The Megyn Kelly Show - Tucker Carlson on the Media's Deception, the ADL's Attacks, and Armor Against Criticism | Ep. 167

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Tucker Carlson to discuss the mainstream media’s enforcement of lies about the border, new Chris Cuomo sexual assault accusations from former boss Shelley Ross, the ADL calling for Tucker’s termination, the state of journalism and the book industry, learning from early failures, how his childhood shaped his optimistic perspective, the toxicity of the cable news business, the joys of living off the grid, and much more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, I'm joined by my good friend Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel, among other offerings that he is putting out into the world these days. Tucker, so good to see you. Thank you so much for doing this. Oh, Megan, I'm grateful to be here. Thank you. I'm very psyched about this show. Is it true you're in your closet? My team is telling me you're in your closet. And you do appear to be in a closet. I'm in actually our barn, where this is my office. It's a very old barn and our studio's here. So I

have an office in it and it looks like a barn. It looks amazing, actually. I really like what I'm seeing there. All right. An undisclosed location. We don't need to get any more specific than that. Can I just start with breaking news today on our moral betters over at CNN? I did a whole segment yesterday with my legal team. I love Mark and Arthur, and we talked about Don Lamon. And he's being sued for sexual assault by a guy who says Lemon fondled himself and rubbed his hands all over the guy's face. I mean, Arthur Aydala was saying, that's worth five million. I don't care whatever he's asking for. It's too little. And then now today the news breaks that Chris Cuomo is being accused of sexually harassing a woman several years ago when he was at ABC. His boss, Shelley Ross, has gone on the record in New York Times op ed saying we went to a party. I was no longer his boss. I just shifted off the show or he shifted off the show or he'd shifted off the show, whatever. And he greeted her and he gave her a big bear hug and he grabbed her ass. He squeezed her ass and then like was horrified to see her husband sitting. Tucker, you can't make it up these. I don't even know if I would have

touched the story. Right. It's like it sounds like a Nimrod stupid ass thing to do. You know, it's dumb. And he apologized for it. It's clear he did it because she's got him in writing, admitting that he did something bad. He's sorry. But I'm so sick of these guys every night coming out, attacking regular Americans for being awful because of whatever, you know, some innocuous comment or their immutable characteristics or whatever it is. Meanwhile, you know, these are terrible people behind the scenes. Well, the whole thing is so Freudian. That's I think that exactly what you said. I think that every single day. I mean, if you're sort of happy with yourself and your relationships with other people, if you have a happy marriage and a cohesive family and your co-workers like you, the people you're in charge of respect you, you know, it gives you a different vantage. If by contrast, you're tormented like a character

in Edgar Allen Poe's story by your own sins, you know what a completely rotten person you are and your whole life is devoted to creating this facade to protect that truth from being known, then you're apt to lash out against other people. That's why they always accuse you of exactly what they themselves are doing. It's unerring. It's every single time. And all of this grows out of the fact that these are super damaged, unhappy, rotten people. How they get in positions of power is my question. How did you wind up? So you had a powerful dad in the media industry whose name was well known. Chris Cuomo had a powerful dad in the politics industry whose

name was well known. How did how did you wind up normal, successful with a nice family? And he winds up being accused of stuff like this out there lecturing everybody night with his stupid muscle building videos. He's obviously got something going on. I don't know what his problem is, but there's not, so there's something not right. And I, you can't root it in being the son of a powerful guy. Cause that doesn't happen to every son of a powerful guy. No, it doesn't. I mean, I, you know, I can only speak for myself, but I I'm the product of a lot of failures and unhappiness, which, and, you know, suffering, which I think, you know, befalls all of us at some point. I mean, I don't need to tell

you, you know, unexpected things happen in your life and you either become much improved and you understand yourself more deeply and you're calmer or the opposite happens. You become crazed and nasty. In my case, you know, I struggled for years with drinking too much. I quit 20 years ago. I got fired and completely ran out of money, had to sell my house out from under, you know, four kids. That really changed my view of everything. And then I was in a plane crash 20 years ago next month. And, and I obviously survived, but all, you know, those are three really bad things, but each one of them completely changed the way I behave. I mean, I don't think I was ever the pig that Chris Cuomo clearly is, but I mean, I, I was a much different

person 25 years ago because like Chris Cuomo, you know, I was pretty successful young. I got on TV in my twenties and, and I think it made me into kind of a jerk. And the only thing that saved me was failing and being humiliated, like really humiliated where your neighbors avert their gaze when you pull into the driveway at night kind of thing. Like everybody hated me. People do hate me, but, but that was just so good for my soul. I mean, it really was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't remember. I know why people don't like you now, but the lovers outweigh the haters. But when did people loathe you before, when they're at the CNN crossfire thing?

No, I left CNN because I was really frustrated with working at CNN for eight years. I was there a long time. And then I went to MSNBC and I got the main show there. I was the primetime anchor, like anchoring the lineup next to Keith Oberman. And I failed and I failed. You know, I just failed in the most basic way. I got bad ratings, you know, so it's kind of hard to evade responsibility for that. I mean, you can sort of blame other people.

But in the end, if you've got a TV show and your job is to, you know, get into as many living rooms as you can and you fail, it's kind of your fault. And it very much was my fault. And I got fired for it. And that was one of those moments where I was like, well, I'm sure they, you know, they screwed me over or whatever. But the truth is, I was lazy and entitled. And it

set off this chain reaction financially, because I've never been good at money, where I like looked around, I was like, Oh, wow, I'm living this totally unsustainable life. And I don't I'm not making any money. So I had to, I just sell the house that, you know, and I had a young family, I had four children and a wife. And I it was, you know, it was pretty low grade disaster. I had four children and a wife. And it was a pretty low-grade disaster. I mean, I didn't lose a limb in war, get paralyzed in a car accident. But for me, who'd grown up in a pretty privileged world, I mean, it was distressing and a shock. But the biggest shock was that it was completely my fault. So that really reoriented my, my thinking about everything, mostly about myself. And, and that's sort of the root of my, of my strength.

Now it's like, you know, I've already done that. I could be broke again. You know, you can, you can make it as long, you know what I mean? So I was just grateful for that. So I do think you say on, um, it was another podcast where you said something something like I've I failed a lot or I've been fired from jobs a lot. And I always blamed other people. And then you had sort of not to drop Oprah on you. But you'd had sort of the aha moment where, you know, you lost the job and you lost the house. And you realized maybe I should be blaming myself. Maybe there's more empowerment in blaming myself for pretty much everything. Well, it's always your fault. I had the, one of the saddest things that ever happened to me. I had a breach in one of my closest relationships, really one of my close, probably my closest friend. And it was over family stuff. And you know, it was over deep stuff. It wasn't like we got drunk and got in an argument and it went on for like about 15 years. And it really

torment. It was the thing that I would like talk to my wife about in bed on Sunday morning. Like, oh, I'm really hurt by this. And he was just so unreasonable and like being such a jerk. And like, it was all about how he had failed. And one day, literally while walking my many dogs, it dawned on me like, wait a second. I'm being, I mean, I'm implicated in this. And the second I realized that it was my fault too, things got better. And that, that just changed my view of everything. It's always your fault.

You can only control yourself. And once you realize that, then you can make things better. Yeah. I couldn't, could not agree more. And that's why I've tried. I don't always succeed, but I've tried to eliminate the word unfair from my vocabulary, right? It's like my life is the natural consequence of my own decisions, some good, some bad, but I own them all. You know, you become the sum of those parts. And hopefully if you look back, you look into yourself and you say, well, I like where I am, or I don't like where I am. It gives you your motivation for the day, right? I mean, it's like you're in charge. That's totally right. And I do think in the case of Chris Cuomo, he's clearly getting fired. So for those, oh yeah. I mean, well, of course, I mean, Shelly Ross, I mean, for you've been in the TV business for decades, Shelly Ross is not a,

you know, she's not a line producer. Shelly Ross like was the person at ABC News for a long time. Jeff Zucker, who's Chris Cuomo's boss, obviously knows Shelly Ross really well. I know Shelly Ross. Everyone knows Shelly Ross. So it's not a small thing at all. This is a very powerful person accusing Chris Cuomo and proving that he acts like a pig. She's got it. And I don't think I know because I've actually seen the complaints. There's a lot more. So he's done.

And I hope, and I, other women, do you mean other women or more from Shelly? Now I just think, you know, these things are always a pattern of piggish behavior. I have no information. Cuomo broke criminal law. I'm not, or maybe he did. I'm not, I'm hardly a lawyer, but you know, he acted like the pig that he is. I get it. You know, a lot of people like that in the world. And so I, I think there's no question he's getting fired. I think Chris Cuomo, while he annoys the hell out of me and I focus on his bad qualities, has a ton of energy for one thing, which I love. That's a great thing to have. And I hope that, you know, I really do. I hope for everybody who's wrecked in public, that there's a moment of

reckoning and that there's a redemption. I really feel that way. I'm not just, this is not. So I agree with that. If it's a one-off, I really do. I mean, if you say something stupid or whatever you do, even if you do something stupid, I get that. And I, and I'm with you. I mean, I'm a Catholic at heart, so I'm big into forgiveness. And but what I what I see in him is a is a pattern of deception and boorish behavior over many, many years. We could just look back over the past couple of years with a stupid pretending to come out of the basement thing. You know, his miraculous Jesus walk out like, oh, please, CNN, let him a bit abetted his lies in that respect. You know, he was out with covid on the streets. OK, fine, whatever. That's what he lied about that to the stuff of helping his brother going right to cancel culture, not listening to the women all while looking into the camera, Tucker, and saying, I care very deeply about these issues. Oh, please. A certain male gesture comes to mind. So it's just one thing after another. And to where I look at this man, I say, this is not an honest broker. He should not

