The Global War on Christianity Just Got a Whole Lot Worse, and Ted Cruz Doesn’t Care

Zelensky is using the secret police to extinguish traditional Christianity in Ukraine. How come no one in the US Congress seems to notice this? (00:00) The Armenian Christian Persecution (24:10) Who's Behind the Global Push to Eliminate Christianity? (30:50) Why Aren't American Leaders Talking About the Attacks on the Armenian Church? (37:15) Zelensky's Torture of Ukrainian Christians (45:35) The Efforts to Censor This Global Crisis Paid partnerships with: Landman on Paramount+: Don’t miss the hit series everyone is talking about - Landman. New Season streaming November 16th, only on Paramount+ GCU: Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Learn more at https://GCU.edu Cozy Earth: Luxury shouldn't be out of reach. Go to https://cozyearth.com/TUCKER for up to 40% off. 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?

  Thanks so much for doing this.

• 0:03Tucker Carlson?

  Armenia is famous, the extent it's famous, Armenians are famous for, well, being successful in business and quite cohesive as a community and very sincerely Christian observant. But probably they're most famous for being exterminated by the Ottoman Turks at the end of the First World War, the Armenian genocide. And I think most people don't fully appreciate the extent to which that was religious persecution. That was a religious genocide and they were murdered because they were Christians.

• 0:56Tucker Carlson?

  Tell us how we know that.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  At the end of the rule of Ottoman Empire, after Balkan wars, Ottoman Turks saw that some Balkan countries like Bulgaria and part of Greece became independent and the Christian countries in Balkans became independent. After that, they felt some, you know, big risk in Christian population of Ottoman Empire, like Armenians, Pontus Greeks, became independent. And they started to persecute the Christian population of Ottoman Empire or to convert them to Islam.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  How it went on? When the war started between Antanta and Ottoman Empire, Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman army came to all villages of Armenians in Ottoman Empire and asked two questions, just the villagers or the people who lived in towns. The first question was, will you convert to Islam? Like ninety-eight percent of the population, Armenian population of Ottoman Empire, denied.

• 2:21Tucker Carlson?

  Said no.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Said no. And the second question is, if you don't convert to Islam, you will go from here to desert of Dersor. It's like eight hundred kilometers, six hundred kilometers from Armenian highlands. And all the men were killed. And all the women were taken with children to desert of Dersor. And we have lost the seventy percent of the population of our nation. Because the, everyone, one and a half million people, said no to converting to another religion. We want everyone to know about this story,

• 3:07Speaker 01

  not just about the dark side of the history. It has a bright message too. That Christians in the twentieth century were very, you know, they went in a way of Christ. And they were sacrificed. And we hope they, all this sacrificial, will bring the Christians of our days to more faith, to that what we have, the biggest and most humanistic religion, that we accept and we must live with it.

• 3:46Tucker Carlson?

  So, I didn't, I did not understand until we just had breakfast, that the victims of the Armenian genocide, who've been talked about a lot. There's been a debate in the Congress for many years, whether we can call it a genocide, whether that's somehow trademarked. But it was a genocide. But I didn't understand that they were Christian martyrs. They died not because of their ethnicity, but because of their religious faith.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  There were no any problem with ethnicity. There were Armenians, like two percent of Armenians in Ottoman Empire were Muslim. And just this two percent are living till now in the north of Ottoman Empire without any trouble.

• 4:24Tucker Carlson?

  Interesting.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  The other ninety-eight percent, the every Christian Armenian, who were asked this question, who answered that he will not convert to Islam, were killed.

• 4:38Tucker Carlson?

  That's amazing. And so that that kind of defines 20th century, 21st century Armenian culture. You know, we we stood steadfast in our faith and were murdered for it. So Christianity is at the center of Armenian culture. Is that fair to say?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  You know, it's the first nation who has ever converted to Christian in 301 was an Armenian kingdom. So in 301.

• 5:06Tucker Carlson?

  Before Constantine, before the Roman Empire.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  11 years before Constantine, before Medialan Edict. It was 312, I guess. Armenia, like 11 years before. He Armenian King Teerdat the Third converted to Christian religion and convert all our population to Christian religion. And we are the oldest, eldest Christian nation in the world. That's why our church and our identity are so already it's the same thing, you know, the 80% or 70% of our identity comes from Christian values and our church values of our church.

• 5:53Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's fascinating. Um, and it's, I mean, the state of California, where I'm originally from, you know, the Armenian community is very extremely successful, but very cohesive. Like they they have a sense of themselves in a great way, I think. And that's why, obviously. So over the past 30 years, Armenia has been involved in a number of conflicts, really a sort of long running sporadic war with Azerbaijan, which is an Islamic country.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:21Tucker Carlson?

  Um, how many Armenians were killed in that war?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Uh, almost 20,000 people were killed for defending a Christian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

• 6:31Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  And at the end of the war, the last war, uh, the Christian population of Nagorno-Karabakh exceed like we they everyone came to Armenia. And now, after 2,000 years of living in this region, there is no any Christian in region of Nagorno-Karabakh. So.

• 6:51Tucker Carlson?

  There are none?

• 6:52Speaker 01

  There is no any.

• 6:55Tucker Carlson?

  What I don't understand is why nobody said anything as that was going on. And why Christian leaders in the West didn't say anything while that was going on, that I heard.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  I think it's a matter of real politics, you know, real politics. We have a very, we have allies with, like, we have a very close relationship with Greek nation, with Greece. We have close relationship with Cyprus. But even from there, we felt that we had support, but not, you know, the support was just with words, not any actions. I know that real politics and the help of Turkey to Azerbaijan

• 7:44Speaker 01

  make the many countries that were allies with us or were in a good relationship with us to avoid.

• 7:52Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, they didn't want to get crossways with powerful countries like Turkey. I understand that.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  And this is what we have, like, this is the problem we face all over our history. Because the Armenian nation is in the center of a region where like Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, and the only religious, only Christian nation of this, from these three countries. And always we had this oppression from the empires, like Ottoman Empire, there is Khadr Empire and other empires. And the only thing made us to be unite and to save our culture was the church and education from the church.

• 8:39Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  The schools that church was built all over the country to educate us to be Christian and to be an Armenian Christian.

• 8:49Tucker Carlson?

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• 9:34Tucker Carlson?

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• 11:44Tucker Carlson?

  I was and remain confused by the role of Israel in this. In this war Azerbaijan Islamic nation versus Armenia Christian nation and the cleansing of Christians for Nagorno-Karnabakh that the region you just mentioned. Israel took a very aggressive position on the side of Azerbaijan against the Christians using American tax dollars to do it. So Israel was a participant in this war?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  The participation Israel was the support of Azerbaijan by weapon. And it was a part of real politics. But you know the problem?

• 12:20Tucker Carlson?

  What kind of weapons?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Drones like aircraft, aircraft and other. It's like not just defense and attack.

• 12:35Tucker Carlson?

  But offensive weapons.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Offensive.

• 12:38Tucker Carlson?

  Azerbaijan received from Israel.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  And drones, many of drones and many of the were operated by us. We have read in media by operators from these companies of Israeli companies.

• 12:54Tucker Carlson?

  So wow. So you think there were Israeli drone operators?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because as many media told, like it was in many magazines and that.

