The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Inside the Mind of Tucker Carlson with New Yorker Writer

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by Jason Zengerle, political journalist and author of “Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.” Jason Zengerle joined The New Yorker in 2026, as a staff writer covering politics. He previously wrote for the Times Magazine, GQ, New York, and The New Republic. He is a winner of the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting and has been a New America fellow.

It's gone. Better learn how to face it. Oh. I can't hear that song enough. I got to cut the first eight bars off. We should start here. This is live from the table. The official podcast of the World Famous Comedy Cellar,

available wherever you get your podcast, and specifically available on YouTube for that multimedia experience. This is Dan Natterman. I'm here with Noam Dwarman. of the comedy seller with locations in New York City and Las Vegas, Nevada. We have Perry Alashan brand with us.

Hello. And joining us via Zoom, we have Jason Zangerly, a staff writer for the New Yorker, and author of Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson, and the unraveling of the conservative mind.

This will no doubt be an interesting discussion, as Noam is sort of obsessed with Tucker Carlson these days. I'm not the only one. Hello, Jason. Hello. Welcome to our podcast.

I'm sure Noam has a lot of questions for you. We all do. We all do. Oh, there it is. There's this book on his left, if it's not reversed. Yes, the publicists made sure that I do that. So it doesn't usually sit there, but for these kind of interviews. Hated by all the right people, right?

That's what it's called? That's what it's called. Yeah. That's a quote from Tucker himself. Is it selling well? It should be. I can't imagine a better topic for a book these days. That's a good question.

Actually, they haven't told me the sales figures yet. So I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign. It's a good sign. It's a good sign. Okay. All right. Let's start off with this because it doesn't get enough attention in my opinion. I don't know if your book handles it.

And to me, it's the threshold question which can, depending on the answer to this, everything else becomes in a different light. Is Tucker Carlson mentally ill? He claims he was mauled by demons. He claims that the United States has alien cadavers that we're studying. He believes in chemtrails. He believes that Alex Jones is a divinely inspired prophet. He believes that there are satanic beings that live under the water that kill people and have been there for thousands of years.

Now, if my wife said these things to me, I would think she's mentally, if I went to the hospital, I'm going to let you talk and say, if I went to the hospital and I had bleeding all over, and it's a moment, I would think she's mentally, Mr. Dorman would happen. I said, well, I was mauled by demons. They would not let me go home. And I'm not even being exaggerating. They would say, okay, sir, well, step right this way. We're going to have to put you under observation. So is he mentally ill? You know, I'm not a doctor. I can't say he's mentally ill. I mean, I do say in the book that he's descended into madness. And it was with the kind of things you're talking about, that's what I had in mind when I said that. Whether that qualifies like his mental illness, I, you know,

I don't know, but he has definitely gone off the deep end on a number of topics and with a number of things that he said and that he says he believes that, yeah, I think he's not always operating in the reality that the rest of us share. Well, I mean, I'm going to push you on that because to me it's not something that somebody can just gloss over if they're going to explain to him across him, because if he's not mentally ill, then obviously what we're saying is that he's a tremendous fraud. I mean, just a con man of the worst order who's making up these ridiculous stories, I guess to appeal to religious Christians, who knows what he thinks he's,

who he's jazzing up by saying he was mauled by demons. Or, obviously, we all know that if somebody thinks they were mauled by demons, they're mentally ill, right? This is, we all, we don't need to be a doctor. I don't, well, I don't know if they're mental. I mean, look, like there's a whole, I mean, there's a strain of Christian, you know, Christianity that believes in demonology, believes in demons, believes in spiritual warfare. I mean, I don't subscribe to that. Like, I'm Jewish.

It's not, it's not my faith. Thank God. But there are, there are people whose faith tradition, you know, that's what, that's what it believes. And I don't know. I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit hesitant to say that that means you're mentally ill. Well. Are we okay, Steve? I mean, I can keep talking.

Do we have the audio still? You still there, Jason? Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? People are getting a little treat to like a little behind the scenes, high-tech stuff there. So, let's just have this out because, yes, Christians believe. So. I mean, not Christian Jews, all religious people believe in the supernatural.

Mm-hmm. And yet, when you show up at the high. hospital bleeding and you claim that it was happened supernaturally that's mental illness. It doesn't matter what Christians believe. And in the same sense that if I'm a, if I wake up next to my wife bleeding and dead and I tell the cops she was mauled by demons, I had nothing to do with it. Nobody for a second says, well, you know, it could be. I mean, Christians believe.

No Christian has ever been on a jury and said, not guilty. I think mauled by demons. They don't actually believe that. And as a matter of fact, it also shows a megalomania because to think you're mauled by demons has to think that you're really upsetting the demons. Like, I, of the 300,

how many billion people in the world? Nine billion people in the world. I'm getting to them. They picked me. Me, they picked me to mall because I must be saying things that really get on a demon's nerve. So, yes, come on.

Of course this is his mental illness. I'm more comfortable diagnosing with megalomania than outright mental illness. I mean, he doesn't seem to function like a mentally ill person. You know, I mean, irrespective of his claim that he was mauled by demons, he goes about his life, he functions, he works, you know, certainly better than I function. I mean, so he says you're not mentally ill. So did Ted Bundy.

I mean, I don't know that that means that, you know, you're not severely mentally afflicted, right? Like you can go about your business and also be... Let's leave the demons aside. Wait, can I just say one thing just to push back a tiny bit just for fun almost? I mean, the Jews during Passover leave an empty chair for an invisible person to come and get a glass of wine. He doesn't come to your... The cup does go down. I mean, the wine goes down in the cup, right?

You've seen it. In my house, it does. But, okay, so let's listen, I think this question is, quite important. It is. But beyond that, then there's a question of the things he believes, like underwater demons that the United States. Yeah, he said that to, to, I didn't know if there are demons. Okay, I knew the underwater part. I think I didn't know. He says they're underwater, people, they're either good or bad, and these are bad, meaning like, you know, good versus evil. Like, these are a satanic, essentially. And this is the same conversation where he said that Alex

Jones is a supernatural prophet um does he he believes that stuff and what does that say about him yeah i mean look like the big question that and i guess this a lot and it's it's something that you know journalists talked about a lot like just Tucker actually believe what he's saying and or is it just a cynical you know ploy on his part to to get audience um i don't i don't know the answer to that and i think it's kind of the wrong question whether he believes it or he doesn't like he's saying it and and people believe him when he says it. I think that's what kind of matters. I mean, I think on a pure, just on a pure like sort of human nature level,

like whether he was saying these things out of cynicism to begin with, he now says them enough and he says them frequently enough and he's been rewarded for it, that I think he believes it. All right. Well, one argument I might make to say that he does believe it. And let's go back to him. Did you look into his early life? Like, can you, what in Young Tucker Carlson?

You ever see that movie, that movie with Albert Brooks defending your life? Yeah. If we can see young Tucker Caldney's the awesome, like defending your life, Tucker Carlson, what scenes are we aware of, which would explain

today's Tucker Carlson? And also I was going to say, his brother seems to share a lot of his, like, hateful, wacky ideas. So that would,

I mean, I guess mental illness can run in families, or I don't know, what do you have to say about all that? I mean, so I didn't, I didn't,

like, write a proper biography of Tucker Carlson because he's not, he's not, that interesting and he's not that significant. I mean, it's a book about his sort of his professional life as much as anything. But, you know, I do like get into his, his background a bit. And, you know, he, I mean, the, the seminal moment of his childhood was his parents getting divorced when he was six. And then his father getting sole custody of him and his little brother when he was eight. And he

never saw his mother again after that. He talked to her, I think, a couple times. But when she passed away when he was an adult, she left him and his little brother a dollar in her will. And she's from a very wealthy family. You know, it's kind of the ultimate, like, screw you. And she was Jewish? That would explain a lot.

