The Tucker Carlson Show - Michael Knowles: Attacks on Christians, Norm McDonald, and Leaving Atheism for Catholicism

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Six years ago Fox News denounced Michael Knowles as “disgusting” for making an obvious point, and then banned him from the air. He’s since been vindicated, to put it mildly. (00:00) The Left���s Exploitation of Greta Thunberg (08:02) The Minneapolis Catholic School Shooting (15:55) Why Is Catholicism Booming? (25:11) How Technology and Wealth Is Corrupting the Christian West (35:50) The Vatican 2 Council Controversy (46:52) Is There Salvation Outside of the Church? (1:28:32) Is Trump Really a Nationalist? (1:45:34) Is Putin Actually Evil?Michael Knowles is a Catholic political commentator, host of The Michael Knowles Showon DailyWire+, and the #1 national best-selling author of Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, as well as the viral blank book Reasons To Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide. He is also the founder of Mayflower Cigars, blending his love of faith, culture, and tradition with a passion for premium cigars. Paid partnerships with: Masa Chips: Get 25% off with code TUCKER at https://masachips.com/tuckerTecovas: Get 10% off at tecovas.com/tucker Cozy Earth: Go to https://CozyEarth.com/Tucker & use code TUCKER for up to 40% off joggers, pants, shirts - everything. TCN: Watch the full series as soon as it premieres: tuckercarlson.com/the911files Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I was thinking about you this morning, and I haven't seen you since 2019. I think that's correct. I think so. And what's interesting, looking back, that was only six years ago, is what a completely different world we live in. So the last time I saw you, you had described, and correct me, if I've messed up the details, I probably have. Greta Thunberg, as you weren't even that mean. You're like, she's clearly mentally ill, something like that. Yeah, I said the left is exploiting this mentally ill Swedish child. It's so obviously true. So if you said that now,

the only reason I'm bringing this up is just to celebrate how much this country has changed and how much fear it is. So you said that in 2019, again, wasn't the Middle Ages. We had air conditioning and air travel.

It was like the modern era. And you were banned from the conservative TV channel, which denounced you as, quote, disgusting for saying that. Now it's like you don't even think twice about noting the obvious. So I just want to say, I'm glad to see you in this better world.

Well, thank you, it's good to be in this better world. Well, thank you, Tucker. It's good to be in this better world. And you, heroically uncanceled me actually. There were a few people who helped out, but you were one of the people who really helped out when I was being ostracized to St. Helena for making what I felt was a benign observation, yes. And you said, that's ridiculous. And you kind of forced me back through into TV. Well, I mean, it certainly didn't require heroism. It was just like that was so stupid. I couldn't believe, you know, it's, I think it's also important to remember that. that this country went through a protracted moral panic that hurt so many people. Yes.

And that we've never really repented of that and we should. Like I interviewed one yesterday. I won't even bore you with the story. But he was just another casualty of that five-year period where people were destroyed, driven to suicide in a lot of cases during our cultural revolution. And the perpetrators were never punished for that. They never even apologized. They never even acknowledged.

They were never forced to acknowledge their wrongdoing. And the people who called you disgusting for saying something was actually kind of compassionate. That was my view. It was kind of charitable. I strive for that. Yeah, yeah. Why are we exploiting this child who's clearly unwell? She clearly is unwell. Weielding children in politics generally is unseemly, I think. Yes. And when you're exploiting a truant in order to score some cheap point on the Sun Monster or something, I think is, I think, that's disgraceful, as a matter of fact. But you're the criminal for pointing it out. And the fact that my former employer played along with that and called you disgust. I think that's, I think, look, I'm

Fabio, but I wouldn't call myself disgust. I don't know. But, but, you know, you mentioned this cultural revolution, and obviously you had all these ideological aspects. It seemed downright Maoist. And then it reached its apotheosis, 2020, 2021, with an actual political lockdown of our whole country. Yes. By all of these same cultural and political forces. Oh, that's smart. I never thought of it that way. And then the fog just lifted. It just something broke. And now it seems like all of that from the most ideological cultural level all the way down to just, you know, being free to go out and like see Granny at Christmas. Exactly.

It's over. We should celebrate that. We should. How should we celebrate talking? I don't know. But I don't think I appreciate the good things enough. I'm too focused on the sadness or things that are, you know, not exactly the way I think they ought to be. And I don't think, speaking for myself, I take.

enough time to just be grateful for the good things and that is one of the best things and i very practically want to celebrate i i came prepared today i don't know if you're familiar with this product i i said i i try i try to you know mitigate all all these little fun treats that i have whether it's a donut whether it's a tasty but i said well if tucker i would hate to be inhospitable so now i have a great excuse to celebrate with you are always welcome to use an alp here it's been a year this month I used the other product Zinn I didn't even know that it was wrong

and it was one of those weird moments where you're sort of shocked into reality somebody told me I think it's true that the majority like 70% of of Zin users use the product rectally and that can't be that can't be so we told me that and I was like are you serious

and he's like yes you should try it and I was like I don't know what this is but I'm out yeah so we started we started this, which I think it's a really good alternative. That's good. No, I agree. Because it's got to be at least less than 10% of users.

No, I think it's zero percent. We actually don't allow it. We don't allow it. That's really good. But this actually ties in. The fact that we are living in an age now where you're allowed to have some nicotine again. Oh, I know. You remember you were allowed to have marijuana, fentanyl, you were anything in between.

But the one thing you couldn't have was you couldn't have a cigar. You couldn't have a pouch. You couldn't have anything. And now it's just like... Because it raises testosterone, whereas weed lowers it. So it makes you less obedient, more free thinking, happier, or stronger. And those are all, you know, the last qualities authoritarian want the population to have. I was looking back, because I was trying to figure out the morality up.

I've smoked cigars since I was 15. And I was trying to figure out the morality. Is this a vice? And I said, well, I don't think so. There's a story about St. Pius the 10th. He was talking to a cardinal, called him in, offered him a cigar. The cardinal said, I don't have that vice. He says, it's not a vice.

You would have it if it were a vice. You have enough vices. And then there was the case of St. Philip Neri, who won it the devil's advocate in his canonization process said that he might not be a saint because his body was corrupt. Because part of his nose had worn away. I said, no, no, no. It wasn't corrupted after he died. It was corrupted while he was alive from all the nasal snuff that he did. Yes.

And Pope Leo the 13th, the most prolific poet. ever, wrote the most encyclicals, apparently drank cocaine wine, Van Mariani. Is that true? It is. I've never tried it. Along with Sherlock Holmes, Cocoa wine? Coca-wine, yes. Yeah, I'd probably have written more books that I tried it, but I have. It's funny. Somebody told me an really interesting story recently about the number of cardinals, current Catholic cardinals who smoke cigarettes.

Yeah. And I just love that. I'm not Catholic, but I have always loved cigarette smoking. I know you're not supposed to say that. I know it's bad. killed a close relative of mine, you know, I'm aware of the health effects. But I just thought, I don't know, there's something about that. And because it's Benedict the 16th love to smoke cigarettes, and he would have one or two a day. When was he Pope? He was the Pope before Francis. So he was, oh, Benedict, the one we just had. Yeah, the German Pope. Yes. He would smoke a couple cigarettes a day. And I thought, this is something beautiful. This is another thing that's come back since

our cultural revolution. Is that widely known? You know, I don't know. I'm sure they've tried to suppress that. You know, they probably want to make him into like a kombucha drinking, hemp smoking. But no, he liked Marlborough Reds. And he would smoke them. This is the chief political virtue. He would smoke them in moderation and with prudence. And this is the thing. We live in this crazy schizophrenic age where you have to be all one thing or all the exact opposite.

What does Aristotle tell us? Virtue is that mean, right between the two extremes. You can have a moral borough red every once in a while. Boy, if I could do that, I would still be doing it. I have a friend who's over 80 who smoked two marlborough lights, which men should not be smoking those, but whatever, the white ones, every day his whole life. I think it was after a burga fell.

They let men smoke marlborough lights. It was a little red part of that decision. I was out by then. So speaking of gender bending, what do you make of the shooting in Minneapolis? Like, how should we think of it? There's so many different threads there. I don't really understand. Did you read the manifesto?

did not. So I took a look. I saw they were in Cyrillic script. Yes, Cyrillic. My Cyrillic's not great. But we had some translations done and you could read the writing on the magazines. And the first thing that struck me, I mean, after the horror of it, you know, you just think the most vulnerable people of the church being attacked by this maniac. The first thing that struck me was how apparently incoherent it all was. Because it's an attack on a Catholic church on these like, innocent little kids in a Catholic church. And then if you look on the guns and on the magazines, it's not just anti-Christian. It's anti-Muslim. It says remove kebab. It's anti-Jewish. Six million wasn't enough. It's nihilistic.