• 13:05Tucker Carlson?

  So that would mean that Israelis were killing Christians in this war with US tax. I mean, because the Israeli defense sector is supported billions and billions a year by the United States.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  You know, the issue is about the real politics. They were, they are getting gas from Azerbaijan.

• 13:24Tucker Carlson?

  Gasoline.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Gasoline, they buy gasoline. I think the 70% of Israel gasoline is coming from Azerbaijan. And they have some type of economic ally. They are allies economically. The main issue is today, real politics sometimes is like, make a big problem for the nations who wants to defend themselves alone. In the regions, we are minority.

• 13:55Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I mean, of course, and that's how the world works. I just suppose from an American perspective, it's like, why are my tax dollars being used to murder Christians around the world? Cleanse the Christians from Iraq, cleanse the Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh, murder Armenian Christians. Like, why am I paying for this?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  It is a problem. It is a problem.

• 14:12Tucker Carlson?

  Problem for me.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:14Tucker Carlson?

  So now you have a lull in the fighting with Azerbaijan, but you have a prime minister of Armenia, who seems to be intent on destroying traditional Christianity or the church? Tell me what this is.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. The after, like last two, three years, after losing the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and after make like all the people, Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh, have moved to Armenia. Our new prime minister decides to have a better relationship with Azerbaijan. Better relationship with everyone is always welcomed by Armenian society. We are okay with this. But what we feel, we feel that Turkey or Azerbaijan had a mission, like made him to change the narratives of the church. And he wants to change the narratives of the church

• 15:12Speaker 01

  to forget the issue of genocide, forget our history. And our prime minister, six months ago, he started attack Armenian church and head of Armenian church. He wants to detrone him. And he wants to detrone, to change the structure of Armenian church that is like 1,700 years old.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Because of taking control of the church, it's the main institution in our country, like ninety percent, ninety-five percent of our population are the members of Armenian Apostolic Church. And when he started to attack against the church, our society was shocked, because nobody have done it before him, even, you know, just at Ottoman time. And many people in Armenian society, they were against them, against it, but they couldn't say anything.

• 16:09Tucker Carlson?

  Why?

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Because they were afraid of some oppression from the, from government's side, you know? Armenian is a democratic country. It's, I think it's one of the last democratic countries in this region. Last thirty years, we have elections, we have new leaders. It's not authoritarian country. But this prime minister evolves from democratic leader. Every year, we see he's changing to more authoritarian style of ruling because of decreasing of his reputation in Armenia. And now, he start, he attacked the church. He took to prison three archbishops.

• 16:52Tucker Carlson?

  He put archbishops in prison?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, archbishop. For you to understand, it's not shock. We were, why the one of archbishop which took to prison? Because four years ago, in an interview, he said that this prime minister must be changed. The second archbishop was in prison, was taken to prison because of like, three years ago, five years ago, he went it to a protest against the, the prime minister. And it's, you know, and nobody, like, from influential part of Armenian society, everyone were afraid of to talk about this.

• 17:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  The, you know, the city, everyone could talk who hadn't a business, who hadn't an influence, but influential part didn't want to do it. And the one man who started talk about this was my uncle, Samuel Karapetian.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  He is the one of the wealthiest Armenian in the world. So, and biggest Armenian philanthropist of last fifteen years. Fifteen years, he is the biggest philanthropist in Armenia. So, very many hospitals, kindergartens, schools. And when he came to Armenia, he lives out of Armenia, he came to Armenia. And at the forty days of his father's grave, you know. And we have a tradition to go to church at liturgy in forty days of someone's grave.

• 18:25Tucker Carlson?

  Good for you. So when someone dies, an Armenian dies, the family mourns for forty days?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and goes to liturgy. And when he came to Armenia and he was in liturgy, after liturgy, after mass in the church, the journalist came to him and say, "What do you think about the attacks from the side of government? Attacks against the church?" And he said, like, it was thirty-seven seconds. "What can I think if a small group of people, forgetting Armenian history, forgetting history of our church, is attacking Armenian church and Armenian people? If the politician will not handle the situation, we will take part of handling it by ourselves, our way."

• 19:14Tucker Carlson?

  Good.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  It was thirty-seven seconds. Do you know what's going on after it?

• 19:20Tucker Carlson?

  What happened?

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Like, after thirty minutes of this interview, our prime minister posted in Facebook that this philanthropist must shut his mouth. After three hours, he sent police special forces to a residence of Samuel Karapetian, who is the most famous philanthropist of the country, you know. And everyone were shocked, we were shocked too. And these police forces came to his residence without a judge order. Armenia is a democratic country. We never saw something like this. And everything was going on was like cameras showed everything.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  So everyone knows that there. He said it thirty seven second. Then the prime minister was in parliament. He he posted something like this in Facebook. And policemen came to the residence of Samuel Karapitian. But what happened then? The demonstrators came to the residence of Samuel Karapitian to to defend him. Thousands of people came to his house to defend him from police.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  And that day, usually when police come, like it's five minutes to take someone to jail, you know, to police station. It was fourteen hour. Demonstrators didn't want to let him to go to police station. And they were like, bring order of judge, we'll let. The demonstrators told the policeman. And then like he decide, he decided to go himself to police station to not cause a clash between policemen and demonstrators.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  And after that, he was arrested. And I was arrested too. And my father, his brother was arrested. What were you arrested for? I don't know. And we do. Just being his nephew? Just being there, I don't know. And I remember we were in police station, eight hour. And they were looking for an article to charge. Because there is no article in thirty seven seconds. I remember investigator came to the room and say, oh, I found one article. And then the other said, no, it doesn't work. And it after seven hour, they found an article and charged it that he said that the prime minister must be detrothed.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  But in this 37 second interview, you can watch it in YouTube. It's, uh, everyone can do it. There were no any word about non-prime minister and no anything. And he is now in jail.

• 22:13Tucker Carlson?

  Still?

• 22:14Speaker 01

  They took him to jail five months and the jail name, do you know what is the jail name?

• 22:19Tucker Carlson?

  No.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  KGB basement. So there is that old Soviet time communist time, uh, prison where the communist like sent the people who were not agree with communist ideas. And he's there in 12 square meters for defending the church and for this 37 second.

• 22:40Tucker Carlson?

  He's still in jail?

• 22:41Speaker 01

  He's still in jail.

• 22:42Tucker Carlson?

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• 24:37Tucker Carlson?

  You. So this prime minister, who's clearly authoritarian, by definition, is against the church. So the idea is to break the back of Orthodox Christianity in of traditional Christianity in Armenia and to use the police to do it. Is this popular? Do people like this?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  It's very unpopular. Like 90% of the population is against that. And we, the population, our society doesn't understand why he, why he's doing that.

• 25:12Tucker Carlson?

  So his agenda, he's, so Armenia is a traditional country. Traditional families predominate. I noticed that the prime minister's wife was interviewed and said something to the effect that women in traditional families are all unhappy.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, you know, he wants to change the society, but with power, not with soft power.

• 25:38Tucker Carlson?

  But the, the way he wants to change the society is very familiar to Americans. He is focusing on transgenderism is a good thing, LGBTQ agenda, whatever that is.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Anti-traditionalism, so not to the traditional families. Like, you mustn't care about your son. He must decide like what to do. But if you want to.