Go ahead. Go ahead. She was high was for what's worth. So he never got any. He never got any of that TV dinner money that everybody talks about? So the TV dinner money is his stepmother. His dad married two heiresses.

His first wife, Tucker's mother, is from the Miller family, which is like this really prominent, wealthy California family. Henry Miller, who was the largest landowner in the United States in the 19th century, that's her great, great, great, great-grandfather. And that was, you know, that was that fortune he never saw any of. And then I think by the time his stepmother passed away, the Swanson, the Swanson frozen, food fortune had been kind of depleted as well. I mean, he doesn't need the money. He's doing pretty well on his own. But in terms of like his childhood, like he had an unusual childhood. I mean, you know, he was raised by his dad.

There weren't a lot of single fathers in the 70s. His dad was a character. His dad was an amazing sort of self-creation. He was a guy. He was an orphan. He was a juvenile delinquent in high school, got kicked out of high school, joined the Marines. He had all sorts of weird kind of runy-nest jobs until eventually he became a television reporter in Southern California.

He was an investigative reporter and then an anchor man. He was actually an anchorman in San Diego and he was such a kind of like ridiculous sort of TV guy back then that when the Will Ferrell movie came out, Anchorman, some of his friends like thought that the Ron Burgundy character was actually modeled on Dick Carlson. I actually asked Adam McKay when I was doing the book if that was the case and it turned out he was modeled on a Detroit Anchorman. But that was that was sort of who Dick Carlson was. he was just kind of this swaggering presence.

You know, and Tucker, like, his two best friends in his life, I think, were his father who passed away last year and then his little brother, Buckley, who is still alive and has become a social media star kind of in a strange twist in the last few months. First of all, I know we Jews tend to, you know, see everything in terms of psychology and therapy and all this nonsense. But I just want to say, my parents divorced when I was five. or six years old. My father kept me. I was the only child of a single, of a broken home in my entire school. And I did see my mother again, but very, very rarely, you know, whatever.

I don't buy any of that clap trap as any kind of excuse. You can draw a causation line backwards towards anything you want. Well, he had, he, he's a different person. everybody reacts differently to different, you know, different. Or maybe he's just nothing to do with that. Or it might have nothing to do with it. Yeah, yeah, we don't know. I mean, the defending your life scene you want is like some Jewish kid beating him up on the park. Yes.

Okay. I did not find that. I did not find that in my story. I'm sorry. So then let's get to the, so much to talk about, but, you know, we Jews. When did he turn the corner? Well, you believe he's anti-Semitic? I think he is now. Yeah, I don't, I don't know if I would have said that a few years ago, but I think, I think the, yeah.

You want to give us a little, they say, back of the matchbook, some nation of the case of the case against Tucker Carlson? I mean, you know, he criticizes financiers and he always mentions Paul Singer and Bill Ackman. He, you know, thinks that Israel is that he thought Israel had a tip off to 9-11. He thinks Israel controls American foreign policy. You know, I mean, he refers to Zelensky as a rat-like persecutor of Christians. You know, just every trope, every dog whistle he employs these days. What did you think of the homocedar comment? That was a good one, yeah. Yeah, implying that the Jews killed Jesus and that they also were behind killing Charlie Kirk as well. That was, yeah, that was nice.

Yeah, no, I think, yeah, I think he's gone there. Well, and, you know, okay, so I know a little backstory about him that, You may not know. I've talked about it, but I used to have a relationship with Daryl Cooper. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. I mean, I never actually met him in person,

but we'd email and we'd tweeted each other, and it was on my podcast. So this is what I know about that. Daryl Cooper met with Tucker Carlson the night before their interview. And Daryl Cooper and he and Tucker discussed David Irving. and David Irving's theory that Jewish financiers were responsible for installing Winston Churchill on the condition that Churchill would then turn his guns on Germany. And Tucker was enthralled with this argument,

and he peppered and kept peppering Daryl Cooper with questions during the interview until Daryl Cooper shared this David Irving theory. So it was very important to Tucker that the notion that the Jews were behind World War II was aired on his show. And then if you listen to that interview, there's another little reference with discussing free speech.

And Tucker says, yeah, well, not in Austria. Because David Irving was brought up in charges in Austria. So... A lip-stap book and all that. Yeah. So maybe that was... Maybe it was a lip-stab. No, I don't think that's, I think it was for a Holocaust denial. Okay, got it.

This is very, this to me is the most damning of all because the notion that the Jews were behind World War II. This is like, first of all, it's right out of like Hamas charter. But it's also the most whacked out. You can't even make the case, right? It's not evidence-based. And only someone who hates Jews. is into that stuff. So any comment about all that?

And there's other things he said, yeah. It's a good, it's an interesting story. And do you, I mean, and Cooper subscribes to the Irving theory? I don't think there's any way of denying it anymore. He, he talked out of both sides of his mouth at the time, although, but he did tell me that this story that I told you. Yeah. If you follow Cooper's work, he parrots David Irving theories now.

And lately he's actually even called people like this Thomas 777 and this guy call Rattle like actual Nazis, his mentors, his intellectual mentors. So Cooper's really showing himself. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just like another piece of evidence. And I should have mentioned the Cooper interview because that was that was another one. And just, you know, and the way, I mean, I find like the debate about platforming kind of, you know, tired.

and I, I, it's, it's the way you conduct the interview and, and the way you introduce the person and that, you know, the way he, I mean, what did he call Cooper like the most, the most popular and most vital historian in the United States? I think the best, best popular historian work in America, something like that. Yeah. And he, the, the, the Christians who claim, and it turned out to be, I think they were Hamas supporters. Yeah, some of the, the Palestinian Christians. Yeah. And of course, Nick Flentes, we get back to Nick Flintez. And, and he doesn't seem to ever interest himself with people. on the other side. I'm uncomfortable.

He wants to interview Netanyahu. Yeah, I hope he does him a tougher interview than he gave a Putin. I'm sure he will. I think that's, yes, I think that's likely. He does, he does, you know, anti-Semitism is such a weird word,

but he obviously has some, something. Like the Jews rile him up in some way, just the amount of time that he spends on that issue. Yeah. Indicates a kind of fascination with it and an obsession with it.

And as Hitchens had said, that's usually the best giveaway, the inability to change the subject. Yeah. And it's not that old. I mean, it's a little recent. You know, it was funny. When I was doing the book, I tried to sort of, you know, inquire among, because he used to work with a lot of Jewish people.

You know, he started the Weekly Standard and, you know, his bosses were Jewish and a lot of Jewish writers there. And he used to describe himself as an Episcopalian neocon who loves Israel. I mean, that was his own self-description back in those days. You know, but like asking like Bill Crystal and David Brooks and those guys, like, was there anything you detected back then that, you know, indicated that he had these views that he's sort of expressing so freely today? And then they honestly said they did. They're surprised by it as anybody. They just didn't see it.

This is why his brother. Not even like a casual kind of like waspy anti-Semitism. This is why his brother was so interesting to me. Did he is his, did he, did his brother follow him along on this, uh, uh, journey? of pro-Israel then to the parent anti-Semitism? Or did he diverge from his brother and then meet him back

where his family belonged always? You know, always. Yeah. I mean, his brother is always, and people have always described his brother to me as like kind of a more extreme version of Tucker. And I sort of feel like that's what you're getting right now, at least. I mean, his brother says stuff that like

even Tucker wouldn't say. And I think that's sort of kind of always been the case, but I don't know if his brother was kind of, you know, going down this Israel line before Tucker did or not. Do you believe he's a racist? Yeah, I think, I think the way he talks about, the way he talks about white people and sort of his, you know, his kind of belief in legacy Americans and things like that. And the way he talks about, you know, immigrants making the country dirtier.

