Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/24/25: Tucker Carlson SOUNDS OFF On 9/11, Charlie Kirk, Israel, Kash Patel

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

The 9/11 Files: The CIA’s Secret Mission Gone Wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa6M7n_swNw Saagar and Tucker sit down to discuss Tucker's new 9/11 documentary, the post-9/11 choices that led to disaster, government overreach after Charlie Kirk assassination, and Netanyahu disrespecting Kirk's legacy.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to, our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Tucker Carlson, welcome to Breaking Points. Thank you so much for joining me, sir. Oh, it's an honor to join you, Sager. Are you kidding? Well, Tucker, I think it's so poignant to talk to you 24 years after 9-11. It was, I'm 33. It was the foundational moment of my life. It's the only reason I'm interested in politics. I read the looming tower shortly after it came out and it shattered my conception of the Bush administration. Returning to your docu-series, I'm struck again with the same feelings of rage of the way that we were manipulated, of the way that the entire event could have been prevented. But that's my personal view. As someone who was involved in it actually at the time, why did you want to return to 9-11, 24 years? later. Well, I would say you're blessed in one regard that you don't remember America before 9-11.

I so vividly do. I had three kids on 9-11, and it was a much better country in measurable ways, a much better country. And so I feel such sadness about that. I feel tormented by it. And of course, I was caught up in the propaganda, some of which I believed uncritically, some of which I sort of forced myself to believe. And so I feel guilt and shame about that. And I feel rage for the extent to which I was manipulated myself and that I passed on things that were untrue to at the time was a significant audience. I worked at CNN and I was on the second biggest show. You know, we weren't setting the agenda in the world or anything, but it definitely had a lot of viewers and it was meaningful at the time if you said something on that show. And I said a lot of things on that show that were untrue.

And so I'm mad about it. And I'm also mad by how legitimate patriotic questions about 9-11 have been suppressed through intimidation um and i'm mad at myself for being manipulated by that also so it's a it's a complicated stew of rage at other people disappointment in myself and so you you come to a point in life you're like well what can i do what can you do about the past well nothing because it's the past so you can create something new i mean this is the best argument by the way if you had a you know a sub perfect childhood for having a ton of kids because how do you fix something that's already taken place impossible except by creating something new and better. And so, you know, not having more kids in response to 9-11, but we did make a documentary. And we found kind of what you'd suspect,

but a lot more of it, I guess, that basically the core lies started with the Bush administration. And, you know, there were foreign actors involved in that for sure. But, you know, I'm an American And I often say I'm mad at Israel because it's interfering in our internal affairs, which it is and did then, too. But ultimately, I'm maddest at the Americans involved. Honestly, I know what's like you're obsessed with Israel. I'm actually obsessed with my own government. And it's shortcomings. And the Bush administration, which I supported, roughly speaking, and of course I knew the president and a number of people who worked for him very well. And those people lied. Oh, wow. Did they lie in pretty. obvious ways. Like any normal journalist at the time would have been able to detect the 9-11 commission, for example, was a total sham from, it was, it was pre-written before the investigation.

Okay, the conclusions were already written when the investigating started. So, like, by definition, it was a fraudulent enterprise. And any journalist at the time could have found that out and pretty much none did. What does that tell you? It tells you a lot. It tells us so much. I have my original copy behind me, actually, of the 9-11 commission. And I was thumbing through it again after watching your episode on it because it all just comes, you know, it all comes back from the Saudi connection to the missing pages, which were held up for years, despite the constant, heroic campaign of the survivors, the families and the survivors of 9-11. But when you put it together, Tucker, the biggest questions around 9-11 actually still remain relatively

unanswered and unexplored. So what did you find in your docu-series, from Building 7 to the 9-11 commission, the dancing Israelis, how the reports in some cases preempted the attacks. For years, people were smeared for asking questions about many of those that I just mentioned. All are legitimate, in my opinion, and were quashed almost immediately after the attack took place in service of the war in Iraq and of the Bush administration's agenda. So returning to it now with fresh eyes, what answers did you find to those questions? Well, I'll start macro. Okay. So every single bit of anomalous information, like things that don't make sense around 9-11,

particularly Building 7, which does not make sense at all, still doesn't make sense, all of them point to the same conclusion, which is foreknowledge. There were people who knew this was going to happen. That really is the shocking fact. And Building 7,

which we spent an awful lot of time on and basically arrived at the same conclusions as everyone else who's honest has arrived at. Like, what the hell? No, a fire from the plane did not dropped building seven. What did? I actually don't think that's the most compelling evidence. The most compelling evidence is knowable, provable, and that is that somebody or group of people made massive bets against the airlines involved in the 9-11 attacks and against the banks

housed in the buildings that fell. Okay, so that is proof. I think any normal person would say that's proof of foreknowledge. So they, you know, they were short sellers and they were betting against these companies. They were betting that the share price would fall after the attack. So they knew the attacks were coming in specific detail. They knew which airlines to bet against. They knew which banks to bet against. The most shocking fact that we uncovered is that the authors of the 9-11 report, the commission, found out who these people were and to this day have kept their identity's secret. What? Right. I don't need to get to directed energy weapons to find a conspiracy. I just found it. They said, they admitted, we know who made these bets in publicly traded companies

and we're not telling you who they are. So the very first thing, even before asking tough questions of CIA, NSA, French intelligence, Massad, Condi Rice, like all the people who have not fessed up fully about what they know, and that's a fact, Philip Zellico, who the author of the 9-11 commission report, before any of that, I would demand to know who. who made those bets in public markets on publicly traded companies. How do we not have the right to know that? How could you ever keep that from us? How are these public markets?