be on TV. I don't really want to see a bunch of redemption if it involves him looking into a camera night after night, spewing more lies. I couldn't agree more. And the thread that ties together all of this behavior is falseness. And you can tell, I mean, I know this from having three daughters who I listened to carefully. And one of the things I noticed about their assessments of people is that they're almost all olfactory. Like my girls almost never make an argument on behalf of their position about a person. They're like, that person's false, or that's a good person. They can feel it. They trust their instincts. And I try to emulate that because I think it really is the most effective way to assess people. And I look at Cuomo, I look at a

bunch of people on the air, just in general, in cable news, on all the channels, actually. And what I see is people hiding who they really are, being false. And once you start pretending to be someone you're not, there's no end to the lies and it just compounds and distorts you increasingly over time. And so what I guess what I'm saying is I'm not hoping that Chris Cuomo gets another primetime show. Of course not. I'm hoping that Chris Cuomo drops the pretense and presents to the world who he really is, because that is liberation. I mean, really, you want to be free? Freedom is being who you really are in public, being unashamed of it, being willing to explain it, being open. And you can just feel it. You can

feel people's spirits, the people who are hiding some secret that they're desperate you not know about, and the people who are just totally transparent. And as I age, I cannot stand to be around the former category. It makes me too nervous. Like I know you're hiding something really heavy. I don't know what it is, but I can feel it. And across cable news, like everybody is doing that. It's bad. Just last night, he was railing about these border agents down in Texas and calling them racist. they're afraid of the brown skin skin people. And he knew this article was about to drop in The New York Times. I mean, they go to the person for comment. So he well, so it's almost like a cover, right?

He's going to double down on calling everyone racist when he knows he's going to be exposed as this sexist pig who grabs his former boss's ass at a work party in front of everybody, including her husband within moments. Right. But he's got it putting as many chips into the woke bank as he can possibly get in before the time story breaks. But that never works. It's so true. And but if I mean, of course, it's such an obvious cover. Harvey Weinstein, the second he was outed, donated a bunch of money to now or something. He had spent the better part of two years prior to going down, Tucker, trying to woo my husband and me into his good graces. I'm so dumb. I just thought I was like, oh, that's nice. Oh, yeah. Tucker, he wants you to write for him. No, Doug is the smart one. Doug's like, honey, no, no, no. Doug did not go write for Harvey Weinstein. The downside is it really has a corrosive effect on the society.

Imagine if you were black or more specifically, if you were a Haitian immigrant and there are a lot of cool, successful Haitian immigrants in this country, particularly in South Florida, and you're just like a normal person. You're watching CNN and you see the president of the United States or Chris Cuomo telling you that Haitians coming here are beaten with whips because they're Haitian. How does that make you feel about the United States? Does it make you more secure? Does it make you love the country more? Does it make you paranoid? Does it make you feel persecuted? This stuff actually hurts people because it's untrue, but it adds to the perception that this is a racist country whose ideals are not worth defending. Chris Cuomo, I mean it. I don't think it's an overstatement to say this kind of lying really corrodes what holds us together as

a country. I know. I love I've heard you talk about this and I couldn't agree with him more. And I thought you had such good insights on how what's left, like what kind of morons would take the fabrics that bind us together, you know, our love of country, our patriotism, and intentionally try to cut them up and let us drift from one another. What's left? Are we a country? What do we have to bind us together? Why do we stick together just because of the contiguous nature of the states? Like, where do we go from there? No, it's totally, I mean, you know, this is a very delicate experiment that we're conducting without a lot of precedent, maybe any precedent. There's no precedent for a, you know, a multiracial, multilingual continental country that holds together. If you're China, in the end, you can

say, well, we're a Marxist country, we're a market, you know, economy country. It doesn't matter. What you really are is a Han Chinese country. I mean, that's the truth. It's a racial category, Han Chinese, and very self-conscious on the part of the Chinese. So that's a cohesive country, even if it's a volatile country. We've decided, no, we don't define ourselves by our race. We define ourselves by this idea that we're all in this together to preserve certain rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights. And if you take that away, then what do you have? Well, you literally have nothing but warring tribes. And if at the same time you have a leadership that encourages people to think of themselves

primarily as members of a tribe, then you're pushing us towards civil war. There's no exit. I mean, this really is a cul-de-sac. There's nowhere exit. I mean, this really is a cul-de-sac. There's nowhere to go. And, you know, I can't imagine the motive for doing this. I think it's the darkest thing I can imagine. It's not about, you know, it's wrong to attack white people or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Yes, it is. Of course it's evil. However, there's a much bigger problem, which is national cohesion. And I just, my jaw's open every single day because you can feel where this is going. We have 50 states.

So at a certain point, we're going to balkanize, like literally. And if listeners are interested in what that word, the etymology of that word, take a look at the history of the Balkans. It's really bad, bloody, horrible, divided, poor, awful. And you just don't want that here. And unfortunately, we're going there until someone figures out a reason for all 50 states to hold together as a cohesive country. Now, I want to ask you about that, because as you may or may not know, because Tucker wisely avoids the news media about himself. And that's truly the only way you can survive in cable news. But you get so much blowback whenever,

well, whenever, whatever you do. I mean, frankly, whatever you do, you get blowback. And today there's more blowback on whether you've been pushing for the great replacement theory. And you said that this was going to happen on your show last night. Sure enough, on cue, the ADL comes out and comes after you. And I'm not on. I know. I don't even want to be the one to tell you because you do a good job of avoiding it. I mean, they're pushing yet again for you to be fired, Tucker. It's constant. You know, the ADL was such a noble organization that had a very specific goal, which was to fight anti- antisemitism. That's a virtuous goal. I think they were pretty successful over the years. Now it's operated by a guy who's just a democratic party, just an apparatchik of the democratic party. And I have to say it's important

for people with moral authority to stand up and say that, you know, because it's very corrosive for someone to take the residual moral weight of an organization that he inherited and use it for partisan ends, which is what they're doing. So the great replacement theory is in fact, not a theory. It's something that the Democrats brag about constantly up to and including the president. And in one sentence, it's this. Rather than convince the current population that our policies are working and they should vote for us as a result, we can't be bothered to do that. We're instead going to change the composition of the population and bring in people who will vote for us. So there isn't actually inherently a racial component to it. And it has nothing to do

with anti-Semitism. It's a political point you're trying to make. I don't know what the ADL is doing weighing in on this. It has nothing to do. I mean, that's just insane. And obviously, I'm not going to stop saying it because they're saying it. They've written books about it and monographs and endless number of speeches. You know, immigration will make this a more democratic country. OK, that's what they

believe. That was Teddy. That was Teddy Kennedy's motive in passing the 1965 immigration law was to change the composition of the country. And I just think that that's anti-democratic. American citizens should control their government and they do it by voting. And if you dilute their voting power with immigration, you are undermining democracy by definition. Well, can I ask you this? Because when I look at this, because I was at Fox News for a number of years where I heard this being argued by sort of immigration hardliners. And the point I always heard them make was this is why the Democrats don't want immigration

from Cuba. It's not that they just want a bunch of immigration from people, you know, irrespective of skin color, irrespective of politics. They do care about politics. It's not it's not even about skin color for them. It's about getting liberal Democrat voters. And for Republicans on the other side, what they don't want is to fill the Democrat roster with people who weren't born here. It's not about skin color. It's about how people are likely to vote. Of course it is. And you can see it in the

patterns of refugee and immigrant settlement. I mean, it's not, you know, they're not settling massive numbers of so-called refugees from any of these countries into Massachusetts or into Queens. They're enough. They control those places. They're settling them into Texas and the state of Maine and places, you know, places that they go in Tennessee, places that they would like to control. So this is, it has nothing to do with race. It certainly has nothing to do with the scope of the ADL's concerns, which is why they should be ashamed to weigh in on something like this, to lie, which is what they're doing. It has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with electoral politics. This is a political party. Its main concern is maintaining political power, period. And they try to obscure

that with this absurd race talk. And I have to say, the race stuff is very, very corrosive. I mean, to tell people, we don't want anybody who looks like you to come to our country, like, what? This is the US government. They exist to represent us. You're not allowed to talk like that. I don't care what the race is. That is totally evil and racist. And everyone's too intimidated to say anything about it.

And you're talking now about them because you played a soundbite on your show about Biden. You're talking about the message toward white people, I think. Is that what you're saying? Because like last night on the show- 100% they say it out loud this is yeah this is yeah anyway i'll play i'll play the biden soundbite to underscore what you're saying this is this was from tucker's show last

night it's biden um talking about uh let me see what year was this 2015 okay listen an unrelenting stream of immigration, nonstop, nonstop. Folks like me who were Caucasian of European descent for the first time in 2017 will be in an absolute minority in the United States of America, absolute minority. Fewer than 50% of the people in America from then and on will be white European stock. That's not a bad thing. That's a that's a source of our strength. And your point about that soundbite is why if you reverse the races, if you say the whites are going to come into the majority and that's not a bad thing, you would sort of understand the racism inherent in that statement. Well, it's disqualifying. No one who talks like that should ever be president. It's eugenicist. I mean, the source of our strength is non-white DNA. I mean, what? How could you say something like that? Really? So people's value to the country is determined by

their genes and their skin color. That's like Nazi stuff. What? That's not, you know, I'm 52. I grew up in a country that tried really, really hard, didn't always succeed, but certainly tried as a matter of official policy to be colorblind and to judge people, not on their appearances, but on what they do, on the choices that they make, on their character, on their inherent moral value.