• 26:00Tucker Carlson?

  What to do, what, who, whether to become a woman or have sex with a man or whatever.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  No, he hadn't said something like this, but mostly he's against the traditional values. So everyone knows that he, he has idea of changing our society, but with.

• 26:17Tucker Carlson?

  To make it less Christian.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  To make it less Christian. Yeah, yeah, I guess, yes.

• 26:23Tucker Carlson?

  Who's supporting him in this? This has happened in every country in the West, almost every country in the, every country in the West, with varying degrees of success. But who is, who's behind that? Who's pushing this?

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Who is behind that in every country in the West?

• 26:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, that's a good question.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Is the, is the same people who is doing it in Armenia, they are doing it here too, I guess.

• 26:47Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, and they've been extremely successful. I mean, they've destroyed, uh, you know, our social fabric with this. But who are those people? Who is, well, let's just stick with Armenia. Who's, who's supporting this prime minister? The population doesn't support him. Who is?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  You know, uh, I think the main issue, uh, when we thought why he is doing it against the church,

• 27:12Speaker 01

  uh, we think that he gets some, uh, information from Turkey and Azerbaijan, that you must change the narrative of the church to forget the genocide,

• 27:26Speaker 01

  uh, and to have a new head of church for being, for going to a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan. And we feel that he wants to change the head of church, to change, then he will change the narrative of the church and to make our people to forget all our, like, ancestors have done for our Christian religion.

• 27:53Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  And for being an Armenian. And this is the, uh, thing that we must, you know, show our societies that this is the way they work. They want to destroy all the historical truth for some reasons. The reason is to be in peace, but we can't, we are very welcome to be in peace. But these people, one and a half million people, were killed already. They were killed for their religion. We must, the Ottoman Empire must accept it. The Ottoman Turks or Turks must accept it. Because after that, we will live in a more peaceful region.

• 28:40Tucker Carlson?

  Anyone who's forcing you to lie about history is your enemy. And of course, the purpose is always to maintain power. Right. Yeah. Right. Whoever controls the story, the past, controls the future, of course. That's why Wikipedia exists, to lie to us about the past. So, um, last question. That, this is, I mean, by any definition, a grotesque human rights violation. You're arresting Christian clergy because you don't like their theological views? You don't like their views of history, so you throw them in prison? How many Christian churches in the West have weighed in on this? Have supported the clergy under arrest?

• 29:24Tucker Carlson?

  Have put pressure on the Armenian Prime Minister to stop arresting Christian clergy? Like, how much support are you getting from the West?

• 29:31Speaker 01

  We are getting support from the West, from the churches.

• 29:34Tucker Carlson?

  You are?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There is a huge support and we are appreciated for this. And I want to tell you one more thing. Like, why these people are brave when they are going against the government's ideas? My uncle, Samuel Karabedian, and the clergy, they could be released, like, tomorrow, if they say that they will not defend the church.

• 30:06Tucker Carlson?

  It's always the same story, isn't it?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  So, my uncle, we had, like, they wanted, want to confiscate his businesses in Armenia. He knows it, but he is, he wants to defend the church after that too. So, he's continuing to defend the church. And this is the idea, these are the persons with whom we must, I think we must learn something. Because...

• 30:36Speaker 01

  It's like in first, it's like in 20th century, when these Armenian, our ancestors were sacrificed in Ottoman Empire for their religion. I am proud that Samul Karapitian is, he can be free, he can be with his business, but he doesn't do this for his religion, because religion and faith matters, you know? It's important, like the first Christian in first century, they were oppressed, but they fought for their religion, and this is the case Samul Karapitian faces now.

• 31:18Tucker Carlson?

  It's inspiring to watch, it's upsetting to watch at the same time. So, Godspeed. Thank you for telling us that story.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 31:25Tucker Carlson?

  Too few people know, and it's, it's not just about Armenia, of course. It's a, it's a global push against this one specific religion, against Jesus. So, that's what they hate.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 31:36Tucker Carlson?

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• 33:25Tucker Carlson?

  Bob Amstradam, as always, one of the people that I talk to most off camera about what is happening to the Christian population of the world. It's kind of amazing. Thank you for doing this. So the situation in Armenia, the government of Armenia persecuting the church. How is this happening without more international comment?

• 33:50Speaker 06

  Look, Tucker, as you and I have discussed, I do not understand the evangelical movement, the Christian movement in the United States. One thing I want to say, and I won't make many friends by saying it. In the United States, Christianity has been subsumed by the State Department. The US government decides what Christians we support and what Christians we don't. So in Armenia, there is going to be a prayer breakfast. And I want you to understand, there's going to be a prayer breakfast while my client, Samuel Karapetian, is in jail. Archbishops have been jailed. Clerics have been jailed. The leader of the country is trying to split the church

• 34:35Speaker 06

  by going to services of a defrocked priest. A man who has said he is going to remove the leader of the church. This man is being feted by American Christians in Yerevan, Armenia. A man who calls clerics prostitutes.

• 34:54Speaker 06

  A man who uses language that, at my advanced age, I've never heard a leader use against leaders of the church. And yet, shockingly, this prayer breakfast is going to go on. And I call it a reputation laundering breakfast. The US government allows this to go on and supports it.

• 35:18Tucker Carlson?

  What connection is there between the US State Department and the prayer breakfast?

• 35:21Speaker 06

  Look, I can't exactly tell you. I'm not privy to the arrangements. But as I've seen in representing the Ukrainian church, the prayer breakfast and religious freedom all seem to follow a script outlined by the State Department. And you know, there's a lot of pressure from the administration on peace in terms of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which of course, all of us welcome. But it's happened at a tremendous cost to the people of Armenia. There's tremendous cultural and church relics that are being lost and defiled.

• 36:02Speaker 06

  There's 120,000 who have been cleansed from Azerbaijan. And no thought has been given to this. We have 23 Christian hostages in Baku. And the Prime Minister of Armenia did not even speak of them when he was with President Trump. President Trump raised them. I mean, it is shocking how Armenia has a Prime Minister who seems to resent his own history as an Armenian. They've taken Mount Ararat off stamps. They've, they don't talk about the genocide. They attack the church. The leader of the country wants to remove and appoint the Catholicus.

• 36:47Speaker 06

  Well, of course, he doesn't understand what an apostolic church is. To be an apostolic church, listen to this Jew tell you about apostolic churches, you have to have a connection to the first apostles, which means your election must be sanctified by bishops, by leaders of the church, not a political figure. He is shockingly ignorant of his own religion.

• 37:14Tucker Carlson?

  It sounds like it's not his religion. I mean, it sounds like he's not a believer.

• 37:16Speaker 06

  Well, I, you know, I, I never will say that about someone.

• 37:19Tucker Carlson?

  Right, I agree.

• 37:20Speaker 06

  I don't know him, but what I will tell you is our State Department has, has lost the meaning of faith. They have instrumentalized religion as a tool of foreign policy, exactly what we accuse the Russians of doing. We have done it. Uh, thank God our people don't bless tanks the way Bishop Kirill did in Russia. But, uh, this, this support of governments and, and we're seeing it in this prayer breakfast. Traveling to a country like Armenia with top leaders of the Christian religion in particular.