It's anti-gay. The guy was a tranny. And then there's the scariest part of it is on this page. There's a picture he drew of himself. And it's him looking in a mirror. And he's got the gun behind him. And in the mirror is a picture of a demon. and that's scary enough like a goat-headed like a goat-headed Baphimette looking demon

when you read when you translate the Cyrillic the first thing that's written top left of the page is who am I and this is really jarring because you recognize that Moses at the burning bush he asks God who are you who I tell them that you are and God

says I am who I am I am you know Christ says before Abraham was I am this is his declaration that he's God I am and a a great priest friend of mine, Father Rudler, once observed, that when you know, when you're with God, you know who you are, you know your identity. Modernity thinks that you have to leave God and just totally go and make yourself a God, and then you'll be truly yourself or find yourself. That's not true. You become much more

yourself, much more perfectly yourself if you do what you're supposed to do and align yourself with God. And when you don't identify yourself with, I am, then you're left with this pathetic question, who am I? So you see this obvious demonic influence there. And what struck me, too, with all of these apparent contradictions, it's anti-Christian and also anti-Muslim and Jew. It's radically LGBT, but also kind of anti-gay. It's anti-Trump, kill Trump right now, but it's also has all these kind of far right-wing slogans. And it reminded me, which is very important to remember, especially in our line of work, because you're constantly reading all this radical stuff. Right. And you're looking for the easy explanation. Like,

This is a representative of this group or this idea that I already dislike, and now you've confirmed that I have every reason to dislike this group. I mean, this is the effect of social media. But this guy, it's like, obviously I'm imposed to the training thing passionately, but you realize the demons, which are real, they're not under every rock, but they're real. They're such a thing as spirits, and they'll try to get you from any angle. They'll try to get if they think they're going to bang you from the right, they'll get you from the right. If they're going to get you from the left, they'll get you from up or down.

All they want to do is devour you. It's like Lewis and the screw tape letters. All that, just any tactic that will let them get a hold of you. And it's so clear with this guy because you realize this guy was being obsessed from every angle. Wow. So did you know that before the current generation, chips and fries were cooked in natural fats like beef tallow. That's how things used to be done, and that's why people looked a little slimmer at the time and ate better than they do now. Well, masa chips is bringing that all back. They've created a tortilla chip that's not only delicious, it's made with just three simple ingredients. A, organic corn, B, C, C, 100% grass-fed beef tallow. That's all that's in it. These are not your average chips. Masa chips are crunchier,

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The fact that he drew a picture, and that is one of the few things I saw from the manifesto, pretty clear rendition too. I mean, he was a decent artist of himself looking in the mirror and a demon staring back at him. I mean, that's like, that seems like a page one story. yes this guy was possessed or at least influenced by in him with some supernatural force causing him to murder kids and think about the the two opposing errors that have led to this just in the last quarter century in the 2000s i remember it vividly because i fell away from faith during this time there was the new atheism materialism you know god's a spaghetti monster come on there's nothing but flesh and blood we're just you know synapses firing, it's a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing. That was one error. I think that's

fallen away. Yeah. I don't think anyone believes that anymore. No, but now we've fallen into the opposing error, which is to say, actually, the material world has nothing to do with who you really are. Your body has nothing to do with who you really are. Your true self is this purely immaterial thing. So if you're a man, you can really be a woman or what have you. And those are those are opposing errors that oppose the real dignity of the human person, who is both spirit, soul, and body. Once again, something I hadn't thought of. So we've, interesting, do you think that the fact that people live their lives digitally has allowed them to imagine that the body has no significance? Precisely. And this is the point that I think a lot of people have not made, which is that, of course,

the trans ideology is in many ways, deader than disco at this point. The Democrats are running away from it. Are they? I think so. They're downplaying it. It really hurt them in 2024. I think they realized we, We reached peak sexual madness in 2023. They at least have to publicly back off. However, how did we get to that place? You could say, well, it begins with feminism, you know, the idea that a woman needs a man like a fish, needs a bicycle. Men and women are the same. Goes into the LGBT movement, which says men and women are the same.

Goes into gay marriage, so-called, which says men and women are the same. So two men and two women are the same as a man and a woman. Leads into transgenderism, a man can be a woman. Okay, I see that through line. But just think about the technological aspect. if I live my life on this little portal to hell that's in my pocket, it is a portal to hell, all day long I'm sitting.

Exactly where it goes. If that's where I live in my own perception, then my body really doesn't matter that much, does it? I don't, you know, I'm not like the biggest, you know, Achilles in the world, right? I'm not some hulking Adonis. I'm not an athlete, but it doesn't really matter. I just live in this virtual world. So is it so crazy to think that your body doesn't matter at that point?

I think that's, my instinct has been for the last few years that physical reality does really matter, even as I feel like I've had a heightened spiritual awareness and the dead certain knowledge that there is a spiritual, an unseen realm that is acting on us all the time, and that that's as real as anything. I sincerely believe that. But on the other hand, I do see a lot of, like, ignoring of the physical reality around us. Yeah. This is why, by the way, you know, like everyone's becoming Catholic now.

Have you noticed a strange phenomenon? I think this is a big reason why. The decline in religion has tapered off. Other denominations and traditions are growing, but Catholicism in particular is exploding. Why? I think it's because it's a sacramental theology. I never would have called that.

Isn't it? Yeah, 20 years ago, could you imagine? At all. Certainly not. No, the spotlight series had just come out and you're just like, this church is too corrupt to continue. you. And I just want to say again, I'm not Catholic, but I strongly agree that there's a revival

and I just see it all around me. And I think this is why, you know, I mean, the words at the sacrifice of the mass are, this is my body, which will be given up for you, you know, and which is, which is mocked. You know, the phrase hocus pocus, like in magic, is a mockery of hawkestanum corpus. This is, this is my body. You know, this, yeah, it's a kind of a hawkest corpus, hocus pocus is uh at least that's a popular etymology and i'm persuaded by it so there's this there's always this mockery in all of the kind of false religions there's always this mockery of the real sacrifice but in a lot of religious traditions and i don't cast dispersions i had a baptist grandpa you know the noleses come from maine actually this is a the ancestral homeland of the noleses

amazing yes yeah i haven't made it up very often but a lot of puritan in the line but a lot of us at ancestors in Maine and it's, you know, they left. It's kind of cold. It's cold and barren. It is cold, yes. But I think the reason why the sacramental theology is kicking up again is because we say, huh, you know, I've been living in a computer for 20 years, and I don't even remember if I'm a man or a woman anymore.

But maybe my body really has something to do with who I am. And actually, maybe this whole religion is about God becoming man and taking on flesh and dwelling among us and broiling fish. I mean, the first thing you see our Lord doing when he comes back, you know, his resurrection. Standing on the shores of the lake. He's cooking fish for his friends and eating fish for breakfast. For breakfast, which is a hardcore. Do they do that?

It's not core. Only in Japan did they do that. In Maine, it's lobster. But there's brook trout, actually. People eat them with big beans. I think that's why. I think there's just, and COVID ties into this too. Because during COVID, you were told your grandma has to die alone.