And that idea was premised on the belief, which has extended from the founding of this country, despite what the propagandists will tell you, that God created all of us. That doesn't mean we're equal in ability. It means we're equal in moral value because we're all created by God, period. And, you know, there were, of course, slavery is a refutation of that, but there were an awful lot of people, including ancestors of mine, I'm proud to say, who made the point that this is totally inconsistent with our most basic belief, which is we're all created in the image of God. So up until very recently, that was the default view of everybody in charge. You can't attack

someone for his skin color because he didn't choose his skin color. It wasn't voluntary. It's an accident of birth. So you have no more value because you're one color than you do if you're another color. I mean, that was kind of the point of Dr. Seuss. And it's the reason they canceled Dr. Seuss because that idea is now unexpressible. It was the core of Martin Luther King's moral power was expressing that specific view. Once you give that up, you're Rwanda at that point, because you're making the case that some people have more value because of how they were born. If you have leaders who say that out loud, they are pushing you toward violence group against group, tribalism, warfare. That's insane. And it's just so shocking for me that this is happening in public and everyone's too intimidated to say anything about it, but it's totally wrong. And as a Christian,

as an American, I just reject it and I don't care what the color is. And then as a practical matter, there are all kinds of other problems with mass immigration. The first one is it just creates a very volatile society. If the population keeps changing, look, if you had people constantly moving in and out of your own house, and this country is our home, then that would not be a peaceful household. You could choose to adopt children and make them your own, and that's a virtuous thing to do. It's a great thing. But if you had no control over who was living in your house, what would your household look like? How would your kids experience their own childhood?

I mean, that's a hugely disruptive thing to do to any opposing open borders is not racist. It's there are very good reasons to oppose open borders having nothing to do with the race of the people crossing in. There's no question about that. I think Biden's defenders, the people are saying, look, you know, and I know this because I've been living on the Upper West Side for 17 years. They say, you know, we're a nation of immigrants. And he's talking about from the beginning of this country forward, we've had more and more immigrants. And that's not a bad thing. We're a melting pot. And I get all that.

I mean, I think that is one of the things that makes America great, just sort of the diversity. You know, you walk out in New York City, you see every color, you see every nationality. But they're all living in New York and they all love New York. I mean, that is one thing sort of on a more microcosm basis that holds us together. We love our city. At least we did before Mayor de Blasio. And on a larger level, it was always we love our country. We're happy to be here. We realize it city. At least we did before Mayor de Blasio. And on a larger level, it was always, we love our country. We're happy to be here. We realize it's a privilege to live in America. That's, as I understood your comments, that's what you were starting from. You take away

that. You take away patriotism, all love of America. And then what are we left with? People like, people come from other countries. Well, what are they, they're told that we're awful. America sucks. And we become more tribal. And where what do we look like? How do we relate to one another? What do we stand for at that point? Ten years, five, 10 years from now? Well, why if the whole thing is so nuts that it's beyond it? First of all, it's criminal. OK, what the Biden administration doing is doing is criminal. They're abetting, they're encouraging people to break federal law. That's a crime. What they are doing is criminal.

It's not a new species of immigration policy. It's in direct violation of current law. Okay, so that's the first thing. Second, as a thematic matter, if you're inviting people into your country, you don't simply have a right but an obligation to make certain they're on board with what your country's about, right? So why would you ever bring anyone in who didn with what your country's about, right? So why would you ever bring anyone in who didn't like your country, who didn't agree with its basic precepts? We don't need to guess as to what those precepts are. They're written down. So how about you read the

Bill of Rights to every person who comes and say, you know, are you on board with this? Do you think you're free to- And if not, then you're France. I mean, France is dealing with this right now. Why would you ever allow anyone into your country that didn't agree with what your country stands for? It's like it's totally so you can have more Amazon employees. Are you joking? I mean, we haven't even gotten to that. But this is clearly I mean, this is being funded by driven by the biggest conglomerates

in the world. You want to lower the value of labor, obviously. And if the labor union still existed and were anything other than dishonest grifts on behalf of their own leadership, they would say something as they have in generations past. But you need to bring people in who agree with the Bill of Rights, who love the country. The last thing you want to do is import more Ilhan Omar's. The United States rescued her from a refugee camp in Kenya, and she's been attacking the United States ever since on racial grounds. What? She's like an arsonist. If we're importing more people like that, it's suicide.

What we're doing instead is trying to get the existing American American population to hate the country and what it stands for. And sadly, it's working in huge pockets of America. All right. Stand by, because there's so much more to do with Tucker. Coming up, President Biden just made his first comments on those Border Patrol agents, falsely accusing them of whipping the Haitians at the border. Biden now says those agents will pay. That's what Mr. Biden is saying today. We're going to get Tucker's reaction and so much more to go through. So stay with us. I am joined today by one of my very favorite people, Tucker Carlson, host of the incredibly popular Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, the number one rated show on all of cable news. So I am not alone. I love it, Tucker, because I read an article about you in which you gave an interview and the reporter described you as, and I quote, confusing as hell. I'm like, I love that. Yes, that's great. All right. So before I get back to you, you, the man, Tucker Carlson, let's talk about Joe Biden, the man, and what he's saying about the Southern border today. Man, the hell storm that's raining down now on these couple of border patrol agents who had the reins of their horses. I have yet to

see the video in which they whip anybody. I keep looking. I'm open-minded. Take me there, right? Okay. Let's see what they did. I haven't seen it. Still looking. But instead, what we've had is everybody pile on, say that they were using whips. Then when it got exposed that they were there actually reins of horses, they said, well, they're whip like they were whip like devices. And now they're just changing the story to, well, you were sort of threatening the people with the horses. It's like, well, the Border Patrol saying, no, actually trying to keep the people safe. You can't get too close to the horse. And by the way, they were you know, we don't know whether the people with the horses. It's like, well, the Border Patrol is saying, no, actually, you're trying to keep the people safe. You can't get too close to the horse. And by the way, they were you know, we don't know what the people were trying to run or what they were trying to do. But these guys are charged with the security of this area. They're totally

outmanned, thanks to Joe Biden. And Biden, when confronted with all of this, says as follows. Listen, given what we saw at the border this week, have you failed in that promise? And this is happening under your watch. Do you take responsibility for the chaos that's unfolding? Of course I take responsibility. I'm president. But it was horrible what you see, as you saw. To see people treated like they did, horses barely running over people being strapped. It's outrageous. I promise you those people will pay. They will be an investigation underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It's an embarrassment, but it's beyond an embarrassment.

It's dangerous. It's wrong. It sends the wrong message around the world. It sends the wrong message at home. It's simply not who we are. Thank you. Wow. So much energy for that particular question, Tucker. And finally, questions allowed at the White House when he wants to talk about the bad Border Patrol agents. dishonest and wrong. And as always landing on some poor guy who makes 60 grand a year for the thankless job of enforcing federal law, who did nothing wrong and missing the point that the real victims here are Americans. It's our country, isn't it? I thought it was. I was told that as a child. And you have tens of thousands of people trying to come into our country by force, all of whom are guaranteed, you know, the whole suite of taxpayer funded services when they arrive for healthcare, housing, food, everything. And that's wrong. It's an assault on the American

people of all colors, including the Haitian Americans who have citizenship and live here. It's not a racial thing. So these people are committing an act of aggression against the United States. And some poor guy or a couple of guys who are paid to, again, enforce federal law passed by the United States Congress. If you don't like it, change it. You control the Congress, but they won't. Those guys are, they're the ones who are going to be crushed. And you know that they will be because in the past two years, we've seen person after person, always the weakest, crushed, you know, cops or some guy who says something dumb in a zoom call or, you know, but it's always the people without power who get ground into dust beneath the boots of someone like Joe Biden. It's just it's so awful.

The nerve, the nerve, right, of him to finally say something about this. And rather than taking responsibility for putting the country, the migrants and the Border Patrol agents in this position to begin with, he attacks the agents. Right. It's like it's like Afghanistan again. He doesn't take responsibility for anything. He lies right to our faces. And then when we look back at him and say, what about the migrants? What about the 18,000 people who were sitting there? Where's your taking the true taking of responsibility for that? Where's the change in policy? Where are the federal agents who are going to provide backup so these poor guys aren't

out there on their own? Nothing. It's all about a couple of guys who are being wrongly accused, from what I can see, of doing something terrible. But they didn't. Imagine what it would be like to be married to that guy or be his kids. And all of a sudden the president of the United States is calling your dad or your husband or your brother or your friend like a criminal who's going to be dealt with severely. Like, what? What did he do? He wasn't supposed to be on a horse. Those are federal horses. Like he was, that's not his horse.

He was provided them by a federal agency and told to go out there and do exactly what he did. And he made the mistake of doing it in the presence of someone with an iPhone, got video taped doing it. And now his life is over.. He's done. He's humiliated in front of his loved ones. He thought he was serving the United States of America. This is so evil that it's really hard to digest it. I just feel overwhelmed by it. God, I try and stay off the internet because I don't want to be distorted, much less social media, which really is just so filthy and it's just unclean that I don't want to be around it. But you see stuff like that. And you just you just can't

believe this is happening in our country. I will spare you the butted sot of Ayanna Presley, Maxine Waters, Joy Reid and Ilhan Omar calling all these guys white supremacists and the country white supremacists. I like I'm so over it. I get it. OK, everybody's a white supremacist. I mean, sure. That's the prism through which they see everything. I don't know if it's even honest. I don't know if they genuinely believe that. I really don't freaking care. You know what I mean? At this point, we got to move on past these people who see everything through this prism because we do have a country to save. You know, it's like we do need to relate to one another. We need to root for one another. We need to be more forgiving in our interpretation of other people's behavior,

whatever it is. I don't know that we ever get back there, Tucker. You know, you just wrote a book trying to talk about the collapse of journalism. That's my own take on what your book's about. Used to be a real thing. People used to try hard. They used to be able to check their politics, even though they had politics. And the whole book, Tracking What's Happened in Journalism, tracks what happened to the country, too.

