh, so they essentially shut it down, thereby shutting me down by penalty of imprisonment.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  And I was a little angry about it, so I went around and I started telling people about it all. Anybody who would listen, I would say, "Look, this is the situation I'm in, and it's very bothersome." And I got a lot of people, including the Society of Professional Journalists, who said, "Look, in a country like ours, the government doesn't get a chance to decide who are the winners and losers, who can report and who can do anything else." So they've invited me to actually speak at one of their forums, which I thought was cool. And then a very large newspaper here in the United States, in Washington no less, decided they were going to run a story on this. And essentially, they wrote a story that essentially says the headline of, you know, Rick Sanchez, former CNN reporter, challenging the Biden administration, hoping that the new Trump administration will change

• 55:15Speaker 00

  this law. And it was a legitimate story, telling the story that I've been telling you, that one day I was working and suddenly this was taken away from me, and it was unfair. Perfectly legitimate story. And it was about to air, or pardon me, be published the very next day, and I get a phone call. Remember, we talked earlier about a mysterious phone call?

• 55:35Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Now, there's this young journalist, nice young man, worked hard on the story, smart kid. And he says, "Mr. Sanchez, I'm so sorry to tell you this, but the story that was going to come out tomorrow, that you and I were both excited about it, it's been killed. They're not going to run the story." I said, "Why wouldn't they run the story?" He said, "Well, because our managing editor, not my boss, his boss, apparently got a call last night from somebody, and they convinced him in that phone call that we should kill this story." And I said, "Can you give me more details? Do you know why?" He goes, "No, I don't even know who the person was who called him. And I don't usually work with my manager, with the guy at the top. I usually work with my regular editor. I'm just a reporter. But

• 56:18Speaker 00

  I've never even heard of a phone call coming from the very top like that and canceling the story."

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Not only did I get a mysterious call that led to me losing my job at RT, now my just trying to share my story with people was being killed by another mysterious phone call.

• 56:37Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it was a neocon publication. So I'm from DC, you're not. So I'm, um, I happen to know the publication very well. And, um, it's a neocon publication.

• 56:47Speaker 00

  And we don't want to say it because we're protecting a young man. I don't want him fired.

• 56:50Tucker Carlson?

  It didn't happen to me, so I don't have the right to divulge it. But it's a publication in Washington DC that is resolutely neocon. And they're like, no, this is contrary to the story that we're telling. So.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  So, so what you're telling me and what we're coming to realize in this conversation, you and I, is that the State Department, who I know, reached out to me when I was working at RT to kind of threaten or warn me not to work at RT, which is my choice and was taken away from me, also then followed up by calling a American newspaper to tell them not to cover me or tell my story based on what they needed as well.

• 57:24Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  This is crazy.

• 57:26Tucker Carlson?

  It is crazy.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  This is crazy.

• 57:28Tucker Carlson?

  And, and by the way, I don't know anything about the mechanics of what actually happened.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  No, of course.

• 57:33Tucker Carlson?

  But I can say that there is a conspiracy of temperament and worldview that is not explicit. And I doubt it's even like a true conspiracy. And then I don't know if there's communication between the parties. But the people who work at the State Department, the people who work at the Washington Post, the people who work at, you know, every big news organization in DC and New York have the same worldview. And so they know that, you know, telling your story, explaining how your First Amendment rights as an American were violated by the US government, is contrary to their interests as cheerleaders of the war against Russia. It'll help Putin. So we can't say it.

• 58:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 58:13Tucker Carlson?

  It's like, I mean, that seems like deep.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  And all we want to do is engage. I mean, I am not here, you know, being a cheerleader for Russia or any other country.

• 58:22Tucker Carlson?

  We are allowed to be. We're not at war with Russia, by the way. So we are, in fact, waging a war against Russia and have been for hundreds of billions of dollars later.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  Through proxy.

• 58:32Tucker Carlson?

  You know, more than a million people dead later. You know, we're losing, but and it's all very sad, but the truth is, we're not actually at war with Russia. Congress has not declared war on Russia. So you've got every right to go to Russia, to take Russia's side if you want. I mean, I don't think you are to you haven't been to Russia and you're not taking Russia's side, but just to be clear, you have a right to do that and it's an inalienable right.

