Pod Insights The Tucker Carlson Show Tucker Confronts Ted Cruz on His Support for Regime Change in Iran About this episode Senator Ted Cruz demands regime change in Iran. He’s not interested in the details.
(00:00) Why Does Cruz Want Regime Change in Iran?
(07:49) Was Regime Change in Syria Beneficial to the US?
(12:31) Was the Iraq War a Mistake?
(34:17) Does Cruz Think It’s Okay That Foreign Governments Spy on America?
(58:09) How Does Funding Israel Benefit the US?
(1:18:42) What Really Is an Isolationist?
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Transcript 24,691 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:28 Tucker Carlson? Senator, thank you very much for spending the time to have this conversation.
0:30 Speaker 02 It's good to be with you.
0:31 Tucker Carlson? So you've come out for regime change in Iran as distinct just from taking out the nuclear sites. What does regime change look like in Iran?
0:38 Speaker 02 Somebody else in charge.
0:41 Tucker Carlson? How do you get there?
0:42 Speaker 02 Look, that ultimately has to be a popular uprising from the people. And it's not a complicated question. Is America better off with a country that has a leader who hates us and wants to kill us? Or to have a country with a leader who likes us and wants to be friends with us?
0:59 Tucker Carlson? Well, definitely the latter is better.
1:01 Speaker 02 Of course.
1:01 Tucker Carlson? Yeah.
1:01 Speaker 02 And so that's not a complicated statement. Look, I believe you look across the world when you have countries that have dictators that are viciously anti-America. Venezuela, Maduro hates us. Would we be better off with Maduro out of power? Absolutely. I want our enemies out of power and I want our friends in power.
1:20 Tucker Carlson? I could not agree more. The question is, how do you get there?
1:23 Speaker 02 Of course.
1:23 Tucker Carlson? We've been trying to kill Maduro for quite some time. We have troops there.
1:27 Speaker 02 I don't know that we've been trying to kill Maduro.
1:28 Tucker Carlson? We have. And I think you know that.
1:31 Speaker 02 Okay, I don't know that.
1:33 Tucker Carlson? Okay, well, as a statement of fact, we have.
1:34 Speaker 02 We do have massive sanctions. We tried to pressure them out of office.
1:38 Tucker Carlson? Yeah.
1:38 Speaker 02 I'm not aware of ever.
1:39 Tucker Carlson? I'm just saying there's a lot of pressure coming from various parts of the US government on that government, and it's still there.
1:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:46 Tucker Carlson? Same the country of very ancestors, Cuba. You know, 1959, we've been working on that. Hasn't worked. So I think we both agree it's hard.
1:54 Speaker 02 It absolutely is hard. And look, I think you're reasonable to ask, how do we produce that? And I think there's a distinction between what your objective is and the means to get it. There are all sorts of things, I would say, we would be better off, we'd be better off in China without Xi there. Should we invade China and topple Xi? Of course not.
2:12 Tucker Carlson? Better off with no national debt.
2:13 Speaker 02 There are lots of things. But it's good to say, all right, what are our objectives? And so with the Ayatollah in Iran, saying you're for regime change, I don't view as complicated. I mean, the guy literally leads mobs chanting "Death to America." So that's not good.
2:30 Tucker Carlson? Definitely not good. But the reason I think it's important to get a little more detailed about how that might happen is because there's military action in progress which we're supporting. And the president has said clearly, including last night, that he is focused on eliminating the capacity of the Iranian government to produce nuclear weapons. You are saying, we need to use military force to effect regime change.
2:52 Speaker 02 I have not said that.
2:54 Tucker Carlson? Oh, I must have missed.
2:55 Speaker 02 No, I have not said that once. I don't think we need to use military force to do regime change. I said, I support it. I would like to see it happen. You asked me, how should it happen? A popular uprising. So what I've advocated for... All right, let's step back a second. You and I, we've known each other a long time. I would say we agree on about 80% of the things on Earth.
3:17 Tucker Carlson? For sure.
3:18 Speaker 02 And there are a lot of things, and we can get into the nitty gritty of foreign policy as much as you want. There are a lot of things on which you and I agree, not just a little bit, but violently.
3:30 Tucker Carlson? I totally agree. I was rooting for you in your last campaign, for sure.
3:33 Speaker 02 Well, thank you. Look, you have been heroic on the border. You have been one of the clearest and best voices in the whole country on securing the border and of the absolute crisis we're facing. And in Texas, I see it and live it every day. In COVID...
3:51 Speaker 02 In fact, you may recall, in the middle of the COVID lockdown, I was out walking my dog when the whole world was shut down and we were living in lunatic times. And I called you and said, Tucker, your nightly monologues are the single best thing on television. Like, I watch them like, like an injection of crack. Okay, I'm mixing my metaphor because you don't inject crack, but, but you get what I'm saying.
4:12 Tucker Carlson? Good try.
4:13 Speaker 02 No, I mean, it was, you were standing up and speaking like, what the hell are we doing in a way that we desperately, desperately needed? And so whether it's securing the border, whether it's the insanity of COVID lockdowns and the vaccine mandates, whether it is the Second Amendment or the First Amendment, you and I agree on a ton of stuff. The 20% where we disagree, I do think is meaningful, and it's mostly in the foreign policy space. And, and what I would say, if you'll allow me to get a little theoretical, and then I'm happy to get specific.
4:48 Tucker Carlson? I hope you will, yes.
4:50 Speaker 02 For a long time, people had perceived two different poles of Republican foreign policy. There've been interventionists, and those have been people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, George W. Bush. And there've been isolationists. And then the most prominent of those have been Ron Paul and Rand Paul, and there are others. And then people perceive those are the two choices. You've got to be one or the other. I've always thought both were wrong. I don't agree with either one. The way I view my own foreign policy...
5:20 Tucker Carlson? I'm with you, by the way, for whatever it's worth. I agree with you.
5:23 Speaker 02 Okay, good.
5:24 Tucker Carlson? I don't know who set up that binary, but there are lots of choices, actually.
5:27 Speaker 02 I mean, people sort of naturally fall into, I think they want to classify people, and they're like, okay, you're one or the other, and you've got to be all or nothing. And, and the interventionist, it seems, have never seen a country they didn't want to invade, and that doesn't make any sense to me. And the isolationist, I think, don't take the threats to America seriously. And I think that's naive and it doesn't work. And so my view, I consider myself a third point on the triangle. And, and what I describe that as is that I am a non-interventionist hawk, which, which sounds a little weird, but, but what do I mean by that? I mean, the central touch point for US foreign policy and for any question of military intervention.
6:11 Speaker 02 Should be the vital national security interest of the United States. How does this make America safer? How does this protect Americans? If it does, we should be strong. And actually, another way of conceiving what I'm saying, I'm speaking theoretically. But Reagan referred to it as peace through strength. And actually, I think Donald Trump's foreign policy is very much what I'm describing, a non-interventionist hawk, where he understands, and I think this is historically true, the best way to avoid war is being strong. That weakness and isolationism, I think, encourages war. So going back to regime change, where you started in Iran.
6:55 Tucker Carlson? Just to make, I don't think I disagree with anything you've said. So we may not be that far apart, really, because you said that the single criterion for making decisions about America's foreign policy is America's national interest.
7:09 Speaker 02 Yes.
7:09 Tucker Carlson? That's it.
7:10 Speaker 02 Yeah. Which is also America first. That's another way of putting that as well.
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10:10 Tucker Carlson? Are we watching that now?
10:12 Speaker 02 So I think we are. And, and from what you've said publicly, I think on Iran in particular, you and I disagree. And
10:22 Speaker 02 Alright, let me contrast it when Obama was president. When Obama was president, you remember, he talked about wanting to have military action against Syria. Mm-hmm. And at the time, I tried to keep an open mind to it. I said, "Okay, let me listen to the commander in chief, describe to me how this is in America's interest, and what your plan is." And Bashar Assad was a bad guy. He was killing his own citizens, and he had chemical weapons that were very dangerous. I could conceive of a commander in chief laying out a plan for, "Okay, we're gonna go in and say, grab the chemical weapons and leave." Like, I could see that if there was a real threat to America and there was a plan to prevent that, I could see supporting that. So I wanted to hear what he had to say.
11:06 Speaker 02 And I listened, both in classified briefings and public questioning. And number one, their public defense of it was incoherent. So John Kerry said, "We're going to engage in an unbelievably small strike." I think that's a quote. I'm like, "Okay, and to do what?" At the time, there were nine major rebel Islamic groups in Syria. I'm like, "Okay, I agree Bashar Assad's a bad guy. You topple him." And one of the nine other groups takes over. Seven of them were affiliated with radical Islamic terrorism. You had al-Qaeda and al-Usra. I'm like, "Wait, how is it better to have lunatics who hate us in charge? Assad's a bad guy, but I don't want worse guys in charge." Obama administration couldn't give an answer to that.
11:51 Speaker 02 And ultimately, when you pressed them, John Kerry in particular, I pressed, and he would say, "Well, we need to defend international norms." Like, "What the hell's an international norm? I don't know what it is, but I'm not interested in putting US servicemen and women in harm's way to defend one." Amen. So I opposed the Syria attack, and opposed it vocally. And it was interesting, Rand and I agreed, Rand's a friend of mine, but we agreed with that position for different reasons. What I was asking is, is I think the question we should ask... How does this make America safer? The Obama administration couldn't give me an answer, so I opposed it. I think Iran is very different.
12:29 Tucker Carlson? Let me ask what you think of how Syria wound up? Because Bashar al-Assad now lives in Moscow.
12:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:34 Tucker Carlson? He was taken out by our allies. And he's been replaced by a radical Islamist who was affiliated with ISIS. So is that a win or no?
12:43 Speaker 02 Unclear. Look, Syria's a mess, so I've consistently opposed.
12:47 Tucker Carlson? But we had a secular leader in a religious and ethnically diverse country. Now we have a religious extremist, Islamic religious extremist, who's overseen the purge of Christians and Alawites. Is that better? That doesn't seem like a win.
13:00 Speaker 02 Well, look, one of the things you said is you said he was taken out by our allies. I don't think that's right. Israel didn't take Assad out. What happened, and I'll tell you.
13:07 Tucker Carlson? What about Turkey?
13:09 Speaker 02 Turkey didn't take him out. So it was interesting. I had a long.
13:11 Tucker Carlson? How did Assad get kicked out?
13:12 Speaker 02 Pissed.
13:13 Tucker Carlson? Yeah.
13:16 Speaker 02 When Netanyahu was in DC a couple of months ago, he and I sat down for a couple of hours. He's a good friend of mine. And we talked actually about Syria. It was, he made an interesting point that I've not heard anywhere else. In that he said he believes what toppled Assad was when Israel took out Nasrallah. Nasrallah was the head of Hezbollah, and they took him out. And he made an interesting point. He said, "It's fascinating how a charismatic leader..." And Bibi said, "Look, Nasrallah was a very effective terrorist leader. And when they took him out, that power base was supporting Assad. And that ultimately, in Bibi's analysis, removed the support from Assad and toppled him.
14:00 Speaker 02 But they weren't trying to take out Assad. My view now, I don't know."
14:04 Tucker Carlson? But you don't think that, and I don't, it is very confusing. And I don't know that anyone really knows all the details. But you don't think that Israel or Turkey or NATO ally Turkey played any role in toppling Assad?
14:15 Speaker 02 I don't know. I don't know that they did. Look, my understanding of that, they clearly took out Nasrallah and Hezbollah. They've decimated Hezbollah, but Hezbollah is waging war on them. So decimating Hezbollah was very good for Israel and very good for America, too. I mean Hezbollah hated us.
14:34 Speaker 02 I would put Assad in the category of an unintended consequence. And whether it's good or bad, I don't know. I think time will tell.
14:43 Tucker Carlson? For the United States?
14:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, for the United States. I think time will tell the new leadership there. You're right to be concerned.
14:52 Speaker 02 Let me step back and let's talk regime change generally. I mentioned Syria. I also opposed the Iraq war. I think the Iraq war was a serious mistake. And we have a pattern and going back to this binary of the interventionist and the isolationist. The interventionists advocate over and over again, there's a bad guy. There's a dictator who's doing bad things to his people and they say, "Let's go topple him." And you have dictators in the Middle East who are killing radical Islamic terrorists. We come in and topple them. The radical Islamic terrorists take over and they start killing Americans. And my view, how the heck does that help us? Like Saddam Hussein was a horrible human being. He murdered and tortured people. Unequivocally bad guy.
15:36 Speaker 02 But it got much worse after we toppled him. And you ended up having ISIS rise up. I mean, that was the cause of ISIS was toppling Saddam Hussein. Same thing in Libya. You had Gaddafi, another horrible guy. That under Obama, we toppled him. And you ended up having radical Islamic warlords taking over. And so, and it's the question I asked in Syria. Okay, well, what's the plan? And how is this good or bad for the United States? And so, I don't think with Iran, I view Iran as very different from Iraq.
16:10 Tucker Carlson? But up to that point, you say we disagree. I don't hear really anything. I'm not quite sure what happened in Syria, but I don't know, so, right? But other than that, I don't hear anything I disagree with at all.
16:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:20 Tucker Carlson? It sounds like we're in a complete agreement. I wonder, though, is there a successful regime change that the United States supported? That you're aware of in the last 100 years?
16:30 Speaker 02 Sure, defeating the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union collapsing, winning the Cold War. That was the most consequential step for US national security interests of our lifetimes.
16:44 Tucker Carlson? Okay. So you would classify that as a regime change that we affected?
16:48 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
16:49 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
16:51 Speaker 02 Look, you and I are in my office, we're sitting next to a painting of Reagan in front of the Brandenburg Gate. And up top are the words "Tear down this wall" in German, in the style of the graffiti.
17:05 Tucker Carlson? Right.
17:06 Speaker 02 And I think those are the most important words any leader has said in modern times. And if you look at how Reagan waged the Cold War, and Reagan is very much my model for how to, I actually think how Reagan took on the Soviet Union is exactly how we should take on China. Now, starting from the point, look, Reagan was not an interventionist. In eight years, the biggest country Reagan ever invaded was Grenada. He was very reluctant to use US military force.
17:34 Tucker Carlson? He didn't respond after the 83 barracks bombings.
17:36 Speaker 02 You're right. He made the judgment that the risk exceeded the benefits. And that's a very rational decision to make, and it's reflected, Trump has made those same decisions, where he is willing to use military force, but he very much asks, okay, is this good or bad for America? Does this endanger US servicemen and women or not? And one of the points about the Cold War, look, nobody in their right mind wanted a shooting war between America and the Soviet Union. The two biggest nuclear powers on earth firing bullets at each other is really unhealthy for human beings. Same thing is true with China. Nobody with any sense says, hey, let's go to war with China.
18:19 Speaker 02 That's really dumb, and a whole lot of people could die. But the Cold War showed, we've got lots of tools, short of sending the Marines, to fight against a regime. And one of the most important tools is the bully pulpit. And so, when I say I support regime change, I actually think just simply laying out what the Ayatollah does, and so I spend a lot of time, I speak to Iranian dissident groups, I speak out against human rights abuses. I think shining a light on the depravity of leaders is a really powerful tool that America has.
18:55 Tucker Carlson? Should we limit our activity to that?
18:59 Speaker 02 It depends, again, these are-
19:01 Tucker Carlson? Because the US government pays- Opposition groups, militarized opposition groups in Iran to overthrow the government. We've done it in a lot of different places, as you know. I'm not saying it's bad, but that's very different from what you're describing. You're saying, "We're making a moral case, as we did for 70 years with the Soviets. Our system works, yours doesn't."
19:19 Speaker 02 Yep.
19:20 Tucker Carlson? And I think we made a credible case for that, and we beat them over 70 years economically.
19:25 Speaker 02 And that was a huge part of it.
19:27 Tucker Carlson? Right. I think everyone would agree that was the main part of it. We didn't beat them in Vietnam, or North Korea.
19:33 Speaker 02 The main part of it, but it was tied to a military buildup. So I think it was two things. It was, one, the clarity. So Reagan came in, and he described the Soviet Union as an evil empire.
19:43 Tucker Carlson? Right.