And you can't see her, you can't go to Christmas. She has to die alone in a hospital bed. lucky you can say goodbye on Zoom and people recoil against that because it's just contrary to human nature you know human beings are we're like the the angels in one way because we have reason we have intellect and will and spirits or you know don't have bodies but we're like the animals in another way the animals don't have intellect and will they have instinct and appetite but they're bodies you know and we're kind of in the middle of those two things and you can't ignore the

you can only ignore the body for so long before people say no you know I'm a a man, actually. Believe it or not, even in modernity, I'm a man. I want to do stuff. What's a sacramental religion? How is that, or theology, how is that distinct? What's a non-sacramental theology? It would be like the kind of religion that says that, well, the kind of religion Obama pushed. You remember Obama? He wouldn't talk about freedom of religion. Not religion. He'd say, oh, you have freedom of worship. We're going to sue nuns. We're going to sue nuns. We're going to persecute Catholics. We're going to, Biden's going to imprison pro-lifers for praying outside of abortion clinics. But you can have your worship in your own head. Close your eyes. You can think

things in your own head, but you can't do anything. And that's not what religion is. Religion is, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, it's a habit of virtue that inclines the will to give to God what he deserves. And you do it in your whole life. And so a sacrament is the meeting of the material and the immaterial. The clearest example, the highest, you know, blessed sacrament is the Eucharist, which we believe, and certain Protestant traditions also believe, is really Christ, you know, body, blood, soul, and divinity, really, really present. And this is confounding to modern man, or says, well, get me an electron microscope. Let me, I don't see, and actually there have been Eucharistic miracles where the appearance of the bread is not maintained and actually gives way

to like cardiac tissue. That's a separate topic. Even in the ordinary sacrament, it's this meeting of the two things. When I go to confession, I confess my terrible sins. I get down on my knees in a box with a priest, and the priest is acting in the person of Christ. It comes from scripture because Christ says to the apostles, you have the power to forgive sins, whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained. That's a real authority. He says that to the disciples. Yes. And that's a real authority. It's not just a kind of abstract, you know, you can just forgive sins by, you know, spreading a message or something. You're saying, you have an actual authority. You can retain

sins if the person isn't really repentant. And that means that when I'm in there confessing in a box to a guy in a collar, I'm, God is actually forgiving my sins in the person of the priest or not. But that's a meeting of something I can see and something I can't see. One of the truest observations ever, it's hard to have a good time if you're stuck in bad boots. And that's why you need Tukovas. They make it easy for anybody, including people like us, hardly experts in boot fashion, to find the perfect boot. Here at TCIN, we love Tukov's boots. Everybody's got them.

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and text alert. That's 10% off at T-C-O-V-A-S. dot com slash tucker honor the west by leaving your own bootprint tecovis dot com slash tucker can i ask you um i'm as i've said a protestant i love martin luther i'm sure you hate martin luther but i really love martin luther he had some very funny prose i you know he had really he was a spicy character yes um the real martin luther not michael luther who changed his name and michael king who changed his name but um but anyway the actual the german monk but one of the things he didn't got rid of indulgences, thank God, in my view. But he also got rid of confession. And I don't understand why. That has always struck me as a mistake and such a great thing that Catholics do.

And do you know, I mean, do you know the answer? The Anglicans still have confession. C.S. Louis confessed every week of his life. I grew up in the Anglican church. We've never had that. I've never heard of it. These days, unfortunately, they used to say the Episcopalians and it was twice the liturgy, half the guilt. Yeah, well, zero guilt. Yes. Zero. Do you only feel bad about feeling bad about yourself i was i was at the national prayer service at the inauguration when that bishop riss lady decided to take the occasion to scold the president vice president you remember that do i remember that's the head of my church yeah do i remember it like every episcopalian i know we're all texting each other former episcopalian but yeah no she was she i loved that because then the world could see what

it's really become it's just it's it's repulsive it's not christianity and she was just so obvious like furious in torment yes yes this is not someone who's like experiencing god's forgiving love this is someone who's filled with hate and they all are filled with hate it's all a bunch of recovering alcoholic ladies with multiple divorces deciding their lesbian love the little outfits and then the priest are these kind of beta males or gay guys who love the outfits the whole thing is fake yeah but what do you really think Tucker hold on what do you really think about about the Epistible church how much time do you have yeah that's a That is similarly

Lutheran or Heller-Belock like vituperation I totally get it. I totally get it. I'm not being very Christian. But no, no. I mean, it's had a huge effect on my life, so obviously I'm a little mad about it. I need to repent of my anger. But I was just delighted that the rest of the world could see what it has become because obviously, you know, the Episcopalians ran the country and did a great job, I would say much better job

that the current people around the country are doing. And they had a wonderful taste. And so they built the prettiest churches, each with a red door. My whole life, we had a red door on our house, always, every house, because we're Episcopians. You're a red door. And there's just, there's a lot that was good about them. And I think people haven't updated their files and they don't know what goes on inside. And not in every Episcopal church.

One of my closest friends is an Episcopal priest and a sincere and wonderful man, godfathered one of my kids. But in a lot of Episcopal churches, it's. hateful, menopausal ladies like that and they're gay sidekicks. And it's just the saddest, ugliest, cruelest thing ever. And now everyone saw it. And the other thing about it is, if you go to church and your church is, you know, some some lady spouting off about, I don't know, like, you know, the latest migration policy and whining about Trump. Exactly. Then put aside the political issue, you just ask yourself, well, why am I going here? Well, that's, exactly the question we asked.

I get this six days a week. Why do I need to get this on the seventh day? Especially when I could be in bed with my wife and my dogs. You just ask me to get out of bed and take a shower at 7 in the morning, which I hate doing, to go to church, which I really feel like I should be doing. And this is what I get. There's nothing transcendent. It's all you and your little therapy session and you're like filled with hate.

Like, no. But this is why I, this is how, in answer your question, how did these things sort of decline? I think part of it is it's a spirit of liberalism that comes out and abstracts everything, first of all, away from time and place and community and family and body and just all like these really tangible things. It abstracts it all into outer space. And then on the other side of it, it brings everything down. Everything has to be totally not even egalitarian.

It's like a kind of Harrison Bergeron handicapping of everything. You've just got to make the church like the world. There's a great line from, I think it was Fulton Sheen who says, that if you wed the spirit of the age, you'll find yourself a widow in the next. And that's what these, and the Catholics are not guiltless in this, by the way, because after the Second Vatican Council, there was a liturgical reform to turn everything into some happy, clappy sort of party. The priest then faces the people instead of facing God as leading us all in worship. And whatever, the age of Aquarius, I guess, demanded that in the 60s or something. But I think people have had enough of that. And I think people hate the disenchantment

and the degradation of the world and just the physical ugliness of it and we want to look up again. When was the last time someone built like a cathedral? I mean, you go to downtown London, which has got to be the saddest place on the planet. And if I didn't have family there, I wouldn't go there. But I do, and so I do.

And you go and you see the prettiest buildings in the city were built before electricity, or machines of any kind, actually. And it's also tough to get around London now because my Arabic isn't very good. There's that. By the way, speaking of, like, things you couldn't have imagined even two years ago, I read Elon is now calling for the repatriation of, like, a lot of European, non-Europeans out of Europe.

Yes. And I'm like, which obviously, you know, I understand why he feels that way. But to say something like that, I would just sort of casually drop that yesterday, I think. It's like, we're living in a different time. Of course we are. And it's not 2020 anymore. I just hope that the return to sanity happens while Angela Merkel is still alive

so she gets to see the undoing of her policies to flood Europe. I mean, it's crazy. To destroy it, to destroy Christian Europe forever. Well, you know, this was the part, I mentioned Hilaire Belloc, who has a similarly, sort of delightfully acerbic style to what you're allowed to mention him? Belly, yes, Bella, are you allowed to say,

Belloc is, listen, he was buddies with Chesterton, Chesterton's slightly more clubbable, so maybe you're allowed to mention Belloc. But Belloc said, in his excellent book on the Crusades, He said, look, excellent, excellent, highly recommended reading. He's, oh, I can't even do justice to the vividness of his prose, this kind of both bloodthirsty and totally charitable way of writing. But he says, look, the Crusades were lost.

We lost the battle, Heffatine, it was 1187, that was that it was done. And we flatter ourselves. We think that Islam is sort of done. He's writing this in the, what, 20s or 30s? Yeah. He says, we think Islam is done, and Christianity is strong. He goes, no. Islam remains intact.

The only reason it seems like Christendom is on top is because we have certain technological and industrial advantages. He goes, once that passes away, he goes, our moral certitude is totally cracked up. We are in a much worse place than our opponents and the Crusades were. Exactly. I think that's really prescient and why is it true?

I mean, it's so obviously true. And it was the affluence born of technology that rotted the soul of the Christian West. I mean, wealth did this. just as it does to families. And I'm not against wealth. I mean, I haven't accrued much, but, you know, I'm not for poverty, for sure. But it's also true that, like, generational wealth, like, makes you into a horrible person.

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around a prayer card. Listen, I haven't sold enough cigars yet that I'm too worried about Generation I'm going to ask you about the cigars because I don't, I don't know, how did you want up the cigar business? But hold on, but I will, but I take it too seriously to address it parenthetically. I, so I feel as though I've got a really nice life. You know, I got a nice house. I got a nice house. got this beautiful family. I have nice little doodads and things like that. You have three sons. Three sons. I cannot produce. That's true wealth. It is true wealth. And I can't produce a daughter, which means I'm going to go to a nursing home someday. If I don't, I need a daughter. That is the truest thing. I'm sad for you that you already know that at 35, that your final hours will be spent alone.