• 38:00Speaker 06

  Uh, and, and doing all of this while we have clerics and I have a client in jail. And I feel very personal about this because I was able to defend this client in an Armenian court. I want to thank the Armenian bar for allowing me to actually speak in defense of the client directly with an interpreter. I was able to deal with the court myself. And I thought effectively portray the absolute farce that this trial was and that these charges were with respect to Samuel Karpetsian, who is an absolutely unbelievably principled Christian, who is, is now sitting in his fifth month in jail, innocent of everything

• 38:45Speaker 06

  other than praising God. And that's why he's in jail.

• 38:50Tucker Carlson?

  I just, I know I've asked this before, maybe not as pointedly as I will now, but how did this fall to you? How did you, I think grew up pretty liberal or left-wing Jewish guy, wind up being like the world's, one of the world's foremost defenders of persecuted Christians? Like, how did that happen?

• 39:08Speaker 06

  Well, firstly, as a Jew. I am an inclusive person. If somebody has faith in God, almost any God, I respect that.

• 39:19Tucker Carlson?

  I feel the same way.

• 39:20Speaker 06

  And I was raised by a family that was deeply impacted by the Holocaust. I have traveled all my life. I have sought refuge during riots or whatnot, whether it be in churches or mosques. I just never feel proprietary and feel that all men of faith have a commonality to it. I've been involved with the Orthodox Church since I was a young man. We did a case against the Soviet Union, which a colleague of mine, Reg McLean, did the most of the work on, but Dean Peroff and I were young lawyers together, and he was a member of

• 40:05Speaker 06

  the Macedonia Bulgarian Orthodox Church. And I took on that case 45 years ago, trying to fight a Soviet attempt at taking control of a church. And since that time, I've always had an interest in these issues. And when, as you know, I was approached by the Ukrainian Church, and now by Karapetian in the Armenian Church context, it just seems very natural as a Jew to defend children of Christ.

• 40:35Tucker Carlson?

  So it's just an amazing story. Thank you, by the way, for doing it. So what is the latest? You have been the defender of the church in Ukraine, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which is under almost unbelievable persecution by the government with the help of the United States. Where are we now?

• 40:56Speaker 06

  You know, I want to be very clear, Tucker. When you say persecution, that doesn't sum it up. I'm talking about torture. I'm talking about the theft of churches. I'm talking about-

• 41:08Tucker Carlson?

  This is not just we're cutting off funding.

• 41:09Speaker 06

  No, no, no.

• 41:10Tucker Carlson?

  They're going to torture you.

• 41:12Speaker 06

  I have pictures. I have videos. There's a trial going on in England where the Ukrainians are trying to ship back a former member of Parliament of Ukraine, whose crime was to speak out for the church. They, on the day they passed this horrendous bill to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a bill that I would say has no comparison in Europe since the Nuremberg laws. Oh. When they passed this bill to ban this church, this man had the courage to stand up in the Rada, in their parliament, to denounce it.

• 41:53Speaker 06

  For that, Zelensky and Yermak pulled to security, knowing that his statements would be highly controversial and perhaps deadly. He realized that there was basically a death warrant. He fled the country on foot through a forest, made it to the UK. Within 14 days of arrival in the UK, they were trying to extradite him back to Ukraine because for some hooliganism charge. And, you know, fortunate for him, I knew him, I knew when I had met him in Ukraine, when I had been there, that he had evidence of torture. We're now taking that evidence of torture to the courts.

• 42:34Speaker 06

  Ukraine is a one-party, one-person autocratic state that has no comparison to any democratic values. Rather, today is a mirror of the old Soviet Union. The man in charge of religious affairs is an apparatchik who wrote an anti-Jewish screed 20 years ago. He's the head of religious affairs, and by the way- Sorry to laugh, this is so crazy. By the way, hold on, let me, let me go a step crazier. He was a keynote speaker at the Religious Freedom Conference held in Washington. What? Yes, his name is Yelensky. He was a keynote speaker-

• 43:18Speaker 06

  This is a man who spends his life trying to destroy the Orthodox Church and transferred into what is essentially the OCU, a state church. He's a keynote speaker at a religious freedom conference in Washington, where there is a happy hour sponsored by the Ukrainian government, where there are men in Ukrainian army uniforms walking around. This happened in Washington DC? Yes, a number of times. And this is all going on while I, on behalf of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, we can't get an interview in any press in the United States. Censorship exists in this country. Yes. And when we got any coverage, it wasn't to cover the outrage in Ukraine.

• 44:03Speaker 06

  It was to taint me as some form of Russian agent. A guy who was arrested by Putin, whose friends were murdered by Putin. I am tainted as some Russian agent for speaking out against this criminalization of Christianity that's going on in Ukraine. And by the way, supported by pastors who are very close to the White House. And I don't fault them. Wait, it's supported by American pastors? Yes. How? They don't know. I mean, essentially, the Ukrainians are masters of disinformation. Absolute masters. They have their own sort of captive cells of religious leaders who are told essentially, "Look, we have, you know, black PR against you.

• 44:47Speaker 06

  If you don't follow what's going on and you don't support us, we'll take you down." I mean, the former president of Ukraine is under indictment for treason. Novinsky, who you've interviewed, under indictment for treason. They've done nothing treasonous. They just represent alternative areas of independent thinking. In Novinsky's case, a religious man who supported the church. But they have sanctioned him, they have tried to destroy him. And of course, they are within a hair's breadth of taking down the church, a thousand-year-old church, destroying it, taking the priests out of it, removing all the churches,

• 45:31Speaker 06

  transferring it to the state church of the OCU, which essentially is a cutout of the presidential administration.

• 45:41Tucker Carlson?

  This is, it's, it's hard to, so we first spoke maybe two years ago.

• 45:45Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 45:46Tucker Carlson?

  And I was shocked by what you said at the time, which is the government of Zelensky is trying to eliminate traditional Christianity, the traditional church of Ukraine. And I thought, boy, you know, when people find out about this, because whatever you think of Zelensky or Putin, certainly Putin, you can hate Putin and still be appalled by this, of course, I thought, wow, it's going to stop like that, once people know. But it, it just kept accelerating and I still haven't heard a single, I'm sure there have been, but I haven't heard any American Christian leader say anything about this.

• 46:17Speaker 06

  Look.

• 46:18Tucker Carlson?

  What is that?

• 46:19Speaker 06

  I, I will tell you that J D Vance, when he was a senator, and no one frankly knew him from Oshkosh, gave a statement in the Senate for which I thank him every day in my prayers, that has kept, I think it's one of the key things, I think you, J D Vance, and there are two young members of the Young Republicans, Catherine Whitford, who is a co-chair of the National Young Republicans and is, is Orthodox, is actually leading a day of action, and she has a colleague as well, who, who is, who is leading this.

• 47:02Speaker 06

  Those young people have been, along with, with our Vice President now, the only sources of, of support we've had.

• 47:12Tucker Carlson?

  What about Franklin Graham?

• 47:14Speaker 06

  He is speaking in Yerevan.

• 47:17Tucker Carlson?

  What does that mean?

• 47:17Speaker 06

  He is the keynote at the prayer breakfast in Yerevan, Armenia.