19:44 Speaker 02 And all of the intelligentsia in DC, all the Democrats, all the media, they're like, "What a horrible thing to say. You can't say that." Reagan went to the United Kingdom and he said, "Marxism, Leninism will end up on the ash heap of history." People were horrified. They asked him, "All right, what's your strategy in the Cold War?" He said, "Very simple: We win, they lose." And that was all viewed as sort of a Philistine simplicity. And I think it was exactly right, and laying that out, speaking... Do you know the backstory behind the Berlin Wall speech?
20:19 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, I do. Yes.
20:21 Speaker 02 You probably know Peter Robinson, who was a speechwriter.
20:22 Tucker Carlson? Of course.
20:23 Speaker 02 So three times, the State Department deleted those words from that speech. And three times Reagan wrote it back. And the State Department argued, they said, "Mr. President, you can't say this. This is too bellicose, this is too provocative." And my favorite, they said, "This is too unrealistic. The Berlin Wall will stand till the end of time." And Reagan said, "Look, this is the whole point of the speech." And less than three years after Reagan gave that speech, the Berlin Wall was torn to the ground. And it wasn't knocked down by American Army tanks, we didn't shoot missiles at it, it was shining truth and light that tore it down. It was also rebuilding the American military.
21:06 Speaker 02 It was what was then pejoratively called "Star Wars," where the Soviet Union, their economy couldn't match our military buildup, and it bankrupted them. That's an example of peace through strength.
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23:11 Tucker Carlson? I wonder, I mean, is there anybody who was alive in 1989 who wouldn't trade that America for the one we live in now? There's not one person, I don't think.
23:18 Speaker 02 Oh, sure.
23:19 Tucker Carlson? But, I mean, just the basic metrics, debt, suicide rate, life expectancy, it was... I wonder why, after that victory, America didn't thrive in the way that we thought that it would, that I thought that it would? My family was involved in that. I mean, we were very focused on it in my house. Like, we won. And I, I wonder two things. Why didn't the United States kind of declare victory and make some sort of... Arrangement with Russia that allowed like mutual prosperity rather than continuing a cold war. And second, I wonder why the United States didn't get a lot better. Like, why don't we have better infrastructure? Why don't we have fewer homeless? Why do we have all these drugs? Like, if we won, why does our country look like this? I walked across from Union Station this morning, as you do, I'm sure, every day, and there's people lying in the street and sleeping outside.
24:04 Tucker Carlson? It's like, what is that?
24:05 Speaker 02 Look, there's no doubt there are really dangerous forces in our society. Some of it is politics and some of it is culture. And one of the mistakes people make in politics is thinking everything is politics. So, the political answer, which I happen to believe, is we went much further down the road of liberalism. You look at Bill Clinton, who inherited the peace dividend of the Cold War being over, and moved us more to the left, and then Obama accelerated it a lot. So there are lots of
24:34 Tucker Carlson? I agree.
24:35 Speaker 02 ...bad economic policies, but I also think they're cultural things. Um, you know, the
24:39 Tucker Carlson? Look, I agree with all of that. I know what you're gonna say, and I agree 100%. I bet there's not one word that I would disagree with. All I'm saying is, like, I think it's important to step back and ask
24:49 Speaker 02 But I actually think Russia has very little to do with it.
24:51 Tucker Carlson? Well, that's kind of the point that I'm trying to make, which is, like, we're all sort of focused on beating our adversaries abroad, but what is victory worth if our own country becomes what it is now? And maybe we're spending a little too much time focused abroad, and not enough time focused on the people sleeping outside Union Station.
25:08 Speaker 02 So, look, I absolutely think we need to focus at home emphatically, and we need to focus on prosperity, we need to focus on reducing the debt, reducing spending, empowering people, low taxes, small businesses. American free enterprise, it's the most powerful force for fighting poverty the world has ever seen. I'm 1,000% there. I also recognize it is a dangerous world, and part of the responsibility of leaders, part of President Trump's responsibility is to keep America safe. But let's go back to where we started with Iran.
25:41 Tucker Carlson? But can I ask, you've been in the district a long time in DC, so have I. And the city's way more dangerous and Congress runs this city.
25:47 Speaker 02 No, it's a complete crap hole.
25:48 Tucker Carlson? So I'm saying like, no Iranians ever gonna kill me, but I could get carjacked here. And I just don't understand how the Congress could run this city and focus on the dangers of Iran when the city is like garbage. It's garbage.
26:00 Speaker 02 But Congress doesn't run the city. We could.
26:03 Tucker Carlson? Congress does run the city. It's in the Constitution, I think.
26:05 Speaker 02 It's in the Constitution, but they've given home rule, so it's a Democrat mayor.
26:08 Tucker Carlson? You can take it back. You control the Congress.
26:10 Speaker 02 I'd vote for it, but it is a question of math.
26:13 Tucker Carlson? Okay, but I'm just saying like, why, how can people ignore, it's like, if my own kids are drug addicts, but I'm focused on my neighbor's kids, it's like I'm neglecting my own kids. And there's a sense in which the Congress is neglecting the country that elected them in favor of this relentless focus on other people's problems. That's the way it feels as an American.
26:33 Speaker 02 Look, there are lots of problems in America that we need to fix. Why is DC a pit? Because you have a mayor and a Democrat city council that won't let police officers arrest bad guys. And in every city you see across the country, whether it's New York, whether it's Chicago, whether it's LA, whether it's San Francisco, if you have Democrats, we see the LA riots, where they won't let people be arrested. All right.
26:56 Tucker Carlson? Then why not work and regime change here? Why not use the bully pulpit?
27:00 Speaker 02 What do you think I do every day?
27:01 Tucker Carlson? Why don't we see a Republican senator stand up and say, "I just walked to work this morning over people dying of drug OD's. We're gonna shut this place down unless they fix it." They're mad about Putin. Like, what did Putin do to Washington? Nothing.
27:13 Speaker 02 Look, in terms of regime change, let's talk this week, the riots in LA. I've made very clear that the cause of those riots are Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. And when you elect communists who hate America, who stop law enforcement from arresting criminals, you get what you get on the streets.
27:30 Tucker Carlson? Amen, I agree.
27:31 Speaker 02 My in-laws are Californians, and they're wonderful people. Heidi grew up on the Central Coast of California. And I remember I was texting with my mother-in-law, and I think I sent her a video of criminals going into a store and just looting in California. And her response, she said something like, "Well, this is really terrible. I wish we could, it's a shame we can't do anything about this." So yes, you can. Go in and arrest them. Throw their butts in jail, put them in handcuffs, and it stops.
27:59 Tucker Carlson? Exactly.
28:01 Speaker 02 We know how to fix these things and DC is, I think DC voted, if I remember right, 92% Democrat. Democrat policies don't work and they destroy every community that they are in charge of.
28:15 Tucker Carlson? Then why don't Republicans assert their constitutional authority over the city? Don't they control the Congress?
28:21 Speaker 02 Yes, I'd be all for it.
28:23 Tucker Carlson? Who's against it?
28:25 Speaker 02 Susan Collins is really vocally against it. So on questions of home rule, so for example, let's take an issue you and I care a lot about, the COVID lockdowns. I had a couple of years ago in the middle of them. DC was proposing, the DC school district was proposing throwing out of school any child that was not vaccinated. And at the time, if I remember correctly, it was something like 40% of the African-American students in DC were not vaccinated. So we're talking about literally throwing out 40% of the kids at public school. And so I had a vote on the Senate floor to say, "Look, they can't throw kids out of school for this." And we ended up having a big argument and part of the argument was home rule, where there was, and Susan was the most vocal Republican, that's like, "No, no, no, we have to let DC run."
29:10 Speaker 02 And I'm like, "Why? Constitution gives us the power to do it." And it ended up, by the way, every single Democrat, all of them, voted in favor of the DC public schools being able to throw out 40% of the black kids from school. And I said, "Look, you throw a kid out of school, you got a 14, 15-year-old boy, you throw him out of school, you know what's gonna happen next. He's gonna join a gang, he's gonna engage in crimes, he's gonna engage in drugs, he could be dead within five years if that kid doesn't get an education." And the Democrats were more than happy to say, "We don't care. Right now, our religion is get the vaccine or to hell with you."
29:44 Tucker Carlson? But can you, I mean, again, once again, I couldn't agree with you more, but can you feel the frustration of people, including your voters, every, you know, every American, at the emphasis on foreign countries and the threat we supposedly face, a lot of which is fake, obviously?
30:02 Tucker Carlson? Over the kind of slowly unfolding tragedy of what's happening to our country, the dollars spent, the aid packages to Ukraine to pay the retirement of civil servants in a country that we have nothing to do with, the endless support for Israel, very expensive, when people are literally buying groceries on credit in the United States, can you feel like, nothing against Ukraine or Israel or any other country.
30:29 Speaker 02 All right, let's stop. You said the support for Israel, very expensive, but how much support do we give to Israel?
30:33 Tucker Carlson? Well, you tell me, you vote for it.
30:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's about 3 billion a year, the military assistance.
30:37 Tucker Carlson? Is that the only assistance?
30:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, we just have military assistance. Israel does not have additional assistance. There's an MOU, a memorandum of understanding, and it's 3 billion a year.
30:46 Tucker Carlson? So what is it costing the support of the bombing campaign to protect Israel right now from Iran?
30:53 Speaker 02 So I don't know right now, but I'll tell you this, let's go back to the touchstone on foreign policy, American interest. Our support, our military support for Israel, is massively in America's national security interest.
31:07 Tucker Carlson? But what does it cost?
31:07 Speaker 02 And it benefits us enormously.
31:08 Tucker Carlson? Well, before we can make independent judgments about whether or not that's true, and I'm certainly open to it, I think we need to know what it costs. So what's the annual cost of defending Israel, do you know?
31:18 Speaker 02 3 billion a year.
31:18 Tucker Carlson? No, no, that's the aid, but I mean, the cost of the weapons, for example, the cost of US personnel there, the cost of moving ships to the region which we're doing right now, the cost of moving tankers to the region, all of that, do we know what the cost is?
31:32 Speaker 02 So look, the last week, I don't know, and there's some lag when the administration, under the Constitution, the commander in chief has control of the armed forces, and so President Trump has made some decisions that we'll know the cost over time, but I don't know the last week. I don't have visibility on that. The annual cost is 3 billion. It's a 10-year memorandum of understanding, and that's the principal driver of the cost. But let me make a point, we get massive benefits from Israel. Israel shares, the Mossad is one of the best intelligence sources on the planet. The enemies of Israel, the people who hate Israel, they all hate us. It's almost a perfect overlap. And so if we tried to recreate, if we're just trying to defend America,
32:15 Speaker 02 we tried to recreate the national security benefits of our alliance with Israel, it would cost, I don't know, 30 billion, 300 billion.
32:24 Tucker Carlson? So can you elaborate, and again, I'm going into this as someone who's always liked Israel, and still does, but I also think at this point, given where we are, it's fair to ask rational questions about what the benefits are.
32:34 Speaker 02 Good.
32:36 Tucker Carlson? So, does Mossad share all of its intelligence with us?
32:40 Speaker 02 Oh, probably not, but they share a lot. We don't share all of our intelligence with them, but we share a lot. It's a close alliance.
32:46 Tucker Carlson? Do they spy domestically in the United States?
32:48 Speaker 02 Oh, they probably do, and we do as well, and friends and allies spy on each other. And I assume, I assume all of our allies spy on us.
32:55 Tucker Carlson? And that's okay with you?
32:56 Speaker 02 You know what? One of the things about being a conservative is that you're not naive and utopian. You don't think humans are all... Part of the reason socialism doesn't work is the mantra from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs doesn't work. As a conservative, I assume people act in their rational self-interest.
33:15 Tucker Carlson? So it's conservative to pay people to spy on you?
33:18 Speaker 02 It's conservative to recognize that human beings act in their own self-interest, and every one of our friends spies on us, and I'm not...
33:25 Tucker Carlson? Do you like it? That's my question. I'm not asking whether they have motive to do it, of course they do. I understand that, and I...
33:30 Speaker 02 And by the way...
33:31 Tucker Carlson? I'm not mad at them, but you're an American lawmaker, so I just want to know... Hold on, I want to know your attitude. You said that your guiding principle, in fact, the only principle, the only criterion...
33:42 Speaker 02 I said guiding, the overwhelming, I wouldn't say only.
33:44 Tucker Carlson? Is it in America's interest, is it in America's interest for Israel to spy on us, including on the president?
33:50 Speaker 02 It is in America's interest to be closely allied with Israel, because we get huge benefits for it, and you want to see the clear...
33:59 Tucker Carlson? But I just want to stop on the spying for a second. That it takes place, as you know, including on the president of the United States, and several precedents, and I just want to know if that's okay, and why is it okay? Wouldn't an American lawmaker say to a client state, "You're not allowed to spy on us, I'm sorry, I know why you want to, I'm not mad at you, but you're not allowed to."
34:18 Speaker 02 Sure.
34:19 Tucker Carlson? And I don't care for it. I don't want to be spied on by you, is that... It's kind of weird not to say that, but you don't seem able to say that.
34:26 Speaker 02 Sure, I would say don't spy on us. They're going to anyway. And by the way, the Brits are, the Canadians are, like, I don't think-
34:32 Tucker Carlson? Well, I'm not for that at all. I think it's disgusting, but we don't actually pay their, you know, we're not their most meaningful sponsor. We're not sort of paying for the operations of the British government.
34:41 Speaker 02 So I gotta say, and this is, it's weird, we're talking about isolationist, the obsession with Israel. Why is Israel-
34:49 Tucker Carlson? Oh, I don't think I'm obsessed with Israel.
34:50 Speaker 02 Okay, but I think a lot of people are, and like the question, Israel spies on us. Well, so does every other country. Why are you mad at Israel?
34:55 Tucker Carlson? I guess, oh, no, no, I'm hardly the one who's, I've never taken money from the Israel lobby, have you?
35:02 Speaker 02 Taken money from the Israel-
35:03 Tucker Carlson? From AIPAC.
35:04 Speaker 02 So AIPAC raises a lot of money for me, but it's actually a misnomer because the people who raise money are individuals. So it's not the PAC itself, but they're individual members who believe in the American-Israeli friendship and relationship.
35:17 Tucker Carlson? Is AIPAC a foreign lobby?
35:19 Speaker 02 No, it's an American lobby. It's the, AIPAC stands for the America-Israeli Political Action-
35:23 Tucker Carlson? What is it lobby for?
35:25 Speaker 02 So, to be honest, not a whole lot effectively. Listen, I came into Congress 13 years ago-
35:33 Tucker Carlson? Yes.
35:33 Speaker 02 With the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate. And I've worked every day to do that. AIPAC, a lot of times, AIPAC, I wish were much more effective. Like, there are folks on, online-
35:47 Tucker Carlson? But what do they do? I thought they were-
35:49 Speaker 02 ...who are the fever swamp of terrified of AIPAC, and AIPAC-
35:51 Tucker Carlson? I'm not terrified of AIPAC at all. I'm, you're the one who seems a little uncomfortable when I'm asking this.
35:55 Speaker 02 No, I'm not uncomfortable at all.
35:56 Tucker Carlson? I'm just asking what AIPAC does. My understanding, having known a lot of people who work at AIPAC-
36:01 Speaker 02 I could tell you.
36:02 Tucker Carlson? Is that it lobbies on behalf of the Israeli government.
36:05 Speaker 02 Wrong.
36:06 Tucker Carlson? Oh, okay.
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37:52 Speaker 05 I'll admit it, I'm one of those people who gets excited for football season way before the first kickoff. That's why a trip to Total Wine & More has become part of my game day routine. I can get the cooler ready with my favorite beers and ready to drink cocktails. I'm usually picking up enough for everybody, so it's nice knowing I'm scoring the lowest prices. This season, make Total Wine & More part of your game day tradition. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B21.
38:21 Speaker 06 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games. Witness the beginning of the revolution.
38:26 Speaker 07 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
38:29 Speaker 06 Film for IMAX.
38:30 Speaker 07 Make them remember you.
38:32 Speaker 06 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Leaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
38:37 Tucker Carlson? When was the last time AIPAC took a position that deviated from Prime Minister Netanyahu?
38:43 Speaker 02 All the time.
38:44 Tucker Carlson? Name one.
38:45 Speaker 02 Okay.
38:47 Speaker 02 Let me go back and give a little history. If you want to do a deep dive on AIPAC.
38:49 Tucker Carlson? I don't. I want to do a shallow dive that gets...
38:51 Speaker 02 No, no, I'm not going to do a simple...