And your boys will be somewhere with some hot girl, be like, you know, he was a good guy. Whatever happened to him? What was his name? Matt or Mark or something. Anyway, he, uh, whereas if you had daughters, bedside vigil. Yes. Dad needs a catheter chain, whatever it takes, like they will do it. That's actually why I need generational wealth is just to pay for my long-term care. You're going to have some Haitian lady who's out for a cigarette when you croak. You need some daughters, man.

But, you know, I carry around a prayer card of St. Jerome, who translated the Bible. It was also a great kind of a rhetorical pugilist. And there's a great quote from Letter 22, I think. He would write all these letters to Roman noble women. And it says, whenever you start to be enchanted by the pleasures of this world, it's not that you have to totally, you know, deny them all the time. But whenever you start to be enchanted, think about where you're going. Think about how this is all going to end up and try to be now what you will be hereafter.

Easier said than done. No, it's, yes, I couldn't agree. I don't have my phone right. I would redo my favorite quote on that exact subject. every new year's my wife and I go to church we don't go to the service because it's Episcopal church but we go in the afternoon to say our prayers for the year and every year you know you sort of I always feel like I get a message or something resonant like this year is going to require this quality in order to get through it and thrive in it and this year man

the message was so clear like this is all passing away and to the extent that you love you know material things and take great you know undue pride in your own stupid accomplishments like you're a fool you're a fool i think you can kind of see this with with trump now actually i think trump he is and i probably it happened after butler pennsylvania something seems to have changed in the way that he speaks i was just there i visited the white house to do some interviews and things just a week ago and what's so amazing is you are at the peak of imperial power on earth the absolute head of the strongest government maybe they that has ever existed, technologically, certainly, that has ever existed. And you walk around and

you think, you know, it's great and I'm glad to be here. Even this, it's a government building, first of all. Exactly. It's kind of drab, which is why Trump's trying to fix it up a little bit. And even this, even this will pass away four years. Well, even Trump's been kind of president for 12 years. He's been the dominant figure in public life for 12. His president will have been for eight. And I think even this is going to pass away. And you're going to be sitting in your bed with your Haitian nurse. Oh, it's totally true. What is this about? And she's going to be like listening to some game show at high volume and you're going to want her to turn it down.

But you've got a tube in your throat and you can't tell her. No, she doesn't speak English. Literally nothing you can do about it. You can't extend your life by one day. You have no power actually to control the things that matter. And most of our power is destructive power. You can kill people. That's why heads of state love killing people, whatever they say, they love it.

Because it makes them feel like God. Yeah, Obama would joke about it. I got drones. I'm coming for you, Jonas Brothers. They love it. They all love it. I've talked to a lot of them about it. They love it. And the clever ones try to hide the fact they love it. Well, you know, it's the burden of the office. But that's not how they feel. They take delight in it because it's an expression of power. But, I mean, it is the weakest kind of most transitory kind of power. Yeah, of course. And, you know, the three.

Healing people. The three material things that people want, fame, money, and power. Yeah. And I'm not saying I don't want them. I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed the modicum I've gotten of any of them. But one thing that happens when you get a little taste of each is you realize that it ultimately is unsatisfying. Yeah.

It does. And I was talking to a friend the other day. The prize is not worth winning. Yes, right, because you get there and you say, okay, well, now what do I want? And do you know the exact, I've done a scientific analysis, the exact amount of money, fame, and power that will make you happy? Just a little bit more. still a little bit more

yeah yeah I get into it so young that I don't I don't feel that way at all anymore but I do think fame is not

not something anyone should ever want I don't see the upside in that at all I don't know like what could possibly be worth having sometimes you'll get

a free appetizer at dinner if someone likes your show or something that's great I like free appetizers I feel so obligated what does that mean

do I have to name my next kid after you like I don't I don't like presents. You know what you mean? My next child, truffle French fry noils. Yes. After yes.

It's so true. But just to go back to what's happening in the Catholic Church, I don't know. Is it happening in the church or is it happening under the sort of wings of the church, auspices of the church? Is it happening around the church? Or is the church itself like experiencing a revival? Well, it's, you know, we're all the mystical body of Christ. So it's, you know, it's at the level of the episcopate, you know, the bishops and the pope

and every there's a new pope and uh but the laity too we're all part of the body of christ and there is just something kind of happening and i think even you know i have this doc series called the pope and the furor which is about it's really about pious the 12th who was the he was the pope during world war two until 1958 and he's this image of the old school pope you know the papal tiara arms extended you're supposed to feel bad about that pope you're supposed to cause the war or something right yeah and it turns none of that is true. There was a famous play attacking him. This is everything you need to know about Pius the 12th.

There was a play that came out in 1963, so long after the war, five years after. But right before the papal council, I noticed. Yes, right around the time of the Second Vatican Council. Right. Promoted by the KGB and communists. Interesting. The way that... Literally promoted by communists.

And the way that you know that it's all nonsense is, first of all, After the war and then after Pius I'd the 12th died, everybody lauded him, everybody, not the communists, I guess, but secular, religious, Christians, Jews, everybody lauded this guy. He was an amazing hero. The chief rabbi of Rome converted to Catholicism right after the war and took his name, Eugenio.

Eugenio Pichelli was the pope, and he was Eugenio Zoli. He said this man was an amazing friend of Jews and all of humanity. He was just an amazing. He was painted as a Nazi. Yeah, Hitler's Pope is what these ridiculous people, really promoted by communists to tell you. But the way that you know it's all nonsense is... Was the point to influence the council? I think really my kind of deep thesis on the pious battles, which really exploded even in the 90s, much, much later,

I see it as a kind of intra-Catholic battle. So in that way, I guess it would involve the second Vatican Council and reforms afterward, which is you had this man as a symbol of Catholic. like tradition. And you had people within the church who didn't really like the tradition and maybe wanted to change things. And one thing about the church, you can't change anything. Doctrine develops, but you don't change. And I think it was a battle for the identity of the church. You know, in order to radically change everything, Pius XIus the 12th had to be slandered and calumniated. The fact that the chief evidence against this man is an eight-hour work of fiction that no one has ever fully staged,

absolute garbage by this random playwright, Rock Hulk Houth or something, is promoted by the KGB. It tells you everything you need to know because the facts are just totally contrary to that. The official story on 9-11 is a complete lie. The 9-11 report is a joke. You have the CIA following two men

all over the planet and eventually even to America, right? And you don't tell the FBI. 9-11 commission cover. So what did happen? What did the government know? What did foreign governments know? There was a cover-up. Why?

It's been nearly 25 years in his time Americans learned what actually happened. We're going to tell you. We're releasing one episode per week. You're not going to want to wait. If you remember, you don't have to. You get all five episodes the day it drops. Right then, ad-free. Our first episode airs Thursday, 9-11, September 11th.

You will not want to miss it. Join us now at Tucker Carlson.com. Interesting, but even now, loat these many years later, that the stench hangs in the air. Yes, it's absurd. It will dissipate with time. You know, the church measures her years, not in weeks and months, but in centuries. No, no, no, no, that's right. It's just, that's just interesting.

I know so little about it. but my instinct tells me strongly that that was a pivot point in the history of the modern history of the church. What did, what was Vatican II, as we non-Catholics call? Well, Liz, I'm a trad, a traditionalist in good standing. I attend the traditional Latin Mass. I have my totally unexpired trad card. But the trick here is one can't criticize, one can't totally reject the council. This is an ecumenical council that was legitimately called by the church with dogmatic constitutions. So you don't just say, throw it out.

And the funny thing is, people who talk about Vatican two prone against have never read the documents. I certainly haven't. So what was it? Can you just summarize it for us? Well, yes. It was an ecumenical council.

There have been many of these. What does that mean ecumenical council? The bishops all get together. Okay. So this is like, you know, the real deal. This goes all the way back to antiquity. And the fact that we talk about this one council as kind of the biggest one in the whole church is silly.

You don't talk about the spirit of the fourth laddering council. You don't talk about the... Well, I think the reason that I'm fixated on it is because as someone who's kind of pro-Catholic, I guess. I mean, I... Catholic-curious? I'm not Catholic curious. I'm not going there.