How is there any transparency in our financial system? Those people need to answer questions today. And anyone hiding that information from you is part of the cover-up by definition. So that's the thing that blew my mind more than anything else, possibly because I didn't know that. And I spent a lot of time thinking about building seven, which, again, I just want to say, is unexplained. There are a lot of different indicators

of what it might have been from the guy who owned it saying, pull it on TV, to newscast, contemporaneous newscast, declaring that it had fallen before it fell. This is all well known

to anyone who's pushed at all against that. All I want to say, and there's a ton of detail in the duck, but all I want to say is that any claim that people who question the fall of building seven are conspiracy theorists is itself a sciop designed to control you.

And it's not, That's not acceptable. Not when 3,000 people die. I'm so glad you said that. It resonates with me because I was that guy. I was frozen. I felt frozen out by the mainstream media. I was in Barnes and Noble reading Jesse Ventura's book. It's all I had access to. There was no independent media or any of that at the time. And I'm sitting there thumbing through, obviously, loose change, any of those. I'm not saying all the claims in them held up. But the point was is that there was a massive public appetite. And actually, again, what strikes me with the dot, is that the 9-11 commission, if we compare it, let's say, to the Pearl Harbor Commission, both are completed in times of war from when the necessity of a story that comes together for a very purposeful agenda, it just seems to align so carefully. And it's only years later, one of my favorite books in the 1980s, you know, at dawn we slept, which actually goes to the TikTok of the entire Pearl Harbor attack. It took us 40 years to reveal the truth. It would have been nice to know it actually in 1944 as well. Do you see it as part explicitly as a cover-up, you know,

to perpetuate the war machine, which had already happened, or was it, you know, the deepest conspiracy is that it was done specifically to spark the war machine? Where do you fall on that question? Well, let me just congratulate you on knowing that there was a Pearl Harbor Commission in the Senate and that they did produce a report. And the report is actually, which I've read, is damning. It's damning. It doesn't explicitly say what we now know was true, which is Roosevelt knew this was coming. He wanted to come because he wanted to join the war in Europe. He'd been funding Stalin.

Funding Stalin. Let me say again, funding Stalin. So completely bonkers that it's hard to believe that happened. And he wanted to join the war, of course. And we know that now. But yes, there's a precedent for this. So that is the quote you've hit right on the question. And the truth is I don't know what it was.

It might have been. I mean, there were a lot of things. going on simultaneously as is usually the case. So you have CIA, which is intent on building human intelligence sources within al-Qaeda. Okay. So they've got sophisticated electronic surveillance. They still do, but they have no one in al-Qaeda. So John Brennan is station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when 13 of the 19 hijackers got visas to come to the United States from Saudi. He is running the station, which is incredible to me. I didn't know that either. And they know that these guys are terrorists and they followed some of them to Kuala Lumpur.

They followed them around the world where they're meeting to talk about attacking the United States. And they allow them to come to the U.S. and they surveil them. Israeli intelligence clearly did the same. I mean, there were Israeli intel assets in the places where the hijackers were in Southern California, in Florida. And we know that.

It's all established. Now, that's not to say, I'm not saying Mossad plan 9-11. Of course. Not saying CIA plan 9-11. And by the way, nobody cares if you say CIA plan 9-11. but Massad, you're an anti-Semite. No, I'm an American. I want to know what happened.

Stop. And I don't know what happened, but I know that both those intel services and probably French intelligence, which is surprisingly sophisticated, considering that France is basically just a museum with cheese. But French intelligence is a real thing and a player in global affairs and has been for a long time. And they clearly knew some of this, too, at least some of it. So the question is, was this negligence? was it malintent, was it just a mistake that they're not communicating this to domestic law enforcement, FBI, because they want to cultivate these sources? I don't know. I do know that I know two things. One, the second, CIA was kind of like with the end of the Cold War, which is exactly 10 years before 9-11, almost exactly 10 years, almost to the month, the Cold War ended. And they're kind of floating and like they're facing budget cuts. We don't know what their budget is. Even now we don't know what their budget is because it's classified. By the way, I don't think the White House knows what their budget is. Like, I know that, actually.

They don't know what the, what's the CIA budget. You can't get an answer because nobody knows. And I don't think many people would CIA know, actually, because it's so compartmentalized. But anyway, their budget was going to go down, clearly. It had gone down. Like, what's the point of CIA? As a paramilitary force anyway, without a Cold War, 9-11 happens, and they're funding at least more than doubles, but we don't really know.