38:52 Tucker Carlson? I want to get to the core question. AIPAC is lobbying for a foreign government.
38:56 Speaker 02 False.
38:56 Tucker Carlson? It's not. It's lobbying for the United States?
38:59 Speaker 02 It is lobbying for a strong US-Israeli relationship.
39:03 Tucker Carlson? Okay, so it's not, has nothing to do with a foreign government?
39:07 Speaker 02 It wants America and Israel to be closely allied.
39:11 Tucker Carlson? Okay, but it's lobbying on behalf of the interests of another country.
39:16 Speaker 02 So that's not true at all?
39:17 Tucker Carlson? It's not true.
39:19 Speaker 02 No.
39:20 Tucker Carlson? How much contact do you think AIPAC leaders have with the government of Israel?
39:23 Speaker 02 No idea. I imagine some. I think the government of Israel is often frustrated with AIPAC because AIPAC is not nearly strong enough.
39:29 Tucker Carlson? Do you think there's any coordination between the government of Israel and AIPAC?
39:33 Speaker 02 Do they talk? Sure. If you're lobbying for more US-Mexico trade, would you talk to people in the US and Mexico and the government? Sure. Like if...
39:42 Tucker Carlson? So, I'm not mad about that. There are a million countries that lobby Washington. I like a lot of those countries, including Israel.
39:47 Speaker 02 Okay, but AIPAC are Americans. They're not Israelis.
39:49 Tucker Carlson? Hold on. There are tons of Americans who lobby on behalf of foreign governments. I know them. I'm related to some of them. I know how it works. I'm from here. So, my question is not, is it outrageous that foreign governments lobby the United States? They all do, okay? Including Israel. My only question is, why don't we admit that is what's happening? You're denying it, but it's true.
40:07 Speaker 02 But because what you're saying is false.
40:09 Tucker Carlson? Why aren't they registered as a foreign lobby?
40:11 Speaker 02 Because they're not.
40:12 Tucker Carlson? They're not a foreign lobby?
40:13 Speaker 02 No, they're not. And this is, there's a fever swamp. Look...
40:17 Tucker Carlson? It's not a fever swamp. These are very reasonable questions. And you've accused me of being obsessed with Israel, which I'm not.
40:21 Speaker 02 I actually have, and I've said isolationist.
40:23 Tucker Carlson? And being feverish about it, which I'm not, at all. I'm just, I find it, it's a very tender spot when you ask it, and I don't know why.
40:31 Speaker 02 So, Tucker, all right, let's go back. I was first elected to the Senate in 2012. I came in, in Obama's second term. And I actually saw AIPAC be badly wounded in a way they never came back from. And the second term is when Obama did the Iran nuclear deal. And the Iran nuclear deal, I think, was catastrophic. And AIPAC went all-in lobbying against it.
40:56 Tucker Carlson? Yeah.
40:57 Speaker 02 And they failed. And I was the leading opponent of the Iran nuclear...
41:01 Tucker Carlson? Oh, I know. They definitely failed, yes.
41:03 Speaker 02 They failed, and what happened, the Obama White House told every Democrat, "When I got here, there used to be real bipartisan support for Israel. That has largely disappeared." And it's the Obama nuclear deal that caused it because the Obama White House told every Democrat, "Pick. You either stand with Israel, or you're a Democrat and you stand with the Obama White House." And almost every single Democrat member of Congress said, "I'm a Democrat first, to hell with Israel." And then I watched as AIPAC, every one of those Democrats got re-elected and AIPAC did nothing about it. And it dramatically reduced AIPAC's influence.
41:39 Tucker Carlson? I agree. I watched it happen.
41:40 Speaker 02 And by the way, I told AIPAC, I said, "Look, the analogy, if the NRA was supporting a bunch of politicians and cared about the Second Amendment, and you had politicians that vote to confiscate people's guns, and the NRA turned around and raised money for the people who voted to confiscate guns, you know what? No one would ever care what they said again."
41:59 Tucker Carlson? So you're making the case that AIPAC is not as powerful as people say it is, and I completely agree with you. I've watched that, and I'm not, I'm not making the case that AIPAC is all-powerful and they're running everything and putting Florida in the water. I'm not making that case at all, because it's not true. I'm only trying to get to the question of what AIPAC is, and I don't think you're being straightforward about it. AIPAC is lobbying on behalf of the interests of a foreign country, and they're not registered. And you're saying, "No, that's not true." You're saying that they don't coordinate with the Israeli government.
42:25 Speaker 02 Of course, I coordinate. They talk with them. I don't know what they do. I can tell you-
42:29 Tucker Carlson? But why don't you care? Isn't it meaningful if a foreign government-
42:33 Speaker 02 Hey, I talk with Israel all the time. I talk with foreign countries all the time.
42:37 Tucker Carlson? But the law is, and a lot of people have been prosecuted under this law, that if you are lobbying on behalf of foreign government, you must register. That's it. It's really simple. And I don't know why, if I'm working for Malaysia, Qatar, or Belgium, and I'm working on behalf of its government's interests through a group of Americans who are representing the friendship between those two nations, I have to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and if I don't, I can go to jail. And people have gone to jail, including people I know. So I don't understand why we don't just be honest and say, "They're lobbying on behalf of foreign government, they're coordinating with the government." You know that that's true.
43:10 Speaker 02 That is not only not true, that is false.
43:13 Tucker Carlson? They're not coordinating with the Israeli government?
43:14 Speaker 02 Do you know how AIPAC raises money? For elected officials, like what they do, like what the actual mechanics is?
43:21 Tucker Carlson? I get it. I mean, they go to people who are sympathetic to Israel and raise money and then send it to candidates who agree with them.
43:26 Speaker 02 So what they'll do is, so in my last election, AIPAC endorsed me. And they'll host a fundraiser. They'll host a fundraiser in Dallas, or Houston, or Atlanta, or New York, or LA. And they'll do a fundraiser, and they'll get someone who will host it, and it's usually a business owner, lawyer, doctor, someone who hosts it. And you get typically at an AIPAC fundraiser, 30, 40, 50, maybe 100 people who live in that city.
43:50 Tucker Carlson? Right.
43:50 Speaker 02 Who care about a strong US-Israel relationship. And if they have, you know, 50 people, each of them writes a $1,000 check, and you raise 50,000.
43:58 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, I've been to an AIPAC fundraiser. I know what it looks like.
44:01 Speaker 02 But that is not, and by the way, there's no representative of the Israeli government there. You have when you're in Dallas.
44:08 Tucker Carlson? This is such a false and silly conversation. I know all this. I know all this. The question is, are AIPAC's goals shaped by the goals of the Israeli government to any extent?
44:17 Speaker 02 Okay, that's different from lobbying on behalf of.
44:19 Tucker Carlson? It's a simple question. Are AIPAC's goals shaped by the goals of the Israeli government? And I'm just gonna ask you a question straightforwardly, and if you say no, I think we both know that's not true.
44:30 Speaker 02 Are they shaped by, is that?
44:32 Tucker Carlson? Are they coordinating with the Israeli government?
44:34 Speaker 02 Are they talking with them? Yes, is Israel directing them? What are, you want to talk about FARA, the law on lobbying on behalf of someone? It is, I hire you and you lobby on behalf of me. I direct you. Does Israel direct AIPAC? No, they are not lobbying on behalf of them. Do they care about them? Yes, but...
44:51 Tucker Carlson? Do you think that, it's just interesting because what you're now describing, in a very defensive way, I will say, is foreign influence over our politics.
45:00 Speaker 02 No.
45:00 Tucker Carlson? And you began, and it's so transparently obvious to everybody, I don't know why you would be embarrassed of it, you've said that you are sincerely for Israel. I believe you. I don't think you have some weird agenda. You seem to be sincere.
45:11 Speaker 02 By the way, Tucker, it's a very weird thing. The obsession with Israel, when we're talking about foreign countries.
45:18 Tucker Carlson? It's hardly an obsession.
45:19 Speaker 02 You're not talking about Chinese, you're not talking about Japanese, you're not talking about the Brits, you're not talking about the French. The question, what about the Jews? What about the Jews?
45:26 Tucker Carlson? Senator, I'm an anti-Semite now.
45:27 Speaker 02 Senator, you're asking the questions, Tucker.
45:29 Tucker Carlson? You just told me.
45:30 Speaker 02 You're asking, why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy? That's what you just asked.
45:34 Tucker Carlson? Senator, I am hardly saying that, and I have many...
45:36 Speaker 02 That is exactly what you just said.
45:37 Tucker Carlson? Well, actually, I can speak for myself and tell you what I am saying.
45:40 Speaker 02 Good.
45:41 Tucker Carlson? On behalf, not simply of myself, but of my many Jewish friends who would have the same questions, which is to what extent, and it's interesting you're trying to derail my questions by calling me an anti-Semite, which you are.
45:51 Speaker 02 I did not.
45:51 Tucker Carlson? Of course you are. And rather than be honorable enough to say it right to my face, you are in a sleazy, feline way implying it, or just asking questions about the Jews. I'm not asking questions about the Jews. I have, this has nothing to do with Jews or Judaism, it has to do with a foreign government.
46:07 Speaker 02 Isn't Israel controlling our foreign policy? That's not about the Jews?
46:10 Tucker Carlson? You said, I'm asking you...
46:11 Speaker 02 And by the way, you're the one that just called me, I think, as sleazy, feline. So let's be clear.
46:15 Tucker Carlson? It's sleazy to imply that I'm an anti-Semite, which you just did.
46:18 Speaker 02 No, I just said, why is that the only question you're asking? You answer it. Give me another reason. If you're not an anti-Semite, give me another reason.
46:24 Tucker Carlson? I will.
46:25 Speaker 02 Why the obsession is Israel.
46:26 Tucker Carlson? I am in no sense obsessed with Israel. We are on the brink of war with Iran, and so these are valid questions.
46:32 Speaker 02 But you're not asking about Iran or the Ayatollah.
46:34 Tucker Carlson? If I can finish, you asked me why I'm obsessed with Israel.
46:40 Speaker 02 Yep.
46:40 Tucker Carlson? Three minutes after telling me that when you first ran for Congress, you elucidated one of your main goals, which is to defend Israel.
46:47 Speaker 02 Yes.
46:47 Tucker Carlson? And I'm the one who's obsessed with Israel. I don't see a lawmaker's job as defending the interests of a foreign government, period. Any government, including the ones that my ancestors come from. So that's my position, that does not make me an anti-Semite, and shame on you for suggesting otherwise, and I mean that. And that's low, and you know it's low. So why don't you just answer my questions in a straightforward, rational way? You certainly have the IQ to do it.
47:07 Speaker 02 Shame on you is cute, by the way, Tucker.
47:10 Tucker Carlson? It is. It's not cute, I'm offended.
47:12 Speaker 02 You're offended.
47:13 Tucker Carlson? I'm obsessed with the Jews. You just told me.
47:15 Speaker 02 You just called me a sleazy, feline.
47:17 Tucker Carlson? It is sleazy to imply that I'm an anti-Semite for asking questions about how my government is running.
47:22 Speaker 02 Do you want to count how many questions you asked about, what about the Jews? What about Israel? What about...
47:25 Tucker Carlson? I never asked about the Jews. I have, this has nothing to do with the Jews, whatever that means. This has to do with a foreign government. And once again, shame on you for conflating the two. They have nothing to do with each other. I'm talking about the influence-
47:39 Speaker 02 Israel and Jews have nothing to do with each other?
47:41 Tucker Carlson? No. All Jews are an attack on all Jews, which I am not, nor would I ever be undertaking. Now, I'm not attacking anybody.
47:50 Speaker 02 By the way, that's who Iran wants to kill, is all the Jews and all the Americans.
47:53 Tucker Carlson? And I'm totally opposed to that, okay? But now because-
47:57 Speaker 02 Except you don't want to do anything about it.
47:59 Tucker Carlson? Specific decisions need to be made-
48:00 Speaker 02 We can talk about those decisions.
48:01 Tucker Carlson? And I plan to.
48:02 Speaker 02 Good.
48:03 Tucker Carlson? But I just want to get a sense of whether you think, having described yourself as an America-first person, whose only criterion for judgment on foreign policy is America's national interest, to what extent you're influenced by a foreign government, which gives you a lot of money through its lobby, and you're claiming this has nothing to do with the foreign government, they're not coordinating, yes, they're spying on us, but it doesn't bother you, and I'm sort of wondering, like, what is this? This is one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had.
48:25 Speaker 02 I'll tell you what, and I'll answer any question you like, but let's try to-
48:28 Tucker Carlson? Are you going to call me an anti-Semite again, or no?
48:29 Speaker 02 Let's try to ratchet down the temperature a little bit.
48:32 Tucker Carlson? You're the one who went to motive. I'm asking honest questions.
48:34 Speaker 02 I-
48:35 Tucker Carlson? Just asking questions. Yes, that's it. That is what I'm doing.
48:39 Speaker 02 Let's try to ratchet down the temperature a little bit.
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49:49 Speaker 05 I'll admit it, I'm one of those people who gets excited for football season way before the first kickoff. That's why a trip to Total Wine & More has become part of my game day routine. I can get the cooler ready with my favorite beers and ready to drink cocktails. I'm usually picking up enough for everybody, so it's nice knowing I'm scoring the lowest prices. This season, make Total Wine & More part of your game day tradition. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B21.
50:19 Speaker 07 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
50:21 Speaker 06 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
50:24 Speaker 07 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
50:27 Speaker 06 Film for IMAX.
50:28 Speaker 07 Make them remember you.
50:30 Speaker 06 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
50:35 Speaker 02 And did you ever see an Eddie Murphy movie called The Distinguished Gentleman?
50:38 Tucker Carlson? No.
50:39 Speaker 02 It's this great movie. It's actually a fun comedy about politics and Eddie Murphy in the movie is a con man who gets elected to Congress and he's literally a con man who, the congressman dies, he has the same name and so he runs and they get elected. And there's a scene in the movie where Eddie Murphy is a freshman member of Congress and he's sitting down with a sleazy lobbyist. And he's asking the lobbyist, "All right, what should my positions be on?" I think they were talking about power plants and electrical transmission lines. And the lobbyist's like, "Well, what do you believe?" And Eddie Murphy's comment is, "I don't care. Whatever gets me the most money. I'll do whatever gets me the most money." And the lobbyist says, "No, no. Pick a side. Doesn't matter what you pick. If you pick one side, we'll go shake down everyone who supports that side and they'll give you money.
51:24 Speaker 02 If you pick the other side, that's fine, we'll just go to the other side and shake down that." That's a little bit the way it works and you often get leftists in the media who say, for example, if you support the Second Amendment, as you do and I do, well, you're just bought and paid for by the NRA. And that actually is backwards. I believe in the Second Amendment because I believe in the Constitution. Now, am I proud that the NRA supports me? Sure, because people who care about the Second Amendment want to support leaders who fight for it. But it gets it backward. Look, AIPAC, when I ran for the Senate, AIPAC didn't support me. I supported Israel before they supported me. I'm happy to have their- ...support because they share my objective.
51:59 Tucker Carlson? No, but you're missing it. I'm not suggesting that you're bought and paid for. I'm not saying that.
52:02 Speaker 02 Actually, I want to go back and take-
52:03 Tucker Carlson? You're so sincere.
52:05 Speaker 02 I want to go back and take the transcript because you just said a minute ago, are you, I'm slightly paraphrasing, but are you lobbying for a foreign government because they pay you a lot of money? That's basically what you said. So you are suggesting that.
52:17 Tucker Carlson? Let me, let me just be clear about what I think. Your views seem totally sincere.
52:20 Speaker 02 Yes.
52:21 Tucker Carlson? You take money from people who agree with you.
52:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:24 Tucker Carlson? I believe that. I'm only trying-
52:26 Speaker 02 I take money from people who disagree with me. I want to get money.
52:28 Tucker Carlson? I'm only trying to get to the question of, to what extent is the US government influenced by other governments? And it's a lot.
52:35 Speaker 02 Of course.
52:35 Tucker Carlson? It's hardly just Israel. It's hardly just Israel. I don't think Israel's the main one. There are lots of governments. China is a massive influence on this city.
52:42 Speaker 02 And it's a huge problem.
52:43 Tucker Carlson? As you know. I couldn't agree more. And there are lots of other, the UK, which is a truly sinister place, in my opinion. As an ethnic Brit, I can say. I think it's, that's my view. Maybe you disagree.