I'm a Luther man. But the idea that, you know, in 1950, the majority of, like, immigrant kids in our biggest cities were schooled in Catholic schools. Yeah. And that, you know, went to church every week and, like, it provided order and, well, Christianity, which I believe in. And, like, I'm very in favor of that. And then post-Vatican 2, this is just my, like, ignorant overview, that all collapsed.

And those, I don't know how many Catholic schools there were in 1965, they're probably less than half now. All those churches closed. There are lots of factors. But, like, and then you have the molestation scandal, which was, to some extent, real and horrifying. Yep. and all these people leaving the priesthood and fewer people becoming religious, I don't know,

it's hard not to see a connection between the two, but maybe I'm wrong. Pope Benedict, when he stepped down, he kept writing, and he wrote a non-encyclical, but it was, he was the Pope before Francis. He was the cigarette smoking German. Yes, the cigarette smoking German.

He observed, he said, you know, part of what happened, because you have to distinguish between what the council actually said, which was relatively minor, it's a pastoral council, It's, you know, and then there was this big reform that totally changed the mass and totally, you know, changed the smells and bells and the ornamentations, which matters because the way we worship dictates how we believe. There's a phrase lexorandi, lex credendi. You know, if you worship a certain way, obviously, that's going to change how you think about this. Of course.

It's going to change how you live your life. And he said, you know, the Catholic Church was swept up just like every other institution. in the entire West, was swept up in this cultural fervent, this cultural fervor of the 1960s. And in some cases, it helped impel that fervor. And it was like, I don't know, like a kind of a madness took over, all of these reforms. And then what happened is the fever started to break. And so after Vatican II, you get John Paul I, who was Pope for 30 days. And then you get John Paul the second.

John Paul the second, in my mind, is kind of like the Napoleon of the Catholic. church he's a he's a child of the church of the revolution but he's also the undoing of the revolution and is lauded loved by conservatives profoundly anti-communist helped end the cold war a really important man now canonized a saint after him you get benedict and benedict said something really brilliant which has been an he said many brilliant things but there's a real antidote to the spirit of the age he said there were kind of bad actors i'm reading into this There were some bad actors who tried to use the council, to exploit the council, to say that everything that came before that contradicts what we want to do in modernity, that's got to go. We've got to read the past only through the lens of where we are now.

This is a broader cultural phenomenon. We do it with American history. We do it everywhere. Everything is just about us and looking back. Of course. And what he said is, no, no, no. We do it generationally. We do it generationally.

You can't imagine your parents having sex. Yes. You wouldn't be here if they didn't. Mind it. I don't know about yours, but mind it. Every generation imagines it's inventing everything out of nothing. Yes. What Benedict said was, no, no, there was a hermeneutic of continuity. The way we interpret the past is not by going in reverse. It's that whatever we think in our limited store of reason, in modernity with all of our fashions and temptations and novel aspects,

we have to understand that as being in continuity with the past. And if we think there's been some radical break, we're probably wrong. Who's more likely to be wrong? The smartest, most serious men for 1950 years? Or like you? It's me. I'm more likely. I agree. And so that is the, that was the fog breaking, I think. But can I ask, like, what were the, were there meaningful changes made during that council? Yes. It changes in the sense that there were certain pastoral elements that were discussed and written into dogmatic constitutions. So an understanding of religious liberty. This is, this one is sometimes, Protestants love religious liberty. And Catholics

do too properly understood. But this is sometimes considered somewhat radical because the church also believes error has no rights. Error no not at use. What does that mean error has no rights? Well, in liberal modernity, we say that every cockamamie idea, every deviant, ridiculous behavior is some human right and we have to protect it with federal subsidies. And the church says, no, no. Error, when you say things that aren't true, when you do things, that are contrary to your flourishing and to nature, there's no, like, right to that. But of course, the rejoinder is error has no rights. Well, that is pretty anti-modern.

It's quite anti-modern. Yes, it's about as anti-modern as you can get. And you can say people who err have rights. It's not saying error has rights, but people who err. And the Catholic Church has a long history of toleration, contrary to what, you know, polemicists in the Enlightenment or what have you would say. But a long, long history of toleration. going all the way back to the earliest days of the church,

beautifully articulated by Gregory the Great, all the way up through the Middle Ages, it's, again, these are the stories that no one's taught in school anymore. However, you know, that could be misinterpreted as to saying that, like, I don't know, we have the right to some, like, you know, Satanist display in the, in the courthouse or something,

as activists argue today. Totally ridiculous. What else does Vatican II contain? Vatican II... Well, so here's my son, here's my actual question. So at the core of Christianity is a claim of exclusivity. Every human being, every human being on earth reaches God only through Jesus. Yes.

Period. Doesn't matter. Like, nothing else matters. That's it. That's your ticket. You can't board the train without it. Did that change? No.

Okay. The answer is no. Some of the confusion of this is there is. Well, there's quite a bit of confusion about that. Part of the confusion. is there's the claim in Latin, extra ecclesium nullisalus. There's no salvation outside of the church.

The church does not change her view on that. However, people are always asked this question, you know, what about my, you know, Protestant grandpa or my, I don't know, my atheist dad, or my Jewish, or my Hindu, or my Muslim, or my whatever. And they go to heaven. One of these is not like the others, but that's my view.

The Protestants. Yeah, I would say, yes. No, but if you take a. really rigorous, exclusive claim here. I'm going to say, no, sorry, you're all, you know, you're all totally without any hope. And I guess what the council clarifies is that, you know, we pray for these people. There is no salvation outside of Christ. There is no salvation outside of the church.

Salvation subsists within the church. However, it allows for some, as a pastoral matter, some greater dialogue in this modern world. Wait, so what's the difference between Jesus and the church? well christ founds the church and christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride so catholics the the official church position is unless you're a member of the church you don't go to heaven well this is something that would be uh sort of clarified at the second vatican council or maybe not clarified maybe it's just uh leads to more ecumenical dialogue or something like this but that one could say when you're baptized you're a christian you might never receive any of the

sacraments you might never go to church when you're baptized that's that's what delineates you as a Christian. Right. And so we pray for the salvation of everyone. A good example would be, because this is coming after the Second World War, so obviously they're addressing the Jews in particular. And, you know, the council states clearly that, you know, the Jews are our elder brothers in faith, which is another line that's, you know, sort of used polemically in all sorts of ways. And so, you know, God doesn't revoke his promises to his people. And this can be taken into all different kinds of ideological. That was the conclusion of the council?

Well, that was, that's a statement of the council. But this comes from St. Paul. Okay. You know, St. Paul says that God, for the sake of the gospel, the Jews aren't with it, you know. But for the sake of their forbearers, you know, God loves the Jews. And because the call of God and the gifts of God are irrevocable. So what does that mean? This means, and Paul was a Jew, obviously.

He was a Pharisee. Yes. Yeah. What this means, and this gets back to what we're talking about, at the top with sort of Aristotelian virtue as the mean between two extremes. There are two views on this. One is a view that says that, you know, you don't need Christ to be saved. And specifically the Jews don't need Christ to be saved. And another view is that, you know, God's done with the Jews and forget about the Jews now and it's just only the church. And what St. Paul is saying and what

the council is clarifying is there's kind of a little bit of room for both. There is, you know, Christ is the savior. He's the one savior. He's the way. And the road is narrow and he's the way in the truth and the life. And also, God doesn't hate the Jews. And God still has a plan for the Jews. And so this is something that the Catholic Church does that other denominations and ideologies don't always, they fall to one side or the other. She brings in, well, what I would call the fullness of truth. So that means that there are people who can go to heaven without believing in Jesus. No. Though a, one could sort of unwittingly have, be following Christ. And one could have a, I don't know, the firmness. Unwittingly. Well, really you can. I mean, actually,

zoom out a little bit again to natural religion. This is another, this is another error that, well, was debated in antiquity and still comes up in modernity, which is the notion that, you know these pagan natural religions they just have nothing of value you know what has Athens to do with jerusalem that sort of thing and but that's not really true because you know natural religion does have something to recommend it and i think uh pope francis got in trouble for recognizing that that in all sorts of traditions there is often a kernel of of truth there is at least some truth in paganism there's a kernel of truth you think of c s lewis law and barfield and those guys loved the the myths, because it tells us something about our human nature. And the first Vatican Council

tells us that the existence of God can be known with certainty from human reason, looking at the created world. There's more to it. You got to keep going, you know, that God also reveals himself. But that you can be certain God exists just by looking at his creation? Yes, using your reason. That's the truest thing ever. Yes. Right. Science gets you to God in the end because there's no. I think so. You think so. Thomas Aquinas thinks so. But a lot of people in the modern world, they say, oh, no, religion is just, it's just kind of a private matter of judgment. Well, they're children. They've never thought about it. I mean, that's... And think about there was a new doctor of the church just named, just within the last few weeks.