They're parallel tracks. That's such a smart point. That's exactly right. I mean, journalism doesn't just chronicle what happens in the country. Journalism reflects the country that produces it. So if all the institutions collapse at once, we shouldn't be surprised that journalists are totally incapable of standing far back enough to acknowledge what's happening, which they haven't been. And it's just, it's so bewildering. I guess, I mean, it could go on forever. I'll just sum it up in one sentence, but I think this every day, as I read the news, they've gone so far at this point that there's really no going back. I mean,

they've really burned their ships. Like you can't, you can't walk back from this many years of lies. You've been exposed as a liar. All of them have, I mean, truly exposed, like provably you lied on purpose. You misrepresented what happened to help a political party. That's all out in the open. Like everybody knows there are no more secrets. So it's not like they can, they can't really surrender now. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. It basically they are going to become much more radical because there's no going back. Mm hmm. Right. Once you lift the dress up, you know, you can't see what you've what you've seen. We were just talking about this last week in the context of the whole Russiagate thing and those indictments that came down. I mean, like the Russiagate thing

and how there's been no accountability and MSNBC just completely tripled down. They don't care. You know, Rachel Maddow is going to get $35 million a year because they like those lies. Those are good lies. Those lies make people tune into Rachel Maddow. And whether it's true or not, no one really much cares as long as it's pushing the right narrative for their side. I want to tell people that the book is called The Long Slide, 30 Years in American Journalism. I think you might be the only journalist in America who both had a primetime show on MSNBC and a primetime show on Fox News, not to mention your time at CNN. Am I right? I don't know. That was my world for 25 years,

and I knew everyone involved in it, and I was involved in not just professionally, but socially. And then in the past few years, I just, it's too repugnant to me. And I can't, I can't kind of can't be around it anymore. Um, cause I don't want to become angry or weird. So I pulled back. And so I, I kind of don't keep track of it as much anymore. And moreover, I don't, I don't think it's a badge of honor i mean i used to i was the youngest anchor in cnn you know at cnn ever and i was kind of and they would always say youngest anchor and i was always proud of that now i'm i'm not sure i would ever i haven't thought of it in years actually but i i don't know if i would brag about it i mean i have all these kids and a couple of them are adults. And one of them

came to me upon graduating college, very smart, if I can say much smarter than I am. And I said, you know, you should become a journalist. Because, you know, many generations in our family have done that. And you should just do it because I think you have the natural aptitude for it. And this kid looked at me and goes, What? No, you know, I would never work with those. They're awful. They're liars. And I was like, it really hurt my feelings. And then you had a beam of pride too. Yeah. I've never done anything else. I mean, I have no skills other than the ones I exercise daily. Wait, can you tell us on this front, can you tell us what your dad said to you? And I'll talk about your dad in a minute, but he was a big media mogul executive and you wanted to be in the CIA. You didn't get into the CIA. And so what did your

dad tell you about journalism? Well, I was in college and I just completely failed my way through. Well, literally failed, but I just was not thriving at all. And I was just partying like crazy and just being a total rudderless idiot. But I was completely in love with this girl. I've been dating since high school and I wanted to get married my senior year of college. And her parents are pretty traditional. My family was much less traditional, but her family was very traditional. And her dad said, you know, you have to have a job. You can't marry my daughter without a job. And I was like, oh yeah, okay, job. So I applied to the CIA and they were like, no. And I just wanted to work

the CIA because I thought it'd be interesting to live abroad. You know, we'd always traveled a lot as kids. My dad worked in, you know, in jobs that were related to international stuff. So we had a keen appreciation for the rest of the world. And I wanted to live in another country and do interesting stuff and serve America and all that stuff. And they were like, no, no chance. And so I, I didn't know what to do.

And my dad goes, well, you should just go into journalism. Like they'll take anybody, you know, it's a, but he meant it in a good way. It's like, I mean, my father, you know, joined the Marine Corps at 17 after, you know, getting in trouble with the legal authorities. And he was just really smart and, you know, read a book every day and was like a very intense intellectual. And he thrived in journalism because that's all that mattered. Can you, he was a good writer. Can you write? And I could write, that was my one skill. So he's like, you should do that. And so I did for 14,000 a year. And, uh, and it was great. I've never really regretted it. It's, but it's so painful to see my children look at the career that I chose. And again, I've never done anything else, and just have such contempt for it, for the people involved. They're like, oh, they're, and my kids would know

since they grew up around it, like everyone at our dinner table, always through their whole childhood, my oldest is 27, who was always a journalist, like their godparents are journalists, that kind of thing. And they were like, no, no chance, no chance. That's true. No, even my family too, I'm like, oh God,

no, you don't wanna do this. They look at my husband, who's a writer, they're like, how about becoming a writer? We're all like, yes, do that. Do that. That's right. Write books. That's a nice industry. So that is cool. What Doug does is cool. Like, no, no, I'm serious. That is cool. Well, he writes novels. Right. It is. And he does like historical research. But as you know, the book industry has lost its love in mind, too. I know. I know it has. But I just said to one of my kids who I was trying to convince, one of my favorites, and was thinking, and, you know, all my kids went to a pretty good high school, so I felt like they were well-educated enough. And I've tried to convince all four not to go to college just because I think it's totally counterproductive and stupid and probably pretty bad for you.

So I've said to all four. And the last one, I was intent on this child, not going to college. I really was my mission to convince her not to go. And I said, you know, I'll pay you the tuition. You'll have some cushion. Well, what would I do? I said, you need to move to Alpine, Switzerland and write novels, you know, and have a bunch of kids and ski every day. And then this child's smart and write novels and she goes oh i want to do that and i said well you should do it and i'll do whatever i can to help you and she's like no but i'd be the only person who's doing that and i it's too weird and ah it just broke my heart

no she's right at this age she's got to go out plus you know she's got to do some stuff right i think you you probably better write her especially i know yeah if you go out you do stupid stuff you got to get fired a few times you got to do some stuff, right? I think you're probably a better writer. No, I know. Yeah, if you go out and you do stupid stuff. You've got to get fired a few times. You've got to make stupid mistakes, have your heart broken. All that needs to be done at a very low-level job someplace in New York City in, like, you know, crappy, mice-infested apartments. Okay, wait. I'm going to take a quick break, but I want to tell everybody

I'm joined today by Tucker Carlson. You know that. Coming up, there's so much to discuss. We're going to get into cancel culture and how Tucker has built very effective walls around him to protect himself from the negativity, which I really want to talk to him about. Don't go away. I am joined today by Tucker Carlson, host of the hugely popular number one show on cable, Tucker Carlson, tonight on the Fox News Channel. Tucker, so on the subject of books, Simon and Schuster, they published your book, The Long Slide, 30 Years in American Journalism, and you did not spare anything for them. You're not happy with the president. You called him a cartoonish corporate censor and used the introduction of your book to attack the company for canceling Senator Josh Hawley's book deal.

You called Simon & Schuster a disgusting company run by disgusting people. And it reminded me of a quote that I read of you. I think you were talking to Alex Marlow of Breitbart where you said, I'm in this hyperprivileged position where I can say whatever the hell I want. My view is I'm just going to. So I freaking love that. And you live that. I mean, anybody who watches your show know that knows that's true of you. How has that like, how did that happen that they publish your book? And then, you know, you got into this sort of war with them? Well, let me say I hope and I do talk to my wife about this a lot that I do feel like I have the freedom to tell the truth, which is a really rare position to be in this country. You're in that position too. And I think it's a great place to be, but it's also, you don't want to use that freedom just

to attack people. I mean, I don't want to be the person who's just like running around machine gunning everybody. Cause that's, you know, that's bad. But, um, in this specific case, I was under contract to write two books for Simon's bad. But in this specific case, I was under contract to write two books for Simon & Schuster. I wrote the first one. It was successful. The second one came along and they canceled Josh Hawley's book contract because they came under pressure from the Democratic Party to do that. And my longstanding view has been that American publishers exist to facilitate the intellectual debate that's necessary to have a thriving democracy. It's not a small thing. You can't cancel people at the behest of a political party. And that's exactly what they did. So I called up the president and I said,

I think what you did is immoral. I think you're a pig. And I want out of this book contract. And they said, because I don't want to participate in this. I don't take money from a company that does this. And their view was write the book or we'll sue you. Okay. Then I said, well, if you're going to make me write the book, I'm going to tell the truth about how I feel about you because I'm not going to be implicated in this. I don't want to be part of it. You know, I'm taking this dough from a company that crushes people because Nancy Pelosi tells

them to like, no way. So I write this and then they have to decide whether to publish it or not. And I think they feared the blowback from canceling a book about how they cancel books would be worse than, you know, the effect of publishing it because they knew that no one was going to write about it. I mean, I have no allies in the rest of the media. So it's basically not been written about at all, which is, I don't care either way, but they were probably pretty smart to publish it. But I just felt like I should be honest about it. And so I went and talked to Jonathan Karp, who runs Simon & Schuster and his

deputy, who's really out of it and has literally no experience in book publishing whatsoever, like literally none. And I asked them, why did you do this? And one of the things that I learned in talking to them in great detail is that they're dumb. And that was like a total shock to me. Yeah, they're not that smart. I mean, I'm not dumb or anything, but these are people who can't kind of explain their own actions in a logical way that can't have a linear conversation. They're just not very smart. And yet they're in this position of enormous influence in American society. And it makes you wonder, I mean, Chris Cuomo went to Yale. Like what?