But clearly now it's the largest, I mean, it's a country. CIA is not part of really the U.S. government. There's no accountability at all. They run companies. They have an army. They kill people. They spy on people. None of it with any oversight whatsoever or even knowledge of what they're doing. Even again, I'm not sure the CIA director knows himself what the whole agency is doing. That's all a byproduct of 9-11. 9-11 made that possible. They thrived. The country withered, they thrived. So they were beneficiaries. But that's the first thing we know. The second thing we know is that as the towers were falling, plans were being made in Washington to invade Iraq.

And that was ideological. That was done on behalf of another country that wanted to do that. Iraq was not connected to 9-11. Actually, you could make the case that Saddam was like having Saddam in power was a net positive for the United States. It kept Iran in check.

He was a secular leader. He was not a religious, not at all. He was a bath party guy. He was a socialist. Like, how was that a threat to us exactly? It wasn't. So the world became a lot more dangerous when Saddam was killed, much more dangerous,

but the Israelis wanted that and they pushed the U.S. government to do it. There were a lot of people in good faith, Americans in good faith. A lot of them, by the way, who are not Israeli agents, they really believed that this would be good for the United States. I don't want to say this was a pure conspiracy. People believed it. I was there. I know that. And they weren't working for Israel. They were just like deluded into thinking that, you know, the Middle East would become Europe if only we conducted a series of wars. What we didn't know is that Europe would become the Middle East and the Middle East to become really nice under authoritarian leaders, but like the future

is impossible to predict. Anyway, so we know that the people that people in their dark imaginings think were responsible for this. Those people did benefit, actually, big time. Yes. They got what they wanted. I don't know if they benefited in some ultimate sense, but they definitely got what they wanted. It doesn't mean that they did it on purpose. I think you could make a compelling case that other countries knew this was coming. They have all claimed that they warned the U.S. government. Maybe they did. It's totally plausible that they warned CIA and CIA ignored them or had other reasons for not acting on the information. But they didn't tell the FBI. That's just not true. We've talked a lot of people at FBI. And like, what is that?

And I, you know, I could come up with tons of suspicions and theories. What I know is everything I've said is factual. It's provable. It's actually documented. And we have people, we didn't interview any person who wasn't directly connected, who wasn't participating in the events proceeding or following 9-11. Everybody is a primary source. Yes. And that's where these views come from. So this is not a conspiracy theory. These are factual statements. What do they add up to? They add up to the need to have an honest conversation with that intimidation from, you know, whomever on Twitter, because we have a right and an obligation to know or this will happen again. And by the way, it has happened like multiple times since that, the Syrian gas attacks, the, you know, Russian drones in Poland or whatever, million false flag operations all the time.

And they have resulted in the death of American citizens, military and otherwise, and the expenditure of like trillions of dollars of our money and the devaluation of the U.S. dollars. So, like, it's actually kind of wrecked the country, this stuff. It has to stop. Yeah. I the most important part of your series is episode five for me from tragedy to tyranny because that's the part of the series which again it reminds me of and people have said this before 9-11 brought out the best and the worst 9-12 was one of the most you know it was one of those days where everyone was taking I'm just just old enough to vaguely remember even as a small child kind of remembering what it was like to be a part of that togetherness but by 9-11 2000s and two, things were very different. And what the Bush administration did, I mean, I don't know about you. For me, George W. Bush is hands down the worst president in American history, the foreign military adventurism, the destruction of our civil liberties, the bankruptcy, the deaths of millions. And yet, you know, to watch him be resurrected as some painting grandfather who attends the Super Bowl or a Rangers game is just disgusting to me. It's beyond disgusting. And putting that together, you know, the inside has not surpassed because I've met so many who suffered because of 9-11, namely American service members. But one of the things that I want to return to is you were talking about your

role on cable at the time. And I always think it's very poignant, you know, a significant portion of your audience and my audience, they were not even alive on 9-11 or they don't remember it. Why was it so difficult? Because we will experience events like this. And we actually have in a smaller level scale. Why is it so difficult at the time to voice a dissenting opinion to try and bring the country off of this track when by 9-11, 2002, just based on the historical record, the entire war machine is humming. We are going to into Iraq, Patriot Act. All of it has come together. And it was time to start screaming.

And very few people did. It's totally right. I've thought a lot about that, actually. and I felt like I was better positioned than most to know what was going on because I knew so many people in the administration in, you know, decision-making roles and because of the way I'd grown up,

which is like pretty familiar with a lot of these questions or just around them a lot, you know? So I really was in a place where I should have called bullshit on a lot of stuff and why didn't I? And, you know, there's all, you always have to allow for the fact that you don't understand your own motives.

And so you're a young parent with three kids, like maybe I'm afraid I can't pay my mortgage if I get, you know, whatever, there's that. They're probably venal reasons. But consciously, I'm being as honest as I can be, I didn't feel any of that. I wasn't like, oh, I must conform or I will, you know, go bankrupt. It was, I was very upset about 9-11. They took my emotions and the emotions of hundreds of millions of other Americans and

leverage them against us and use them to control us. And I see this with October 7th, you know, it was like horrifying, horrifying event. like foreign fighters come into your country and kill people to music festival it's like it's the nightmare scenario actually that and as a parent of like kids who could be at a music festival it's like oh i got emotional seeing that but that emotion is used by unscrupulous politicians to subvert your actual interests and you certainly see that with october 7th but you saw it in this country with my media and i participated in unknowingly with 9-11 like i lost a friend on 9-11 it happened you know i've lived in Washington, the Pentagon got hit. I mean, you really felt like things were falling apart. I remember going to a gas station right after the, I was on the phone with my editor in New York when the second plane hit. He saw he lived downtown in Tribeca. And so the whole thing, it just felt so personal and real. And I remember going and gassing up our suburban at the gas station. And there was my neighbor gassing up his suburban. And he's like, we're doing it for the same reason.