52:53 Speaker 02 I think they're on the wrong path. I, I love the Brits, but their government has gone off the rails.
52:59 Tucker Carlson? I'm just saying, I don't think Israel's the only one. But it's the only one where you're instantly called an anti-Semite for asking questions. And it's also the only government that no one will ever criticize. And I find that-
53:08 Speaker 02 People criticize Israel every minute of every day. Like, the only government that people will not criticize? Rashida Tlaib just tweeted out calling Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal.
53:18 Tucker Carlson? Rashida Tlaib? But, no, I'm-
53:20 Speaker 02 You said no one will criticize.
53:22 Tucker Carlson? No. I'm talking about Republicans that I would vote for, including you. And I'm saying, you know, whatever. I don't even like talking about Israel. What I care about, I never do because it's not worth being called anti-Semites from AIPAC recipients. But now we are on the verge of joining a war, and I just want to be clear about why we're doing this.
53:45 Speaker 02 All right, so, and let's get into Iran momentarily, but, but-
53:51 Speaker 02 You suggested it was a strange thing that I said a minute ago that when I came into the senate, I resolved that I was going to be the leading defender of Israel. And what you didn't ask is why, so let me tell you why.
53:59 Tucker Carlson? No, you said I was obsessed with Israel and you had just told me that like your driving motive to get to the senate was to defend Israel. I'm like, I don't think I'm the one who's obsessed with Israel.
54:09 Speaker 02 Okay. So Tucker, words matter.
54:12 Tucker Carlson? Uh huh.
54:13 Speaker 02 And you know that. I said I resolved to be the leading defender of Israel and you said your driving motive, the reason you're in the senate.
54:20 Tucker Carlson? You want to be the leading defender of Israel. I would think if I ran for senate, I'd be like, there are people dying of drug addicts on the street.
54:26 Speaker 02 My driving motive is to fight for Texas and America and to fight for jobs and to fight for the constitution. And, and you played a very, very careful word game of a lie to you.
54:36 Tucker Carlson? You're the one who said it, not me.
54:38 Speaker 02 So you still haven't asked why, but I'm going to tell you why.
54:40 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
54:41 Speaker 02 And, and the reason is twofold. Number one, as a Christian, growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.
54:57 Tucker Carlson? Of the, those who bless the government of Israel?
54:59 Speaker 02 Those who bless Israel is what it says. It doesn't say the government of, it says the nation of Israel. So, that's in the bible. As a Christian, I believe that.
55:07 Tucker Carlson? Where is that?
55:08 Speaker 02 I, I can find it to you. I, I don't have the, the scripture off the tip of my, you pull out the phone and use the.
55:14 Tucker Carlson? It's in Genesis, but, so you're quoting a, a bible phrase. You don't have context for it and you don't know where in the bible it is, but that's like, for theology? I'm confused. What does that even mean?
55:24 Speaker 02 Tucker.
55:25 Tucker Carlson? I'm a Christian, I want to know what you're talking about.
55:28 Speaker 02 Where does, where does my support for Israel come from? Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel, but number two.
55:35 Tucker Carlson? Hold on, no, no, no, no. Hold on, you're a senator and now you're throwing out theology and I am a Christian and I am allowed to weigh in on this. We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel?
55:45 Speaker 02 We are commanded to support Israel.
55:46 Tucker Carlson? What does that mean, Israel?
55:47 Speaker 02 We're told those who bless Israel will be blessed.
55:49 Tucker Carlson? But what, hold on, define Israel. This is important. Are you kidding? This is a majority Christian country.
55:54 Speaker 02 Define Israel? Do you not know what Israel is? That would be the country you've asked like 49 questions about.
56:00 Tucker Carlson? So that's what Genesis, that's what God is talking about in Genesis?
56:03 Speaker 02 The nation of Israel, yes.
56:04 Tucker Carlson? And so is that the current borders, the current leadership? He's talking about the political entity called Israel?
56:09 Speaker 02 He's talking about the nation of Israel. He had nations exist and he's discussing a nation. A nation was the people of Israel.
56:14 Tucker Carlson? Is the nation God's referring to in Genesis, is that the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu right now?
56:20 Speaker 02 Yes, yes.
56:21 Tucker Carlson? It is, okay.
56:21 Speaker 02 And by the way, it's not run by Benjamin Netanyahu as a dictator. It's a democratic country that elected.
56:26 Tucker Carlson? He's the prime minister, what?
56:29 Speaker 02 But just like, you know, America is the country run by Donald Trump. No, actually, the American people elected Donald Trump. The same principle is there.
56:35 Tucker Carlson? This is silly. I'm talking about the political entity of modern Israel.
56:38 Speaker 02 Yes, and that is it.
56:39 Tucker Carlson? You believe that's what God was talking about in Genesis?
56:42 Speaker 02 I do, but, but...
56:44 Tucker Carlson? That country's existed since when?
56:46 Speaker 02 For thousands of years. Now, there was a time when it didn't exist and then it was recreated just over 70 years ago.
56:51 Tucker Carlson? But I'm saying, I think most people understand that line in Genesis to refer to the Jewish people, God's chosen people.
57:02 Speaker 02 That's not what it says.
57:03 Tucker Carlson? Okay, Israel, but you don't even know where in the Bible it is, so I don't know if we can...
57:09 Speaker 02 I don't remember the scriptural citation, but, okay, I keep...
57:13 Tucker Carlson? It's like Genesis 16 or something like that. But yes, it's in the earlier part of the book. But the point is...
57:18 Speaker 02 All right, Tucker, you keep interrupting me before I finish my sentence.
57:20 Tucker Carlson? No, it's just important to know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're... So you're saying as a Christian, if I believe in Jesus, I have to support the modern state of Israel?
57:28 Speaker 02 No, I'm not saying that. I'm explaining for me what my motivation is.
57:34 Tucker Carlson? But you, okay, so I'm just trying to understand. You said God tells you to support the modern state of Israel in the Bible, in some place in the Bible that you heard about, but you don't know where it is. That's your theology?
57:45 Speaker 02 You're going back, am I a sleazy feline again? I mean, don't be...
57:49 Tucker Carlson? If you accuse me of anti-Semitism again, I will say that, but I don't think you will.
57:51 Speaker 02 Try to be a little less condescending. I'm trying to have a conversation.
57:55 Tucker Carlson? You're throwing this stuff out and it's my job to figure out what you're talking about, and I don't understand.
57:58 Speaker 02 But you're not letting me...
58:00 Tucker Carlson? Okay. I'm sorry, I want to be polite.
58:05 Speaker 02 That is for me a personal motivation, but I also, what I was about to say, I don't believe my personal faith, not everyone who I represent is a Christian. It's not an argument for me to give that we should do this because of my faith. And so, as an elected official, I don't give that as the reason we should support Israel. That is a personal motivation for me, but I don't think it is the reason we should. The reason that I am the leading defender of Israel is because Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, an incredibly troubled part of the world, and supporting Israel benefits America. And the clearest illustration of that is what is happening right now. Let me just make this point and then...
58:44 Tucker Carlson? Okay, and then I'll just ask what you mean, that's it.
58:46 Speaker 02 Okay. Look, Iran, I think the most acute national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran. I think China is the biggest long-term threat, but acute and near-term is a nuclear Iran.
59:02 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
59:03 Speaker 02 And I think Israel is doing a massive favor to America right now by trying to take out Iran's nuclear capacity. And the reason I view Iran differently, we talked before about Iraq, I opposed the Iraq war, we talked about Syria, I opposed military intervention in Syria. The reason for that is those did not pose a threat to the United States. I think Iran is markedly different. Number one, the Ayatollah is a religious zealot. He is a lunatic, but a particularly dangerous kind of lunatic, because he's driven by religious fervor. When he says "death to America and death to Israel," I believe him. And I think Iran is trying to get a nuclear weapon, because there is a very real possibility they would use a nuclear weapon.
59:48 Speaker 02 So you want to ask, "How does supporting Israel benefit us?" Right now, this tiny little country, the size of the state of New Jersey, is fighting our enemies for us and taking out their top military leadership and trying to take out their nuclear capacity. That makes America much safer.
1:00:06 Tucker Carlson? So, um, the president has said repeatedly Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
1:00:11 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:00:12 Tucker Carlson? And he will do whatever it takes to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. He said that like 100 times. He clearly means it. I think he will use force to effect that if he feels he has to. I think he's been really clear about that. I don't know, but it seems that way. Do you feel that? Do you think that's correct?
1:00:25 Speaker 02 Um, whether he would use force to stop a nuclear weapon, I think he, he has put that option on the table.
1:00:31 Tucker Carlson? He certainly suggested, I mean, I have literally no idea what's gonna happen, but just reading his statements, um, he's made that really clear.
1:00:36 Speaker 02 So what he has been very clear about, and I, I spoke with the president on Sunday, is he has been very clear to Iran that if they attack US servicemen and women, there will be real consequences. And, and, and I think very serious military.
1:00:49 Tucker Carlson? By the way, this is a sidebar, but I just can't resist. The prime minister of Israel said that Iran tried to assassinate Donald Trump twice?
1:00:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, I, I read your newsletter this morning and, and.
1:00:59 Tucker Carlson? But do you believe that's true?
1:01:00 Speaker 02 Again, I think it was sort of a word game. What is true is Iran is trying to assassinate Donald J. Trump, or they have hired hitmen. Now, you pointed out.
1:01:08 Tucker Carlson? No, he said that they tried, had tried twice to kill him, and I, I don't know that, I don't have any evidence that's true, but I sort of wonder if that is true, why aren't we at war with them already?
1:01:17 Speaker 02 Okay. And I, I read your newsletter this morning, and I thought it was, it was playing word games to, to draw a political point.
1:01:25 Tucker Carlson? How's that a word game? It's my president.
1:01:27 Speaker 02 Can I tell you?
1:01:28 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, please.
1:01:29 Speaker 02 Okay. You rightly pointed out, there's no evidence that this clown in Butler, Pennsylvania, who shot the president was working for the Iranians. I don't think he was, there's no evidence of that. Um, although I would like to know more about.
1:01:41 Tucker Carlson? I agree.
1:01:42 Speaker 02 Who he was and what's going on.
1:01:43 Tucker Carlson? I totally agree.
1:01:44 Speaker 02 But, but I don't find it plausible that he was working for the Iranians. So, was that caused by the Iranians? No. But what is true, and what your newsletter didn't acknowledge, is it true or false that Iran is currently trying to murder Donald J. Trump and has paid hitmen to do so?
1:01:58 Tucker Carlson? Well, that's, that's the question, and I don't know, the Butler, Pennsylvania thing.
1:02:03 Speaker 02 Butler, Pennsylvania wasn't.
1:02:04 Tucker Carlson? Let's just put that aside. I don't know.
1:02:06 Speaker 02 So, so Netanyahu mispoke when he said those two assassinations were because of Iran, but what he was saying that is right, is they're actively trying to murder Donald J. Trump.
1:02:14 Tucker Carlson? Is there, okay, so you're aware of a.
1:02:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:02:17 Tucker Carlson? Plot to kill Trump?
1:02:18 Speaker 02 Yes. That Iran is paying for. And by the way.
1:02:21 Tucker Carlson? When, when?
1:02:22 Speaker 02 Uh, it, it has been over the last, I'd say 18 months to two years.
1:02:25 Tucker Carlson? In the United States?
1:02:26 Speaker 02 In the United States, yes. They, they, and, and let me put out.
1:02:28 Tucker Carlson? Has anyone been arrested?
1:02:31 Speaker 02 For the Trump attempted assassination, no. But they are also actively paying Iranian hitmen to murder Mike Pompeo, when he was President Trump's first Secretary of State, the first term, rather. John Bolton, when John Bolton was National Security Advisor to President Trump. And a guy named Brian Hook, who was Assistant Secretary of State.
1:02:49 Tucker Carlson? Right.
1:02:50 Speaker 02 During the Biden administration.
1:02:51 Tucker Carlson? Hold on, can we go back to Donald Trump because he's the president? It's a big deal. What do you mean? When, no one has been arrested for these assassination attempts on Trump?
1:03:00 Speaker 02 Uh, yes.
1:03:01 Tucker Carlson? They've hired hitmen. How do we know that?
1:03:04 Speaker 02 Uh, all right, let me, let me break it down. People have been arrested. So, the reason I brought up Pompeo, Bolton, and Hook, who are under active assassination attempts because of their service in the first Trump administration, under the Biden administration.
1:03:18 Tucker Carlson? They say that. I've never seen any evidence of it.
1:03:20 Speaker 02 Can I give you the evidence?
1:03:22 Tucker Carlson? Well, let's just stick with Trump.
1:03:23 Speaker 02 No, no, no, because these are interrelated. So let me make a bloody point. Under the Biden administration, the State Department was spending $2 million a month providing security for Pompeo, Bolton, and Hook. And they did arrest Iranian hitmen
1:03:39 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
1:03:40 Speaker 02 at John Bolton's apartment complex, who rented, I think, the apartment next to him and were actively trying to assassinate him. And they went and arrested them. So, yes, they caught Iranian hitmen. Now, it so happens Iran's not very good at it. Uh, and so, they, but they are actively trying, and in fact, during the Biden--
1:03:57 Tucker Carlson? But what about Trump? He's the president. If there's a plot to kill Trump by the Iranians--
1:04:01 Speaker 02 Okay, so you dispute that the Iranians are trying to kill Trump?
1:04:05 Tucker Carlson? I, of course. I mean, that's the most important question. The Prime Minister of Israel just said there have been two assassination attempts against Donald Trump by the Iranians. And I think it's a very fair question, maybe you disagree, to ask, what are you talking about?
1:04:19 Speaker 02 Okay, and I agree with you that he misspoke.
1:04:22 Tucker Carlson? So there weren't those two attempts?
1:04:24 Speaker 02 There were two attempts, but the clown in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the other guy on the golf course were not connected to the Iranians. That's the part that, that he misspoke. But by the way, when you speak all the time, occasionally, what he said that was accurate is that Iran is actively trying to murder Donald J. Trump and has paid hitmen.
1:04:42 Tucker Carlson? Okay, but, right, okay, that's fine.
1:04:44 Speaker 02 And he was conflating it with the, with the two attempts.
1:04:47 Tucker Carlson? I understand, I understand. But I just want to pull that thread because it's so important. I voted for Donald Trump. I campaigned for Donald Trump. He's our president, and we're on the cusp of a war. So if Iran, if there's evidence that Iran paid hitmen to kill Donald Trump and is currently doing that-- Where is that, like, what are you even talking? I've never heard that before.
1:05:03 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:05:04 Tucker Carlson? Where is the evidence? Who are these people? Why haven't they been arrested? Why are we not at war with Iran?
1:05:08 Speaker 02 That's a great question to ask.
1:05:10 Tucker Carlson? How do you know that that's true?
1:05:13 Speaker 02 We know that it's true because we have been told that by the military and our intelligence community for the last two years.
1:05:21 Tucker Carlson? We, meaning who?
1:05:23 Speaker 02 Congress has and the public. I mean, we had multiple testimonies. I can send you testimony.
1:05:27 Tucker Carlson? Do we know the names of the people or where this happened or what they tried to do to kill Trump?
1:05:32 Speaker 02 We do not, we have not apprehended an Iranian hitman trying to kill him. We know that Iran is trying to do so.
1:05:38 Tucker Carlson? In the United States?
1:05:40 Speaker 02 Yes, and, and by the way, like Iran.
1:05:42 Tucker Carlson? This just seems like a huge headline and you're acting like everyone knows this. I didn't know that.
1:05:46 Speaker 02 Iran put out a whole video about murdering Trump.
1:05:51 Tucker Carlson? Right, but I've never heard evidence that there are hitmen in the United States, I mean, trying to kill Trump right now. We should, like, have a nationwide dragnet on this and we should attack Iran immediately if that's true. Don't you think?
1:06:04 Speaker 02 No.
1:06:05 Tucker Carlson? If they're trying to assassinate our president?
1:06:07 Speaker 02 They have been for two years.
1:06:08 Tucker Carlson? Then why aren't we at war with them?
1:06:11 Speaker 02 Well, we are trying to take.
1:06:12 Tucker Carlson? Why don't we just nuke Tehran if they're trying to murder our president? There's nothing that you could do that would be worse for the United States than murdering Trump. And I just don't understand.
1:06:20 Speaker 02 Amen, I agree with that.