I know. So it makes you realize that. And literally thinks that the First Amendment bans, quote, hate speech. What a dumbass. Exactly. Oh, thank you for saying that. Exactly. So it's just another reminder that our system is not meritocratic. It's set up in a way that elevates some of the worst people in this huge country to the positions of the most authority. It's really bad. I mean, our system is not working. The merit badges that people collect along the way are not relevant to

leadership. So anyway, it was dispiriting, I would say. Let me tell you, I went to Albany Law School, which is at best a third tier law school, and we learned about the First Amendment, what's actually in it at Albany Law School. So go Albany. And what I'm gleaning here is that there's not going to be a second book deal with Simon & Schuster. Got it. Check. Note to self. All right, coming up. What's it really like working at Fox News? Tucker and I both know a thing or two about that. And we're going to talk about some of our battle scars and how one survives in the toxic environment of cable news. Don't miss that. welcome back to the megan kelly show everyone i'm joined today by tucker carlson host of tucker carlson tonight on the fox news channel so before there was tucker carlson tonight there was tucker carlson little boy in california with a dad who was a muckety muck in the media industry dick carlson was a kind of a big deal. Former director of Voice

of America, CEO of Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and under Bush, H.W. Bush, U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles. So you write in your book that he was, in one of your books, that he was smart, curious, and relentlessly skeptical. Sounds like the mark of a good reporter. It was impossible to bullshit my father. I was reading it, Tucker, thinking these are big shoes to fill. And I'm wondering whether it inspired you as a little guy or scared you. Oh, I was unusually my brother and I grew up with our dad and we were and are he's 80 unusually close to him, really, really close to him and, uh, spent a huge amount of time with him. And, um, so my mother flaked out when I was little and left the country. And at the time, which was in the mid seventies, it was pretty, you know, it was very unusual really for a father to be raising kids. He alone, um, he later got remarried to just such a wonderful woman who I

love and I'm grateful to. Um, but when we were little, we lived with our dad and it was just a great experience, you know, for all the sadness and all the craziness and all that stuff. It was essentially the greatest childhood ever. I mean, we just, we really loved our dad. And, um, so no, he was a very kind person, but a very tough person. I mean, he grew up in an orphanage, you know, and he was an orphan.

And I mean, literally, I remember being at the beach when I was little and looking at my father, who's a big guy, been a Marine. And and his legs splayed out. They're like bent. And I said, wow, it's kind of weird. What is that pop? And he said, oh, I had rickets when I was in the orphanage well rickets rickets i was like really that's like it's like got a 17th century disease you know what i mean that's like you know paris in 1650 it's a disease of malnutrition you know and um but he added it literally bent his legs. So it used to cheerful, you know, sometimes people who undergo hardship as kids become really bitter.

And then there's another group that become just relentlessly optimistic and cheerful and never complained about anything and are always charging forward to a happier future. And that is very much our father. But he's definitely no one to mess with. I mean, at all. Now. So which camp are you in? Because you, speaking of your mom flaking out and leaving when you were six, you, you also had something very bad happened to you in your childhood. Yeah. I mean, well, oh yeah, but I don't, well, I guess I'm in the optimistic camp because I look

back at my childhood. It's like the greatest time ever. I mean, you know, by contemporary standards, we were raised without, you know, a ton standards, we were raised without, you know, a ton of the normal guardrails, you know, well, all of us who were raised in the seventies can say that I'm right there with you. Well, that was especially true at our house. And I wouldn't even say it because it just sounds, it's so over the top by, by modern standards, but, but so great. So wonderful. So no, my brother and I were still best friends. I named my son after him. Yeah. But Buckley and just a great guy. And I talked to him this morning, as I always do. But he he and I have a million times said how thankful that we are, that we grew up as we did.

No, we really, really loved our dad. And, you know, our father, we grew up in a, in a very affluent little town in Southern California, where there weren't a ton of people like my dad at all. And so my father was the kind of guy who, you know, he, he, he is super, he's an intellectual, a very intense intellectual, very intense intellectual, and just a reader, passionate reader, interested in everything. But you know, if you know, if you like, pushed him on the shoulder kind of thing you know he'd punch you out he was that kind of guy you know he's just from a different time and um there were no a lot of similarities yeah other than other than my dad he was like the only person in our town like that so so people are when we were little he was an anchor at abc in LA and he was sitting on the set in a commercial break.

And I think he'd had a few drinks and, um, in a, and he was having a cigarette on the set and he turned and he said, I can't wait till this fucking show is over. And it turned out he was on camera when he said it. And, uh, so it was obviously a big thing at the time. And I went to school the next day at the Buckley school in Sherman Oaks, where we had to wear a tie in first grade. And there was a girl in my class, I'll never forget it. And she was telling someone else and she goes, Tucker's dad's crazy. I remember saying, my dad is not crazy. I just was really, I'd really revered him. And I still do. He's just got the salty mouth of a Marine. Some of us have it even if we're not a Marine. So let me ask you, cause I know you don't talk about this a lot, but I just, I do

want to follow up on your mom taking off because, um, I looked it up just to see, um, armchair psychiatry. Uh, when the child is quote abandoned by his or her mother, it can lead to doubts about you being lovable, difficulty trusting people. And in most kids, it will leave it'll leave the child to blame himself because they're so little. I mean, six is little. Did any of that happen to you? How do you think it affected you? Well, I'm sure it did. I mean, I, you know, I had periods in my younger life when I, you know, partied too much, you know, for real. Um, not, you know, like not just have like too many beers at a party, but like actually party too much, you know, again, for real. So, um, I look back on that and I think, you know, I learned

some stuff from those experiences, but I also wonder like, why did I behave that way? Uh, but I decided, you know, with that, I never talked about this cause I never want to seem whiny. And again, I interpret my childhood as a really positive thing. Um, but you know, our mom was not a fan of us and was pretty direct about it. And, you know, that's obviously hurts when you're little, but then I realized you can't control it. You know, you just can't control it. And your mother doesn't like you. Okay. Boo hoo. You know, it sounds really terrible, but it's not sort of up to me how she feels. And so I think in later life, the lesson that I internalized from that was you really can't control how other people feel. And so you have to,

you just kind of have to be happy with who you are. And really, I think, I mean, I got married at 22 and had four kids. So looking back, it's hard to understand yourself except through your behavior, I think. That's what you're really like. That's how it manifests itself. And I just had this drive to have a really close, normal, happy family, dinner together. No one's doing anything weird. Do you know what I mean? Also, I grew up in Southern California at a time when people were doing really weird stuff,

like for real, even by modern standards, people were doing really weird stuff, you know, really weird set, you know, really weird. So, and at the time I knew that, like when I was little in Laurel Canyon in LA, I was like, this is weird. I mean, the Eagles lived next door to us. It was like, you know, it was just a wild time in the country. And so I didn't want that. I wanted a totally happy family where everyone's close and everyone's named after someone else. And like everyone gets together all the time. And, and, and I've had that and I it's the greatest thing in my life. And I really do not take that for granted. And the second thing is criticism from people. I, who hate me doesn't really mean anything to me. I think it really doesn't. I care what the people I love think. I care deeply. If my wife is upset with me, I can't even function because I

care so much about what she thinks. And my children, same thing. My close friends, I have a bunch of lifelong friends, people I work with, I feel that way about them too. But like some random, you know, the ADL doesn't like me or something. The partisan who runs it, like, I don't care. Why would I care? I'm not giving those people emotional control over me. I've been through that. I lived through that as a child. I'm not doing that again. On a much more profound level. Well, you're, I mean, it's kind of like a Kramer versus Kramer situation, right? They got a divorce and she took off and same age, but she didn't come back. But to your point, if your mom doesn't like you-

In fact, I never talked to her again. And when she died a few years ago, I got a call from a relative of mine and she lived in France and said, your mother's dying and I know, and the funny thing is, I've never talked to this, but for all those years, I mean, I was a fully adult man

working at Fox News when this happened. And I had always said to my wife, who I had known, actually, the funny thing is, today is the 37th anniversary when we started dating. So it's been a long time. Wow. Sockwell, your high school? 1984. So, but I've always said to her the whole time, I was like, she never met my mother, obviously. And I said, you know, I'm, I feel great about it. I feel totally fine. I'm, I feel very well adjusted, especially when I stopped partying, but I'm kind of worried. I'm going to get a call one day from someone's being like, this woman's been found dead. And we think that she's your mother or whatever. I don't know anything about her. I don't know where she is. I'm totally cut off. I mean, I, and I, and I said to my wife for years, I would say, I hope that doesn't trigger some like collapse or something, you know, or I go crazy. And the

day it actually happened, um, I got this call, like she's dying and in, in this weird little town and set on a farm that she lived on in Southwestern France. And, and she was basically French at this point, spent her life there. Uh, you should go visit her. And so I called my brother and he's like, what? No, you know, my son's got a soccer game. And I said, I feel the same way. I don't know this person. And actually this sounds cold or whatever, but I had already kind of made my peace with this over many decades, over 35 years. And I didn't fall apart at all. I went out to dinner. I mean, I felt sad for her, I guess. I don't know much about her. She was an artist. She had shows. Okay. I guess. And, and all that, but she wasn't part of

my life. I wasn't part of hers. And I just, I don't know. She wasn't your mother. She, she wasn't your mother. I felt that's, I had a mother. I mean, my dad got remarried to someone I think of as my mother and who I really, really love. So your dad gets remarried to her. All I know is her last name is Swanson. And I didn't know it's all the years that we worked together. I did not know that in some way you're heir to the Swanson meat fortune. So are you a rich guy? Was she rich?

Did that change your life? Did you suddenly go over like, holy shit, we're rich now. We have Swanson chicken. We have swans and chickens. I mean, it's funny. I've heard people, I mean, I never comment on anything like this ever. I mean, ever. I never have one time. And I won't now except to say that I've never gotten a dime.

And I mean that. Well, that's not true. It had nothing to do with my um my stepmom but uh i did the one thing i did get was a cabin in maine that we went to our entire lives that's good and i did get that but you know it cost fifty thousand dollars so it wasn't that long but no but she's a lame kind of rich tucker it's it's always been that place you know anyone who has a family summer house knows it's like, you know, the generations go to when everyone meets there and all the cousins and all this stuff. I don't live in a big house.

I don't have a big house. My biggest house is 1800 square feet. So I don't like big houses. I never have. As evidenced by the room that you are sitting in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like, I mean, my favorite place in the world is an off-grid cabin that I use for fishing. It's on a stream in Maine.