Yeah, I think, I think that he certainly says racist things. Well, he had that private text that came out in a Dominion case where he came upon some people fighting in a brutal way. So that's not the way white people fight. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was an interesting. I mean, I know people, obviously, that was a disturbing line. I mean, that whole text exchange was kind of interesting.

I mean, you remember it. And it, I mean, there are moments where he shows like a certain kind of self-awareness and, and, you know, kind of recognition of how horrible some of this stuff is. And I thought that text exchange was one of them. So my feeling on these subjects is that people who are, who I would call races, who I would call anti-Semites, that doesn't mean everything from that point on is predictable. It doesn't mean they want to see people who are Jewish or not white treated unfairly.

You know, it's very complicated, it's very kaleidoscope-ish, how those views then actually manifest themselves. Because people, as I said, they like to think well of themselves. And, you know, they, I don't know how much to say about this. But I agree with you. I think he has all these problems. I think at the same time when he says that everybody should be treated without regard to their immutable characteristics,

I think he believes that too. Oh, yeah, I think he does. And I think, look, I think a lot of this is him feeling that that white people are being discriminated against. It's almost like he's trying to raise a flag on behalf of, you know, half a white man oftentimes that society is conspiring against them and treating them unfairly. And that's, and they're treating these other groups. They're favoring them.

I think that's, you know, if you were to, I think that's kind of, that that's the basis of it in a lot of ways. That's not in and of itself a racist point of view. No. No, it's not. But if it's not rooted in fact or evidence, it can turn into racism. My feeling about it is that I'm open to discussions of a lot of things. I actually enjoy conversations of a lot of things you're not supposed to speak about.

I don't mind, like when Sam Harris had that big debate with Ezra Klein about race and IQ, I thought that was an interesting conversation. As far as, I mean, I've said on this show, like, would I want 20 million Hasidic immigrants into this country? No, I wouldn't. So, like, do I think that it's automatically off base to discuss cultural characterism?

All these things, I don't like the idea that these things are just met with, you're a racist, you're this or that. Sure. But, however, it's a big, however, the more sensitive the topic is, the more I want to see real sober, careful, good faith effort from the person discussing it. And with Tucker Carlson, we have the exact opposite of that.

So the person is discussing these very sensitive subjects should not be turning a blind eye to when Candace Owens is saying all kinds of ridiculous stuff about people coming out of tunnels and the Mossad killing this one and, you know, I mean, go through the list of all the crazy stuff the Jews in 9-11, whatever it is. That is, to me, the tell. Like, it's perfectly fine with me for Tucker Carlson to discuss the fact that Israel or people overly concerned with Jewish interests are a negative influence on American politics. But to me, it's a tell when the same guy who's having that conversation embraces the most

whacked out conspiratorial people out there. And no matter what Candice Owens says, even if it's from a dream, he will say, she's awesome, right? Yeah, yeah. Or she's just asking questions. Why can't you let her ask these questions? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a very fair way of putting it.

And this is why I'm so disappointed in Megan Kelly as well. I don't know if you want to have any feelings on that whole thing before we get back to Tucker. I mean, if you want to talk about Tucker being cynical, like Megan Kelly, come on. Like, I think I think she, she goes much further down the cynicism road than he does. You do? How so? I do.

Because I just think the way she's reinvented herself and the way in which she was so, she's so scarred by losing her audience that the degree to which she's willing to kind of countenance these things today that, you know, she wouldn't have in the past. And I kind of don't think she's possibly. Do you discuss Candace at length in your book? The book is not just chuck. No, the book does not get into Candace at all. I wish if I'd had about six more, if I'd written it six months later, I think there would be a lot more about Candace Owens, more about Fuentes, more about Ben Shapiro. I mean, it would have gotten into all that stuff. But the book was done before Charlie Kirk was killed and before the Fuentes interview.

So, yeah, I don't get into that as much as I would have liked you. By the way, I don't agree with you on Megan Kelly, although I'm very upset with her. I think she just succumbed to social pressure. She did not want to get into that fight in Maga World. And she thought she could finesse it because she wants to be in the action, you know, for the Vance era. And then so she kind of tied herself to Candice Owens. and then Candice almost just dragged her down like the heaviest anchor you can imagine

and before Megan knew what was up, she was just committed. Like the stuff that came out of Candace's mouth, if that had come out first, I don't think Meg, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, that, I mean, I guess I can see that too and I still think it's, you know, it's, it doesn't sort of say good things about her.

No, no, it's not, it's not good. It's not good. All right. So I had some things in your article, just like little things. Okay, so Tucker had called Trump at one time a demonic force, a destroyer. And then you chart out his redire from that view. Explain that. I think it was two things. I mean, so he called Trump a demonic force and a destroyer after the 2020 election and I think on January 6th. So he was mad at Trump at that point. He was mad at him for losing the election. He thought Trump had run a terrible campaign. He was mad at Trump for denying that he lost the election,

which ultimately cost the Republicans a Senate seat in Georgia. And he was mad at Trump for January 6th for, you know, goading these people and destroying the capital. So that was kind of the absolute, like, rock bottom of his relationship with Trump and his view of Trump. And I think he was particularly, he was totally ready to move on from Trump, which I think, you know, everybody was at that point. But I think as time went on and he was looking around for another politician who could kind

of carry on the MAGA agenda or the Trump agenda, you know, and everybody was sort of talking about Ron DeSantis at that point, I think he was not impressed by Ron DeSantis. And I think he had some real doubts that DeSantis could be elected president. And there wasn't really anybody else he was seeing that, you know, made him feel confident that this person could do what Trump had done. And I think that started to look. lead to a bit of a rapprochement with Trump. And then I think the really probably even more significant factor was getting fired by Fox.

Like when he got fired by Fox, he lost his built-in audience. And he needed to build his own audience. And he needed to be relevant. He needed to stay relevant. And one way he could stay relevant was attaching himself to Trump in a way that he didn't do at all during Trump's first presidency. He kind of like went out of his way to not be attached to Trump. But once he didn't have Fox anymore, he really needed to stay in the picture.

And one way he could do that was, you know, playing up his closeness to Trump. He was not attached to Trump while he was on Fox. It seemed to me he was. He was. I mean, it's maybe you have to watch Fox really closely. But compared to someone like Sean Hannity or Laura Ingram who basically just anything Trump did, they praised. They were just cheerleaders for Trump.

And then off air, they, you know, they maintained like very close, cordial personal relationships with Trump. They would go to the White House. They would talk to him all that. I mean, Hannity was called the shadow chief of staff. because he was at the White House so much. Tucker, like, really tried to keep his distance from Trump off air. You know, Trump would call him and he would let it go to voicemail.

Like, he didn't want to get sucked into a personal relationship with Trump. And then even on air, you know, he didn't, he didn't, like, praise Trump the man that much. He praised Trump's policies. He praised Trump's ideology. But at the same time, when he felt Trump was, like, diverging from that ideology, he would criticize him. He had a very different kind of show than the rest of the Fox host. Well, you know, I mean, he wasn't anti-Trump by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn't, like, part of the cult of personality either. Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

And I mean, what you're saying is correct. And yet, to me, I mean, he was so all in on the border stuff and the immigrant stuff. Yeah. Well, he believed that stuff. Yeah. Well, but, yeah. But if Trump didn't, if Trump, like, went soft on the border, he would attack him. Yeah.