That would be John Henry Newman, greatest theologian in the English language. He was made a doctor of the church. And Newman's entire life was spent invaying against liberalism in religion. You know, this kind of wishy-washy sense. Who is Newman? Newman is great. He was a Protestant. and very anti-Catholic, and then he became a Catholic, and then he became a cardinal,

and then he became a saint. He was American? He was British. I don't think we have any American doctors of the church yet. I'm working on it, but unfortunately, I have like a fifth-grader's understanding of theology, so I don't think I'm going to... Yeah, I don't even have that. But I certainly, I believe, but in a childlike way.

Yes. But so Newman was a British Catholic theologian. Yes. And he became Catholic. And one of his conclusions, and it's something that we're coming to grips with today, is we can know things. We can actually know things. That this modern idea that religion is just a matter of private judgment, you know. And so you're a Shinto and I'm a Methodist.

And it's like, whatever, man, who knows? You know, you just do you and it's all good. And he says, no, religion is a public thing. It's a scientific thing. We can know something about it. He wrote a great book. You look at the crises of the universities today. There's a remedy to it, which is a book that he wrote called The Idea of the University.

And in this book, he says, you know, it's so crazy. We have these institutions that purport to universal knowledge. And increasingly, they won't even acknowledge God. But just on its face, even if you're like the most hardcore atheist you can imagine, how can you even pretend to universal knowledge while denying God the source and summit of all knowledge? What are we talking about then? We're talking about just like chemistry problems. That's so silly.

We're talking about data. We're talking about data. Just an accumulation of numbers. And what they say is, no, no, no. Because we live in this world after the crackup of Christendom, where everyone has their own private ideas, you know, there's just no way of knowing anything for certain. So we're just going to settle on certain economic matters. We're all going to try to get rich. We're all going to try to live in relative peace.

And we're going to leave that heady stuff. You do that on Sunday morning. And that's obviously impossible. Do you remember 20 years ago, there was this phrase. Oh, it hasn't worked. Look around. Well, actually, looking around here, it's okay. But if you look in the city, it's not so great.

There was this idea that you can't legislate morality. Do you remember that? I remember the idea. It was the operating thesis of the United States of America. And yet, not one person ever practically believed in. Of course not. You can't pass a law about speeding. You can't pass a law about just.

jaywalking without recourse to morality. Of course. And when you come to that conclusion about practical morality, which is ultimately derived from your understanding of religion, you are going to impose a moral view on someone. Maybe someone else is very pro-jaywalking. Maybe someone else deeply feels in their sincere religious beliefs that they need to jaywalk.

All rules are based on a moral code. Yes. And they're exclusive. You can't violate the law of non-contradiction. Either you're going to have a law against jaywalking or you're not. Either you're going to have a law against, murdering babies or you're not. And you're going to impose that on people. That's just, that's how government, that's what government is. Well, as soon as people started saying you can't

legislate morality, they started giving everybody very much including me, these moralizing lectures. The country got more rigid and moralistic. It's why you were described as disgusting for noting that Greta Thunberg is unwell when it's obvious. Her mother wrote a book about it. And set, well, exactly, and sad. And she's worthy of compassion. Um, but, that, what happened to you as a result of this, like, epidemic of shallow but highly aggressive moralizing that took the place of something that we had before. Yes. And that's why I think, okay, now we're going to get on our puritanical high horses about pronouns or whatever, you know, like, which where you must put rainbow flags, which is in front of every door to everywhere in the country.

We're going to get on our high horse about that. But we're going to shrug our shoulders when it comes to murdering babies when it comes to the meaning of marriage when it comes to whether a people can have borders in a nation right with that we can't know about that but we can know about some ridiculous gnostic heresy about pronouns and identity or whatever it's totally incoher and so what you're seeing and this to me well they just replaced christianity with a much less forgiving religion yes a much harsher crueler less compassionate religion and false well of course a fall well definitely false but in its effects you could tell it was bad because it didn't elevate people or forgive people. It wasn't kind to people. It was cruel and

unyielding and vicious. I mean, all these people got destroyed, literally driven to suicide. If you don't like the God who loves you, just wait until you meet all the other gods. Yes. Because everyone's got to worship something. You know, Bob Dylan was right about that. So how did you go? So you said that you were an atheist when you were at Yale, I guess? Oh, from, no, when I was 13. I was confirmed at 13. In the Catholic Church? In the Catholic Church. And before my confirmation, I told my mother, I said, you know, I don't believe it. Christopher Hitchens, he's so smart. And, you know, Richard Dawkins. And I'm really taken. I'm such a... You thought Richard Dawkins was smart? Listen, I was 13. Okay, come on. Come on. I. And actually, the new atheism really appealed to punk 13-year-olds who thought they were smarter than they are. That is the ideal audience for the new atheism. Really? I think so. And I told her, I said, I don't want to be confirmed. My mother, she's, she's, ah, you're going through a face.

You, kid, you're going through a face. Wise woman. Wise woman. She goes, receive the sacrament. She wasn't even like super duper religious, but she said, receive the sacrament. You're going to regret it if you don't and you're going to come to your senses in a few years. She was totally right. So I did that.

I was away from the church. Would have called myself an atheist or at least an agnostic for 10 years. Can I just ask, what did you think was cool about, I mean, Hitchens was, I knew him while it was, you know. Pretty clever. Yeah, lots of good things about Hitchens, but his life was so sad that he was not really an advertisement for atheism. I didn't think. Yes. But like, what did you think was cool about that whole? Well, I thought religion was for stupid people. Yeah. I thought religion was for stupid people. And I, of course, didn't know anything and hadn't read anything. And my brain was, hadn't lived.

Hadn't lived. But I was quite wrong, but I was never in doubt. And so I... Been there? Yes. Yes. I, I, I, I, I said, look, I just don't, I don't see God. Bad things happen to good people. And, you know, science has microscopes. And anyway, and getting, actually getting back to the point on the reforms of the church and everything changing, it was kind of weak. Liturgically, there were all these sappy effeminate hymns that were like, you know, about eagle's wings and stuff that was, they're not really appealing to a young boy. And all this nonsense.

The eagle's wings got you, huh? Like, God, God, it was such, you know, it wasn't even cool in the 70s when those. No, I know. Oh, I was there. Yeah. And so I said, well, look, it's just so obvious. Social proof, all the smart people are atheists. And then I get to college, and everyone's an atheist.

And many people are much smarter than me at college. But I did notice the smartest people believed in God. Really? Yes. The Yale. Yes. There weren't a ton of Muslims, though there were a couple, but across the board, the Muslims, the Protestants, the Catholics were... smarter. They seemed smarter. Maybe their IQs weren't even higher, but they just seemed more

with it. They made better arguments than some stupid spaghetti monster nonsense from Christopher Hitchens. And I said, huh. And then I was presented with an argument for the existence of God. That's what an interesting observation. There weren't even that many of them there, but you kind of say, oh, wow, it's a little bit the wheat from the chaff, you know. They'd have to be the braver section of the population, too. This is one of the arguments to go to a liberal college is, even just in your own politics. if you can make it through and not be swept along the tide of liberalism and you make it through to the end you will have heard every argument

you will have heard every refutation of everything you believe you will either give up some of your beliefs maybe some you should or you will become much stronger in your beliefs which is what happened to me I left Yale much more right wing than I went in with that question and I'm not the only one so I was presented with an argument from a guy who's smarter than me and he said you think God doesn't exist what about the ontological argument and not i won't be tedious with the argument but the argument is basically god's the maximally great being that's this definition uh he has all the great making characteristics

none of the corrupting characteristics it's better to exist than not to exist we would all agree with that we'd go off ourselves right now if we disagreed with that therefore god exists that's it that's the argument and bertrand russell a great logician atheist famously through his tin of tobacco in the air he would have had alps if it if it had been around at the time he famously threw his alps his tobacco in the air he said by golly the ontological argument is sound it's easier to think there's a flaw in the argument than to actually point out the flaw and i said well darn i can't refute that then i read lewis c s louis So who is this person who said that to you? This is my roommate, actually. Whatever happened to him? Oh, he's my best friend. Still this day, yeah, yeah.