Look, we may need to run. This, every person felt this. Every adult, particularly every parent at the time, felt that. So you were legit. afraid. Legit. Like, as Israelis felt after October 7th, we felt after 9-11. I get it. And that emotion blinded me and dulled my critical thinking to the point where I couldn't see certain things. And it was only, what was it, almost exactly two years later when I went to Iraq, that I realized, oh my gosh, you know, I was lied to. I participated in the lying. I didn't mean to, but I did. And that's when I resolved. I'm never doing that again. I'm never going to allow myself to get so fearful, angry, whatever, that, you know, bully bays of emotions that I can't think straight and that I wind up parroting lies that

hurt people. So that really, oh, thank God, I was out of that cycle by 2003, but I'm still 25 years later soul searching on this and a lot of other related topics that I didn't fully understand that I should have understood. I've taken that example to heart in very tough moments. One of them, honestly, I don't know about you, but for me, there was something really visceral about reacting to Charlie's death on the air on the 24th anniversary of died 11. It felt very eerie for me. And you know, you and I were supposed to talk that day to talk about this very documentary.

And for me, I'm not comparing the two. It's just that to process real-time tragedy on the airwaves, also keeping in mind, all of the worst mistakes of 9-11 in the immediate aftermath, I see the mass hysteria come back. Oh, yeah. And I think it's a bipartisan problem. But what really concerned it is a human problem, you're exactly right. That's where that's the best way to put it. But then when I saw Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and even the president in a case, you know, echo a call for hate speech, I said, oh my God, we have learned absolutely nothing. How have you been thinking about that in the wake of Charlie's death? So I guess I would disagree that we haven't

learned anything. I think a lot of people have learned that lesson. I do think that. And the media landscape is so different now. I mean, it is so much less centralized. We've talked about this a great length. And your success is just like the perfect example. You know, Rogan had been around a long time. Megyn Kelly been around a long time. I've been around a long time. And then, you know, transitioned into a different form of media. You hadn't been around at all. You just decided you thought these things that went online and became huge. So you're the greatest testament to how, in my opinion, to how much things have changed. Thank you. And no, it's just so, it's wonderful to see it because I think that for all the problems with independent media and social media,

they're way better than what we had because they're harder to control. So I actually feel like people have been much better this time. Like you fool me twice. It's my fault. And that people really feel it. Now you can get to the point where you don't believe anything and you're resistant to actual evidence, which itself is a form of insanity, and you don't want to go there, just because most conspiracy theories have proven true, which they have, doesn't mean that every far-out claim is true,

because they're not. So you want to stay rational, but from my perspective, so that was not even a temptation for me, but from my perspective was like, I really knew Charlie Kirk legitimately well and was legitimately close to him and was thrilled,

he was just a great person to talk to because he was so open-minded about stuff. and so I was very, very upset when he died, but one of my first thoughts was, you know, you have to, his memory is not served by lying at all. And then I feel this way about 9-11, which didn't affect me any more or less than most Americans, but I really felt at the time like an American,

there was a real sense of Americanness then. That is basically gone, partly as a result of 9-11. It's also said, but anyway, the point is, If you want to serve a memory of a person or a nation, act honorably if you think the person in the nation are honorable. And I did think America was honorable. And I know Charlie Kirk was honorable as a fact. He was honorable. So how does lying serve that?

It actually desecrates the memory of the person you're claiming to celebrate. Like, don't do that. So, you know, being honest, and simultaneously not being irresponsible, by the way. I mean, all kinds of people had really dark suspicion. the second he was murdered, which I get. And as with 9-11, it was very clear to me who was benefiting from this, but it doesn't mean they did it. So you just have to stay responsible, only say things that you know are true or that you

sincerely believe are true. That's a really easy standard to uphold. When you get upset, it becomes something you need to remind yourself of, but objectively, it's a simple good standard that all of us should hold to. and I got so mad, for example, at Condoleezza Rice, particularly because Condoleezza Rice is still celebrated as some sort of genius or something when she's a subgenius, I'll say, totally conventional,

but she's also had a real hand in hurting the United States in denying Putin asked to be a NATO. He asked to be a NATO, which would have solved, like, all of our problems. NATO existed to contain Russia. Now Russia wants to join the alliance. Oh, my gosh, we've won. And she convinced George W. Bush, this is a fact, not to allow that.

So I think we can say that Condoleezza Rice is at least indirectly responsible for millions of deaths in Russia and Ukraine. Like that's really a crime. And yet she's like

head of the Hoover whatever they're calling. I mean, it's also, she's gotten all the rewards and all the merit badges of our diseased fake meritocracy. And that drives me so crazy that I was tempted

because it's so unfair, it's such an assault against justice that I was so tempted in my head to be like, Condoleez-Rais knew this was coming. But I don't have any evidence of that at all. So you do have to pull yourself back a little bit. I think that's fair. You should.