Whereas, like, if Trump went soft on the border hand and he'd be like, oh, well, he knows what he's doing. You know, like he, Tucker did sort of like have, he held Trump to a standard that other Fox host didn't. Well, and you're right. I would say, in your point, like, he also was early, very early became anti-vax while Trump took pride in the vaccine. Yeah. So he diverged from Trump on that. But in the end, while still on Fox, he claimed that January 6th was an inside job. And he seemed to embrace the notion that the election was fraudulent.

That was all later, though. But while on Fox, though, while before he lost job. Yeah, while on Fox, but not, but not like on January 6 itself. It took, it took a little while. But before, I'm saying before he lost his job. Before he lost his job. Yeah, no, definitely. Before he lost his job.

And, yeah, he, I mean. And I guess you can. How do you attach yourself to Trump more than claiming January 6th was a, was a setup? Well, I mean, you go to his, you know, you speak for him in his rallies and you, you know, try to influence who he picks for vice president. I mean, you know, the Patriot Purge documentary was insane, obviously, and it was a crazy conspiracy theory, but it was a conspiracy theory about, like, the deep state and the harm being brought to Trump supporters, not necessarily Trump himself, if that makes sense. I mean, Trump is not like a huge figure in those, in those, it's a three-part series. Like, there isn't a lot of Trump in it in a weird way.

It's all about Trump's, you know, poor, like the poor slubs who are now being investigated for, you know, storming the Capitol. And that's the real sort of protagonist in the documentary. I would only say that when you're, he's obviously very bright. I would guess he's brighter than Hannity or Laura Ingram. And he's very sophisticated. And he understands not to be so obvious about the cult of personality. He understands that the best thing he can do for Trump is by

going all in on his issues. I don't know. I don't know where it is. So, okay, so fast forward. Let's get to, and we'll take some calls. Let's get to the Nick Flentes interview. What's your take on the Nick Flentes interview? And his relationship with him, he thought Nick Fentz was an FBI plant.

Nick Fentz thought Tucker was an FBI or, you know, a Fed plan. Yeah, it's like the Spider-Man, man, you know, like they're all fucking crazy. Nick Fentis is the least crazy of all of them in a way, but go ahead. Well, look, yeah. He was fighting with Fuentes. He called him a Fed. He said he was a gay little kid living in his parents' basement. You think he's gay, Nick Fuentes?

I have no. Not does anything wrong with it? You think he's a Nazi? Not as anything wrong with it. He says he's not. And Tucker now says he's not gay. So, you know, I think we maybe we can put it to rest there. But they were fighting.

And he was losing the fight, basically. He was losing the fight to Fuentes. And, you know, the Groypers were turning on Tucker. And I think Tucker was worried about losing the Groyper. So he had Fuentes on his show as a peace offering, basically, as a way to get the Groykers back on his side. Because I think that he's made the calculus that you can't be successful in conservative media or conservative politics these days without appealing to neo-Nazis without their support.

And I think that's why I had Fentos on a show. You know, the problem is this one. You're a liberal person, I assume. The problem, what I think of. when I hear what you're saying is that whenever there's a criticism of a right-wing person, there is always this obvious subtext. Well, he made the calculation. Oh, it's for money.

Oh, so this or that. And yet, that analysis is never, ever applied to anybody who takes a left-wing position. I think it's applied all the time to people who take left-wing positions. Okay, you apply. Apply it to someone on the left. Go ahead. Apply it to Kamala Harris and what she said during the campaign because she would worried about angering liberal.

I mean, it's, you know, apply it to any politician who said abolish ICE or defund the police. I mean, people think that they didn't necessarily believe it, but they were worried about losing the Democratic base, with the liberal base. They were worried about getting, you know, people going to their left. To get elected, to get elected, but this kind of cynical aspect. But I, I, well, so I think Tucker, but I think you got, I think you have to think of Tucker not as like a podcaster or even as like a media figure at this point. as a political operator and as a movement leader.

And I think the calculus he's making has to do with the, it's not just like eyeballs and clicks that he's after. Like he wants these people's, you know, votes and their beliefs. And I think that, I don't know. I think you, I think at least, like, I'm a political journalist. Like, and I think I apply the same, the same sort of standards and the same sort of theories to to people on the left as I do on the right. I think a lot of it has to do with audience capture.

and being afraid of losing the base and things like that on both sides. All right. We have calls, Steve? Lines are empty right now. Lines are empty. Okay. So I have some questions about some things that you wrote. You can explain it to me. We're talking about the Nick Flentes' interview. Trump planted the seed, Fentz said, I guess, of Fentz's ideology.

And the seed was America first, Carlson replied. So once you accept that, a lot of the way, we're doing things. becomes impossible to support or justify. That's something I think it's a typo. Right. The contradiction becomes apparent, Fuentes said. It gets moved to the center and it becomes unignorable if you're consistent.

Trump, for his part, appeared to appreciate their discretion. As Carlson was being denounced by various conservatives for sitting down with Fuentes, the president defended him. I think he's good, Trump said of Carlson while speaking to reporters on Air Force One.

You can't tell him who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview a Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him. If he wants to do it, get the word out. Let him. People have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide. So what was the discretion that Trump appreciated there? I didn't understand your point there.

They didn't go after Trump for attacking Iran. They kind of, they just didn't really talk about it. So when Fuentes was on Tucker's show, it was, I don't know, what, four months, five months after the Iran attacks, which both Fuentes. and Tucker were, you know, very strongly against. And they just, they just kind of didn't bring it up. They just talked about Trump being America first and planting the seed. And, you know, and the thing that became unignorable is the, the U.S. relationship with Israel. That's what they're talking about. And, and, you know, and in Tucker's and Fentes' kind of case against attacking around, they portrayed

it as America doing Israel's bidding. But they just didn't, they just didn't talk about that when they, when they were having their interview, they kind of let Trump off the hook there. But you don't, you have no reason to know that Trump was referring to that. Like, when you say Trump appeared to appreciate their discretion, like, I mean.

I mean, they didn't criticize Trump on the broadcast. Like, that's all I meant. Like, and I, you know, I don't look who,

I don't think Donald Trump watched that, that interview. I don't think Donald Trump watches Tucker's podcast the way he watched the Fox show. But, you know, he, I think he knows when people criticize. criticize him. Right, but we also know that Trump doesn't want to pick a, not to his credit, he doesn't want to pick a fight with the Groyper's. He didn't want to pick a fight with David Duke

in 2017 or whatever it was, right? Yeah, yeah. No, I think, I think that's, that's right. Although he seems, I mean, I don't know, Trump seems a little bit more oblivious to the Groyper thing, maybe, than, like, someone like J.D. Vance, who seems like he really doesn't want to pick a fight with the Gropers. I feel like Vance is the guy who's sort of a little bit more attuned to what, what's going on there. How many, how many Groyper would you, I don't know. That'll be in the next census, I guess. I don't know. Is it an exaggerated, you know, internet thing where it's, it's, there's not as many as we think? I think they're, you know, I think the fact, it's the fact that they're disproportionately

young and they're, they're disproportionately kind of interested in this. I mean, they have, maybe, maybe they have greater influence and greater power just beyond their sheer numbers. You know, I mean, there was that, there was that Raj Rare article right after the, the Tucker Fuentes interview where he said, he was talking to people in Washington and someone estimated that, you know, 40% of Republican staffers on the hill are, you know, have Groyper beliefs. I mean, I have no one can put a number on this stuff. But, you know, I think it's, it's a not sort of, it's not a small strain of young, of young conservatives, young active conservatives these days. How do you explain it? I mean, I think it started as just kind of being transgressive,

you know, it was, uh, it was sort of a reaction to, um, you know, PC stuff and woke stuff. And it was a way to, you know, show that you were part of that. Um, but I think it's, it's gone beyond that now. Do you credit the argument that that, a white identity was created because we had seven or eight or ten years of bashing white people, of openly criticizing white people of, I mean, I would say that, as Dan knows this, like in comedy, I heard story after story about white comedian actor being told flat out, you know, we're not, don't even bother. It's just not your time.

you're not going to get hired for this job. And we saw it in hiring. I actually spoke to, off the record, some NYU liberal NYU professors who were fuming about the fact that whiteness was a knock against a person in their professional life, you know, at the... Sure.