• 47:22Tucker Carlson?

  With the Prime Minister who's putting clergy in jail?

• 47:26Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 47:27Tucker Carlson?

  How does that work?

• 47:28Speaker 06

  I, listen, I am, it may surprise you to know, I am not working in evangelical circles, I have no idea.

• 47:35Tucker Carlson?

  I'm not either, but I'm very sympathetic to the, you know, to evangelical people, great people, and I'm not against Franklin Graham, but I'm just shocked that Franklin Graham would.

• 47:45Speaker 06

  I don't know, you know, having, having, certainly being aware of him, I, I have no idea if he knows, I, I think, because our government has decided, as has the EU, frankly. That they are going to go with the SOB they know. I think the silence of the government is something that everybody takes as permission. And I'm sure Franklin Graham is not aware that Archbishop.

• 48:12Tucker Carlson?

  Franklin, I mean, you would think, and I don't mean to focus on Franklin Graham. I'm sure he's a nice person, or I really don't know what he's like, but I'm not against him. But has he said anything about what Zelensky is doing to the church in Ukraine that you're aware of?

• 48:24Speaker 06

  No, no, no, I honestly am in shock at the silence of the media in the United States and the silence of the Christian community to what's happened. I mean, thanks to Candy Stroud, who you and I both know.

• 48:44Tucker Carlson?

  Great person.

• 48:45Speaker 06

  I'm, I've been on radio everywhere I can. But, you know, the Ukrainian effort in Washington and with media is masterful. They have their own people in key media who continued to write puffy articles about them. Never a criticism. The first time it ever came up that I saw was the protests over corruption a few weeks ago, which led people here to scratch their head and say, well, Christ, if Zelensky is so clean, how could he be trying to wipe out the anti-corruption independence? And that was an eye opener to some.

• 49:31Speaker 06

  But, you know, in the UK, we wrote to the government to say, why aren't you doing something about the church? And they wrote back and said, everything's great.

• 49:42Tucker Carlson?

  Everything's great?

• 49:43Speaker 06

  Everything's great. I mean, the UK government is more hardline about Ukraine than Ukraine. They, the reaction of Europeans, understand Germany is imploding because of this war.

• 49:59Tucker Carlson?

  I know.

• 50:01Tucker Carlson?

  It was obvious that it would. Four years ago, it was obvious. The second it started to say, "This is going to destroy Germany," which is really the economy of Europe.

• 50:10Speaker 06

  And let's say something else. It's going to radicalize Germany.

• 50:13Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that is, that is deep and true.

• 50:15Speaker 06

  And that is scary.

• 50:16Tucker Carlson?

  That is, it's coming, of course.

• 50:17Speaker 06

  And, and, and as a Jew, that is a very scary thing to witness.

• 50:21Tucker Carlson?

  But it's, it's inevitable. It's going to radicalize all of Europe. I mean, how could it not? Like, yeah.

• 50:27Speaker 06

  And, and, and I will say to you that the, um, the behavior of the press has been the most disappointing to me because I've worked with the press when I was fighting Putin in the early 2000s on behalf of one of his key opponents. I had the press with me and we would do interviews. It would, it was constant. But now that Saint Zelensky is starting to show a few cracks in the visage, there's still nothing about this ongoing torture and use of secret police to destroy a church. Nothing.

• 51:11Tucker Carlson?

  What is that exactly? Like, why most Americans, including certainly most reporters, most people in the media, had never heard of Zelensky until this war started? They didn't know it. They couldn't identify him. And immediately after it started, the loyalty to him, you know, blinded them to his faults, induced them to lie to the public in America about what was happening. I mean, they just became shills for Zelensky in like one day. How, why? What is that?

• 51:39Speaker 06

  Well, it's interesting because we did a study. We looked at media in the United States because one of the things that's frightening about the churches that are being taken in Ukraine is that very often the people who take them and beat up parishioners and, and break the heads of priests, those people have swastikas on their arms.

• 52:01Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I noticed.

• 52:03Speaker 06

  So we found out that the New York Times and other papers had been profiling the rise of the right in Ukraine right up until the war. Now, the Azov Battalion, which is basically a neo-Nazi battalion, has almost taken over command and control in the Ukraine.

• 52:25Speaker 06

  And you know, this is an ultra nationalist government right now that is pushing a very radical line, but no one is covering it.

• 52:39Tucker Carlson?

  But do you have any guesses as to, and I should say you've been in and out of that region for over 50 years, you know, well, you know, a lot, I mean, I just for, I could go on about your background, but I would just ask viewers to look you up or to take my word for it, you know what you're talking about and what you're saying is true. But why would the media again do that? Why are they defending actual Nazis? Like what, that's how deep their commitment is to Zelensky. So what is that? What is that commitment? Where does it come from?

• 53:12Speaker 06

  Well, you know, it's funny because Zelensky made all his money in Russia.

• 53:17Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I know.

• 53:18Speaker 06

  And yet he's in charge of a government that's debasing any guarantees of, of language rights for Russian speakers inside Ukraine. And the, the sanctification of him relates in my mind to two things. One, we have a, a total breakdown in elite politics in, in Europe and to some extent in the United States.

• 53:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 53:47Speaker 06

  And secondly, I, you know, I stopped playing the market when I was 21, but I certainly remember, you know, making a bet and watching it crash and then think, I've got to double down to, to lower my cost in.

• 54:06Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 54:07Speaker 06

  And I think that's what's kind of happened here.

• 54:10Tucker Carlson?

  I understand the first one, or the second one, I think you're exactly right. Like I was all in from the beginning, I can't get out now.

• 54:17Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 54:18Tucker Carlson?

  Double down. And I sort of understand what you mean about the degradation of elite politics, but can you put a finer point on that?

• 54:26Speaker 06

  Well, you know, look at the UK. I mean, I love the UK.

• 54:30Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 54:31Speaker 06

  We have a government that is wildly incompetent. They even know they're incompetent. We're going to have a budget that's going to destroy what's left of the middle class. Look at France, complete chaos right now, complete loss of direction. Italy, struggling, struggling, but with Maloney, there's, there's some sort of strength there. But many of the other countries, of course, Spain, Spain is now, you may not be aware, I'm, I'm fighting Spain in a big way against their tax administration. We just outed in a press conference last week, the fact that Spain is using Huawei

• 55:14Speaker 06

  computers to store tax information for Americans.

• 55:17Tucker Carlson?

  Not really.

• 55:18Speaker 06

  Yes. And not only they doing that, but they have this discriminatory policy towards Americans. They have 50,000 Americans. They have hundreds of thousands foreigners. They're doing discriminatory tax audits and basically stealing, stealing the money from foreigners to try to subsidize a, a government that is the most corrupt government I've seen since Papa Doc Duvalier. I think something like 21 indictments, the prime minister's wife, his brother, the, the general prosecutor. I mean, what's going on in Spain is, is unexplored territory in the United States and people don't seem to have any interest in finding

• 55:57Tucker Carlson?

  No, zero, zero interest. It's a vacation spot, that's it.

• 55:59Speaker 06

  And the, the king is flying to China because Sanchez is all in with China.

• 56:07Tucker Carlson?

  Of course.