1:06:21 Tucker Carlson? Why you're not calling for the use of nuclear weapons against the Ayatollah right now? I'm serious. If they're, if you really believe they're trying to murder.
1:06:25 Speaker 02 The use of nuclear weapons.
1:06:26 Tucker Carlson? Whatever it takes.
1:06:27 Speaker 02 That's part of the problem of.
1:06:28 Tucker Carlson? What do you mean? You don't seem to take the allegations seriously. I do. If you believe they're trying to murder Trump, we need to stop what we're doing and punish them.
1:06:36 Speaker 02 Can I ask something? And I mean this sincerely. So, all right, 20 years ago, you were, I think it's fair to say, in the interventionist world, you were a.
1:06:49 Tucker Carlson? Big time.
1:06:50 Speaker 02 You were a vocal defender of the Iraq war.
1:06:52 Tucker Carlson? I was a promoter of the Iraq war.
1:06:56 Speaker 02 You now, and I, this, look, I think you think you were mistaken, I think you were mistaken. That's okay, look, people change and learn, and that's, that's part of the journey of being human. Your views have moved, though, in my view, they've gone way too far the other end.
1:07:11 Tucker Carlson? I'm totally confused. I'm saying, hold on, this is one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had. I'm saying, if it's true that Iran is trying to murder Trump, we need to move militarily against Iran immediately. That's not isolationism, that's the most, that's a cult of violence, which I am calling for. If we believe that Iran is trying to murder our president, we need to strike Iran.
1:07:31 Speaker 02 Okay, but isolationists say things like, "Well, then just nuke them," which is what you just said, which is kind of a weird...
1:07:35 Tucker Carlson? Because I'm upset, because I'm taking you seriously. You don't take your own statements seriously.
1:07:40 Speaker 02 I take my statements very seriously.
1:07:42 Tucker Carlson? So I've asked you, "Where's the evidence this is true?" And you've said, "Well, they're trying to assassinate Brian Hook," or something, which I'm against, by the way, and I'm against hurting any American, period, no matter...
1:07:50 Speaker 02 So you dispute that they're trying to murder...
1:07:52 Tucker Carlson? I'm not disputing it at all.
1:07:53 Speaker 02 ...Hussein bin Laden and Bolton?
1:07:54 Tucker Carlson? I'm not disputing it at all.
1:07:55 Speaker 02 I mean, they literally arrested the hitmen with Bolton.
1:07:56 Tucker Carlson? I'm not, I don't know why that's even relevant. I'm asking about the President of the United States.
1:07:59 Speaker 02 Wait, it's not relevant that Iran hired hitmen to murder cabinet members in Trump's administration? That doesn't go to how credible is it that they're willing to spend money to do that?
1:08:09 Tucker Carlson? I've already said, I'm totally opposed to that. It's awful. I am against killing anybody, actually, and especially foreign government... I'm asking about your allegation and the Prime Minister of Israel's allegation that Iran is trying to murder the president.
1:08:25 Speaker 02 And let me be clear, I'm emphatically for killing our enemies. Killing terrorists is a good thing, killing people who are trying to murder Americans is a good thing, because if you're America first, you want to protect America, and so taking out, killing Osama bin Laden was a fantastic day for the world.
1:08:38 Tucker Carlson? But you don't really believe that they're trying to murder Trump, or you...
1:08:39 Speaker 02 Yes, I do, yes, I do.
1:08:40 Tucker Carlson? Then why aren't you calling for military action against Iran right now?
1:08:43 Speaker 02 Because they're not very effective. In terms of hitmen, their hitmen are not very effective. I do think...
1:08:48 Tucker Carlson? Oh, so they're hitmen, but not the bad kind, the efficient kind?
1:08:50 Speaker 02 No, they're just...
1:08:51 Tucker Carlson? What are you saying?
1:08:52 Speaker 02 They're a weak country who is on its knees, and I think we need to...
1:08:54 Tucker Carlson? Then why are we so afraid of them? Why are they the biggest threat if they're a weak country that's on its knees?
1:08:58 Speaker 02 Because they're trying...
1:08:59 Tucker Carlson? I'm trying to keep track.
1:09:00 Speaker 02 They're trying to develop...
1:09:03 Speaker 02 Be a little less snarky.
1:09:05 Tucker Carlson? I know, you're right. That is a problem that I have. I'm sorry.
1:09:08 Speaker 02 They're trying to develop nuclear weapons. They are close to developing nuclear weapons. And even a weak country with a nuclear weapon... Look, I believe there is a very real possibility if the Ayatollah develops a nuclear weapon that he would detonate it either in Tel Aviv or New York or Los Angeles. And that would be utterly catastrophic. And I don't know what the chances are of that. Let me compare and contrast Iran to North Korea.
1:09:35 Tucker Carlson? Wait, can I just ask one last question about trying to kill the president? You sincerely believe, you promise, that right now the Iranian government is trying to murder our president. You sincerely believe right now?
1:09:46 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
1:09:46 Tucker Carlson? And yet you are not calling for military action against the government that's trying to murder our president. Can you explain that?
1:09:55 Speaker 02 I don't think they're very effective. I do think we should... By the way, America is...
1:10:00 Tucker Carlson? You're willing to take that risk?
1:10:05 Speaker 02 I think we should protect the president and we should take out our enemies. Israel is doing that right now.
1:10:11 Tucker Carlson? But aren't they... Why would we outsource it to Israel if they're trying to...
1:10:14 Speaker 02 Your first question was why are you for regime change? That's a pretty good example of why I'm for regime change.
1:10:19 Tucker Carlson? Okay, so you're saying we should just go in and take out the government of Iran? Why would we outsource it to Israel if they're trying to murder our president? Okay, you sound like the isolationist.
1:10:26 Speaker 02 What I'm saying on any military judgment is there needs to be a cost-benefit analysis of what are the risks versus what are the benefits? In this instance, I think it is enormously in America's interest to do what Israel is doing right now. Take out Iran's senior military leadership and take out their nuclear capacity. That is benefiting America and it is a good risk reward. I would oppose invading Iran...
1:10:53 Speaker 02 And putting boots on the ground to topple the government. If the risk got severe enough, I would support that, but I think the relative risk is not severe enough to justify that step at this time. What I would absolutely oppose, under any circumstances, is invading Iran and then staying and trying to turn them into a democracy. And part of where Iraq really went off the rails is not only did we topple someone who was fighting radical Islamic terrorists, who's a bad guy, but then we tried, the vision of interventionist, it actually overlaps with the vision of a lot of Democrats. Let's go promote democracy in the world.
1:11:30 Tucker Carlson? I agree.
1:11:31 Speaker 02 And it is our military's job to kill the bad guys, to defend America. It's not their job to defend international norms. It's not their job. So I have zero desire for the US military to turn Iran into Switzerland. Look, would it be nice if they suddenly became Switzerland? Sure, if I could wave a magic wand, great. But I'm not going to send your kids or my kids to be in front of guns to go make that happen.
1:11:54 Tucker Carlson? Well, bless you for that. I think that's a, that is the lesson that I learned from Iraq. I promoted that war. Apparently, unlike you, I was dumber. And I think that you just articulated the main lesson of it, which is, it's hard to do that, and we're not good at it.
1:12:08 Speaker 02 But I will, and so we are agreeing on that. I will say as a
1:12:13 Tucker Carlson? Vehemently agreeing.
1:12:14 Speaker 02 As a corollary, that doesn't mean that horrible evil dictators are okay. And going back to Reagan and the Cold War, we have lots of weapons. I am happy to highlight the brutality, the oppression, the human rights abuses of regimes, even though I don't want to invade them, because I think the bully pulpit of American leadership is really powerful. And I think dictatorships are terrified. So I've spent 13 years in the Senate. One of the things I do frequently is highlight dissidents in Iran, in North Korea, in China, in Venezuela, people are being tortured.
1:12:56 Speaker 02 Miriam Ibrahim in Sudan, who was sentenced to 100 lashes and then to be killed for the crime of being a Christian. And I repeatedly went to the Senate floor and shined a light on the government of Sudan. It was corrupt, it was evil. I practically begged Barack Obama, "Say her name." Ultimately
1:13:17 Tucker Carlson? I felt that way with the J6 prisoners.
1:13:18 Speaker 02 Look, yes, and
1:13:22 Speaker 02 Look, there is power to speaking out and ultimately, the international Obama never did say her name. He would not say her name. Ultimately, there was enough international condemnation, the government has said, "Dan, let her go." And so she was not executed. And I actually, I met her. So she had a two-year-old son, Martin, and she gave birth to a little girl named Maya. And she was in leg irons, in prison, waiting for the death sentence. They were not going to kill her until she gave birth. And they told her, "We will not kill you if you will renounce Jesus." And she refused. And I met her, she was in DC speaking at a conference after she was released, obviously. And I asked her, she's a tiny
1:14:04 Speaker 02 woman, a small woman. I asked her, I said, "When you were in that prison cell with your kids, how did you have the strength not to just give in to despair?" I mean, that, you know, I've never been threatened with murder unless I renounce my faith. And she just said to me with a real peacefulness, she said, "Jesus was with me." And it, I mean, thankfully, you and I have not faced that circumstance. But I do think there is a responsibility-
1:14:36 Tucker Carlson? There's still time.
1:14:37 Speaker 02 There is, and I hope we don't. And actually, I'll use another example. John McCain, who you and I disagreed with on a lot of issues. I respected and admired him for his service and time as a prisoner of war. I think his policies, I disagreed with vehemently and fought against them. But the man fought for America, and he was thrown in prison, and he was tortured by Vietnam. And he was given the opportunity to be released early. And he turned it down because he thought it would be dishonorable to leave before his fellow service veteran women. And when I first got here-
1:15:20 Tucker Carlson? There were no women there, but yeah.
1:15:21 Speaker 02 Okay, man, you're right. When I first got here, McCain hated my guts, and he actually referred to me and Rand as "wacko birds."
1:15:33 Tucker Carlson? I remember.
1:15:34 Speaker 02 I have, up on the shelf, I have a baseball cap that a grassroots supporter gave me with a picture of Daffy Duck and labeled "wacko birds," which I liked and laughed with. But when he did that-
1:15:46 Speaker 02 I went to the Senate floor and I gave a speech praising John McCain. And it was the day he had like attacked me publicly. And it happened to be it was the 40th anniversary of his release for the Hanoi Hilton. And I was consciously, I just talked about what a privilege it is to serve with someone who suffered for his country, who served. And I didn't get into where we disagreed on policy on that speech. I just said, you know, the man is an American hero and I'm proud to serve with him. But that was meant to be a statement also, that if you attacked me, I'm going to praise you not for things that are not praiseworthy. If I disagree with you, I will not be shy about saying it, but for things that are praiseworthy.
1:16:24 Tucker Carlson? I remember that. It was 2013.
1:16:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:16:27 Tucker Carlson? And I felt the same way. I went to his cell at the Hanoi Hilton and I.
1:16:30 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
1:16:31 Tucker Carlson? I agree with you about McCain. I just want to end by asking you specifically about what's going to happen next in Iran and what should happen next. So you've called for regime change. You said you don't favor the US military participating in any kind of regime change. You said you don't think, and bless you for saying this, that the US military should try and turn it into Belgium.
1:16:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:16:51 Tucker Carlson? Thank God. But there is a third option where it turns into Syria, where it's this open wound and it causes massive migration and further destroys Europe as Syria has.
1:17:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:17:04 Tucker Carlson? And that's a huge cost and where lots of people die and religious minorities get murdered in Syria again. Are you worried about that?
1:17:10 Speaker 02 Sure. And listen, lots of bad things can happen. But going back to what we talked about, the principle of defending America. I agree with President Trump that Iran with a nuclear weapon is an unacceptable risk to America and we need to stop it. I agree with President Trump and I'll make a point.
1:17:35 Tucker Carlson? But he's not for regime change.
1:17:37 Speaker 02 He's not? So he and I disagree? Look, I think he thinks it would be better. He has not said he's for it. And you know what, look, it is consequential when the President of the United States says, "I'm for regime change," so I understand why he hasn't. What he has said is he's drawn a red line and said Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and the only acceptable outcome is complete dismantlement. They have centrifuges, they're enriching uranium right now, they're trying to develop a nuclear weapon. He said they must have complete dismantlement. I led 52 senators, Republican senators, in a letter where we said, "We agree with President Trump, that's the red line, complete dismantlement." I agree with President Trump, I agree with him supporting Israel, taking out Iran's military leadership, taking out their nuclear capability.
1:18:21 Speaker 02 And I'll point out, look, if you look the first term, I am hard-pressed to think of a single foreign policy decision Donald Trump made the first term that I disagree with. And that's not entirely accidental, because I spent a lot of time the first term in the Oval Office with him. And what happened in the first term often is you would have in the administration, you had interventionists in the administration, you had isolationists. And they disagreed, they would fight within the administration. And often what it would give is an opportunity for me to come in and say, "Hey, there's a middle path here that President Trump agreed with frequently." And it's worth noting, in the first term, he most assuredly was not an isolationist.
1:19:03 Speaker 02 Look, he took out General Soleimani, which I emphatically agree with, and in fact, I introduced a resolution that we voted on the Senate floor commending him for taking out General Soleimani, who was the leader of the IRGC, and who was responsible for killing over 600 American servicemen and women. When Trump came in, ISIS had a caliphate that had grown up under Obama, that was about the size of the state of Indiana. And Trump came in and utterly decimated them. He killed the terrorists, took away their caliphate, and defeated them. And he also took out Baghdadi, the head of ISIS. I mean, those are not the actions of an isolationist, but at the same time-
1:19:41 Tucker Carlson? I don't even know what isolationist is, it's just a slur designed to control... I mean, I've never met an isolationist, I don't even know what that means.
1:19:47 Speaker 02 Okay, Rand Paul is my colleague, Rand is an isolationist. And Tucker, you've become one, and I don't mean it as a slur. You consistently say, you have said... Actually, I want to read from your newsletter, because if you ask what an isolationist is, your newsletter a couple of days ago, you wrote-
1:20:11 Speaker 02 Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we're hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see. There are several people in leadership in Iran that will not be coming back, Trump said, following the strikes.
1:20:20 Tucker Carlson? Right.
1:20:21 Speaker 02 It's worth taking a step back and wondering how any of this helps the United States. We can't think of a single way. Okay, that to me is the essence of isolationism. And let me just ask you, when the Ayatollah chants "Death to America," I believe him. Do you not believe him? Do you think he doesn't mean it when he says "death to America"?
1:20:44 Tucker Carlson? Well, I think he hates America, for sure. And I'm opposed to that.
1:20:47 Speaker 02 And do you think he's willing to act on it? It's not just hate America. He also is leading a country and trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
1:20:52 Tucker Carlson? I think under certain circumstances, for sure. So the question is, do you act in a way that makes that more or less likely? And that's a tough call. It's something that you can debate. One of the ways you shut down debate is by calling people names like "isolationist," pretending they're like pro-Nazi or something, or as you did, claiming I'm an anti-Semite. That's not a way to get to a solution or have a rational conversation. That's a way to make people be quiet. And I'm against that.
1:21:19 Speaker 02 Okay, so if you don't like the label "isolationist," how would you... Look, Rand, and I served with Rand. Rand is a friend of mine, but Rand opposes every military action in every circumstance.
1:21:28 Tucker Carlson? Of course I don't oppose every milita... This whole thing is infantile and you know that it is. It's a way to call people names and make them be...
1:21:33 Speaker 02 So which of Trump's military actions do you support? Or do you disagree with them all?
1:21:36 Tucker Carlson? And make them be quiet.
1:21:37 Speaker 02 Give me another name. If you don't like that... I'm not trying to have you be quiet. We've been talking an hour and a half. I'm asking, if you don't like the name "isolationist," what would... How would you describe it?
1:21:46 Tucker Carlson? I would describe myself in the same way you falsely described yourself in this conversation.
1:21:50 Speaker 02 Falsely? What did I say, "false"?
1:21:52 Tucker Carlson? You said that the only thing that matters in a foreign policy decision is whether it helps the United States.
1:21:58 Speaker 02 I didn't say "the only." I said "the predominant."
1:22:00 Tucker Carlson? That's what I understood.
1:22:01 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:22:01 Tucker Carlson? So let me revise what you said and apply it to myself and say the only thing that matters is whether or not it serves the United States. And I feel very stung by what happened in Iraq, if I'm being honest. Possibly because, unlike you, I guess, I supported it and I saw us get drawn into it in a way that nobody anticipated, and I saw the cost, just about $3 trillion?