Contrary to merit, you know, where people that everybody knew was it rolling their eyes. Do you think that contributed to the rise of Groyper's? Yeah, I think it did. Yeah, I think it did. I mean, I think like there were definitely excesses, you know, in in liberal parts of our culture, whether it was academia, whether it was comedy clubs. Yeah, I think I think that contributed to it.

I don't think it accounts for all of it. And I don't think it excuses it by any structure of imagination. No, no. But I think it accounts. I think attributed to it, yeah. It's a very deep issue. Like, it obviously doesn't excuse it. It can also become a pretextual excuse, giving you, giving you, giving me a, giving me a very deep issue.

giving one's self license for, you know, primitive hatreds. But I can remember writing emails. You're talking about two different things, identity and hatred. Well, when you have white identity, it's almost always, in my opinion, it's a Siamese twin to hatred. Yeah, they do seem to be coupled. I think you're right. Because whiteness is not a thing.

Italian is a thing, Jewish is a thing. There's various, like I can describe Greek culture, Italian culture, Irish culture. What is white? White is just a bunch of people, you know, across various different cultures who share some pigment level. But that doesn't preclude one day they're becoming a white culture or a white. If white people are being, are the victims of hatred, then they can coalesce. And that, you know. Well, they weren't so much the victim of.

of hatred. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I can get it to that. So like,

we, there was a thing that happened in, in New York where they, uh, what was it? They didn't,

they weren't giving the, the COVID relief money to owners of white rest, white owners of restaurants. Mm-hmm. This eventually got overturned by the courts. And I remember saying to myself, what, what are they doing?

Like, are they going to, are they going to, like, if I wanted to organize to organize politically, to fight this, you know, obviously unjust rule. Like, you know, as opposed to giving out aid to people, business owners based on their situation,

they're giving it out based on their race, right? I said, am I supposed to organize as white business owners? Like, like, this is, are they forcing us? Thank God it got overturned, but they were backing people into that corner, like the only way they could stick up for their rights, was to organize around whiteness. That's a crazy way of forging an identity

where previously there had been none. Now, I don't know that these Nazis living in their parents' basement have had any of these experiences. You know, like, that's Nick Fuentes' origin story, right? Like, he was a student at BU at Boston University, and he felt he was being discriminated against, and that kind of radicalized him. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I don't know. And radicalized Tucker. I have, by the way, you stepped on a, you seem like a very nice guy, but you stepped on one of my pet peeves. And I'm going to ask you about it because this is, this is, I see this all the time in left of center. Was that a call? Left of center publications. You said on one episode, Carlson would run a segment about Romanian immigrants. He referred to them less kindly who had settled in Pennsylvania town.

This irks me no end. You know, you use that word? I don't know what the word is. He said he referred to them less kindly. I'm a grown-up. Yeah. I'm a grown-up. You're a journalist.

I don't need to read your article to hear somebody referred to somebody in some way that I can just imagine for myself less kindly. Sorry, I figured you knew. I know the slurs for Iranian immigrants? Romanian immigrants? Yeah, gypsies. Did you know that? I didn't know that because I only learned that this year. Gypsies aren't actually Romanian.

They might have. lived there, but they're called Roma, the term. Their origins are elsewhere. I don't, not sure. No, but that is the slur for Romanians. It's I always think or the Roma people. I mean, it's a slur. It's a slur. Like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't call them that. And he did. Well, you can't say gypsies anymore? What, for a while? Jan yours. What about tramps and thieves?

Jan yours, the famous, the famous writer, Jan yours, who has tapestries hanging in the United Nation, but wrote a book, The Gypsies. He was raised by the gypsies. There's Gypsy music. There's an album to gypsy mandolin. I knew gypsies or whatever. I knew Romanian immigrants who tell live across the street and around the quarter from me. They always said gypsies.

Since when did, I mean... It's been a while. So you have to say Romanian immigrants? Well, Romanian Romanians are not necessarily Roma. You say it's Roma, Roma, not Romanian. The Roma people. Like, if you're in Europe and you see people like that, you refer to them as Roma.

Not gypsies. Like Nadia Komenich was not aroma. This is this. This sounds like Latin next to me. I understand. No, no, it's not. It's not. It's not. I mean, I get what you're saying, but it's not. Okay. It's like it's like the redskins, you know, with the football. What's wrong with redskins? Well, actually, you know, go ahead. There's a certain point. I mean, it's fine for a while, but then you kind of realize what it is and you, it's not, it's not a big thing to acknowledge that or change, you know, I don't, I mean, I don't, yeah, anyway. I, I, I have no comments on Redskins because, you know, if, it obviously sounds bad. And I know there were some, there have been various surveys done among Native Americans about which of these names. And to my shock,

there always seem, many of them don't mind these names at all, right? But some do. And like, and if they do, and it's like obviously has like a pretty racist origin, like, what's the, it's not that big of a hassle to not say it. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't, I don't, first of all, I'm just talking my ignorance on all these subjects. I don't know that it has a racist origin, but it might have a racist origin. Definitely has a racist origin. Well, we're talking about redskins. Yes, redskins.

Yeah. I mean, I grew up, I'm from Washington. I grew up a huge redskin fan. Like, you know, I, and I was just an idiot. I was a kid. I didn't know any better. But like, and I didn't even think about it until I was, you know, even when I was an adult. I mean, you wouldn't, you wouldn't expect the, the colonists to refer to them as Native

Americans. Like, you know, this was, this was a, this was a, this was a description of another people, which may not, which may not have a racist origin. In other words, I'm saying like the fact that I'm sure they describe, when the Native American has described the white man, I would not say that was a racist origin. I'm sure they were falling into the obvious description as easily as the white men fell into that. So like, I don't know that origin. Maybe. Now it can be used.

Skin color has a big stigma now. So, yeah. Yeah. Society evolves and you can evolve along with it and the language can evolve along with it. I think that's, you know, anyway, it's, I'm from. We somehow got sidetracks. But the gypsy thing I found fascinating because I understand that the word jipped comes is a slur based on the fact that gypsies like my like or like say he jude him down.

I get that. You're not supposed to say jude him down and maybe you're not supposed to say he jipped me anymore. But what's the, what is the bigoted origin of the word gypsy? You know, I honestly don't. I don't know if it's the origin or it just sometimes words fall out of favor. but Afro-American was the proper Negro was the proper term at one time

and then it just morphed into a term that you shouldn't use. But we don't know what the term is. They don't want to be called that. I'm asking the history Gypsy is historically tied to a long chain of misidentification, stereotypes, and persecution

and many Romani people consider it a slur. It's been, it's a fact actual era, the word comes from Egyptian. Oh my God, this is just, this just sounds to me like that. Suffice it to say if they don't like it, it's probably best not to use. Are there any surveys about them not liking it? I think we're like proving Tucker Carlson's point here going off.