• 56:08Speaker 06

  And Venezuela. So it's, it's astounding. And the rule of law is under such attack there that the EU is quietly sending a commission to investigate in January because everybody in Europe knows rule of law is dead in Spain. So it's, it's frightening what's going on there. And, and this is what I mean about the sort of calcification of the ruling elite.

• 56:34Tucker Carlson?

  But what is that? Is that just a, now I'm asking you, I'm luring you into philosophy, but I'm very interested in, I agree with everything you've said. It's observable, it's provable, but where does it come from? Is it a natural cycle? Or is it something else?

• 56:50Speaker 06

  You know, um, the cost of being a politician are so high. The reputational costs are so high. And the materialistic nature of, of all of us now, uh, the loss of ideology, the loss of principles, the loss of faith. This leads to a, a loss in terms of the quality of people entering politics.

• 57:20Tucker Carlson?

  That's right.

• 57:20Speaker 06

  And, and you have a chaotic world situation, which, uh, you know, there's a lot of fear. And it, it leads to a completely transactional foreign policy. And more and more states are engaging in this transactional policies as opposed to following any form of ideological policy.

• 57:47Tucker Carlson?

  So it's, it sounds like a part of a cycle then, just as politics becomes less productive, therefore more reviled by the population. These are supposedly democratic countries or not really, but they still have the skin suit and people are mad at the political class. So that means that only the worst people join the political class.

• 58:07Speaker 06

  Right. And yet fascinating what I'm seeing in, in watching, um, the Orthodox community, the, the Christian Orthodox community and the Jewish community, the Jewish community as a result of this horrible growth of antisemitism, the Orthodox community as a result of the woke nature of many Christian churches, is that those who are fundamental in their faith are growing. Orthodox Christianity is growing at a massive rate.

• 58:42Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 06

  Massive.

• 58:44Tucker Carlson?

  I'm sure Orthodox Judaism is too.

• 58:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, because people are clinging to real values.

• 58:49Tucker Carlson?

  That's right.

• 58:50Speaker 06

  And, and in Europe, you know, quite frankly, it's very, very hard to find inspiration. In the United States, we have a president, by the way, I think probably the most effective president in foreign affairs that we may have had since Nixon. I think he's incredibly consequential in foreign affairs. On domestic policy, on legal issues, I think the rule of law is in trouble, but I won't go into that now.

• 59:23Tucker Carlson?

  I've noticed. No, I agree.

• 59:24Speaker 06

  But foreign policy wise, he's, he's moved incredible mountains. And I'm not, I'm not just talking about the, the recent activities with the hostages. I'm talking about as, as a lawyer engaged in Africa, the man has done more to open up our eyes to the opportunities in parts of Africa. He's made it much less risky to go into Africa. As, as an American in Africa over the last decades, you don't know how frustrating it is when the Department of Justice opens up investigations the minute American companies want to venture into, into Africa or into Latin America. And now that's not happening.

• 1:00:09Speaker 06

  And now come, American companies are going into some of the Wild West countries in Africa, Latin America, and I say more power to them. Why, why would we just hand this to China? So.

• 1:00:23Tucker Carlson?

  Congo, most obviously, but others.

• 1:00:26Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:00:27Tucker Carlson?

  Speaking of African countries, um, all of a sudden, I'm not defending Nigeria. I don't have strong views on Nigeria, but Nigeria has become famous in the last week as a country in which there's Christian persecution going on. I think that's been, there's been a lot of conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria for, you know, my whole life.

• 1:00:48Tucker Carlson?

  But all of a sudden, it's a kind of centerpiece of the conversation. How did, what, what is the, you've been in and out of Nigeria for how long?

• 1:00:56Speaker 06

  50 years.

• 1:00:57Tucker Carlson?

  50 years, 1975, is that correct?

• 1:00:59Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:01:00Tucker Carlson?

  It's a long, so you know Nigeria pretty well.

• 1:01:02Speaker 06

  I do.

• 1:01:04Tucker Carlson?

  What is the truth about what's going on? And I ask because you've got credibility, you know, the country and you're spending the rest of your life defending Christians around the world. Tell me what the actual truth of Christian persecution in Nigeria is.

• 1:01:15Speaker 06

  Let's be very clear that the Nigerian government is populated by Christians and Muslims. I have represented in his earlier life, the national security advisor of Nigeria when he was a young man. And he's, he's a lovely individual and, and caring and, and universally respected in terms of religious issues, devout Muslim, but universally respected. In my adopted family in Lagos, the Odasanya family sort of adopted me when I was a very, very young man and, and living there.

• 1:01:59Speaker 06

  I sort of have a half brother there, Dapo Odasanya. That family is a totally integrated family, Muslim, Christian. I was always teased that I was a Jeruba, which is a Jewish Yeruba. But I mean, there have always been tribal conflict. I spoke to the foreign minister before I came here because I wanted to get clarity on the government's position. Absolutely, let's be clear, President Tinubu's wife is a Christian pastor. This is not targeted at Christians. There are probably an equal or more number of Muslim deaths.

• 1:02:40Speaker 06

  I am grateful to President Trump for identifying this, these attacks on Christians. Believe it or not, you can blame some of this on the French who had this.

• 1:02:52Tucker Carlson?

  I do, I know nothing about it, but I believe you anyway.

• 1:02:56Speaker 06

  They had a massive force in the Sahel. They armed the Toregs, which are a notorious, notoriously aggressive tribal group.

• 1:03:07Speaker 06

  That arming has led to mass killings of Christians. The fact that when Libya blew apart, a massive amount of arms went down to Boko Haram can't be denied by anyone. Nigeria wants to consult with the United States. Nigeria wants assistance in protecting Christians and Muslims, protecting their populations. Nigeria feels it has not had a fair shake from Washington. And I'm not, you know, I don't work for Nigeria. I'm not going to go on and on. The Foreign Minister is a close friend who I respect deeply.

• 1:03:49Speaker 06

  But I can tell you, from my work, I was privileged to represent one of the Nigerian states years ago, a Quay bomb. We won a case actually for them. The Nigerians would welcome American assistance with open arms. So this is unlike Ukraine, which is destroying its church, or Armenia, which is destroying its church. Here you have a government that wants to protect its populace, doesn't have the resources. Nobody's going to deny Nigeria's been racked by corruption all the years I've known it. But they want a new deal, a new relationship with Washington, and in part to assist them in protecting Christians.

• 1:04:33Speaker 06

  So when I read some of what I've been reading, you know, I'm never going to say that Ted Cruz isn't a brilliant man. But I'm going to say, I might have a little more time in Nigeria than he does, and I would welcome him to speak to the Foreign Minister or others. Because one thing America doesn't need are more enemies. Africa is the future. I have said it time and time again. I'm privileged to be counsel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We, you know, my firm has spent many years, we've just, we're still trying to defend

• 1:05:14Speaker 06

  the opposition leader of Tanzania, who, Tundu Lissu, who's been illegally jailed. A thousand are dead protesting completely bogus fraudulent elections. And to the credit of the United States, at least in the Senate, they've spoken out. Foreign Relations Committee has spoken out. We need our administration and we certainly need the EU to stop funding this grotesque government in Tanzania. But we have to stop looking at Africa as a security concern alone and we have to recognize that between their minerals and between the entrepreneurial spirit, Nigerian lawyers are as good or better than American lawyers or British lawyers.