• 58:52Speaker 00

  As a journalist, it's my responsibility to represent their point of view.

• 58:55Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 58:56Speaker 00

  To put a microphone in front of them and say, what is your opinion of this situation?

• 58:59Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  And then report back, but we're not allowed to do that. I'm being told you're not allowed to get that side of the story. And if you report that side of the story, we're going to put you in jail.

• 59:09Tucker Carlson?

  So I do think that most journalists obey because they fear social sanction. They fear someone saying, you're a Putin puppet or whatever.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  I hate that.

• 59:17Tucker Carlson?

  But in your case, you actually saw an administration try to apply the force of law, like we'll put you in jail. So that's what I think is different about your story. It's not just like people are embarrassed to be seen as pro Russia. They were like, no, you violate the order and you're going to prison. That's a different level now?

• 59:34Speaker 00

  And I'm challenging it as an American. First of all, just from a constitutional standpoint, I think I have a right to challenge it. And I've talked to enough people in the legal community who are helping me with this, who are saying, if you want to continue doing that, you have a right to petition to continue doing that in the United States. And now that the Trump administration is there, there are, we're getting some friendly responses from people in the Trump administration who are saying, why is Rick Sanchez not allowed to work?

• 1:00:01Tucker Carlson?

  I know.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  No. And I can't say definitively yet that the Trump administration will undo this because, you know, things are moving and there's negotiations now with Russia. And I understand the Trump administration is trying to remove some of the silly sanctions that we have on them that are just ridiculous.

• 1:00:17Tucker Carlson?

  But the reason it's so hard to do any of that is because of the leash that remains in place, which is the fear people have, good people, patriotic Americans have of being tied to Russia. So so total has been the propaganda victory. You're connected to Putin, Putin's bad. Poll 100 Americans, 99 will tell you Putin is evil. Which you may be, I mean, I don't, you know, I don't know.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Tucker Carlson?

  More evil than like a lot of our allies? Probably not, but but whatever, I'm not defending.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  He happens to be the president of a country and they have something to say and we should report it.

• 1:00:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, but like it's gotten to the point where that kind of lynch mob mentality is so entrenched in the United States that even to suggest that someone is close to this boogeyman is enough to shut it down.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  But here's.

• 1:01:02Tucker Carlson?

  And that's a leash. What they're doing is controlling your behavior.

• 1:01:05Speaker 00

  You're absolutely right, but even on a more pragmatic standpoint, I looked this up the other day. I said, how much money did we spend to rebuild Europe after World War II? $140 billion in today's money.

• 1:01:17Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  We've spent over 200 billion in Ukraine.

• 1:01:20Tucker Carlson?

  To destroy Ukraine.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  To destroy Ukraine.

• 1:01:22Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's the difference, right?

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  Think about that. If you ask the average American, back then, we spent 140 billion dollars to rebuild Europe after the Nazis destroyed it. Was that okay? I think 99% of us would say, yeah, we needed to do that and I'm glad we did it. If you went around America and you said 200 billion dollars of your tax money has been spent in Ukraine, and then you said, can you find it on a map? What would you get?

• 1:01:46Tucker Carlson?

  And what could you do to Gary, Indiana and Baltimore and Detroit and Minneapolis? Like with that money? In general, I think the destructive impulse is is satanic and I think it really is a dualism, either you're creating or you're destroying.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Tucker Carlson?

  And if you look around and you're like, the outcome of all these different adventures is just purely destruction, I think you can say you're serving evil. I think it's honestly that God creates, Satan destroys. I'm sorry to like get all heavy on you, but I think it's just very basic.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Tucker Carlson?

  Right, isn't it?

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Not only that, but I think it's it's all about engagement and I and I keep going back to this idea that I keep having, call me crazy, that my calling is sharing stories. And I want the right to be able to share stories. And my parents told me one day when they brought me to America from a communist country that this was a unique place where I would always be able to share any story. And I'm being told that I can't share stories. And if we don't engage with Russia, if we don't talk to Russia, or any other country for that matter, even Iran, or whatever other countries out there that are supposed to be the boogeymen. If we don't engage with those countries, we're creating a path which is going to be so dangerous

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  that we're not going to be able to come out from it. And that's my fear.