No, listen, we have seen, it says a national survey of gypsy Roma and traveler people uses the word gypsy people in the documented widespread experiences of racial abuse and discrimination against those communities. Okay, we nobody denied that while the focus on live discrimination. Organizations that work in the Romani communities call it an offensive slur. Okay, I mean, listen, you can't fight City Hall. I get it. But I just, my gut tells me at 63 years old that this is not akin to the other greatest hits of slurs that we know. and my evidence is in my entire life,

not once that I ever hear anybody use Gypsy as a slur. And as I said, music was people who loved what we're describing now. Yeah. Used that word in their art and in their appreciation of those people. That was not what Tucker. Nobody used the N-word. That is not what Tucker was talking about in that segment.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was portraying these people as, you know, shitting on the ground. and throwing their trash out, and it was not said in a loving way. Yeah. Anyway, it does irk me. Maybe I was stupid that I didn't even know what you're referring to,

and maybe it was obvious the way you wrote it. Okay. Well, no, no, it's good to know. Yeah, I thought it was, yeah. We do see quite often in the Times or whatever. They'll say, called him a racial slur, called it, and they won't tell us what was actually said. And that infuriates me.

You know, tell me what was said. I'll judge, because actually, no, I take it back because actually you're you're kind of presume that everybody should agree that gypsy is just something

that should not be said and Tucker probably said well how else nobody would know what I was talking about if I hadn't said gypsies because nobody knows these terms except a bunch of you know Egghead New Yorker writers

yeah sure fair enough it's the deep state yeah there was a while when you weren't allowed to you couldn't say Latino you could Latin X everybody said

Latin X, right? Until we found out. And if I, if I, not enough people said it, apparently. And that is one away. And not everybody said it, including Latinos. Yeah, they hated it. Yeah. I think, I think the Roma gypsy thing is a little bit different. I think the actual people who were being called gypsy said they didn't want to be called that. Like, I mean, it's, they were the ones who said, we don't like this. So I think that's, that's a different, that's a different situation. I want to call them whatever they want to be called, just for the record. I think that is, I think that's the way to go. Yeah, I have no, but I do, I mean, there's songs, you know, like this song's about my gypsy heart and, you know, sweet gypsy rose. Sweet gypsy, hey, see, look, this is, this is not,

I mean, yeah, nobody, it's weird that something is a slur that nobody ever realized was a slur. Anyway, Steve, anybody? Yeah, we have, um, Jesse. Okay, you're going to take some calls, Jason. Sure. Come on, Jason, meet Jesse. Come on, Jesse. Get them. How's it going?

You guys can hear me? Hey, Jesse. Hey, so this is more of a comment. That's quite a beard you got there, Jesse. Look at that. Thanks. You're not low tea. I'll tell you that.

Go ahead. It's kind of a comment and a question as far as like conspiratorial thinking goes. I first noticed it around 2014 with astrology specifically. Like, I remember when I was in high school and when I was in college, I'm 37 now. But astrology, it was like a joke. Like, you'd read the horoscope. Everyone knew it wasn't real. And I started seeing it taken seriously around 2014.

And now, like, go into any bar club in downtown Philly. That's where I'm from. Throw a rock. And nine out of ten people are astrology people. So it started with that. and now that's kind of like a litmus test for like all other forms of bullshit that people believe now.

Go ahead. Jason, first of all, Jason, what sign are you? God, is your question. I'm a Virgo, I think. September. I like the way he pretended. No, no, I always get Leo and Virgo confused. Those are the two I know because they're right next to each other.

So are you aware of this astrology craze? No, no, not at all. I mean, I, you know, I see that, like, New York Magazine has an astrology column, but that's like... You guys are probably too old. Pick a random Gen Z person. Yeah, that's... That's interesting. There were always a lot of people that believed in astrology.

But they were usually women and gay people. I think everybody's self-diagnosing themselves, so that... And there's all this astrology to fit yourself, too. That's our engineer, Steve. So, Jesse, so I don't, I mean, I don't spend too much time in a social. are you saying that Gen Z now just believes in astrology? Yes. I would say eight out of ten people.

So like if you meet a girl in a bar or something, you have to pretend that you believe this stuff in order to close the deal? I agree with the caller. But my broader point is that it's all connected to conspiratorial thinking. It starts with something innocuous and develops if left unchecked. Yeah, well actually, I mean, Jason, yeah, conspiratorial thinking is actually. the the overriding issue here. That's why Tucker Carlson is so dangerous and what he stands for.

You have any insights into conspiracy theories? Yeah, I mean, a lot of people believe in them. And I think more people believe in them now than they did, you know, 10 years ago. I think they use it. But do you think that astrology is a gateway drug to, as this, as Jesse seems to be implying? Yeah, I have not put those things together before. but I mean, you could see how it might be, right?

I mean, you might say the same thing about religion, which is no, you know, I don't think any more rational than astrology. Oh, Dan. For some reason, you don't see the same overlap with traditional religion that you do with astrology and conspiratorial thinking. That's just something I've noticed. We're going to let Jesse go. I just going to tell you before you go, Jesse,

that I actually did years ago come across a study. I think it was in Denmark, someplace, around there, where they correlated personality traits with the season, the season that people were born. And they found some correlation. They didn't speculate as to why whether, you know, it was actually the weather when you were born or maybe the type of people. Nobody knew. But it occurred to me when I read that, like, well, you know, if that's true, then I guess astrology could have some basis in truth. But I don't believe it. And I, you know, I don't even know if I believe that study. But there was, you can look it up. There is some science out there somewhere. I know I read it

that can track personality traits with the weather or the season when you were born. Okay, thanks, Jesse. Anybody else, Steve? Of course, there's other, there's other astrologers, too. There's, you know, Chinese zodiac. Yeah, well, that's much more plausible, you know. What year or your board. I think I was born in the year of the cock. I don't doubt it. It's funny because I once almost, I guess we're going to wrap up soon. I almost did a business deal with a Chinese lady, a brilliant Chinese lady, one of the best operators and business people I've ever met in my life, super bright, everything. And before we would, she would do the deal, she had to know my date of birth. and the time, I think, the date and time of my birth,

and she had to run it by a fortune or whatever, a Chinese astrologer. And then she came back, she said, okay, I can go forward with this. It was completely run-of-the-mill within her culture that you would check this before you made a deal. And also, there's been documentaries of China where they had these mirrors.

You've ever seen these businesses shine these mirrors at each other because they reflect the evil spirits on their competitors and things like this. And you guys are talking about Tucker Carlson being insane? I mean, this is like you're willing to like write this brilliant Chinese lady off? It's like that's like you're going to accept that as not just like completely maniacal? I think there is quite a difference between believing in having traditions and believing in a certain kind of moment. Jumbo, Jumbo.

Wait, wait. So, like, everything's great. You're about to do this, like, potentially great business deal. But if you're, I don't know, like what, and then, like,

the whole thing, I had been a cock. The whole thing's called off. Like that. We got another call. Yeah, we got Nate. Come on, Nate.

I hope we get a Tucker supporter. Come on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had this guy with the, with the plane and the, background. Go ahead, Nate. From France. You live in. Okay, keep it tight, though. Jason's got to go. I live in France at the moment. So I'd be interested in if Jason has any, any, so I think a criticism of journalism on the left

where I think it's easy to dislike Tucker because he's not really a genuine person and other people like Alex Jones. I think on the left, you know, if you take like the Trump comment of the very fine people on both sides, a criticism I would have for the left is that often And journalists believe that, you know, this was taken out of context. I'm sure Noam can elaborate on that. But then journalists will report on this as if this is exactly what he said and this was contextually correct. And so I feel like journalists on the left often say things they think are true.