• 1:05:57Speaker 06

  I mean, there is an incredible infrastructure of intelligence in Nigeria that we don't know anything about. All we try to do is sanction and condemn. It is a horrible, horrible part of our policy that we sanction the hell out of everybody. We, we are responsible for the consolidation of power in Moscow under Putin. If we were not sanctioning the hell out of all these people who had moved to Europe, who knows whether Putin would still be in power?

• 1:06:31Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly. No, it's, that's the true, I know. It's, it's so counterproductive that it's got to be part of some sort of larger strategy that I'm too dumb to understand because it's, it's achieving the opposite of the intended result.

• 1:06:44Speaker 06

  And, and let me tell you, I'm, I'm working in Iraq, in Iraq against Iranian interests. We have a woman, Sarah Salim, who is an American citizen, bravely, incredibly bravely defending her interests and, and those of the Kurdish in the north, and you know the Kurds are going to have an election soon. She's defending their interests against a wildly corrupt chief justice named Zaidan, who is actually an instrument of Iran. And there have been a complete reversal of her fortunes before the courts because of corruption against a group called the Hannah Brothers.

• 1:07:27Speaker 06

  And when we've gone to the US Embassy for help, this is an American citizen who, by the way, was kidnapped and tortured 10 years ago and has been fighting for her redemption and for compensation against Al-Maliki and Zaidan and others. Our embassy pledges neutrality, does not help this brave American citizen.

• 1:07:51Tucker Carlson?

  How can they not help an American?

• 1:07:53Speaker 06

  Listen, we cannot understand it, especially in a moment where the future of Iraq, which is massively important to the United States, is at risk. I mean, there's an election coming up in Iraq as well, and the oil wealth of that country is almost unimaginable. And the issue is whether the Iraqi militia will disarm, whether, in fact, the government that we not only have spent billions to support, but we lost almost 5,000 lives, whether that government will be a government somewhat free of the corruption and control of Iran. And our government's been impotent.

• 1:08:36Speaker 06

  There's a few people in Congress who have spoken out and blessed them for doing that, but very few people have paid Iraq any thought at all. And yet, we over-concentrate on Ukraine to the exclusion of almost everything else.

• 1:08:56Tucker Carlson?

  So Ted Cruz is upset about what's happening in Nigeria to Christians. I'm not against him being upset about that. You say it's much more complicated than he's presenting. Probably more tribal than religious. I, you know, I don't know much about it. But how much has Ted Cruz said about the US-funded destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?

• 1:09:19Speaker 06

  Nothing, nothing at all.

• 1:09:21Tucker Carlson?

  Nothing?

• 1:09:22Speaker 06

  Nothing.

• 1:09:23Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, how can that be?

• 1:09:24Speaker 06

  Listen, Tucker.

• 1:09:27Speaker 06

  Nobody, I mean, The Washington Post did a hit piece on me. A woman I knew quite well did a terrible hit piece, tried to present me as a Russian agent. That was their focus. There was no issue about what's happening to the church. None at all. And, and the funny thing, by the way, is we are not trying to change American policy. Where you and I disagree is I've always been totally supportive of Ukraine from a military standpoint, because my clients are in the front line. Right. Members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are fighting and dying for Ukraine. Right. And you know, I don't know if you remember, last time I met you, I showed you a video

• 1:10:09Speaker 06

  that we had done of some young men in the army speaking out for the church. Well, one of those young men has just died, uh, fighting Russia. And it, his, his comment in that video was to the president, how do you, how do you want me to fight when my own church, I can't defend my own church in my town? So sad. And, and Arseny, here is a bishop, one of my lawyers, went to the jail in the war zone to meet Bishop Arseny. He has been in jail 17 months. He has no stomach.

• 1:10:53Speaker 06

  He is horribly ill, horribly ill. He is a monk. He is a bishop. He has spent his years devoted to a cathedral. What happens is we think after 17 months, they're going to release this poor man in his 60s, possibly to die.

• 1:11:20Speaker 06

  They get him out for a moment and the secret police arrest him again on the trumped up charge that he resisted the Russian invasion. He didn't resist the Russian invasion, some completely bogus charge, and he is incarcerated again. It's a level of cruelty and torture I cannot express to you.

• 1:11:45Tucker Carlson?

  And Cruz has said nothing about it. No, really, no one's said anything about it. But Cruz specifically, but he's all of a sudden, kind of out of nowhere, deeply concerned about the plight of Christians in Nigeria, which I want to restate. Maybe a totally valid concern, I don't know. But that's weird. What is that? All of a sudden, everybody's concerned about people who clearly have no track record of being interested in Christians at all, including Ted Cruz. What is going on? Where is this coming from?

• 1:12:13Speaker 06

  Well, in fact, what's interesting is they're calling it a genocide. And a genocide, under international legal terms, requires an intent. And certainly, it's a very strange scenario where you have a government richly populated by Christians and accusing them of some form of genocide.

• 1:12:33Tucker Carlson?

  The president, whose wife is a Christian pastor. So, but I mean, one thing I do understand is coordinated propaganda, and this is coordinated propaganda? What, I mean, is it?

• 1:12:45Speaker 06

  Look, you know, I can tell you that the Nigerians have no idea where this is coming from. They've wanted Washington's attention since the beginning of the Trump administration. There are 230 million Nigerians who long for a strong relationship with the United States, who are being cultivated by Russia, cultivated by China, cultivated by India, but want to work with America. And we ignore them until we condemn them for a genocide that is... Absolutely not a genocide. Yes, I support President Trump's interest in helping

• 1:13:30Speaker 06

  out Christians everywhere. But let's, let's be fair to a government who is working to try to protect Christians and doesn't have the resources.

• 1:13:39Tucker Carlson?

  Right. This is clearly, I'll just say it out loud. It's an effort to draw the attention of faithful Christians in the United States away from longstanding persecution that we have studiously ignored in Ukraine and, and other parts of the world. That is, I mean, it's obvious to me what's going on. Does that sound crazy?

• 1:13:58Speaker 06

  No, no, because I don't have another, another way to explain it. And, and one other thing I want to mention on your show is that, that we have this new white paper on Armenia called Pashinian and the Persecution of Samuel Karapetian. And it's, it's available online. And it's at freekarapetian.com. And please download it and you will see a, you know, it's 60 or so pages, but it provides the entire history of the persecution. But you know, as, as you discovered, the Armenian genocide, from there till now, Armenia has

• 1:14:41Speaker 06

  been a brave Christian country in a terrible, terrible neighborhood. And, you know, I, having been in their court, having been in the jail, having met with Karapetian, I am at a complete loss about the fact that I know they think that they're going to have this prayer breakfast. I believe one of the Trump children is going to Armenia. I'm sure Donald Trump Jr. again has no idea of what's actually going on there. It's a terrible situation where because you can't get into the media to tell them

• 1:15:26Speaker 06

  the truth, so many senior people in the United States operate on ignorance and reputation launder people like Pashinian.