We have no electricity or running water. I spend a lot of time there. I stay there. No, I never got any money. I mean, no money ever, which is fine. Most people don't. What I did get was a very privileged childhood in the sense that I went to expensive schools from, you know, from kindergarten through college. And I grew up in a world of rich people and I grew up in La Jolla in Georgetown.

So, you know, I'm hardly the son of a mill worker. You know, I did get that. I mean, I got full immersion in a very specific. Well, but how did you stay so connected to the people? Because even with the background that you acknowledge is had a lot of advantages, if not rich, just rubbing elbows with people of privilege and so on, because you never you to me are more working class than a lot of people who really are from the working class, you know, and you just never seem to have lost that connection. So how did you get it in the first place, and not be corrupted by the elite media circles and so on? Well, I mean, I don't, you know, I never pretend to be I mean, I'm, I think one of the reasons people are so in Washington, where I spent most of my life are

so offended by me personally, is that I am absolutely from the world I'm describing. So I know it very, very, I know intimately, it's'm describing. So I know it very, very, I know intimately, it's my world. So I know how mediocre they are. I know what the scam is, and I'm not afraid to say so. So they're very offended by the fact I would do that. But you know, screw them. I would say a couple things. One, my father is an aggressive egalitarian. He just really believed that everyone is born with equal moral value. Not everyone is equally capable. That's for certain, but everyone, you know, that those kinds of hierarchies of, Oh, I'm not going to talk to the housekeeper or whatever. That's like ridiculous.

That's fake. So people with a true aristocratic temperament invite the housekeeper to dinner because why wouldn't you, you know, she's a person you like her she works for you like don't see the world i mean only fake new money posers do the whole thing like oh well you know i'm the help i hate that shit it's fake true um and the other thing that i had going for me was we spent you know months a year really six six months a year at this point in point, in one of the poorest zip codes in America and my whole life. So I've gone to the same town my whole life. I know everybody. I don't feel like I'm parachuting in as some random rich guy. I've come here when I was seven years old and made no money. I was here when I got fired. I've been here the whole time. So I've really been immersed in a very different world for a good chunk of the year,

my entire life. There are no summer people where we live, none, just us. And so I just, I don't know. I've really been affected. I've really been affected by that. And the last thing I'll say is I believe in skills. I've always thought this. I think it's super important for people, particularly men, I'll just say it, to have some kind of physical skill. Like what can you do? We'll pause, Tucker. We'll do a break. We'll come back and we'll pick it up because I do want to hear that story. Don't you? I want to hear about the skills. And by the way, we'd love to get your thoughts on anything that we have discussed today. So give us a call in just a bit. We'll take your calls at 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N. That's 833-446-3496.

And we're going to talk in a minute about Tucker's complete eschewing of technology. No TVs, no internet, no social media. How on earth does he consume the news? Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show, joined today by Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel. In less than 20 minutes, we're going to be taking your calls on the interview, anything that's on your mind. So Tucker, you were talking about how you sort of asked, you know, you think it's important for men in particular to be able to build things. And I have to say, just to kick it off, Doug has said this too. One day we were sitting in our apartment in Manhattan. Doug's like, you know, just had a thought.

Like if the grid went down, like if I had to go hunt and get us food here in New York City, how would I do it? Like how can you get air conditioning into an apartment? Like how does a man build that? And he's like, I have no idea. I couldn't like, how do they build that chair? And he's like, you look at Adam the Super, like he can do all this stuff. I can't do any of this stuff. And whereupon Adam the Super started to look very attractive to me.

I can't vouch for Adam's appearance. That's hilarious, though. No, I think it's essential. I mean, if you want to. And it's not just about masculinity and all that. It's, you know, being useful is the point of one of the points of life, I think. And self-sufficiency is far underrated. I mean, it really is.

So I like that. I mean, I've hunted and fished my whole life and I continue to. Partridge season opens tomorrow, actually. I've got all four of my spaniels that we were out this morning getting ready for it. And I fish a ton and always have. And so that's, you know, getting out into nature, learning how things work, learning about trees and birds and bear and deer and all that stuff. I just think it meets a very essential need. But I also think doing things with your hands, particularly if you're trapped in your office, writing TV scripts or reading, you know,

into a camera every night as I am, it's so important. I mean, I have a woodshop directly outside my studio. I mean, you walk out my studio and there's a workbench and a woodshop. And I've always had that. I've always really... In fact, seconds before I sat down to talk to you, I fixed a chair. I mean, it's not difficult at all, but it's deeply, and trust me, I'm not doing anything impressive, but I mean, I always try and build a couple pieces of furniture every year just because it makes me feel useful. I tie a ton, a million trout flies and saltwater flies and salmon flies. And I like, cause I like to fish, but I tied them myself because I find it

deeply rewarding. And also my flies are better than most people's, not for the fish. Wow, he's a smart kid. I'm impressed. to build up more than your television skills. But I do, I don't understand how Tucker Carlson lives in the middle of nowhere, lives the life of a Luddite and manages to consume news because you don't have TVs. You don't use the internet. You don't go on social media. I know you use your phone. You are weird in one respect where you will still call people. I love that about you. You'll pick up the phone and call me. I'm like, oh, Tucker talks on the phone still. This is awesome. But how do you stay abreast of the news without using any of those things? By text message. I take a sauna every day. It's one of my weird, we're obviously Scandinavian given our name. And so we grew up

with saunas in the house always. And I take a sauna every day. I believe in it. And I won't bore you with all my views on it. I could literally write a book on sauna, but I'm not going to. But anyway, but I take the sauna and then I sit outside my sauna, usually in a towel, and I make calls and texts. And then I repeat the process every single day of the year. And I get all my information from people. I have a text relationship with probably four or five hundred people, but a huge cross section of the country. One of my favorites, what I text with this morning was a waitress that I had at a restaurant in Big Sur years ago who turned out to be like a complete genius. And a lot of a lot of people, you know, members of Congress. But there's but there's sometimes the least interesting because they have such an agenda. But there's a lot of people, and I just get a massive flow of information through that.

You know, and I spend hours at it every day. It's not a small thing for me. I mean, it's the main thing. So we have an overnight news digest that's prepared by a guy who works for us. You probably know him, Tom Fox, who's just like a complete genius. You know, so I have a lot of sources of news, but one thing I don't do is like hang around on Twitter or, you know, loom around the CNN website or, you know, because that stuff gets in your head.

I don't, I'm not reading the New York Times or the Washington Post like ever. You know, why would I do that? It's garbage. Well, so that's a requirement of the job, is it not? Because, you know, we kicked it off talking about the adl yet again trying to get you fired which isn't going to happen um but that don't you think that's a requirement because i will tell you

you know one of the reasons i left fox was the toxicity of the cable news business and the industry i mean mostly i just wanted to raise my own kids, but I also looked around while not seeing my kids and said, what am I doing instead? Oh, wait, this fucking sucks. What am I doing here? And I was not as smart as you because I did not make myself impervious to that incoming and it did affect my headspace. Well, that's it right there. I mean, and you've, I'm just, I can't overstate this, how thrilled I am by what you're doing. I'm just thrilled. I think this is not flattery. I'm not a flatterer. I think, and I told your producers before, I think you were one of the only people I've ever met who was a true natural talent for what you do. Like you were just born to do it. It's unbelievable. And so the fact that they tried to take you offline for a while and you didn't have a huge

platform just drove me crazy. Just even, even if I disagreed with you and you didn't have a huge platform. It just drove me crazy. Even if I disagreed with you, and I don't, but if I did, I would still feel that way because it's so important for people who are great at doing something to have a chance to do that thing. And so I'm just so thrilled by what you're doing. I really am. But you took full control of your life and that's how you can think clearly. And I think

that's really the only option. You can't, I mean, it's one thing to get fired. When everyone gets fired, you know, it's one thing to get sick. Everyone gets sick. You cannot let them into your head. You cannot give them control of your brain. You can't let them determine what your relationships with the people you love are like. Like these are things you have to protect at all costs. And, you know, everyone finds a different way to do it, but you have to make that a priority. You can't let Twitter into your bedroom. I mean, in my life, that's a big thing.

Like, we don't do phones in the bedroom. Like, the bedroom, you know, is for bedroom stuff. You know what I mean? Right. But let me ask you that, because it's one thing. You married your high school sweetheart. We talked about Susie a minute ago. It's one thing to protect yourself. And it's one thing to know that you're being attacked.

You know, you've been there. I've been there many times. It's another to a it's another for the spouse to watch it. And it's another for you to now watch your own spouse be attacked. I thank God I haven't had that yet. But your wife, I mean, your home in which your wife was present was literally stormed by a bunch of losers who didn't like you, who didn't like what you had to say on the news. I mean, how low of a person do you have to be to be driven to go harass a news anchor and his wife at their home where children could be present because you don't like what he says on the news. It's insane.

But that's a level of stress that's, I mean, almost unprecedented in our business, Tucker. And you've been right at the center of that. Yeah. I mean, luckily my wife is very rooted. My wife is a very intense reader. So she gets, and she reads aloud sometimes, which is my favorite thing. And she's a, you know, she loves PG Woodhouse and she's, she reads aloud sometimes, which is my favorite thing. And she's a you know, she loves P.G. Woodhouse and she's she's a very literate person. And so she you know, she's very involved. We don't have TV, as I said, and she just it wouldn't even wouldn't even occur to her to like she's never been on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. She's just not a world.