Very close. And he's a Christian? Yeah, and he was a cradle Catholic, raised kind of megachurch, Protestant, and then he reverted to the church. He was confirmed in the church later on. And, but, well, you know, he and I and some other people were kind of going through this together, you know, so I would say 18 to 23. I was really dragging my feet.

I said, oh, C.S. Lewis makes good arguments. Chesterton makes good arguments. Maybe I should read the Bible at some point. That might be smart. I'll do that later. And I'm going through, I finally, you know, seriously read the Bible at 23. I said, oh, this is true. This is right.

You know, first you have to accept that God exists. Then you say, okay, well, is Jesus who he says he is. If he's not, that's going to lead me in one direction. If he does, it's going to leave me in another direction. Then you have to ask yourself, well, is the church? What kind of church did he establish? And there were plenty of Protestants along the way who were really helpful in my return and thinking. So, you know, it was very helpful this whole period.

But I took the long road. I took the long route. I could have just, you know Norm McDonald, the comedian? Of course. Of course, greatest comedian, probably ever. I didn't know him, really. But he and I, we would write each other long letters on Twitter DMs for weeks. This is the strangest thing.

Because I saw he was following me on Twitter. And he wasn't following a lot of people. And I was a huge fan of his. So I didn't even want to message him. I was so. And one time he sent out a tweet and it sounded kind of despairing. Now we know he was dying of cancer. I thought he was suicidal or something.

I just sent him a note. I said, I feel bad if I didn't. I said, hey, Norm, a huge fan of yours. If I can be of any help, I don't know that I can, but I'd be happy to. And we started writing each other of these letters. Really? Yeah, for weeks, every night, just for weeks long essays, really. To Norm McDonald on Twitter DM.

It's weird. This is one of the strangers. Great. And he would do this thing where he'd say, Michael, I can't do it, Ray, Norm. It would be prideful for me not to take you up on your offer. Because Michael, I'm not an educated man. You're an educated man. I'm not an undergraduate degree.

I'm not an educated man. I didn't really go to college. And then he would do this thing where he'd make it seem like he's just some old chunk of coal. And then he'd use a word that I didn't know. He was certainly much better read than I am and loved the Russian novelists. And we were talking about religion basically the whole time. And he said to me, I don't know his, I still don't know the particulars of all of his religious views. But he said, yeah, for me, I told him how I converted, reverted.

And he said, yeah, for me, I just, I've just always known the political views. Bible's true. I just always knew. I just, I'd read it. I just knew. So anyway, that's it. And I thought, well, that's, that's the better way. You know, it's like Christ to Thomas the Apostle. He says, you know, blessed are you, you've seen and believed, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. And that was Norm. And that's another example, too, of you think, okay, the whole culture and all these smart people are atheists. Norm is one of the smartest pop culture figures that's been around decades, yes. But he knew. It's just like, everyone kind of knows deep down. Everyone kind of knows. That's totally right. And that's why

they're mad. Yeah. Yeah. People feel judged. They feel judged. I never feel judged by like the earth is flat people. You know, I don't think the earth is flat, but it doesn't bother me that you do. You know what I mean? I get a kick out of it. I'll go down the video. Yeah, whatever. It's not a threat. I don't, because I know in my heart, they're probably not, it's probably not flat. You know what I mean? Yeah. But the ancient Greeks. No, I remember thinking that even in early high school with the question of abortion

and, you know, people just get hysterical about it, like hysterical. How dare you judge me? And all this is like, whoa, I wasn't even really judging you. But like, clearly you're judging yourself. Yeah. Because you know that you took a life and I, you know, there are all kinds of extenuating circumstances. I get it. but in the end, you killed the kid.

And you know that you did. The devil gets you this way because he says, and before you commit the sin, he says, it's no big deal. It's no big deal. It's nothing. It's a clump of cells. It's nothing.

It's your freedom. It's your body. It's your choice. Come on, it's no big deal. You're not going to feel bad. I mean, she's got to do it. And then you do it. And then one second later, he's in your ear.

He says, you'll never be forgiven. You can never admit this is wrong. The second you do, you are damned walking the earth. You are done. you're done. And I think that explains a lot of modern behavior. It's totally right. It's totally right. If you ever watch to shout your abortion event, it's always like fascinating, weirdly fascinating to me and I always feel so bad for the girls because they, but they never really can muster enthusiasm for the abortions they had

because, and you can see it right in their faces. It's like, oh, I feel so sorry for them. Can you imagine? Well, this, you know, to make it fully religious, Peter Craft made this observation that even the language of the abortion, this is my body is a satanic inversion of the Eucharist this is my body but everybody know

I guess it's sort of I'm just tying to the North McDonald observation which is gosh the truest thing you read it and you're like oh wow that's true

even I was certainly my experience in reading and even things I was like I don't like that but I still thought that's true yes 100% true

you know you all know because everyone does have a conscience even if it's darkened by sin and yeah yeah a little bit and I don't know

drugs and porn and you know like dumb classes in school shiny like stainless steel but yes i can imagine there are others who had dark into consciences yes but but you all kind of know and then the other impulse which is you know centuries in the making well it really goes back to the fall but especially politically with liberalism is this notion that we are really to be gods ultimately we are in control no gods no kings only men and we we decide

so i never fell for that that's so obviously i felt for shit i totally fell for it really then i never thought that was for all my many problems and lies I believed and lies I've unwittingly repeated and all my many sins. I never bought the word God's thing because we can't extend our lives, really. And if you can't do that, then you have no power. Tucker, you clearly don't read the news. We're on the brink. We're this close to curing death. I see it every day in the headlines. They've been trying it since Pharaoh, but they're this close now, don't you know? You know, it's like salmon farming. Salmon farming is my favorite idea because it was something I just thought, obviously I love to catch saying I'm a fisherman yeah I love

Atlantic salmon fishing there you know it's hard to catch them there aren't that many of them and so the idea was people love to eat salmon let's just let's just have a salmon farm out there just make a giant net just breed them right there in the ocean like there's no downside it cures the problem yeah and salmon farms have basically destroyed wild salmon both through the pollution and for crossbreeding with the salmon and and you know they don't spawned um and they've I mean we're in danger of like we don't spawn either by the way No, but we're like in danger of losing Atlantic salmon as a species because of salmon farming.

People are just starting to figure this out. But it's like it's a species of the same lie. I'm in control of nature. Oh, shit, well, just salmon farm. Like, duh. You know what I mean? We'll just, whatever it is. I mean, we have done that.

We have now exercised increasing control over how we spawn through contraception. Well, that's exactly right. Oh, now we're in control now. This is going to lead to flourishing. We're going to die off. I mean, we have a global population collapse on the horizon. So if you ended up extending human life to 150 years, like the last 80 years of the life would just be like living hell.

Do you know what I mean? I mean, for one thing, I've always thought this is like one incident I did have when I was young, which is the problem with getting old is not like bladder control and it's not even dementia. It's instead it's remembering your youth and how much. much has changed. And as the burden of the past becomes unbearable, and any old person will tell you this in their moments of lucid thought, they'll tell you, like, I'm just, I can't believe how fast

it went. And they're crushed by that. So imagine living to 150. And think about when they're all promising this, and there are people on the right who are really into this, too, radical life extensionals. And I say, Michael, if you could take the pill to live for 500 years, would you do it? So not a chance. Dude, I won't take an Advil. Like, pills are bad. Okay. Pills are just, let's just start their pills are bad. Anyone who wants you to take a pill, fuck off. Okay? That's like, that's how I feel. Yes. I just, I strongly feel that way. But why would you want to live to 150? And this is the understanding. I mean, you know, the curse, you know, when we fall out of the garden is that we die. But is that really a curse? If you live in a world that's fallen, it's full of like murder or rape and I don't think it's actually a great mercy.

So it depends what you think happens next, I guess. Yes, that's true. And people are, I think also increasingly aware that something might happen next, you know, they're kind of clinging on to this hope that, well, I hope this is all there is, you know, and I just turned to worm food and take a dirt nap, you know? And I don't think that makes sense at all. And the smartest people in history didn't think it made any sense. I don't think anyone in history has really thought that. No.

Until Hiroshima, which was the ultimate expression of Godlike power. And that is what killed. I am the destroyer worlds. That's exactly right. And become death, you know. Exactly. Yeah. So what, okay, so if all these young people are becoming Catholic of all unfashionable things,

looks like that's probably the most unfashionable, you know, but by the standards of 30 years ago, becoming a Catholic. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's insane. Yeah. This is why I think, you know, the vice president is probably the most famous convert and recent years. And people, his political enemies were always saying, oh, he's cynical, he's just changing his views with the times or whatever. I think, hold on, you're telling me a guy who had a. tough upbringing, who graduates Yale Law School, wants to, is in Silicon Valley, then goes back, he wants to launch a political career in Ohio.