So they're genuine, but they're misinformed when it can be a case of, you know, for example, the Trump comment. Do you think there's any valid criticism to the left in a general sense? I think there's an asymmetry there. Thanks. Jayes. I guess I'm a little confused by the question. I mean, you think that people,

and like the Trump-Charlesville comment? The people- Yeah, so you have a lot of, you know, you have a lot of report of this is exactly what he said and this is what he meant, right? And I think that was taken out of context. But how was it taken out of context? I guess I'd be curiously.

Well, he then, I don't remember the exact quote, but he said something like, there's very fine people on both sides, not those. He said, I'm not talking about the white supremacide, denounced them unequivocally or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, I mean, come on, like, very fine people on both sides. Like, it was a white supremacist rally.

No, no, no, he was. And it's not what he meant, no, no, no. This is quite interesting because he, I, I think Nate is right here. Nate, I think Nate's right here. Nate, yes. From France. They do this all the time. Who's they?

The mainstream media or the, whatever he's right. They, they, they, they. They kill the lily. I am not here to defend Trump's comments one way or another. I'm saying as a consumer of news, don't leave something out of the story that when later I happened to find out about it, I say, wait, they didn't tell me that.

Well, that's a bit different. It may not, it may not inoculate, it may not wipe his hands clean, but you didn't mention he also said he denounced them. Now, as far as it being a white supremacist rally, yes, it was a white supremac rally, but there were also apparently from record. There were people there who were protesting the taking down of Confederate statues.

No, no, no, no, no, no. It was a white supremacist rally that was held in Charlottesville to protest the taking down of statues. But it wasn't like there were civil war reenactors who were there on their own. I mean, it was an explicitly white supremacist rally. They tried to, like, lob onto this other cause, but like the rally itself. Yeah, this is, I don't think you're 100% right about the, the black and white notion of who was in the crowd.

nevertheless, I just don't see, and I go through this as a business owner, where my people reporting to me about a story that happened, is constantly waited to the side that they lead me by the nose to the conclusion that they want me to, and they don't want to take any chances with any facts when they tell me the story that I might diverge from the path that they already want me to take on my take on a story.

So I don't see any responsible journalist, no matter what they think who leaves out of the story I agree with that I completely agree but he said I denounce the any more than

or any more than if I had said if all I had told you was did you see the rally yesterday Trump denounced the the white supremacists

unequivocally and then a month later you said but wait you didn't leave me you didn't leave out the part where he said you left out the part where he said

there's good people on both sides you didn't tell me that all you told me was that he denounced them you'd be like what the fuck you had to tell me both sides I mean, I would have to go back and read every news article,

but I think they, I mean, they include the whole quote, right? They don't include the whole quote. Just like on January 6th. And I'm not defending Trump. They cut out the part, even in the January 6th committee, they cut out the part where he said, I want you to go peacefully and patriotically. Now, you can roll your eyes all you want at the fact that he didn't mean it,

whatever the fuck you want to think about what he said. But he said it. And it's not journalism if you edit it out of the story. And there's tremendous anger in consumers of news about this sort of thing. Tremendous. Yeah. I mean, I would be very curious. And I guess I will when this is over.

I'll go read the, you know, the Times and the Post stories on that day and see if they printed that quote. The Times and the Post stories on that day may have pulled. But since then, they get dropped. Well, I mean, well, sure. I mean, you can't. It may and I say, look at the January 6th committee. They cut it out of the video. Like, that's, that's, that's insane.

Okay. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, and the resident when they're, look, we know that, I know that nine out of 10 people for a long time, nine out of 10 people I spoke to had no idea that Trump had said, I denounce the wise premise is unequivocally. So somehow they, the, it was really. And there's, yeah, things get boiled down to a shorthand. Sure. I think that, that is, that is true. But, but go back and check.

Go back and check. Go back again. We want to take another call? You have time? One last call? Thanks for that question. Thanks, guys. Is it getting too high?

Is this Nate again? No. You got somebody there, Steve? Go ahead, one more. Are you enjoying these calls, Jason? Yeah, sure. No, it was interesting. It's good to hear from the...

Guram? You're on? Garam? A long time listener. Just want to say, just love this show. Oh, thank you, Grom. What kind of name is Garam? Is this gypsy?

No, but it's just like a throwaway email. I use. so uh it's a wedding that's what's it's throw away email oh okay oh i see good so that's why i came up like that okay oh go on or yeah okay i just want to say i just want to say i love just want to say i love the trail all right bye that's it oh that was nice all right if we if we if we have nobody else we're gonna where we had you for the full hour um i'd love you to come down to the club i i find this this this this Tucker Carlson thing is it lights me on fire but Your book encompasses more than just Tucker.

It's the whole... It's kind of little... I mean, I use Tucker as like this vehicle to tell kind of this larger story of, you know, conservative media and conservative politics over the last 30 years, basically. He's... It has a lot of characters in it. It's not just Tucker. But he is the main one.

On a... If Trump is a... Well, I don't know how to put it, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how much worse is J.D. Vance? How much a bigger threat? do you think he is to how you would like to see the country be than Trump was? I think Jady Vance is a lot more consistent than Trump. I think he, you know, I think his ideology is like more consistent and coherent.

In a bad way. I think Tucker says, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be my, my ideology of choice. I mean, one thing I've been really surprised about just like in talking to people sort of in the course of like doing some of the book promotion stuff is especially talking to Jewish people. and Jewish conservatives. And I don't know, maybe this is, maybe this describes you. I don't know when you talk about being on fire about Tucker, like how, you know, they all feel that, or some of these people feel that, you know, as long as Donald Trump is president, things are going to be fine. Like, because at the end of the day, Trump has Jewish grandchildren and, you know, that that will be important. But it's what comes after Trump that is of a concern.

And if, you know, if J.D. Vance sort of keeps on going down this path that they, they say Tucker is leading. him, bad things are going to happen. And, you know, and I'll say, like, what, what do you, what are you worried about? Like, you worried about, you know, U.S. not supporting Israel anymore. And this one person I was talking to said, like, no, no, I'm worried it's going to become dangerous to be a Jew in America. And that, that level of concern, I think, is real. And, and, and surprising to me, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't quite clock that it was, it was like that. And I don't know, like, why are you, like, why are you so fired up about Tucker? Well, I'm fired up about, I thought we're talking J.D. Vance.

Okay, but let's say J.D. Vance and Tucker are kind of aligned at the moment. Yeah, well, it's not, although the Israel and the Jewish thing, obviously, is very upsetting to me. I was actually on fire about Tucker while he was on Fox, while he was getting into all sorts of conspiracy theories. Going back to conspiracy theories about Podesta and the Mueller report, I saw him gradually losing it. And then the anti-vax stuff where he was getting people, I think got people killed. but going forward the best illustration to me is of jd vans is i think he's a true believer isolationist trump is not no uh and the best evidence of this was that signal chat which got leaked to geoffrey goldberg yeah where jd vans was expressing resentment that we were involved in trying to make was

it the persian golf like to make sure that there's freedom of the seas and says i'm really tired of bailing out the Europeans. I hope the president, you know, if the president wants to do this all right, but I don't think he, he actually said, I don't know if he understands XYZ. And this to me, the second we have an American president who everybody has his number, that he does not want to be involved in the world in any way, in a, in a projecting American power in any way, I think this is very, very, very, very dangerous for the world, very dangerous. Very dangerous. And that worries me more. Of course, it's not good for Israel, but actually,

Israel's pretty freaking powerful. Like, I don't, I'm not thinking that Israel is going on it. I don't know what's going to happen between Russia. I mean, they would let, Trump talks it a bit, but in the end, he doesn't do it. I believe J.D. Bans, who just say, go ahead, take Ukraine. We're not giving it another time. Just take them.