• 1:03:02Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I mean, that right, from a geopolitical standpoint, where we've really, really squandered American power to the point where we have less power than most Americans understand. And it's really scary. I want America to be powerful. I want us to be able to project power if we need to. I want us to be able to protect our interests. I want us to stay prosperous and free. And, and we, the degree to which we've like, kind of wrecked ourselves is not obvious to people. And it makes me want to cry when I think about it.

• 1:03:29Speaker 00

  And how is it that we can continue to convince Americans of these things that aren't true and have them buy it? Are they just too busy? Is the money too big?

• 1:03:39Tucker Carlson?

  It's the power of propaganda. It's, it's how, you know, the State Department or your CNN former colleague calls you up. It's like, no, what the, okay, the people in charge are terrible at building things. They've built nothing. Our country's collapsing. Our infrastructure's garbage. Our population is dying. Okay, that's just a fact.

• 1:03:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Tucker Carlson?

  I grieve over that. I want this country to be prosperous, free and happy. I want people, I want my kids to get married and be able to afford houses. I want them to have my grandchildren. I mean, these are like, basic desires. The people running it have no ability to do any of that, to help with any of that, to actually help the population of the United States. All they can do is destroy. And how do they pull that off without like sparking a revolution, a much needed revolution in their country? They do it through propaganda. And I have been an instrument of that throughout my life, unknowingly. A propaganda that lies to people in a way that's so aggressive and all encompassing. You don't know that it's dark because there's no light. You have nothing to compare it to.

• 1:04:37Tucker Carlson?

  You have no idea. Your worldview is so controlled that you have no freaking idea what reality is.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  You know, I was just thinking something which is really interesting and, uh, That is comparable almost. I was thinking to myself, you had the number one show in the United States of America at the number one network, and somehow that was taken away from you. I happen to have a pretty darn good show that was seen by also tens of millions of people, but mine didn't air in the United States. It aired around the world. Both of us seem to have that show kind of taken away from us one day. And I think, if I'm not going too far on the perch here, that it happened as a result of the same thing and was caused by probably the same people.

• 1:05:28Tucker Carlson?

  Of course. I mean, of course. I was so grateful, by the way, because I, I will always, you know, give Fox

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:05:37Tucker Carlson?

  The credit, it deserves a lot of credit for being kind to me, which they always were, of not really getting in my business and of, you know, giving me all that freedom for so long. And I'm grateful to the Murdoch family for that. But, you know, clearly foreign policy, neocon foreign policy is the red line. They don't care what your views on transgenderism are.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Tucker Carlson?

  Abortion or gun control or tax policy, all that stuff that we claim, think is important. They don't think that's important.

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  Go ahead and do that.

• 1:06:03Tucker Carlson?

  Go ahead and do that. Fight amongst yourselves.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:06:06Tucker Carlson?

  You know, have a race war, you know, great. Have a, have a, you know, you should have a race war.

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  Oh, that's so true.

• 1:06:10Tucker Carlson?

  No, it's totally true. Have another race war. And they just don't care. What they do care about is the ability to keep the money flowing and, you know, the coffin's filling. Like, they, they love to kill and they love, they worship money and death. And that's just a fact. And I know them because I'm from there. So, uh, anyway, I, I came to this very slowly, just being involved in public policy debates my entire life. I realized, oh, the only thing they really care about is the foreign policy stuff. And, um, So I got fired and that was like totally inevitable. I knew that it was gonna happen at some point. It was a shock that morning, but like not a shock, big picture. And I'm, I was so grateful for it and have woken up happy every single day for two years because of that. So I'm not complaining in the slightest.

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  No, I know, but there's-

• 1:06:55Tucker Carlson?

  But you're absolutely right. It's the same thing. That's the red line. There's so many fake red lines out there. Like, oh, you know, anyone who's like the race stuff was like, most Americans do not hate each other because of race. Despite the best efforts of our leaders to get us to hate each other, man, they have tried so hard.

• 1:07:11Speaker 00

  And most Americans don't want to hate Russia.

• 1:07:13Tucker Carlson?

  At all. But again, it's North Korea-

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  But it's like you have to.

• 1:07:18Tucker Carlson?

  You don't even know what you don't know.

• 1:07:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:07:21Tucker Carlson?