1:22:23 Tucker Carlson? And the cost on so many levels to the United States was just so profound and I
1:22:27 Speaker 02 It was clearly a mistake.
1:22:28 Tucker Carlson? I felt like, gosh, it reminds me of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1914, saying, "My men will be back by the time the leaves turn." And of course, that destroyed Christian Europe. So it's like you don't really know where these things are going once the shooting starts. That's my only point. And calling people names anti-Semite, isolationist, to get them to stop talking is not the way to serve your country. That's all I'm saying.
1:22:50 Speaker 02 So I'm trying to have a real and serious conversation. And look, a lot of this has been contentious. I wish it had not, because as we started out by saying, you and I agree vehemently on 80% of the issues. This discussion is focused on the 20% where we don't. You know, I will say, look, on Iraq, you look at the 2016 presidential campaign, where you had 17 Republicans running. If you set Rand aside, and his views are on one side, there were only two candidates on that stage that opposed the Iraq war. Me and Donald Trump were the only two. Everyone else thought the Iraq war was a great thing. I think it was a disaster. So you and I agree on that as well.
1:23:32 Speaker 02 In my view, you went, I think your foreign policy has gone too far. So I mean, let me ask you, is there a military action Trump has undertaken that you agree with? Because I've not heard anything.
1:23:44 Tucker Carlson? Military, look, I would say it's really simple. I believe in self-defense. That's why I keep firearms at home. I think it's morally justified to defend yourself, your family, your property, your nation. And so to the extent that you can deter a threat through violence, violence always being the least appealing choice, violence always being, if I can finish, always being a tragedy, I think you can justify the use of violence in self-defense. That is my personal view, and that applies to me and to the country that I live in. Those are my views. That's not an isolationist view, it's not an anti-Israel view, it's not an anti-Semitic view, with apologies. It is, I think, a pretty common sense view. But my problem is that lawmakers in Washington are light on detail with these things, and
1:24:29 Tucker Carlson? they speak, as you do, entirely in moral terms. These people are bad, these people are...
1:24:33 Speaker 02 I'm not speaking entirely in moral terms. I'm not getting interested in killing bad guys. I'm interested in killing people who are trying to kill us.
1:24:38 Tucker Carlson? If we had-
1:24:39 Speaker 02 That's different. I'm not engaged in morality.
1:24:41 Tucker Carlson? Are you now? Because you told me that the government of Iran is presently trying to assassinate Donald Trump.
1:24:47 Speaker 02 And that is undisputed. There's literally nobody who disputes that fact.
1:24:52 Tucker Carlson? Then why don't you support military action right now against Iran?
1:24:56 Speaker 02 We are engaged in military action right now.
1:24:58 Tucker Carlson? Why don't you... Why don't you support offensive military action?
1:25:04 Speaker 02 We're bombing the crap out of them. Israel is, and we're supporting them. Israel is.
1:25:07 Tucker Carlson? Okay. So- Why shouldn't the US military defend its own president? I don't understand that.
1:25:12 Speaker 02 Uh, look. And it goes back to-
1:25:15 Tucker Carlson? Because you don't really believe it's true, that's why.
1:25:17 Speaker 02 Not everyone, okay? Nobody disputes it, Tucker.
1:25:19 Tucker Carlson? I'm disputing it.
1:25:21 Speaker 02 Did you land on the moon? What other conspiracies do you not believe? Was 9/11 an inside job? I mean, like, what-
1:25:25 Tucker Carlson? So, what... I've asked you the names of these people. I've asked you how you know the information.
1:25:30 Speaker 02 I know it because the US military and the intelligence agencies have testified before Congress repeatedly-
1:25:35 Tucker Carlson? And what did they say?
1:25:36 Speaker 02 That Iran is trying to murder Donald Trump-
1:25:38 Tucker Carlson? Oh!
1:25:39 Speaker 02 And has hired hitmen. Do I know the name of the hitmen? No, I'm sorry. And I don't think we do either, because we would apprehend them if we knew their names.
1:25:45 Tucker Carlson? Then why don't you take it seriously enough to support killing the Ayatollah in response to protect our president? But you don't. This doesn't even make any sense. And you're calling me an isolationist. If I believed that that was true, I would support military action against the government of Iran.
1:26:02 Speaker 02 Okay, that's interesting, because there is literally-
1:26:05 Tucker Carlson? You can't kill our president.
1:26:06 Speaker 02 All right. Out of 535 members of Congress, I am not aware of one who disputes that Iran is trying to murder Donald J. Trump. That's not... Not even the looniest Democrat doesn't dispute that. So, I don't... You're saying if you believed what is, I think, a fact, that they are trying to-
1:26:26 Tucker Carlson? You think it's a fact?
1:26:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:26:27 Tucker Carlson? What is the fact exactly?
1:26:28 Speaker 02 That they've hired hitmen.
1:26:29 Tucker Carlson? In the United States?
1:26:30 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:26:30 Tucker Carlson? Americans?
1:26:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, he's not in Iran. So, they haven't hired hitmen in Iran.
1:26:33 Tucker Carlson? No, but are the hitmen American?
1:26:35 Speaker 02 I don't know.
1:26:36 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
1:26:37 Speaker 02 I'm telling you what, and by the way, I'm not the CIA, I'm not the Department of Defense. I'm telling you what they have told us.
1:26:43 Tucker Carlson? I'm not disputing it, I'm merely saying-
1:26:45 Speaker 02 We are.
1:26:46 Tucker Carlson? I'm not, I'm saying the logic train has a massive hole in it. If you believe that's true, then you should, by definition, support killing the people trying to kill our president, but you don't support that.
1:26:56 Speaker 02 Now Tucker-
1:26:56 Tucker Carlson? So I'm wondering what's going on here.
1:26:57 Speaker 02 Tucker, you took offense to the word isolationist, and I genuinely don't mean it as a pejorative, I disagree with it, but if you don't like that term, I don't know how else to describe-
1:27:07 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
1:27:07 Speaker 02 -what is a coherent foreign policy that says-
1:27:10 Tucker Carlson? I believe in-
1:27:10 Speaker 02 -we're surrounded by two giant nations. By the way, isolationism has long been a school of foreign policy-
1:27:16 Tucker Carlson? I believe in self-defense, I'm not-
1:27:17 Speaker 02 Okay, but-
1:27:18 Tucker Carlson? Not into the slurs, the anti-Semitic stuff, I just don't like that, I'm telling you what I believe.
1:27:22 Speaker 02 So, but is there a single military action Trump took that you agree with? So did you agree with taking out General Soleimani?
1:27:29 Tucker Carlson? Oh, I don't know, it turned out better than I thought, I guess.
1:27:32 Speaker 02 I mean, you said at the time it would like lead us to World War III.
1:27:34 Tucker Carlson? I thought, I was worried about it, I've seen that happen.
1:27:37 Speaker 02 But that proved not the case.
1:27:38 Tucker Carlson? I was wrong, as I have been many times.
1:27:41 Speaker 02 Did you agree with taking out the ISIS caliphate?
1:27:43 Tucker Carlson? But my, well, if we took out the ISIS caliphate, why are they running Syria right now, and you're for that, why is that?
1:27:49 Speaker 02 What do you mean, I didn't say I'm for that.
1:27:50 Tucker Carlson? You don't have to seem to have a problem with it.
1:27:52 Speaker 02 I didn't say that-
1:27:52 Tucker Carlson? That ISIS is now running Syria, you're like, ah, we'll see.
1:27:54 Speaker 02 No, I did-
1:27:56 Tucker Carlson? I mean, I know why, I know why, you don't care.
1:27:59 Speaker 02 Assad toppled.
1:28:00 Tucker Carlson? It's hilarious, it's like Assad is bad, but no, ISIS runs Syria, but that's, it's fine, we'll just kind of wait and see on ISIS, not a big deal.
1:28:07 Speaker 02 You know why-
1:28:08 Tucker Carlson? Not a big deal they're trying to kill Trump.
1:28:09 Speaker 02 Hold on a second, I want to get back, you know why I don't care, and why, and you do your like trademark smirky laugh, I know why you don't care.
1:28:16 Tucker Carlson? What are you even talking about?
1:28:17 Speaker 02 What, why don't I care?
1:28:18 Tucker Carlson? I don't know why, you tell me. Because you think it's okay because they're not making angry noises or something, but by your own standards, their ISIS is so immoral that they must die, but now they're running Syria, and you don't think that we should take military action against the government of Syria because why? They're ISIS.
1:28:37 Speaker 02 What I said is, I don't know how good or bad it'll be, look, I wasn't pushing Assad out, he fell, he fell on his own, in part because he was heavily supported by Hezbollah, and when Israel took out the Hezbollah leadership, he lost his base of support.
1:28:50 Tucker Carlson? But the current ISIS leadership, you don't think is bad? You can't say it's terrible that ISIS runs a country?
1:28:55 Speaker 02 I am concerned about it.
1:28:57 Tucker Carlson? Concerned? Aren't you horrified?
1:29:01 Speaker 02 I want to see what they do.
1:29:03 Tucker Carlson? Oh, you gotta wait and see attitude on ISIS now?
1:29:06 Speaker 02 On the government of Syria, they are not actively, that I am aware of, trying to murder Americans. And that's a real dividing line. Are you trying to murder Americans or not?
1:29:15 Tucker Carlson? I'm just saying it's a little weird that we waged this war against ISIS and now they're running a country in the Mediterranean. I think that people would be very, very upset about that. But you don't seem very upset about that.
1:29:24 Speaker 02 By the way, did you agree with Trump taking out al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS?
1:29:28 Tucker Carlson? I'm totally opposed to ISIS. And what I care about is results, actually. And if taking out the head of ISIS ends ISIS, I guess I'm for it. But now ISIS runs Syria. So I'm wondering how does this work?
1:29:41 Speaker 02 You weren't at the time, I mean, my point is...
1:29:42 Tucker Carlson? You weren't at the time? I mean, I've taken so many different positions over the years, some of which have been wrong. I really do my best to be honest and correct if they are and admit that I was wrong. I'm not one of these people who's like, "I've always been consistent." No, my views change all the time because the facts change all the time. You're not going to get consistency from me. You're only going to get sincerity.
1:29:57 Speaker 02 Well, I, look, I will say this. And look, I believe you're sincere.
1:30:00 Tucker Carlson? Yeah.
1:30:01 Speaker 02 But...
1:30:02 Tucker Carlson? I'm not God. I'm just some guy watching, trying to figure out the right thing for America.
1:30:05 Speaker 02 And I think because you believe you were mistaken, and I agree previously, I think you've overcorrected.
1:30:12 Tucker Carlson? What do you mean, overcorrected? I'm worried about turning this mess in Iran into a much larger mess. That's the concern.
1:30:20 Speaker 02 And by the way, that's a reasonable worry?
1:30:21 Tucker Carlson? Look, I know it's reasonable. And I know you've been like, you're like, ready to call me all these names for asking... You're just asking questions. Yes, I am. So here's my question to you. If the Ayatollah is killed in Iran, and he very well could be...
1:30:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, he very well could, if there's a war.
1:30:34 Tucker Carlson? I have just read in the paper this morning that Israel tried to take him out twice, and Trump told them not to.
1:30:40 Speaker 02 I have read that. I don't have independent confirmation one way or the other.
1:30:44 Tucker Carlson? Do you think that they should take him out?
1:30:46 Speaker 02 So I actually talked about it, as you know, I do a podcast every week, Verdict with Ted Cruz. And I actually talked about it in the latest podcast. And I said, "Look, I've seen the reporting that says that Trump asked them not to take out the Ayatollah." And what I said in the podcast is, "I think it's reasonable for them to decide not to try to take him out." What they've done is targeted just about the entire top level of the military, the people that actually conduct the war.
1:31:10 Speaker 02 I can see an argument that taking out both the head of state and a religious leader could make him a martyr and could cause more problems than it's worth. And by the way, if you take out the Ayatollah, I don't know that the next guy isn't just as bad. And so, I am...
1:31:26 Tucker Carlson? What happens to the country?
1:31:28 Speaker 02 I don't know, but you mentioned before, and I want to go back to this, you said something like, "You, like most other politicians, are engaged in moral terms." And let me be clear, I am talking about national interest. I am talking about protecting America. So there are bad guys on planet Earth that I don't think we should take out, even though they're bad guys.
1:31:48 Tucker Carlson? Good.
1:31:48 Speaker 02 I'll call them bad guys, but I'm not willing to use US military force to take them out. In this instance, what Israel is doing is taking out their capacity to build nuclear weapons. Why? Because they judge the risk is too high if they got nuclear weapons.
1:32:06 Tucker Carlson? I understand that. I mean, I understand that. I think it's in progress. I think it'll probably be achieved, probably with US military support, who knows? But the president said he's for that.
1:32:14 Speaker 02 And by the way, where the military support is most needed is Fordow, which is the under... It's a bunker that's built under a mountain.
1:32:21 Tucker Carlson? Right.
1:32:22 Speaker 02 And Israel's taken out most of the rest, like Natanz, which is their big enrichment site, they bombed the hell out of it. Fordow was deliberately built deep into a mountain so that Israel couldn't take it out. And there's an active discussion because the US has bunker buster bombs that are big enough to take out Fordow.
1:32:39 Tucker Carlson? Thirty thousand pounds.
1:32:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. And Israel doesn't. So the one military piece that...
1:32:43 Tucker Carlson? Nor the aircraft to fly them.
1:32:45 Speaker 02 Correct.
1:32:46 Tucker Carlson? But here's, I guess what bothers me, is that I said two weeks ago, "The real goal here is regime change in Iran."
1:32:51 Speaker 02 I don't think that's Trump's goal.
1:32:53 Tucker Carlson? Well, it's your goal, it's Israel's goal. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm just saying it's important to be honest and not lie and not attack people for telling the truth.
1:33:00 Speaker 02 So I believe I've been assiduously honest in this, but words matter. You said, "The real goal here is regime change," and it's your goal, and I want to be clear...
1:33:09 Tucker Carlson? You said it was your goal.
1:33:10 Speaker 02 I want to be clear because words matter. Do I support regime change and would I like a government that doesn't hate America and isn't trying to kill us in Iran? Yes, that's a good outcome. Is that the objective of these military strikes? I don't think necessarily. I don't know if it's Israel's. It's not my objective.
1:33:29 Tucker Carlson? Should it be that US, if Israel decides we're going to decapitate the government and try to foment an uprising against it, should the United States participate in that operation in any way?
1:33:40 Speaker 02 Look, I have not called for killing the Ayatollah. And there is, nations in war generally refrain from attacking and killing heads of state. Now, the Ayatollah doesn't. He's trying to kill Trump. We talked about that.
1:33:56 Tucker Carlson? But we shouldn't punish him for it.
1:33:57 Speaker 02 Look, there has been a longstanding, nations in war have refrained from killing heads of state. I have not publicly called for killing the Ayatollah. What I've called for is doing whatever is necessary to stop him from getting nuclear weapons. In the first Trump term, what that meant was maximum pressure. So, in the first Trump term, I spent a lot of time urging the president to withdraw from the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal that Obama had. President Trump agreed with me. He did that. And then I urged him to end the oil waivers and to sanction the hell out of the country. And it ended up crippling their economy. So Iran at the time was selling 2 million barrels of oil a day. 1 million barrels, I'm sorry, 1 million barrels of oil a day. When President Trump ended the oil waivers,
1:34:42 Speaker 02 it cut their sales to 300,000 barrels a day. At the end of the Trump term, the Iranian economy was in shambles. They had massive inflation. I think the regime was teetering. I think it might have fallen. I would use economic sanctions and I would use moral suasion to try to effectuate the regime change.
1:34:59 Tucker Carlson? Okay, so you topple the regime and by whatever means, what happens then? How many people living around, by the way?
1:35:05 Speaker 02 I don't know the population.
1:35:06 Tucker Carlson? At all?
1:35:07 Speaker 02 No, I don't know the population.
1:35:09 Tucker Carlson? You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?
1:35:14 Speaker 02 How many people living around?
1:35:15 Tucker Carlson? 92 million.
1:35:15 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:35:17 Tucker Carlson? How could you not know that?
1:35:20 Speaker 02 I don't sit around memorizing population tables.