So we just yeah, that was traumatic. But she's she's tough. You know, she's yeah, that was traumatic, but she's tough. You know, she's an outdoors person, so she's a tough person. You know, it's the other part of it, which is harder, you know, if you have children out in the world. I mean, it's tough, and I think it's been very tough for them. One of my daughters, my kids are actually hilarious. And all four of them have great senses of humor and have some ironic distance from their own lives, I think. But one of them, who's one of

my funniest kids, called me the other day. She's a senior in college. And this girl's really, really funny. And what she said to me, she's talking about her friend, who has the same last name, Carlson. It's not a very unusual last name, I don't think. And said that they were out to dinner and the girls a year younger than my daughter and said, you know, last year when I got to school, all the teachers were, the professors were mean to me. All my professors were mean to me. They were like rude to me. And I didn't know what was going on. And a classmate said, you know, they think you're Tucker Carlson's daughter.

So my daughter was howling with laughter. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. Wait, you actually are my daughter. What's your life like? But you know, my kids are, you know, they're wasps. They don't like to complain. They will not complain. So it's hard to know because my wife is very anti-complaining and we're from an anti-complaining culture. So like very anti-complaining, like it's, it's better to die than complain about being anti-complaining. No, you're truly like, so my mom left me when I was six. I'm good. Well, I don't know.

You don't get anything out of complaining. And by the way, as my father said to me when I was little and it's proven to be true, you know, almost all unhappiness in the world derives from self-pity. Totally true. Have you ever been truly unhappy except when you were feeling sorry for yourself? No, self-pity is Totally true. Have you ever been truly unhappy

except when you were feeling sorry for yourself? No, self-pity is the root of all sadness. And self-pity is a species of narcissism. So like, stop thinking about, when I was a kid, we'd always be forced to write thank you notes. And my father would come in and proof them. And he was very liberal about a lot of things,

but not this kind of thing. It was very tough. And if we began more than one sentence with the word I in the thank you note, my father always said, oh, is it what's about you? I thought this was a note to thank someone else for giving you something. But every sentence begins with I. So it's really kind of a, you know, a swim in Lake Me, isn't it? Why don't you rewrite that and make it about me?

That's good. Yeah. What a good perspective i know but you but like back to the sort of topic we're we're you're in an industry that's like me i mean the narcissism in cable news you look around everywhere i mean i i it's not it's not a fox news problem it's a cable news it's a news problem trust me i had a much worse time at nbc than i ever did at fox news um in terms of egos and so on uh but i don't know. You tell me, because I've said the other day that there was a point at which I looked around Fox in particular and said, this is under the Ailes era, not presently. I felt like I'd been working in a cult. I'd been going to a cult every day where the leader was revered and there was no dissent allowed. And you look around, you realize you've chosen very unhealthy lifestyle, you know, set up. Well, it's definitely an unhealthy lifestyle.

And you need to, you know, you need to take it very seriously. You need to take your own life very seriously. If you enter into this business and sort of let your life happen to you, you will be destroyed. There's no question about that. And there's a long roster of people who are living testament to that because they've been destroyed. I know them all. And you will be destroyed. There's no question about that. And there's a long roster of people who are living testament to that because they've been destroyed. I know them all and you do too. So, but you just have to take active steps. It's just like anything else. You know, you just have to be thoughtful about your life. And if you are, you'll be fine, but you have to

be very serious about it. And we're, we're very serious about like the simple steps that we take not to go crazy. And if if you do that you'll be fine and the number one thing is just remembering in the end all graves go unvisited in the end this is just a point on a long continuum called human history you're not changing the world you're not jesus you're just some dude with a job and just calm down and not you know what i mean so true it's so true no It's so true. No, I've talked about this with respect to Paul Newman, because if you could find somebody who lived his life, quote, perfectly, he'd be as close as you could get. Good looking guy, huge film career, married the woman of his dreams, absolutely loved her their whole life long.

Great family, went on to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to charity through his next endeavor. You know, universally beloved, blah, blah, blah. He's still dead and buried in the ground, just like we're all going to wind up. There's no post. There's no preventing that by living, quote, the perfect life. But he Paul Newman also pursued like his personal interests, his passions as aggressively as anyone could. So I always love that. I mean, I'm not into cars or car racing or whatever, but Paul Newman was, and he spent, you know, huge amounts of time and money and intensity on the thing that he loved that fulfilled him. And I just, I think that's a model. Like you have to, not everything is about expressing your opinions or being on camera. Like you need to be really

passionate about things that are affirming and life-giving. Um, so yeah, keep it in perspective. Let me ask you about that. Cause I know that you're, um, you're a big reader and your wife's a big reader. You mentioned that and it would be without a television. So how do you decide what to read? Cause I, I remember either somebody told me this about you or I read it. I can't remember, but you were sitting behind a wall full of books and you said, and I've read them all. And so how do you decide, you know, cause if you sort of space out your life and realize you don't have that much time to read that many books, you know, so how do you choose what's next? So funny. This is like another ongoing, I know I'm making my childhood sound like a lecture after lecture. It wasn't, but there were a couple of things.

No, I'm loving your dad. Take it in, in our family. And one of them was what to read. That was like a lecture after lecture. It wasn't, but there were a couple of things. No, I'm loving your dad. Take it in our family. And one of them was what to read. That was like a, and I remember my father saying, my real mother, my birth mother was smart. It was a high IQ person, but great backgammon player, for example. But, and a reader,

but I remember my father saying contemptuously, but she read magazines. Like, she didn't have the self-discipline. And, you know, it was the New Yorker or whatever, Others saying contemptuously, but she read magazines. She didn't have the self-discipline. And, you know, as a New Yorker or whatever, I guess, semi-serious sort of, you know, middle-brow stuff. But she wasn't self-disciplined enough to think through, like, what should I be reading? And it's not, you don't have to always read, you know, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which I did make myself read once. It took like three months. It was horrible.

But anyway, but you should be thoughtful about it. It's like with lunch. For years, decades, I had lunch every single day, five days a week with someone different because that's like important. And I realized at a certain point, when I turned 40, I said to myself, I'm never eating with someone I dislike again. I'm never doing that because how many lunches do I have? And so I only take book advice from a really small number of people. I started last night, actually. I started The History of the North Sea by this British historian. His last name is Pye.

I'm about, I don't know. I just finished the intro, which is like 30 pages long. But I got it from a buddy of mine who was so excited about reading it that he took screenshots of different pages and sent them to me. So I'm reading that. I just got on a Stalingrad kick. I'm interested in the Battle of Stalingrad, the biggest battle in human history. Oh, Lord. You and Doug would bore each other to tears.

Susie and I would be over talking about something more exciting, I hope. But my God, this is like my husband. Well, no, I do read a huge number of books on fly fishing. I just read, we have Springer Spaniels. I really love Spaniels. just read we have springer spaniels i really love spaniels and so we we have four of them so i just finished a book on training springer spaniels i don't know whatever i mean i'm i'm not a deeply serious person i'm hardly like some you know deep intellectual i'm not uh but i just have a lot of interest and i try to indulge them that's good to hear so it's

not all bob woodward and uh you know, Michael Wolff. I never read that shit. It's so stupid. Same. If I can get the four paragraph preface of it. I mean, I don't. Why would you? First of all, I lived there.

So I know a lot about D.C. I don't need to know more. I know I have a full Ph.D. on Washington. And I'm Bob Woodward, who I know. So, like, I don't. But I didn't know anything about Stalingrad or what happened to the guys who were captured in the whatever, I won't bore you with it. But, but there's just a lot that I don't know. And I want to know more. And then I do I do love like my wife, I love PG Woodhouse, who wrote like 108 novels. So you know, that's a lifetime endeavor.

All right. So let me talk to you a little bit about the competitiveness of our industry and cable, because one of the things I've noticed on your show is you're pissed off at Lindsey Graham and you're mad at Governor Abbott down in Texas. And I know why. They won't come on your show. They won't come just answer questions. It's the Fox News channel. You got the number one show on cable.

Just come on and answer a few questions. Why won't they do it? And how big a problem do you think it is, right? When you're as unabashed about going after people and expressing your thoughts on the news as you are, sometimes it can be an impediment to getting people who are a little weak in the knees to come talk to you. Well, we can't really have any debates on the show because no one will come on. There's been a full boycott from Democrats. Unfortunately, I'm sad about it. Um, for, I don't know,

almost three years now. So we can't have a single Democrat, no Democrat will come on. I have a lot of leftists on who I love and admire. I don't agree with them on everything, but I think they're brave and free thinking people. I mean, I love Glenn Greenwald has had him on last night or, you know, Matt Taib, welcome on my show anytime. I have a lot of friends on the, on the, I hate to use the phrase far left, but on the free thinking, on the old fashioned, like Michael Tracy, I had him on two nights ago. He's great. These are all people who are, they're leftists. Okay. But, and again, I don't agree with everything, but I just want someone who's honest. That's all I care about. As for Lindsey Graham, specifically, Lindsey Graham's a fraud.

And that drives me nuts, especially now. So people are really under attack. I mean, people are having their most basic civil liberties taken away from them. So somebody needs to defend them. And you look around, well, whose job is that? Well, the people who got their positions because the people who are being attacked voted for them. Those are their constituents. So they should be defending them. I'm a freaking cable news host. I have no power at all. I'm just a, you know, you've done the job.

So I don't have any power. My only power is the ability to point this out. And I'm deeply frustrated by people shirking their duty in a time of crisis. And I believe it is an actual crisis. And so if the ship is going down, you have to help the weaker into the lifeboats first. That is your moral duty. And if you hop in a lifeboat and row away with open seats, you are a monster and you should be held to account for that. And that's how I feel. So in some sense, I'm madder at Lindsey Graham than I am at AOC. I mean, she's just a grifter trying to get ahead in a tough world and she's succeeding.

You know, I'm not mad at her actually at all. I think she's got some talent. I disagree with everything she says. I think she's racially divisive, which I really hate. But I also recognize, you know, this is a talented person who is totally self-made. So I'm not. And she's also transparent. Like, you know who she is. I getmade. So I'm not, and she's also transparent. Like, you know who she is. I get it. Lindsey Graham pretends to be one thing, but he's entirely another. I'm really bothered by that.