  And I didn't even know until, like, I'm a huge believer in like, just looking at stuff and like smelling stuff and like, what's the obvious reality? You can tell me any story you want, but let me go see it. And that's why I've traveled so much. And it was just so clear when I went to Moscow, like, I don't want to move there, whatever. I'm not Russian. But like, you've been lying to me about this in a really big way. And if you've lied to me about that, what else have you been lying to me about? Anyway, whatever.

• 1:07:47Speaker 00

  But we should. And I now feel compelled, and that's one of the reasons I'm telling this story. I don't need to-

• 1:07:54Tucker Carlson?

  It's an amazing story.

• 1:07:55Speaker 00

  I don't need to work because thank God I've done fine and, you know, I'm in a good place. But I want the opportunity to continue to help engage and tell the stories that bring us together as a people. Russia's story, the American's story can be one story. We can share our stories. We can disagree. We can hate each other. We can love each other. But this whole idea that we have to be like this is just crazy. And it's gonna lead to a bad thing.

• 1:08:22Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's just so-

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  And Trump's instincts are correct on this. I hope he can fulfill them.

• 1:08:26Tucker Carlson?

  And the real battle that has, you know, it's never changed for the last 2,000 years was between east and west. It's between worldviews. And you have the Christian West and you've got the non-Christian East. And the truth is, Russia is really part of the Christian West. And so anyone who's trying to make Russia into the main enemy of the United States is trying to divide and destroy the Christian West. That's just a fact.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Tucker Carlson?

  So I don't know why people don't say that. It took me a long time to figure out, but it's just so obvious.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  And isn't that funny, we, you know, like Le Mans, the BBC, all these people, I hear these people, my friends say, oh yeah, I don't trust American newspapers or American media. So I watch the BBC. I said, dude, it's the same damn thing. No, you need to watch maybe a little India or a little Russia or a little Brazil or just get, if you want to get into perspective, you want to go to the global south countries.

• 1:09:14Tucker Carlson?

  It's so funny. Of course, Al Jazeera, I mean, just read, watch it all, read it all.

• 1:09:18Speaker 00

  Disagree with them, whatever.

• 1:09:19Tucker Carlson?

  The funny thing is that's such like the upper middle class, half wit lady with the beach novel thing to say. Oh, I, you know, I really, I'm, I, I watch the BBC because it's just more.

• 1:09:30Speaker 00

  I don't trust CNN. I watch the BBC. It's the same damn thing.

• 1:09:34Tucker Carlson?

  I've heard that so many times. Really, it's the, it's the BBC. It's like, oh my gosh.

• 1:09:41Speaker 00

  So true.

• 1:09:41Tucker Carlson?

  I don't, anyway, Rick Sanchez, it is wonderful to see you after all these years and thank you for your amazing story.

• 1:09:46Speaker 00

  And thank you. Thank you.

• 1:09:47Tucker Carlson?

  For your resilience through, you know, many different jobs. I do respect that.

• 1:09:51Speaker 00

  You just keep on fighting.

• 1:09:52Tucker Carlson?

  Amen.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  Amen.

• 1:09:53Tucker Carlson?

  Dale, vamos. Thanks, man.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  My pleasure.

• 1:10:02Tucker Carlson?

  We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor, hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter, telling the truth always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching. Time for another true life ALP story. I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday, honestly, true story, who said his girlfriend had just broken up with him over ALP. He wouldn't stop. And I thought to myself, that's kind of sad. And he said, no, it's not sad. Imagine if I'd married her. Now I know, I was saved. Then the next day, this same friend is driving at twice the speed limit through a major American city, pulled over by a cop in a

• 1:10:47Tucker Carlson?

  speed trap. Cop takes his license, registration, goes back to patrol car, runs him, comes back, looks in the window and sees a tin of ALP on the dashboard, pauses, stunned, says to my friend, you use ALP? Yeah, I do, says my friend. So do I, says the cop. We all do. He looks at my friend thoughtfully and goes, drive safely, sir, and hands back his license and registration. No ticket. So in two days, he's saved from a tragic marriage to a girl who doesn't like ALP and a speeding ticket. All true. It's more than a nickel.

• 1:11:18Tucker Carlson?

  In an Astra, 350 million people are guessing there are about 350 million ALP stories.