1:35:23 Tucker Carlson? Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.
1:35:26 Speaker 02 Why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million? Why is that relevant?
1:35:31 Tucker Carlson? Because if you don't know anything about the country...
1:35:32 Speaker 02 I didn't say I don't know anything about the country.
1:35:33 Tucker Carlson? Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran?
1:35:36 Speaker 02 They are Persians and predominantly Shia.
1:35:39 Tucker Carlson? What percent?
1:35:39 Speaker 02 Okay, this is cute.
1:35:40 Tucker Carlson? No, it's not even, you don't know anything about Iran.
1:35:42 Speaker 02 Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.
1:35:46 Tucker Carlson? You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government and you don't know anything about the country.
1:35:51 Speaker 02 No, you don't know anything about the country. You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.
1:35:55 Tucker Carlson? No, I'm not saying that.
1:35:57 Speaker 02 You can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and you said it was bad.
1:36:01 Tucker Carlson? You don't believe they're trying to murder Trump.
1:36:02 Speaker 02 Yes, I do.
1:36:03 Tucker Carlson? Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation.
1:36:06 Speaker 02 Okay, we're carrying out military strikes today.
1:36:09 Tucker Carlson? You said Israel was.
1:36:10 Speaker 02 Right, with our help. I said "we", Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them.
1:36:14 Tucker Carlson? Well, you're breaking news here because the US government last night denied, the National Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied, on behalf of Trump, that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity at all.
1:36:25 Speaker 02 No, we're not bombing them, Israel's bombing them.
1:36:27 Tucker Carlson? You just said "we" were.
1:36:29 Speaker 02 We are supporting Israel.
1:36:30 Tucker Carlson? This is high stakes, you're a senator. If you're saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.
1:36:36 Speaker 02 Okay, we are not bombing them.
1:36:37 Tucker Carlson? Oh, okay.
1:36:38 Speaker 02 Israel is bombing them. And, hey, why do you do the snide "oh, okay"?
1:36:41 Tucker Carlson? What do you mean? Because it's, this is super high-stake stuff. It's, this is a huge country that borders a lot of other important countries, the whole world's energy comes from there.
1:36:49 Speaker 02 So, let me ask you, Tucker.
1:36:51 Tucker Carlson? You don't want another disaster, you don't want to be reckless.
1:36:52 Speaker 02 Tucker, the Ayatollah refers to Israel as the little Satan and America is the great Satan. Do you believe him? When he says it's the great Satan, do you think?
1:37:00 Tucker Carlson? Of course I believe him.
1:37:01 Speaker 02 Do you think if the Ayatollah could murder both of us right now that he would? I do. I believe him.
1:37:06 Tucker Carlson? Okay, I assume no good faith on the part of the Ayatollah.
1:37:09 Speaker 02 No, not good faith.
1:37:09 Tucker Carlson? And if your implication is like, "I'm pro-Ayatollah" or something.
1:37:12 Speaker 02 No, no, no, it's not good faith, it's that...
1:37:14 Tucker Carlson? I'm just saying, you're a lawmaker, you're a powerful person in Washington. This is the most powerful country in the world. If you're calling for toppling in government, it's incumbent on you to know something about the country and to think through the consequences of that. And you haven't, and you don't. And I'm saying that's reckless.
1:37:27 Speaker 02 I had a thought, okay, you are... You engage in reckless rhetoric with no facts, and to be clear,
1:37:34 Tucker Carlson? I'm not calling for the overthrow of a government.
1:37:36 Speaker 02 You put out a newsletter attacking Donald Trump and calling him complicit.
1:37:40 Tucker Carlson? I've never attacked Donald Trump.
1:37:42 Speaker 02 Yes, you have, and by the way-
1:37:44 Tucker Carlson? I campaigned for Donald Trump.
1:37:45 Speaker 02 Okay, yes.
1:37:46 Tucker Carlson? And this is like, after antisemitism, this is the last refuge. You're an antisemite and you hate Trump.
1:37:51 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:37:52 Tucker Carlson? I love Trump.
1:37:52 Speaker 02 I will read, you put out a whole newsletter saying Trump has abandoned America first, and here's what Trump said in response. "Well, considering that I'm the one that developed America first, and considering that the term wasn't used until I came along, I think I'm the one who decides that. For those people who say they want peace, you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon, that's not peace." That was directed at you.
1:38:18 Tucker Carlson? Man, this is, you got me busted.
1:38:20 Speaker 02 No, I'm just saying-
1:38:22 Tucker Carlson? Look, my views, look, I like Trump, I campaigned for Trump, I know Trump, I talked to him last night. Not against Trump, and you know that.
1:38:30 Speaker 02 But you're against his foreign policy right now.
1:38:31 Tucker Carlson? I think that we should be very careful about entering into more foreign wars that don't help us when our country is dying.
1:38:39 Speaker 02 When you say "don't help us..." Look, yes, focus on our country, I'm all for it, but the naivete-
1:38:47 Tucker Carlson? You don't even know how much money this costs. You don't know anything about the country whose government you want to overthrow, and you're calling me reckless.
1:38:54 Speaker 02 I want to stop a lunatic who wants to murder us from getting nuclear weapons that could kill millions of Americans. You say, "I can't see how that benefits America in any way." That is bizarre, and by the way-
1:39:06 Tucker Carlson? It's not bizarre.
1:39:06 Speaker 02 Isolationism. Your foreign policy is the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. And it doesn't work.
1:39:12 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, I'm a big leftist. I mean, this is so silly, now I'm Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, okay. Let me just say one last thing.
1:39:19 Speaker 02 So how is your foreign policy different from Jimmy Carter's? Seriously.
1:39:23 Tucker Carlson? Please.
1:39:24 Speaker 02 I ask that question seriously.
1:39:27 Tucker Carlson? I don't even know what you're talking about. I Jimmy Carter?
1:39:31 Speaker 02 So.
1:39:31 Tucker Carlson? What century is this? I am the product of the last 25 years, watching carefully, being involved in the periphery, and I see an unending string of foreign policy disasters that have impoverished and hurt
1:39:42 Speaker 02 Unending string.
1:39:43 Tucker Carlson? An unending string. They would include Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and our inability to stop the Houthis, by the way, in Yemen, which exposes us as weak, and I grieve over that. So these are failures. You helped preside over some of them as a member of the Senate.
1:39:58 Speaker 02 What failures, foreign policy failures, have I presided over?
1:40:01 Tucker Carlson? Well, we were unable to beat Russia in the war that you supported against Russia. You've been spending the last three years telling us that Vladimir Putin is evil and we're going to beat him with other people's children, and a million of those kids are now dead. You've never apologized for that. That was a full failure.
1:40:17 Speaker 02 By the way, look, the level of, number of falsehoods you lay out, just in one statement, are rather stunning.
1:40:23 Tucker Carlson? You haven't supported the war against Russia?
1:40:25 Speaker 02 Are rather stunning. So, the war against Russia was caused, which I have explained in great detail, by Joe Biden's weakness.
1:40:35 Tucker Carlson? But you supported the war.
1:40:37 Speaker 02 If you want to talk, we can talk Russia and Ukraine. I'm happy to talk about it.
1:40:40 Tucker Carlson? Do you think that's been a success?
1:40:42 Speaker 02 No, it's been an absolute disaster.
1:40:44 Tucker Carlson? Okay, but you supported it. Shouldn't you apologize?
1:40:46 Speaker 02 No, you should apologize.
1:40:47 Tucker Carlson? For what?
1:40:48 Speaker 02 I'm not going to engage in the demanding of apologizing.
1:40:51 Tucker Carlson? But I'm like, that's my point, is all these failures, and no one ever says I'm sorry.
1:40:55 Speaker 02 Do you just throw out, like, if you want to talk, we can talk.
1:40:59 Tucker Carlson? Okay. I do. I want to know why, that seems like a true disaster for the United States. You have supported it.
1:41:07 Speaker 02 Do you believe Joe Biden's weakness caused the war in Ukraine?
1:41:09 Tucker Carlson? I think Joe Biden's aggression caused it.
1:41:12 Speaker 02 His aggression? What aggression?
1:41:14 Tucker Carlson? He demanded that Ukraine join NATO. How does that help the United States?
1:41:18 Speaker 02 It is a terrible idea, and I have vigorously opposed Ukraine joining NATO.
1:41:23 Tucker Carlson? Okay, so that's what caused the war?
1:41:24 Speaker 02 No, it's not. Do you want to know what caused the war? Look, you do the dismissive, you're not actually interested in facts. You're like, okay.
1:41:31 Tucker Carlson? Okay, tell me, it seems super, you're absolutely right, and I'm sorry. That is a tick of mine that is wrong, and I mean this with sincerity. I'm sorry to do that to you. I just think it seems so obvious that sending Kamala Harris to the NATO Security Conference to say, "You're going to join NATO," is what triggered the invasion days later.
1:41:49 Speaker 02 Okay, so can I, this will take a few minutes to lay out, because it's complicated, but I think the facts matter. I think two things caused the war in Ukraine. Number one, I think Biden's incredible weakness and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now, I believe we needed to leave Afghanistan, but not with the incompetence that involved, that led to 13 servicemen and women being murdered by terrorists there. The way Biden did that was disastrous, and I think our enemies looked to the commander in chief and said, "This president is weak." And when that withdrawal was so disastrous, I said publicly at the time, "The chances of Putin invading Ukraine have just risen tenfold."
1:42:27 Tucker Carlson? Right.
1:42:28 Speaker 02 But secondly, and this is critically important.
1:42:30 Tucker Carlson? I agree, that was awful, the withdrawal.
1:42:32 Speaker 02 And it was a major cause of, our enemies all said, "Hey, this president is weak." And so it invited, and by the way, look, I despise war, and I think weakness and isolationism produces war, because it invites aggression from our bad guys. It's why I agree with Ronald Reagan's peace through strength. The best way you avoid war is being strong enough that your enemies don't want to mess with you. But let's get back to Ukraine and Russia. Look, Putin didn't wake up two years ago and decided he wanted to invade Ukraine. He's wanted to invade Ukraine for decades. Putin has referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as, quote, "The greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century."
1:43:17 Speaker 02 And Putin has long been explicit, his desire is to reassemble the old Soviet Union, and in fact, reassemble the Russian empire that was even bigger than that. If you want to reassemble the Soviet Union, the natural place to start is Ukraine.
1:43:31 Tucker Carlson? Do you really believe that Putin has territorial designs on Eastern Europe?
1:43:35 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:43:36 Tucker Carlson? What countries?
1:43:37 Speaker 02 He has said, you can go and read his, hold on, I don't want to lose the narrative of what happened, so we can go back and do that, but I don't want to lose telling the story first. So let me explain this, and then if you want to go back, we can take all sorts of digressions, but just give me a couple of minutes to lay out the facts of what happened. He has wanted to invade Ukraine a long time. And he's done it before. In 2014, he invaded Ukraine, invaded Crimea. When Barack Obama was president, he invaded the southern portion. He did not invade the rest of the country. Why? And the reason is, the principal source of revenue for Russia is oil and gas, and the natural gas pipelines run right through the country of Ukraine. And he didn't want to jeopardize his ability to get gas to Europe.
1:44:21 Tucker Carlson? Right.
1:44:21 Speaker 02 So, in 2015, Putin started a project called Nord Stream 2.
1:44:26 Tucker Carlson? Did anything happen in 2014?
1:44:30 Speaker 02 In terms of what?
1:44:31 Tucker Carlson? Wasn't there a coup in Ukraine, run by the Obama administration?
1:44:38 Speaker 02 Let me finish telling, I told you, we'll take lots of digressions in a second. Let me finish telling the narrative. 2015, Putin began building Nord Stream 2. Nord Stream 2 is an undersea pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany. The entire purpose of Nord Stream 2 is when it was completed and turned on, it would let Russia circumvent Ukraine and get its gas straight to Europe. In 2019, Nord Stream 2 was almost complete. And the conventional wisdom in Washington was, this is terrible, but there's nothing we can do about it. I didn't believe that. So I drafted sanctions legislation that was targeted to stop the pipeline. My legislation passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.
1:45:21 Speaker 02 It passed the House, and Donald Trump signed it in law.
1:45:24 Tucker Carlson? Why would, can I just ask, why wouldn't you want Germany to have cheap energy?
1:45:28 Speaker 02 Because it empowers Russia. And I believe in making our enemies weaker and our friends stronger.
1:45:34 Tucker Carlson? Has blowing up Nord Stream made Germany stronger?
1:45:38 Speaker 02 Not being dependent on Russia has made Germany stronger.
1:45:41 Tucker Carlson? So you think Germany is stronger now than it was four years ago?
1:45:44 Speaker 02 I think not being dependent on Russia, Germany has all sorts of problems, and many of them are domestic to their own politics. Hold on, let me finish, I'm trying to...
1:45:50 Tucker Carlson? No, but what you're saying, it doesn't, Germany seems so much weaker now that its energy costs have spiked and the manufacturing sector is collapsing because of that.
1:46:00 Speaker 02 Let me finish. I'm focused on America's interests. I don't want Russia stronger because I believe Russia is our enemy. You and I disagree on that. We can talk about that. But I want our enemies weaker. I don't want to go to war with Russia, but I want our enemies weaker. I don't want Europe dependent on Russia. I don't want Putin rich with oil and gas revenues and able to invest in his military and pose a threat to America. So the sanctions legislation that I authored, it passed. Putin stopped building Nord Stream 2 literally the day that President Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law. He signed it. Uh, if I remember right, at 7:00 PM on a Thursday, Putin stopped construction at 6:45 PM.
1:46:45 Speaker 02 So the sanctions legislation worked and it killed the pipeline. The pipeline lay dormant for over a year, just a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean. Joe Biden came into office. He was sworn in on January 20th, 2021. Putin resumed deep sea construction of Nord Stream 2 four days later, January 24th. He did so because Biden had foreshadowed weakness on that this issue. That foreshadowing was accurate because several months later Biden formally waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and let Putin complete the pipeline. In January of 2022, I forced a vote on the Senate floor to re-impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
1:47:25 Speaker 02 The week of the vote, President Zelensky in Ukraine publicly called on the Senate, "Please pass this sanctions legislation. It is the last best hope of stopping Russia from invading Ukraine." At the same time, the government of Poland put out a formal statement from the Foreign Ministry to the Senate, calling on the Senate to pass my sanctions legislation and said, "If you do not, Putin will invade Ukraine." The day of the vote, Joe Biden came to Capitol Hill. It's the first time in his presidency he had done that. He went to the Democrat senators lunch and he personally lobbied them on this issue, not any other issue. This was his number one issue that he came to lobby them on. They came out of that lunch. Every Democrat had voted with me twice against Nord Stream 2.
1:48:10 Speaker 02 Forty-four Democrats flipped their vote. They voted in favor of Russia, in favor of Putin, and four weeks later, Russia invaded Ukraine. That was the direct cause of the war, and if Trump had been president, there would be no war in Ukraine.
1:48:24 Tucker Carlson? So, may I ask, I, of course, disagree with your analysis completely, but I want to be respectful.
1:48:29 Speaker 02 Okay, so tell me what you disagree with.
1:48:31 Tucker Carlson? It's such a long conversation. I've spent the last couple of years on this, and I just respectfully disagree with your analysis, but I don't doubt your sincerity, that you believe that Putin is our enemy, that Western Europe should not be allowed to use Russian energy. I mean, you seem to really believe these things. My question is about results, because I think it's relevant to what we're seeing now in Iran. You look back, after having you personally voted to send billions and billions and billions of US tax dollars to Zelensky to support his civil service in the war against Russia and all this stuff, can you say that what you did worked?
1:49:07 Speaker 02 So, I can say what I did personally, sanctioning Nord Stream 2, worked and prevented a war, and if Trump had still been there, if the sanction had been in effect, there would be no war. I'm in favor of avoiding wars.
1:49:20 Tucker Carlson? But once the war broke out, you voted to fund it, to the tune of billions and billions and billions.
1:49:26 Speaker 02 And to be clear.
1:49:27 Tucker Carlson? And did that work?
1:49:28 Speaker 02 Okay, to be clear, what I voted for, I voted for the initial tranche of funding, and then I voted against the subsequent one. So it hasn't worked, so I've been in between. I haven't been on the full Ukraine, full-throated hawk side, or the anti-from-day-one. I voted for the initial tranche of funding, because I wanted Russia to lose. I think the Biden administration administered it in a horrible way. I think they wasted a ton of money, and I think what they did was actually incoherent, because they were funding both sides of the war. And I was very vocal, and, among other things, flooding $100 million to Iran, which was used, among other things, to help the nuclear program, but also to make drones that Russia used to fight against Ukraine.