I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time, as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians. I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations, but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country.

Artists and activists. I mean, do you ever feel demoralized? I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith. But there's an institution that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I believe in. To bring you depth and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other,

sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself.

My dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. On 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family.

And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it.

But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them,

the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw her gun, I try to take it. his hand and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. We've spent a lot of time here on the show talking about those questions. And I'm exactly like you. We can talk potentially about benefit, et cetera, but we do have to still deal in the realm of facts.

But kind of tying the two things together, what appalled me is that guys like George Tenant and the CIA employees and FBI directors, they, they suffered nothing after 9-11. They got more power. They became more important. They became heroes. You know, they were celebrated in the famous pictures. I'm kind of ruminating on Cash Patel in the wake of Charlie's assassination, just in his handling of the investigation. And I'm curious, like, are you satisfied with his performance here publicly in the wake of Charlie's death? And then broadly with the conventional explanation that we've received so far from lawmaker or law enforcement. I haven't received any kind of explanation. So the key question is you're telling me Tyler

Robinson did it, totally willing to believe that. I don't have any evidence anyone else did it. You're telling me he confessed to it and that's his rifle. Happy to believe that. Right. The missing piece for me is how did a guy who's apparently kind of mainstream become so non-mainstream that he like decided to murder a stranger with the bolt action 30 out six? That's a big transition, you know, maybe literally a transition, I don't know what it is. You need to tell me how that happened. And by the way, if you don't tell me how that happened, if you tell me that we can't talk about it because we don't want to, you know, prejudice the jury or it's going to affect the prosecution or whatever, there's no case where that's true. I've covered the stuff

for 35 years. I was a police reporter. You know, they always give you a sense of what they actually they make their case in public most of the time. True. With everybody. And so I guess what I'm saying is there's great frustration in a lot of places there always is with alternative theories of everything, you know, like we're mad that you don't believe the moon landing. We're mad that you don't, you know, believe this or that story that we're telling. And my response to them, and it's often directly to them, is, okay, the onus is kind of on you. You're in charge. So if you don't provide a believable story, you can't blame other people for coming up with a better story. So it's really your moral obligation, especially if you're a government official,

trying to hold this fractious country of $350 million together. It's your moral obligation to hold this country together with truth and the promise of justice. And justice comes from truth. You can't have justice on the basis of lies. So don't lie to me. Make every possible effort you can to be transparent. There probably are some things you could make a case you can't tell me right now. You can certainly tell me 62 years later after, say, JFK was killed.

But I get if there are some things you can't tell me right now for practical reasons, But most things you can tell me, and if you're not telling me those things, I have every right to be suspicious of you and, in fact, to dislike you for fracturing this country into a million little pieces, which your behavior is doing. Yeah, I think that's really well said. Tucker, I want to stick also with the memory of Charlie. I found it appalling, honestly, I think like you did, how in almost the hours after Charlie's death, Prime Minister Bebe Netanyahu is on Fox News airwaves, making claims like he was the greatest supporter of our cause. Of course, it was met with almost no immediate condemnation, suspicion, or disgust by our political class. And instead, what I noticed, is that when you appeared at the White House with the vice president and you made a comment saying that you thought it was disgusting for foreign leaders, you know, to immediately say he lived or died for our cause, that that immediately invited condemnation. And I just, I don't quite understand where the impetus comes from, where to critique is evidence of being obsessed with something, where, you know, by immediately inserting your. yourself into our politics to use the memory of a dead American, you know, for your own domestic political purposes and or to basically try and prejudice the American people or let's say the American right and others into believing that the two were lockstep. I found that

to be one of the most appalling and disgusting. And I would say that about any foreign leader. If I died and Narendra Modi was on TV, I promise I give you permission, please attack him and say, hey, get his name out of your mouth. He had nothing to do with you. He was just an American. How are you reflecting on that? I mean, I'm, I should admit that I'm silly for being shocked by it. Death draws vultures.

That's what it does. So this happens every single time. Opportunists and predators glam on to the memory of a hero in order to advance their own interest. So I shouldn't have been shocked by it. I was shocked by it because I was friends with Charlie. So I, in general, I, by the way, I should. should say such as BB. I object to anybody politicizing a death in the days after. If the widow was still grieving, pull back a little bit. Like, you don't need to do that. I just gave a speech

part of a eulogy at his funeral two days ago. And I really tried to keep it completely non-political. Like I didn't mention anything having to do with politics. It was only about Christianity. And of course, I was attacked for that too. Whatever. I don't really care. But I would say on the question of BB specifically, you know, he's a foreign leader. I get to attack, I get to critique foreign leaders. I don't hate BB, but I disagree that, you know, what he's doing is helping our country. I'm offended by the fact that, you know, he's telling everyone in his region, including other leaders that he controls the U.S. government. That offends me as, which he does a lot. And that offends me as an American. But as for being obsessed, just the opposite. I've zero interest in talking