• 1:15:35Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I've been an unwitting participant in that phenomenon myself. So I know, like, you don't really know what's going on. You get used. I've been used. I deeply regret it. Not going to happen to me again if I can help it. But I'm sympathetic in general to that because again, I've experienced it. But the Ukraine thing is anyone who wants to know about what's happening to the church in Ukraine can find out. Like, that's not a secret now. Are there prayer breakfast for Ukraine?

• 1:16:06Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:16:07Tucker Carlson?

  Actually?

• 1:16:08Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:16:08Tucker Carlson?

  Does anyone ever bring this up?

• 1:16:09Speaker 06

  They're not. Our church is not invited.

• 1:16:12Tucker Carlson?

  To the prayer breakfast?

• 1:16:14Speaker 06

  Yes. We're not invited.

• 1:16:16Tucker Carlson?

  The biggest church in Ukraine is not invited to the prayer breakfast for Ukraine?

• 1:16:19Speaker 06

  In Ukraine? No, no, they're not invited. As you're aware, when I fought to get into the Religious Freedom Conference last time, we had to fight to get a table to put information on. Then when I wanted to speak, they loaded a panel with five or six other people and I got about two minutes to speak while the man who is in charge of the destruction of the church was a keynote before a large audience.

• 1:16:55Tucker Carlson?

  Who organized this?

• 1:16:56Speaker 06

  This is the International Religious Freedom Caucus, I think. And I got a call from Sam Brown back to say, if you do speak, could you be civil? And I said, well, you don't know me, Mr. Brownback, but I don't have any record of incivility. You know, that's not in my nature. I just want an opportunity to speak out for the people of this church.

• 1:17:25Tucker Carlson?

  Sam Brownback, former Senator from Kansas.

• 1:17:28Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:17:29Tucker Carlson?

  He was running this?

• 1:17:31Speaker 06

  I think he was involved. I have no idea.

• 1:17:34Tucker Carlson?

  But, I mean, did he speak out against the destruction of the largest church in Ukraine at a religious freedom event?

• 1:17:41Speaker 06

  Nobody did. And let me go further.

• 1:17:42Tucker Carlson?

  That is so bonkers to me. Like, I can hardly even believe what you're saying.

• 1:17:46Speaker 06

  Well, wait a second. What's worse is, they brought army folks, the people were in Ukrainian army uniforms, walking with OCU priests, that's state church priests, through the halls of this Religious Freedom Breakfast, or, I'm sorry, Religious Freedom Convention or Conference. And they had a happy hour, a happy hour, sponsored by Ukraine.

• 1:18:14Tucker Carlson?

  That is like absolutely crazy. Are they gonna do this for China, too?

• 1:18:21Speaker 06

  A Uyghur happy hour?

• 1:18:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, exactly. Celebrating religious freedom in China. It's all, okay, so last question, which I do think kind of sums it up. You've been in and out of Ukraine a lot. You've got, of course, a huge Ukrainian client. Can you go to Ukraine?

• 1:18:34Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:18:34Tucker Carlson?

  Why?

• 1:18:36Speaker 06

  I'm under criminal investigation in Ukraine.

• 1:18:39Tucker Carlson?

  For what?

• 1:18:41Speaker 06

  I don't know. I just know they've announced that I'm under investigation. But again, it's no idea. It's like with Karapetian, you know, they try to find something to get you on. And they invent stuff, as you know. So it's, it's really, I'm very tempted to go, and I may go again, but I'd have no idea if I go, if I'll get out. And to some extent, it's a bit like that with Armenia, because in Armenia, they've just arrested not only bishops, but now they've arrested three mayors who spoke out and who weren't helpful, as

• 1:19:21Speaker 06

  well as the family of the patriarch, the Catholicus, the brother and some other relative. And again, completely trumped up charges.

• 1:19:33Tucker Carlson?

  It feels like we're moving very quickly to just kind of global repression. It seems

• 1:19:40Tucker Carlson?

  Liberal democracy has been so discredited, no one's defending it and it's dying before our eyes. That's kind of the overview from everything you've said.

• 1:19:49Speaker 06

  Look, the EU has lost its way. There's no question. I think the EU is a tremendous danger if it doesn't get its act together on fundamental values. You know, there's this dialectic going on. Everybody is afraid of Russia, completely afraid, paralyzed. I mean, a Russian drone crosses the border and we're at DEFCON 1. Yet, after, I don't know, four plus years, Kiev isn't taken. None, you know, I think there's been a 1%

• 1:20:29Speaker 06

  change in territory. So how can Europe be so completely in fear of Russia and yet, at the same time, instrumentalize that fear to destroy their economies, to maintain sanctions, to engage in wildly self-destructive behavior and fail to maintain democratic values? You saw them throw out a candidate in Romania. You saw what they're trying to do in Germany.

• 1:21:07Speaker 06

  You see what's happened in France. It is a continuous obliteration of rule of law. And we have got to start getting back to first principles with respect to rule of law everywhere, or we will lose it completely everywhere.

• 1:21:28Tucker Carlson?

  Bob Amsterdam, I swear I check the news regularly, waiting for an account of your arrest. I hope it never comes, but you are taking actual physical risks on behalf of people who don't have power. So I'm grateful to you for that.

• 1:21:40Speaker 06

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:21:42Tucker Carlson?

  Stay free.

• 1:21:43Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:21:51Tucker Carlson?

  We've got a new website we hope you will visit. It's called newcommissionnow.com. And it refers to a new 9/11 commission. So we spent months putting together our 9/11 documentary series. And if there's one thing we learned, it's that in fact, there was foreknowledge of the attacks. People knew.

• 1:22:12Speaker 07

  The American public deserves to know.

• 1:22:15Tucker Carlson?

  We're shocked, actually, to learn that, to have that confirmed. But it's true. The evidence is overwhelming. The CIA, for example, knew the hijackers were here in the United States. They knew they were planning an act of terror.

• 1:22:24Speaker 08

  In his passport is a visa to go to the United States of America.

• 1:22:28Tucker Carlson?

  A foreign national was caught celebrating as the World Trade Center fell and later said he was in New York, quote, "to document the event." How did he know there would be an event to document in the first place? Because he had foreknowledge. And maybe most amazingly, somebody, an unknown investor, shorted American Airlines and United Airlines, the companies whose planes the attackers used on 9/11, as well as the banks that were inside the Twin Towers just before the attacks. They made money on the 9/11 attacks because they knew they were coming. Who did that?

• 1:23:00Speaker 09

  You have to look at the evidence.

• 1:23:02Tucker Carlson?

  The US government learned the name of that investor, but never released it. Maybe there's an instant explanation for all this, but there isn't, actually. And by the way, it doesn't matter whether there is or not. The public deserves to know what the hell that was. How did people know ahead of time? Why was no one ever punished for it? 9/11 Commission, the original one, was a fraud. It was fake. Its conclusions were written before the investigation. That's true, and it's outrageous. This country needs a new 9/11 commission, one that actually tells the truth and tries to get to the bottom of the story. We can't just move on like nothing happened.

• 1:23:42Speaker 08

  9/11 Commission is a cover.

• 1:23:45Tucker Carlson?

  Something did happen. We need to force a new investigation into 9/11 almost 25 years later. Sorry, justice demands it. And if you want that, go to newcommissionnow.com to add your name to our petition. We're not getting paid for this. We're doing this because we really mean it. Newcommissionnow.com.