1:50:09 Tucker Carlson? So, here's my concern, I'm not going to defend the Biden administration, really did a lot to wreck the United States.
1:50:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, the most damaging administration in history.
1:50:16 Tucker Carlson? But at the end, where we sit now, Russia is stronger, it's closely allied long-term with China.
1:50:20 Speaker 02 I don't know that Russia's stronger, I don't think that's right.
1:50:22 Tucker Carlson? Okay. I think it's pretty obvious that it is, but it's certainly not destroyed, and it's allied long-term with China.
1:50:30 Speaker 02 Maybe. Look, there's no doubt Biden's foreign policy drove Russia into the arms of China, and that's concerning. They also have a long history of animosity.
1:50:39 Tucker Carlson? Western Europe is weaker and more in debt. The United States is weaker and much more in debt.
1:50:44 Speaker 02 Look.
1:50:44 Tucker Carlson? Hold on. So you...
1:50:46 Speaker 02 You and I are agreeing on a lot.
1:50:47 Tucker Carlson? We're agreeing. We're agreeing. Here's my question. Have you questioned any of your previous assumptions? Did you play any role in this at all? Are you responsible at all?
1:50:57 Speaker 02 Of course. And like you, you said you...
1:50:59 Tucker Carlson? What have you learned?
1:51:00 Speaker 02 Of like you, you said you've changed your mind.
1:51:03 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, a lot.
1:51:03 Speaker 02 I voted for the first funding of the Ukraine war, and I voted against every subsequent funding stream because it wasn't working. And I looked at what was happening and said, "This is not working." And had the money been spent in an intelligent way and not wasted, and had it been successful, I might have been willing to fund more. But it wasn't successful, so I voted no. And the war's going to end. Look, President Trump campaigned on ending the war. I think he's frustrated because Putin has been less than eager to reach a deal to end the war, but it's going to end. You're not going to see another dollar coming from Congress.
1:51:33 Tucker Carlson? Do you think Zelensky wants to end the war?
1:51:35 Speaker 02 Um, I think Zelensky has behaved horribly. I think his Oval Office meeting will go down in history as the worst Oval Office meeting of any leader that has ever come to the Oval Office. I think he behaved like a pompous ass. And I think he is unrealistic. I think Zelensky spends his time with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in The New York Times, and he believed he was going to the Oval Office as a resist figure. And I think he's doing real damage to his country right now.
1:52:04 Tucker Carlson? You described him many times as a hero. Do you...
1:52:08 Speaker 02 I don't believe, I don't recall ever using the word hero. I will say...
1:52:11 Tucker Carlson? I do.
1:52:12 Speaker 02 Look, I'm not, I'm not a Zelensky cheerleader, and I'm not in the business of saying, "Everyone we support has to be a saint, and everyone we oppose has to be a villain." I'm not in the morality game. I'm in the US interest game. Why did I want Nord Stream 2 stopped? Because it would strengthen Russia, and Russia's our enemies. It's entirely US interest.
1:52:33 Tucker Carlson? Did you support the industrial sabotage against it, blowing it up?
1:52:37 Speaker 02 Um, so I think you believe America did that. Is that right?
1:52:41 Tucker Carlson? Of course.
1:52:42 Speaker 02 Okay, I think the chances of that are zero.
1:52:44 Tucker Carlson? You think Russia did it?
1:52:45 Speaker 02 No, I think Ukraine did it. Okay, so I don't know, so I don't know who did it. Um, in terms of the theories that have been put out there, um, the idea that Russia blew up their own pipeline never made any sense to me at all. That, that just, I, I can't even articulate why they would do that. The idea that Biden did that, look, I could see it being in US interest to do that, to blow up Nord Stream 2. I just think Biden was too weak. I don't believe Joe Biden.
1:53:13 Tucker Carlson? But are you in, I guess you in, what?
1:53:15 Speaker 02 So, so that leads me-
1:53:16 Tucker Carlson? The Norwegians, the Ukrainians, NATO, whatever.
1:53:20 Speaker 02 Look, that leads me to, you know, who benefits? And, and it leads me to think either the Ukrainians blew, blew it up or Ukraine's allies. I don't think Biden did because I just, Biden was so weak, I don't think he would give the order. I, I find that implausible.
1:53:35 Tucker Carlson? But you're in favor of it.
1:53:36 Speaker 02 Look, I was in favor of stopping it. I think, I think blowing it up is, is a, was a good thing. So, so I'm, I'm supportive of that, but I don't think America did that. I, I don't think Biden gave that order.
1:53:47 Tucker Carlson? But in general-
1:53:48 Speaker 02 I could see Trump giving that order, but he wasn't in office.
1:53:52 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, and you think that the largest act of industrial sabotage in history helped our allies in Western Europe or other NATO, fellow NATO members?
1:54:00 Speaker 02 Look, I gotta say, I don't understand, for some reason, you are really invested in defending Russia. And I don't get that. I'm not attacking you with that. I'm genuinely like, I don't get why you're, you're so passionate about defending Russia.
1:54:15 Tucker Carlson? Actually, I was defending Western Europe, the, the home of my ancestors and that, um, you know, tripling their energy costs and destroying their industrial base. Wait, no, no, no, not, no, not like, you just accused me of being an anti Semite, an isolationist and a Russia lackey. I've not called you a neocon once, which you are, but I haven't said that.
1:54:32 Speaker 02 That's absurd. I, I, yeah, those neocons that opposed the Iraq war and it, but like, that's dishonest.
1:54:38 Tucker Carlson? Okay, but, okay, but I haven't called you that because name calling-
1:54:40 Speaker 02 Well, you just said, which you are, so you just called that, called me that. You just did.
1:54:44 Tucker Carlson? I, I guess what I'm saying is you're triggered because I use name calling. I get it. I was triggered when you called me names and I'm triggered once again that you're calling me a Russia defender when in fact I'm defending Western Europe and I don't think that you can make-
1:54:55 Speaker 02 Do you think this is our enemy?
1:54:57 Tucker Carlson? Well, he's literally our enemy. You are funding a war against him.
1:55:00 Speaker 02 But do you think he is our... No, you're saying we're his enemy. Do you think Putin is our enemy?
1:55:04 Tucker Carlson? I think it is a tragedy that your policies, your policies, specifically yours, helped drive Putin into the arms of China, forming a bloc that's larger than us.
1:55:14 Speaker 02 So you won't answer that question?
1:55:16 Tucker Carlson? I don't... He is literally our enemy right now. That is a tragedy for the United States.
1:55:21 Speaker 02 No, no, you're saying, but you won't say he is our enemy. And look, like I watched the...
1:55:25 Tucker Carlson? No, in what sense? I don't want to be enemies with Russia. It doesn't help us at all. It may help some people in the United States, but in general, I don't want to be.
1:55:34 Speaker 02 I don't want to be at war with Russia. I don't think it is in our interest to be at war with Russia.
1:55:39 Tucker Carlson? I don't want Russia aligned with China. That is a disaster.
1:55:41 Speaker 02 But listen, no doubt, and I want Russia and China attention, so I agree with you there. But, but I think Putin is a KGB thug. I think he is a bad man. Now, I don't want to go to war with him over that. But, but I'm not naive, and like I watched your episode...
1:55:55 Tucker Carlson? He's a bad man. He's a bad man.
1:55:57 Speaker 02 Okay. Look, I watched your episode where you went to the Russian grocery store, and I'm genuinely...
1:56:03 Tucker Carlson? Was that disloyal, do you think?
1:56:04 Speaker 02 It was just weird. It was like a promo video for Russia, and I don't understand... I'm not attacking you when I ask why, because I'm genuinely like, I don't get the thought...
1:56:15 Tucker Carlson? Like when you called me and said something, you weren't attacking me, you were just noticing. But may I ask you a question? So, here... Well, let me just answer yours by saying, the United States, the Biden administration, with your help, full support, began this war on Russia in response to their invasion of Ukraine. And one of the things was they kicked Russia out of SWIFT, out of the International Financial System. And my first response was this is going to really hurt the US dollar, which it has. And I hope someday we can have a conversation about that. It's really, really hurt the one thing that we needed, which was to retain dollar... Supremacy. So, I was interested in the economic condition-
1:56:52 Speaker 02 By the way, that's a reasonable point and a serious conversation to be had.
1:56:55 Tucker Carlson? I'm aware, I'm aware.
1:56:56 Speaker 02 But I can agree with you, like-
1:56:58 Tucker Carlson? No, no, but I was accused of being, I think it's weird that you went to a Russian grocery store and said it was prosperous. No, my point is-
1:57:04 Speaker 02 It looked like a commercial, it looked like a commercial, isn't this wonderful?
1:57:07 Tucker Carlson? No, it was an argument against the efficacy of sanctions. Sanctions against Russia, which you casually and enthusiastically imposed, scoring a little moral victory every time, had no material effect that helped the United States. Russia is backstopped by China, and I recommend that you go there and see it, it is way nicer than Washington DC, way nicer. To me, that's a tragedy. I was horrified and angry at my leaders, including you. It's like, I want to live in a country this nice, with low food costs and no homeless people.
1:57:42 Speaker 02 All right.
1:57:42 Tucker Carlson? I don't understand why that's too much to ask.
1:57:44 Speaker 02 So do I.
1:57:45 Tucker Carlson? Instead I get worse with Iran. No, I just want lower food costs, how's that?
1:57:49 Speaker 02 So, look, it's a weird argument that you do often, which is, listen, things are crappy in America, liberals have done bad things to America, so, we shouldn't worry about any enemies around the world.
1:58:02 Tucker Carlson? No, not liberals, Republican senators, they don't care about us, they're focused on other countries.
1:58:05 Speaker 02 You wrote that in-
1:58:06 Tucker Carlson? And our country is dying, and you don't care, because you're focused on Iran or Putin.
1:58:11 Speaker 02 So you believe that I don't care about America. I guess you believe Donald Trump doesn't either, like, nobody cares?
1:58:16 Tucker Carlson? I believe that your focus is way too on other countries, it's way too focused outward, the money that you send abroad could be used here and should be-
1:58:25 Speaker 02 What money that I send abroad, by the way, I emphatically agree with-
1:58:28 Tucker Carlson? How much did you send to Ukraine? You don't even know!
1:58:30 Speaker 02 I emphatically agree with Donald Trump's, for example, dramatically slashing USAID. I think the only reason we should be deploying that is to benefit US interest, national security interest and keep Americans safe, and so-
1:58:46 Tucker Carlson? How much did you vote to send to Ukraine?
1:58:48 Speaker 02 Look, you're in, about 80 billion dollars.
1:58:51 Tucker Carlson? 80 billion?
1:58:51 Speaker 02 Yeah. So, you're in, you love just giving these broad characteristics-
1:58:58 Speaker 02 ...that are not accurate. I'm genuinely puzzled. Look, I don't want to go to war with Russia, but I don't think they're our friend. I think Putin...
1:59:10 Tucker Carlson? I agree.
1:59:11 Speaker 02 I think Putin is a murderer. I think he's a liar, and I think he does not wish well on America.
1:59:15 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
1:59:16 Speaker 02 And there's a difference between saying that, just like Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an evil empire, and Putin was in the KGB. Look, my father was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba. I hate communists. It was actually Batista that tortured my dad. My aunt was imprisoned and tortured by Castro. I hate communists. I think communism is evil. And so I think there is a value to... There is nobody who stands up to Communist China more in the Senate than I do, because I think they're evil. Do I want to go to war with China? Of course not. That would be ridiculous, but I think we have all sorts of tools to stand up to our enemies. And I think China is engaged in a thousand-year war against the United States. They're trying to defeat us.
1:59:58 Tucker Carlson? We're so all over the map. We're your family in prison in Cuba and China and all this stuff. I just... I agree with you. I'm totally opposed to communism, always have been. I don't think that Putin loves us. I'm distressed by the moral condition of most leaders around the world, most of them. They all kill people. I'm against that. I'm just saying, I wish the focus here was more on the United States.
2:00:19 Speaker 02 Can I say something? I actually don't agree with that statement, "They all kill people." There's a moral relativism. So I don't think Donald Trump is a murderer. He doesn't kill people. We don't have concentration camps.
2:00:27 Tucker Carlson? Calling Donald Trump a murderer, I'm insane.
2:00:29 Speaker 02 You just said, "World leaders all kill people," and there's a moral relativism.
2:00:33 Tucker Carlson? I'm hardly a moral relativist.
2:00:35 Speaker 02 But you are. You just... That statement was the essence of moral...
2:00:38 Tucker Carlson? I'm an anti-Semite, an isolationist, a moral relativist. Okay, no, I'm not.
2:00:43 Speaker 02 Did you just say, "World leaders all kill people"?
2:00:45 Tucker Carlson? I'm saying I'm against killing people in general.
2:00:48 Speaker 02 So...
2:00:48 Tucker Carlson? And hyperventilating about how Putin was in the KGB or whatever. I just want to serve American interests, and pushing into China is not in our interest at all. And you helped do it, and you haven't apologized. And you should.
2:00:58 Speaker 02 And by the way, you're the cheerleader. I helped drive him into China. It's a complete lie.
2:01:03 Tucker Carlson? You funded the war against him.
2:01:04 Speaker 02 No, I authored the legislation that shut down Nord Stream 2 that prevented the war. And if Trump had still been in the White House, we would have had the war. And, and look, the comment you made, the reason things like moral relativism are so dangerous. Oh, everyone kills people. No, there is a difference.
2:01:19 Tucker Carlson? I'm hardly a moral relativist.
2:01:20 Speaker 02 The United States, we don't have concentration camps. We don't torture and murder people. You look at China, where they've got a million prisoners in concentration camps. You look at Putin, where he's got prisoners in Siberia. He, he tortures and murders his political opponents. Donald Trump doesn't do that. America doesn't do that. And by the way, most other countries don't do that.
2:01:38 Tucker Carlson? What are you even talking about? I see the game. It's like, I'm distressed.
2:01:41 Speaker 02 No, no, you're the one playing a game.
2:01:42 Tucker Carlson? I'm distressed.
2:01:43 Speaker 02 No, I'm responding with facts. You don't like the facts.
2:01:45 Tucker Carlson? The, I don't even know what facts you're talking about. I'm not saying that Trump puts people in concentration camps. I vote, I campaigned for Trump. I love Trump.
2:01:51 Speaker 02 So did I.
2:01:52 Tucker Carlson? Okay. So, this has nothing to do with Trump. I'm merely saying, I want more.
2:01:56 Speaker 02 When you said every world leader kills people, it dropped with some more emphasis.
2:01:58 Tucker Carlson? I just want more emphasis on what's happening inside the country. That's it.
2:02:00 Speaker 02 Is there a moral difference between America and our enemies? Is there a moral difference between America?
2:02:05 Tucker Carlson? Are you joking?
2:02:06 Speaker 02 And what is it? Articulate it. It's valuable to say why. Why are we a better country founded on better values than China? What's the difference?
2:02:14 Tucker Carlson? I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. Because the whole purpose of America is to protect the God-given rights that each person possesses by virtue of being created by God.
2:02:22 Speaker 02 Amen.
2:02:23 Tucker Carlson? By being human. That's the point of our founding documents. And no other country articulates that in the way that we do. And that's, that's what I love about America. My family's been here a long time. I'm never leaving. So, I really love the country. Despite going to a Russian grocery store, despite asking him questions about AIPAC, I love America, is the truth. And I, and I love Trump. So, but I just want more emphasis on America. That's it.
2:02:47 Speaker 02 I emphatically agree with America first. I think Donald Trump does as well. And I think his foreign policy has been vigorously protecting that. And I, I agree with the president.
2:02:59 Tucker Carlson? Good. Well, I appreciate you taking all this time.
2:03:01 Speaker 02 Sure.
2:03:01 Tucker Carlson? And I know you didn't mean it. You copied those names. Thank you, Senator.
2:03:12 Tucker 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.
Previous Tucker and Steve Bannon Respond to Israel’s War on Iran and How It Could Destroy MAGA Forever Next Military Expert Dan Caldwell Breaks Down What Will Happen Next in Israel’s War With Iran Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