about this. And I have to say, there is something very, that connects anti-Semites, and there are anti-Semites, two Zionists, and there are Zionists. And that is, they both see the world with the same lens. Everything is about Jews. Yes. And I just don't see the world that way at all. I just don't at all. And but they do because hate and narcissism are twins, it turns out. And I just feel like if there's one thing I want to say to like the internet, it's like, not everything is about Jews. I don't know. That's not an attack on anybody. It's not healthy for everything to be about any group. How is that good? It's not good. It doesn't help anybody. So, and that's the point, you know, I'm obsessed. Oh, gosh, just the opposite. I'm, I'm, I'm tired of it. I don't want to talk about this at all. It's not a core interest of mine. It never has been. I pray to God, it never will be. You know what I mean? Obsessed. And no, no, not obsessed. That is a fact.

Yeah. The obsession, I mean, it just rings hollow to me when, you know, you have the 50, you know, we have fit legislators and representatives from dozens of states all gathering in Israel, you know, pledging basically allegiance and or at least undying support, you know, for a foreign government, the conundrum and the, you know, the contrast in which who is obsessed and who is not, it strikes true. But, you know, to get away just away from that and the BB one specifically, there has been quite a lot of discussion around Charlie and Israel. You would be better positioned. And I want to be very clear we are not in any way implying that Israel had anything to do with his death. It is, however, a separate question, one, I believe, forced on American political discourse by the Israeli prime minister to sort out that question of his views. If he's going to say wholeheartedly

that Charlie was lockstep with the secular Israeli government and let's say all of its policies in all of its foreign policy and its war policy, et cetera, that does then bear discussion for a future, you know, kind of reckoning with the American rights relationship to Israel. And And as you said, there were complicated feelings by Charlie. I believe he actually had me on his show almost a month before he died. I believe after seeing me on your program. And I think it was very specifically to sort through these types of questions. And yet, you know, by even raising, let's say, let's take it out of his personal relationship even with Israel to the policy question of it. It has become like a brouhaha of anti-Semitism accusation. Why did you think it was important to weigh in on that? Because it's so poisonous and it's such an obvious lie. And I don't, you know, you don't need to take my word for it. Charlie's all over.

I mean, in public, I knew him well. He was just at my house. So I, when we talked all about this, because he was under such intense pressure to cancel a speech that I was scheduled to give for him in December. And I said to do it many times, I don't need to give the speech. I don't want to cause you problems. I don't actually care that much about these issues. Like, I don't need to, and he was absolutely, and many people have said this, but he said it directly to me multiple times. He was adamant that, no, I'm not going to bend.

So, but Charlie's views on Israel were like, really well known. The fact that he had you on, that he was close to Glenn Greenwald, the invited the wonderful Dave Smith, such a decent man, much maligned man, you know, to turning point in July, like, you don't need to do that. What are you doing? In fact, he invited me. none of those people hates Israel at all. Dave Smith and Glenn are Jewish, you know, like what? It's nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Charlie's position was really clear, and he said it a million times.

I like Israel. I've gone there on vacation. By the way, this could be me talking because I feel the same way I've always liked Israel. I'm very concerned about Bibi. He was concerned, very, very concerned about Bibi. By the way, anyone who likes Israel is concerned about Bibi because that country is in serious trouble because of him. But anyway, but here's my. Here's my note, you know, here's my red line.

I'm not going to be told what to say, and I'm definitely not going to be told what to say by a foreign government or its advocates under any circumstance because I'm an American, I care about this country more than any other, to the extent that our interests align, great, when they diverge, I will say so, and I'm not going to be bullied.

He said that a million times in public. He said it a million times in private, including to me. And that's just a fact. And like, ask anyone who knew him, Andrew Colvette, who's his, you know, was on his show, day with him and a really good friend of his travel with him. He just said that. That's exactly

what Charlie thought. So anyone claiming otherwise is lying. I hate the fact for even having this conversation. I know. Because I think it diminishes him. It makes his death political or something. Like in the end, like a man's death first and foremost is a tragedy to the people who loved him. And that would start with his wife, Erica, and their two children and his sister and his parents and his staff. And all, you know, so it's like we're not talking about that because again, we have this twin sort of vortex of narcissism and hate. You have the Zionists and you have the anti-Semites and they feed off each other in this way that drowns out

consideration of anything else. It's so dark. It's so dark. Like it's bad and each one thinks the other's the problem. But like if you wake up every morning obsessing about Jews, whether you're a Zionist or an anti-Semite, you're not helping at all. That is a sickness.

I gave this speech the other night and it was like, literally it was about Jesus it was basically reciting the you know the gospel of john or luke or matthew mark it's the god it's the new testament of of the world's biggest religion and immediately people started attack i didn't even know this but they're texting me like you're getting attacked and it's like they hear jew but people on both sides hear the same thing it's like this weird brain virus or something and i don't i'm not a cuck on israel obviously but i don't think it's good to obsess about anything and it's particularly not good for anybody to obsess on Jews because it clearly drives you crazy and hurts you and everyone around you. And I feel like both those groups are

engaged in kind of the same project. And I'm not getting involved in that project. I'm glad that you're not. And it's important actually to resist that poll because in some ways, they try, if you are critical, let's say, up there. Oh, yeah, yeah. They want to turn. Their greatest wish is to actually turn you into what they are. That is so true. I said to someone, a friend of mine yesterday, who's actually Jewish, but it doesn't even matter. I said, I'm going to deny my haters the satisfaction of becoming a Nazi.