Just roll over Ukraine. And then China will take Taiwan. And then, you know, who, and who else is emboldened by that kind of. of communication from the American president. I think we're playing with fire with this guy. And I hate him, by the way, and also hate him. Do we have a call? I think so.

I heard a ding ding. Steve? I think Goram called. There it is. Garam is back? Yeah. No, I did figure out how to question. I just want to ask Jason.

I'm not sure if you remember. There was a legal recording of, like, Tucker, like, Kassiena, Iraqis. He said it back in the day. and I know that you mentioned in other interviews that you think Tucker changed after the daily caller time period. Do you think his views predated daily caller or like after that it became a- Views on views on what? It's like white national, white nationalism, racialism, like that side. I mean, it seemed like the caller was sort of accelerated.

it if he, I mean, he was definitely like an immigration restrictionist. He was going down that road before the caller. I mean, that's, I think that sort of started after the Iraq war and kind of his reconsideration of Buchanan of Pap Buchanan. I think that he started getting to be more nativist on immigration stuff after, after Iraq. But the real kind of, you know, hard edged kind of white nationalist stuff that, you know, these people he was hiring at the caller. And the articles they were running, I think he saw, you know, they did good numbers. And I think it sort of suggested to him that there was an audience for that stuff. So I think the caller was like a pretty important chapter.

See, this is the thing. I just want to make this point one last time because I think it's very important just as a methodology. It's easy to say Tucker does all these things because of the business incentives, the social, whatever it is. And yet his brother is even more extreme

in this direction than he is. And he has none of those explanations. So he's just following his, but he's following. following Tucker's... You follow me? It's like it's something... There's something...

Like, it's possible what you're saying is true, but it gets stated as fact. And yet the fact that his brother is even more extreme without any of these incentives to me implies, well, no, this could be actually much closer to... That's why I asked you,

where was the family? Did he come home with these beliefs back to where his family beliefs kind of were? These are important things to know. There's something in the water or the TV dinner. Yeah, something.

You follow me. It's like, well, that explains Tucker and what explains his brother? Yeah, but, you know, his brother wasn't saying this stuff however many years ago either. And I just view his brother. I do think his brother is just a more extreme version of Tucker. And I think his brother says the things that Tucker feels like there's still a few things that Tucker can't say. And Buckley doesn't have those constraints on him. I think, you know, I think that Buckley sort of has oftentimes kind of been where Tucker is politically.

And I, you know, Tucker, I don't know, Buckley doesn't have like the paper trail that Tucker has, obviously. He wasn't on TV all the time. He wasn't writing all the time. But no one I talked to suggests that Buckley was like leading Tucker in this direction. So is this the last thing I was here? So is it what you're saying this? Because I remember in college, we were told about a psych study. I think it was apocryphal.

I don't think it actually happened where the class, like one side of the class, they were all in it. one side of the class paid very rapt attention to the professor giving a lecture, laughed at his jokes and whatever. And the other side of the class kind of zoned out, didn't respond. And supposedly, by the end of the lecture, the professor had moved completely over to the one side of the class. I was paying attention, but he never really realized what he was doing. Are you saying that Tucker is aware,

cynically that he's scratching the back, as it were, of what this audience wants, or is he just found himself with these new beliefs insidiously because of the positive feedback? And he doesn't even realize, like, he actually really believes it now, but it's, and it's not cynical, it's just because of that psychological phenomenon. At the daily caller in this website he ran, he had like the web metrics, he had the numbers. he saw what people were reading. And he wanted to get more people to read the site. So he would do the kind of articles that they were reading.

So if they liked articles about black on white crime, he would do more articles on black on white crime. If he liked articles that talked about how dirty immigrants were, or people like those, he would do more of those. Like he was literally just following the numbers. I mean... And in that process, he changed what he believes? In that process, he gained an appreciation for what the conservative base wanted

and what was possible. and the distance that was between kind of what establishment Republicans thought they wanted and what they actually wanted, which made him recognize that, you know, that Trump was going to be a force. But he recognized that before a lot of other people. Listen, in the olive tree, I'm trying to say like on Israel, does he, is he still pro-Israel and just feed? No, he's not pro-Israel. So he changed his beliefs. Yes, he changed his beliefs.

But that, I think, had to do more. I mean, you know, like, that had to do more with Iraq than the daily call. On these other issues, like in the olive tree, we have a steak, and we serve it with this rub. I hate the rub. Whenever I have friends, I tell them don't get the steak with the rub. But customers like the rub. It's good.

So I serve it to them. I like the rub. But I don't ever pretend I like it. I can serve them something I don't believe in because they like. In other words, I can be the editor of the magazine and say, yeah, run the white victim stories because that's how we make our money. But that would never make me believe this white national stuff. But I don't understand whether Tucker has come to believe it, actually.

I think he has come to believe it. I don't know if you're familiar with Richard Hananias article. It's like the billionaire, the billionaire, the cat's are two billionaire pipeline. It's like you see all this stupid shit on Twitter on Twitter, and then they actually believe it. All right, we're going to let, yeah, that's, we're going to let him go. I don't know if Jason reads Richard Hanani or Richard Hanani. I do, he's a fascinating good. Yes, yeah, no, I do.

I do read his stuff. And yeah, and I'm familiar with that, sort of how, you know, all these tech billionaires got red-pilled. I would, I would like you to come to the cellar and get your opinion on the rub. I think I maybe, I might have even had that once. I think I've actually been to the cellar. And I've been, there's like a restaurant upstairs, right? Yes, yes. The olive free cafe.

I've been there. Yeah, I don't know if I had the rope, though, but I'll have to come back. Where are you located? In North Carolina. Oh, right. He said the better one of the Carolinas. So it's a bit of a ways away. But we figured you're right for the New Yorker.

You must be in New York. I do go to New York, yeah. All right. Well, and I have a beef with Claire Malone, too, but I'll take that up the next time I'll meet you. Okay. Sir, thank you very much for taking the time. Show us your book. Hold up.

Hold, hold you a book. Oh, yeah. You know, it's back to the publicist. I had to put it back there. Take it. Take it to show it to the cameras. Good. All right.

Don't be shy. Don't be shy. All right. Hated by all the right people. Hated by all the right people. And the subtitle is? Unraveling of the conservative mind. And then these are Tucker's.

This is, you know, his nicotine stuff? His nicotine. You know, he started his own nicotine pouch company. Oh, no. Zins are gay, according to Tucker. Can you write a nonfiction book without a subtitle? Maybe a biography. Can you hold it up?

Can you hold it up again? The book? Sure. I'd be happy to. Okay. Hated by all the right. That's a good imitation. That is good.

I wasn't imitating. How are you, you're allowed to use a picture of him? Or is that like an artistic rendition so you could do whatever you want? It's a public figure. Yeah, I think it's fair use, I'd imagine. But I don't know. I didn't that was above my pay grade I just wrote it all right well I hope the book is very successful you're very nice man uh have fun down south in in trump country I'm sure I'm sure they love you down

there you have been in North Carolina uh I have I've driven I was is that that South of the border is that that South Carolina yeah yeah no North Carolina is like the um that triangle what they call that triangle the research trial research trial but also it has like one of the the supposed best schools for universities for Jewish kids these days. Which one is that? Elon. Oh, Elon. All right.

Sir. Thanks. Bye, bye, everybody. Thank you very much. Good night. Bye. Thanks.