Greg Abbott, I like. I'm not against Greg Abbott at all. I just, at this moment, he could fix the problem or help fix it. And he's not. And I just want to do all I can to encourage him to help fix it because it needs to be fixed. I just don't get why they don't come on. So come on. So be a man, you know, be a woman, stand up, take a few tough questions, even if it gets critical or contentious. I mean,

good Lord, they're politicians. It's like, I don't totally understand it, but I agree with the calling out. It's only women who come on, by the way. That's one of this other thing, which someday I'm going to really get time to think through. But like I asked my producer that we try to highlight people who aren't going along with the bullshit, who are brave, who are standing up. We have them on. Some nurse who's like, I'm not going to be pushed around. Okay, great.

Well, I said to my producer, we had this amazing nurse on the other day. This woman was so brave and clear speaking, clear thinking, just totally fearless. And I said to my producer, what percentage of these people, we have them on every week, have been women? He goes, that's an interesting question. Probably 90% of them. And that's great. I mean, I have three daughters and I couldn't be more pro-women. I like women more than men. I always have. But you need men too. Where are the men? And I asked my producer that. He's like, that's such a good question. I don't know. Where are the men? Why aren't the men standing up? And I don't know the answer, But this is weird. Well, can I tell you, especially on the COVID stuff when it's when it involves your children, you know, it's like it that'll get a

mama bear madder than anything, as you know, for as a man who spent a lot of time in the wilderness. And that's that's what COVID has done. I think it's activated a lot of moms and also CRT in our schools. You're indoctrinating our kids. You're brainwashing them. You're muzzling them with masks that they don't need in the school setting. You won't be honest about the science. It all goes on interminably with no end date in sight. And, and when, when that's why I love watching somebody like you push back against some of this nonsense. Cause it's like, you know how it is YouTube, any, any place you push back on masks. Rand Paul got videos taken down because he pushed back on masks. They they will shut you up. And one of the beauties of Fox News and you is you're allowed to say what you feel.

You're allowed to push back. You man or woman, you can push back on the sort of the mainstream narrative. And Tucker, we're losing that by the day. It's totally scary because where does it end up? I mean, I just don't, you know, I think so many, I'm not going to be boring about it, but yes, I think this is an actual crisis. You have to have free thinking in order to have a civilized country, period. You have to allow ordinary people to express their views. Maybe we could agree that there are some views that are so terrifying and dangerous that shouldn't express them in public. Okay, let's have that conversation. What are those views? Tell me, you know, and let's talk about it. But overwhelmingly, you need to have people

feel free to say what they really think. And you absolutely under no circumstances can force citizens, free people to violate their own consciences, period. You cannot do that. You're not allowed to do that. But you know, they say just espousing the word, just saying the words, right? Like if you're not pro-vaccine, if you're not pro-mask, that it's disinformation, that it needs to be stifled,

that you'll have blood on your hands. I mean, that's the narrative and it's working. The number of people, I mean, I had a child who was pretty badly hurt by a vaccine and years ago by a flu vaccine. And it was totally real. I had no idea. I grew up next to the Salk Institute in La Jolla, and I was totally pro-vaccine. I still am totally pro-vaccine. I've had a million vaccines and so have my kids, including after this kid got hurt by the vaccine. But so I'm not, I'm hardly an anti-vaxxer, just the opposite. I'm totally pro-science, pro-medicine, pro-vaccine.

But you have to be allowed to say if there is a side effect of a medicine. You can't be pushed to deny the physical reality of the effect of a medicine. You just, that's crazy. That's total dark ages, witchcraft stuff. Like, no. And the number of people who come to me and say, you know, I had this, or one of my children had this, or my spouse had this. I mean, there's a lot of it out there. And those people are attacked for being injured by something they were forced to take and called anti-vaxxers. Like it's so grotesque. I don't, you know,

I don't know what to say. I've done a couple shows on this. And, you know, I mean, they try to shut us down for saying that. Think about that. They're trying to hurt you for explaining as honestly as you can using federal statistics the harm rate from a medicine they're requiring. I mean, I'm trying not to use the F word on your show, but like, honestly, think of just like meditate on that for three minutes. This is what I think about in the sauna. sauna. Like, this is just too dark. vote them out of office. We're stuck with these masters over whom we have no control. To the

contrary, they control us. And so we feel disempowered, our leaders dividing us, taking away the fibers of patriotism and loving our country that used to bind us together, no matter our race, our gender, what have you. Just this growing frustration and upset in the country. And you say a major change is coming. What does that look like? Well, you know, first of all, I mean, don't take my word for it. Watch the people in charge. They're terrified. This is how people behave when they're afraid. You know, if you're firmly in control of your sons, you don't screech at them. I mean, right? Because, you know, they respect you and they know you're their mom. So like you don't need to like smack

them in the face if they disobey. You can reason with them and be like, no, you know, we do it this way for this reason. I'm like, okay, mom, because you're in charge. You're their mom. So the second you start using force rather than reason, you are signaling that you have lost control and you know you have. That's why you're doing it. You're becoming hysterical because your control is going away. So these people in charge now know their control is tenuous. That's why, you know, they're calling out the National Guard to enforce their stupid mandate. A. B, every action provokes an equal and opposite reaction. That's physics, but it's also human nature. So if you have massive change in a society comes out of nowhere, you know, George Floyd dies, COVID arise from China. Two facts in the past two years have completely, completely changed American society forever. They came out of nowhere. Nobody expected either one to happen. It happened like so quickly that most of us were caught completely unaware. That is such a huge change that we are going to have all kinds of equally huge reactions to it, period. This we know. Now, the shape of those reactions,

their nature, that's not knowable. We can only guess. But where we are right now is where we are right now. But again, this is just a point on a continuum. This country is going to look extremely different five years from now. I mean, that's just guaranteed. And as one of my smartest friends said to me, this is what it looks like when one system gives way to another. And clearly, that's true. I just don't know what the next system is. I have my hopes, but I don't know. But it will not, you know, it's not like we're going back 2004, 1998, or any other previous time in American history, we're going towards something new, untethered from reality in too many circumstances, which is why I'm so happy to have you out there, Tucker. I mean, I haven't done all that many things that I feel really proud about. But saying Tucker Carlson really needs to be in the prime time of Fox News is definitely on the list. Not that I'm responsible. I mean, there were a lot of people that didn't want me to get the job, but you made all the difference because at that point,

you know, you were by far the most powerful person on our air and, uh, and the person they listened to the most carefully. So to have out of nowhere, I should just say for our audience, I certainly didn't expect you to go to bat for me. I was like, what? I still have no idea why you did that. But it was obvious because you're such a talent. I mean, it was like if you're just paying attention, it was obvious you you were able to understand Trump before anybody. Your analysis is always so well informed, so well read, so spot on and not like everybody else's. It's not like just talking points that you pick up off the Internet. And now we know why, by the way, he doesn't go on the internet. Um, and just so always affable and rooting for others. And I still see you that way. Grateful to know you,

to call you a friend and to be able to tune into your show every night. Tucker, thank you so much. Thanks a million, Megan. This has been wonderful. Oh, for me too. Lots of love. Tucker Carlson, everybody. Yay. Yay. So happy to be able to talk to him again. We're going to take your calls up next at 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N. That's 833-446-3496. What did you think about Tucker? What did you think about Chris Cuomo? Is he getting fired?

Oh, call me quickly. Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show, everyone. The phone lines are open. Call us at 833-44-MEGYN, 833-446-3496. I want to take our first caller, who is Greg in Pennsylvania. Hey, Greg, what's on your mind? Hi, Megyn. Nice to talk to you.

Boy, I'll tell you, I always like to hear stories about successful people, their early lives, like Tucker was talking about. I had a similar situation. I was 21. I got married early and had a couple kids, divorced eventually. But I was also interested in his fishing and hunting as well. I do both. I'm retired now.

I retired early. I worked in the factory for about 10 years, and I said I was going to take the postal test. I worked for the Postal Service for 27 years and retired early at the age of 58, I think. I'll be 67 next month. But anyway, my wife is a teacher here in Erie and in the poorest zip code in Pennsylvania. I might be the poorest zip code in the country. As a matter of fact, she called me today or texted me today and told me that she had a student that had the sniffles. So they relocated everybody to the library and then they sent this this child home and what she's going through

sorry greg i got you got to get to the point there because i want to get another caller before we hit the break okay i'm sorry uh anyway uh what's going on with this covid situation is just driving me crazy we've both been vaccinated uh what what what exactly where do you think we're headed with this thing? Yeah, well, it's nowhere good. I mean, just today, the CDC took down the guidelines on when you can take off masks in schools. And they did that for a reason, because it would have led us to an earlier date than they would like. So our leaders are in favor of government control, not reason. And I'm I'm concerned it's not going to end unless the people get out into the streets and insist that it end. Okay, hold on a second. I want to get another caller and say, let's see. Oh, that's funny. Okay. Bob from Texas has got some thoughts.

Bob, what's on your mind today? Yeah, Megan, you know, I served 14 years on the teams in the military. And the things that I saw overseas and and in the military do not scare me as much as what's going on with our country what's going on with our country is is as as people don't realize as we get more people crossing the border as we get more uh more uh how do i put it uh far left politicians staying in politics, the more freedoms we lose. And you can see it happening by the way they take certain freedoms actually from certain people. For instance, when they call talk about the unvaxxed and things of that sort. And I mean, listen, Bob, if we if we let it happen, then we deserve what happens next.

We deserve the results. And right now we've been letting it happen. People really need to reflect on that. Listen, thank you for calling. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I want to tell you that coming up next week, Tulsi Gabbard is going to be here on Tuesday. She's going to react live to General Mark Milley's testimony before Congress. That'll be amazing. Plus, Glenn Beck will also be here.

You can download episodes of The Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, and Stitcher. Also, you can watch the show, youtube.com slash megynkelly. Have a great weekend.