I'm just not going to do that. I don't believe that. I'm not going to do it. I'm sorry. I don't care. Yeah. I think that's really pointed. Actually, last thing here, just on Charlie, I know it's a bit sidetracked, but I haven't

seen you since, is I really liked. you were celebrating some of his more populous views on economics. And Charlie was working this out for himself. Something you and I had discussed as well is just, I mean, look, the turning point discussions also centers around donors. As you and I know, you know, Israel is not the only third rail. They are allowed to touch in the conservative movement. A lot of it actually centers around basic questions of, let's say, entitlement, housing, something you and I have discussed at length. what was it like to see him process that? Because it's like you, you know, what I would knew of Charlie was kind of more of Koch brothers, libertarian, more view of economics. And

then, you know, when he had me on a show, it wasn't just to talk about Israel, although, of course, that's all anybody noticed. It was predominantly to talk about young people not being able to afford housing and the downstream social effects of how that will crush a younger generation of which is a totally bipartisan problem, one which I think that the left has an answer to. I don't say it was necessarily a good answer, but it is an answer. I don't see it yet from an organized political movement. And it's one of the things he was really grappling with at the very end. And so, I mean, I'd love for you to speak on that as somebody probably encouraged him more on that direction, elevated it on your show, and why you think that's important direction

for anybody and any American political project to explore. Bless you for saying that. And this is the kind of reductionism that drives me bonkers that I was just yelling about, where everything is about Israel or the Jews or whatever. Charlie was not like that at all. I'm not like that. You're not like that. What we actually talked about,

we're not whispering about BB or whatever. Most of our conversations were whispering about tax rates. Yeah. And the last interview that he did with me, which was, you know, several weeks ago here, was 100% about. what you what you just said and his views had evolved they had evolved in this role that's a fact but they had evolved even more on economics and on the point of an economy what is the point of why are we

doing this and you know you want to have a free market system you want to have capitalism the alternatives seem pretty dark uh but is the version that we're practicing now actually producing the results that we want or is it destroying our society and leading us very quickly toward revolution like violent revolution and he believed the latter was true and I do too and I know that you do as well and he gave this interview it was like two hours which I'm sure nobody watched because it wasn't about Israel but it was amazing and I'm not touting my own show

but I'm sure he did him with you too but it was like he was so on fire on the topic because he spent so much time with young people and I do think it's kind of well known now that young people are definitely mad at Israel there's no doubt about that with their way mad about the fact that they can't like buy a house and get married

and have kids and they're way matter about that. I think that's my experience but he knew best because he spent the most time with people under 30 because his whole life was on college campuses. So he was reflecting the frustrations and the views of his members and of people he talked to personally

and bless him for that. And I hope that doesn't get lost because I actually think on some level the Israel stuff like the race stuff is kind you know it's real on one level but it's also a cover for something else and it's a way that we don't have conversations was we're yelling about whatever race related or israel related we don't have conversations about like who owns all the houses and why can't kids buy houses and why are people like bill acman you know how is bill acman worth seven or nine billion dollars or whatever

when he clearly has done not one useful thing it's like talking down companies to profit off them like tell me why that's good and i actually said that at the last turning point uh event because i just can't i'm just i don't think it's bill acman i don't hate bill acman but like he's a symbol of a system he's a symbol that's so many bill actments like why is our society awarding the greatest spoils to the people who contribute the least it's simple it's that simple you know he's not creative he's not interesting he's not smart but he's worth seven billion dollars like just speak slowly so i can understand how that works i say that immediately you're an anti-semite for attacking Bill Ackman, who I guess is Jewish, I don't, there's nothing to do with that.

Right. You see what I'm saying? So it's a way of pushing you off the trail, so you shut up. But, you know, I'm obviously not going to shut up because I really think it matters. And Charlie was on this, on this topic, like hard and in a way that, ooh, you wouldn't want to debate him on it because he actually knew the details. He's very, he's a very intense guy intellectually and very committed to. study. Like he gave up his cell phone once a week, no cell phone. And he spent time with his wife

and children, but he also read a lot. So he was a formidable character who had a commitment to studying. And no one wanted to have that conversation with him at all. Like, why are we taxing labor at twice the rate of investing? Like, what's, you know, why are we doing that? Shut up, racist or anti-semit or fill in the blanks, you know, anti-trans. Communist. I mean, like, whatever. Communist. Communist, right? Okay. So, um, I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm I'm so glad you brought that up, really. Well, I brought it up because I want to keep 9-11 through the through line, is that was the story of the 2000s, is that throughout the 2000s, we're fighting the war in Iraq, the

top-line story. Everyone just kind of ignores the Bush tax cuts in 03. It's just a bipartisan rubber stamp. We just move on with our lives. 08 happens. We have a president elected on the mantra of withdrawing from Iraq. Oops, didn't happen. You know, on a mantra of withdrawing the U.S. war machine, drone strikes, escalate, ISIS.

I mean, so many of the foreign policy disasters. Just look. I mean, actually, this is, I would love your take on this. I don't know if you saw this most recent clip of David Petraeus asking the al-Qaeda leader of Syria, wondering if he sleeps at night, okay. And I'm like, I mean, on the one level I laugh, on the other, like you, I know people who lost limbs fighting in Iraq. And so for them to watch your four star, the commander of U.S. forces, sit there and glaze the former al-Qaeda leader, who by the way, Petraeus, I believe now works at a hedge fund, right, which is just kind of like perfect to this entire story. That was

also the predominant legacy of 9-11. Was the distraction while the internal fabric economically, societyally on every level came apart and we only now get to deal with it it should have been dealt with that what someone said to me about Petraeus and Jolani it's like when former co-workers get together

they you know they kind of catch up on the personal details sorry that's dark no actually you know the Jolani thing whatever I don't even get into that his office called me and tried to set up an interview and he was in New York and I'll talk to anybody I mean I'll talk to anybody and have

and by the way I don't I don't measure your moral character before we talk because I think I'm interested in evoking information, and, like, that's my job. But so I don't, I'm not a judger on that level at all. I enjoyed talking to Kim Jong-un, sorry. I don't support his policies. But Jolani's, like, one of the very few, or I was like, I'm not going to do that because I don't want to be pulled into that propaganda campaign because it's so dark.

Like, how in the world? That's, like, right out of animal farm where the pigs and the farmers in the end are indistinguishable from each other. That's like, really, al-Qaeda is now running Syria, and we're claiming that's better than Assad, the secular guy who protected the ala whites and the Christians, there were all the religious minorities. How was that bad? Well, it was bad because it was against Israel's interest. That's why. That's why the media told us it was bad. They wanted him out. And okay, I get it. I'm not mad at them for wanting him out. They have their own interest. But how is that in the interest

of Christians? Like, that's, which is my perspective, because I'm a Christian. And it's not. And now you have Jolani and all these Christians are getting murdered. And we allowed that because of foreign government wanted us to. That's just a fact. And shut up, defender of Assad. And it's like, what? I don't even care anymore. But I'm definitely not going to participate in your rehabilitation campaign for a guy who's overseeing the murder of religious minorities who was an al-Qaeda leader. I thought if there was one thing that we could all agree on, it's al-Qaeda is bad. Isis is bad. Like, that's just bad. And if you wind up, if you wake up in a world where David Petraeus is like, how is it over an ISIS world? Do you guys sleeping okay?

then you know like the charade is total it's just it's total and it's bewildering for people and I worry about our country actually I worry about people flipping out over stuff like this over time that made me want to flip out because it's 24 years after 9-11 and I go so what was the point of war on terror and of destroying it

and our bankruptcy and everything abroad if we're just going to end it by celebrating al-Qaeda coming into power so that the greater Israel project can march on into a portion of Syria was that really this That was the point this entire time. Because if you told me that in, you know, 9-12-03, I would, even, I would never have believed you. And I was a crank teenager who believed the worst about the Bush administration.

And even I would be like, no, there's no way, man. Well, you're better off being a crank. I'm so glad you were a crank. I was a crank teenager, too, actually. There was a different set of issues, of course. But I don't know how I became so conventional. And by the way, by Washington standards, I was like unconventional. I mean, very unconventional, but it was incredible how conventional I actually was, and I'm ashamed of that.

So I don't know, I hope that all of your younger listeners, they don't need the reminder from me at 56 to be, to think for yourself. I guess they've already arrived there. But I don't think there are too many people who are going to believe David Petraeus left in the United States. Are there? Probably not. I would hope so, not just on that, but the system which gave rise to this entire machine, I mean, Tucker, how many years of our careers did we dedicate to the Syrian Civil War and all of the, not just Assad, but regime change and the funding, the moderate rebels, the CIA, and then the guy running that ends up the sect deaf under Biden. And it's the same through line of 9-11, which is that you only fail upwards in this town. I remember seeing Paul Wolfowitz just take a stroll. I think it was the day after the Paris attacks. And I just couldn't stop thinking, looking at it, being like, this is your fault, man.

Like, and I know that's reductive, but it's also not in a way. And I think what I would hope from your docu-series, the takeaway for our younger audience and your younger audience and other people listening is, you know, the maybe apocryphal Mark Twain quote is history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And it's rhyming a little bit too often lately. And, yeah, I just, I really appreciate you diving back into the topic and thinking about it and the conversation. context of 9-11 because I don't I actually think it's never been more urgent than it is right now I totally agree saga thank you thank you Tucker I appreciate your time I just normally do straight stand-up but this is a bit different what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club answer a new podcast called wisecrack where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true

crime story does anyone know what show they've come to see it's a story it's a story it's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Janica Lopez, and in the new season of the Overcomfit Podcasts, I'm even more honest, more vulnerable, and more real than ever. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time?

Join me for conversations about healing and growth. All from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen. Listen to the new season of the Overcombered podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The Super Secret Bestie Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy chisement. Terrible love advice. Evil spells to cast on your ex.

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