The way he thinks he's going to do that is by becoming Catholic? Do you think that's going to help you? No, that's like the craziest thing to do if you were thinking cynically or opportunistically. Well, it's a radical move, I guess. And again, I'm not promoting it and I'm not doing it. But I just, as an observer, I'm like, wow, that's pretty wild. So I guess here's my question. It's a political question.

And if people, if young people are converting to Catholicism, like, what else about their views is changing? Everything. Okay. So that's my sense. Well, on the political level, and I think this also touches on part of the conversions, we're beginning to realize that history didn't start in 1965, history didn't start in 1865, history didn't start in 1776 or even 1620. We're part of something that's much bigger and much broader. and much more beautiful, you know, and even just in our political order, we used to call it Christendom, now we call it the West, and there has been an attack on that. Going back many

decades now, I think of Jesse Jackson marching down Stanford, hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Siv has got to go. And people are beginning to realize, you know, it's not that I just want to preserve my town or my 90s liberalism or my, I want to preserve this great cultural patrimony that I've been given. And that cultural patrimony has to go deeper than just aesthetics. It has to go deeper than just abstract ideology. You know, cult and culture come from the same root word. So what you worship is going to define your culture. And so what's the bottom?

What's the foundation? What's the ballast for all of that? I think people, you know, even beyond questions of conviction of the Holy Spirit and rational arguments and all that, they're just saying, well, you know, this thing's pretty sturdy. It's been around a long time. Belaw, again, Belok keeps coming to mind. He had this line, he says, I am, he said more eloquently.

He said, I'm required as a matter of faith to hold that the church is divinely instituted. But for those who doubt it, one proof of its divine institution is that no other group conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight. Obviously true.

Yeah, the best thing I ever heard from a practicing Catholic in the last five years, I was no one around as a very close friend of mine tonight and he was going on about Catholicism. I was like, okay, but that Pope is just, I just can't. I won't even tell you what I said, but it was hostile because that's how I felt. And he goes,

Are you sure you're not Catholic? Yeah. He was the greatest thing ever. He goes, yeah, I totally agree. But he's not the worst pope we've had. Yes. Was it completely non-defensive? This happens.

It's like, let me tell you about the 9th century. I think that's right. If you want to win people over, don't be defensive. Yes, totally. Don't tell me that there's no, that what I'm seeing isn't real. Yeah, yeah. Be honest. Of course.

Of course. I mean, I don't know that I've talked to too many Catholics about Catholicism. Maybe they all feel that way, but I thought that was just a wonderful response. Totally. You know, we have to remember that the pope is fallible, except when he's infallible. And sometimes God gives us bad popes to make us really grateful for good popes. And the other point I'll mention on Francis, because, you know, obviously I had some questions about the Francis Pontificate. Yeah.

I reverted during the Francis pontificate. This trend started during Francis. Yes. It might have been in reaction against many of the things that Pope Francis was said to stand for. I don't know exactly how it worked. That's above my pay grade. But you think of like the progress of the church and our whole civilization. And we think of it's just like a straight line.

But I think it's a little bit more kind of like this. know, and the papacy goes to Avignon for a little bit, and there's some king is like arresting the pope, and, you know, it's like kind of a little bit more circuitous, but it's always pointed in the same direction. So there's not, it just reminds me of God using Pharaoh, blinding Pharaoh to the truth in order to save the Jews from slavery. Yeah. Which is what's described. And I always imagine that there's a direct line between the quality of the leadership and the quality of the people. Of course. This is why I can't get. But that, but that's not always true. So as America becomes more prosperous, the people become weaker and sillier.

Yes. I mean, that's how I grew up. I grew up in the richest country and history. But there was a steady decline in the quality of thinking, certainly, and of behavior. And of leadership. And of leadership. Yeah. I mean, was it, is it H.G. Wells, who said democracy is the theory that was it? No, who was? I forget who it was. Who said democracy is the theory that the common people know what do you what they want and deserve to get it good and hard is this why i can't get into i have many i love the populist movement i was so into the rise of trump i remain into the rise of trump i think this has been the the healthiest political awakening in my lifetime i think i'm all about it but i can't i can't throw too many stones merely at the leadership class because one the civil

authority is there for our own good it's it's uh in that way appointed by god uh in a certain sense and also we kind of get the government that we deserve. If you don't know anything about your country and you don't care about your civic life and you're just going to be greedy, you're either going to, on the left side of things, just indulge in weird social stuff that's purely selfish. And on the right side of things, you can engage in economic selfishness and no one cares about the common good and no one cares about the body politic. That's kind of where we are right there.

Yes, and you're going to get crappy leadership a lot of the time. And sometimes you get a second chance. So it's just like greed and loss to those your choices? Yes. And look, this is classic political philosophy going all the way back, which is that greed, avarice, is the beginning of evils in the city. And it's natural and you have to... Worship of money is the root of all evil. Yes, that's right. So, okay, have you noticed... I mean, I have a lot of young people who work for me, I have children and all that. But like every month or two, I'll run into like a younger person, like in an airport or something and always try to... of conversation and they'll say things that, you know, super nice or whatever, but like, you just feel like, wow, the attitudes are, people are getting by my middle age standards pretty freaking

radical. It's crazy. I was talking. Hey, you've had this experience. For sure. I have always been the most right-wing person in any way. Me too. I've always been the radical. I'm like, man, I better shut up because my thoughts are not welcome in public at all. And all of a sudden, I'm like feeling a little bit more moderate. Yes. Well, that's good. Listen, now we can go on TV. Look, I'm the moderate.

Okay. I never felt moderate in my life. I was talking to a professor who is very, very right wing. And he said, Michael, it's the craziest thing. For the first time in my life, I'm being outflanked by my students. I'm being outflanked. He says, never happened before. And now part of this obviously is like a pendulum was like so far over here.

You know, trans your kids and kill the ones that you don't trans. it's going to fly back in the other direction which is good that's a healthy impulse this is where however one must have a solid foundation with proper authority and guard rails and everything

because you need to make sure that you don't fall into the same error on the other side you want to get back to sanity and reason and be fully in command of your will and your intellect and you don't want to center your views on hating people you certainly don't want that you need charity I mean you know St. Paul says if you don't have charity you got nothing yeah well every wedding service in the country one corinthian 13 so no i think that's exactly right

but i just wonder as like a political matter here's a few of the things that i sense um people feel free to say what they think in a way that is so inspiring and great and refreshing but also a little shocking because what they think is like not what they're supposed to think at all or have been supposed to think um i feel like there's a recognition that the the whole like let's put women in charge of everything just didn't work cracker barrel didn't work it did it didn't work female leadership just didn't work i mean i guess i wanted it to work i don't know how i felt about it but it didn't work yeah and people feel free to say that there's also i have noticed from talking to younger people a recognition that um the democracy just kind of isn't working or our our conception of democracy i don't meet really anybody

who uses the term democracy non-ironically. Yes. Do you? Well, when you go back to the framers of our Constitution, you'll recognize that they use the phrase democracy in a derisive way and as a warning of impending peril because even the notion that our country is a liberal democracy, that is a self-conception that came up in the 20th century.

It started a little bit in the 30s. It really took off after the World War and then it reaches its peak in the 80s. That's when it gets escape velocity. we're not a liberal democracy we have a democratic element a healthy democratic element to our country actually in large part I think it comes in because of

Tocqueville's great book Democracy in America the best study of America ever but even there our regime is a mixed regime our regime has a strong democratic element as it was initially instituted it has an aristocratic element in the Senate and it has a monarchical element in the president

so you even think today of all the kings around the world the president of the United States probably has more practical monarchical authority than, say, King Charles, right? Adrian Vermeul made this point the other day. I'm pretty sure the president of the United States is a more robust king than like the king of Norway or whatever.

And so our regime, this was intentional, by the way, and it's outlined as the ideal regime in the Summa Theologia, but it goes all the way back to Polybius, this notion that there's a cycle of regimes because it's a fallen world, And so maybe you have a monarchy, but it's going to degrade over time and it's going to become a tyranny. What's the difference between a monarchy and a tyranny? A monarchy is for the common good.

Tyranny is for private interest. You can have an aristocracy, you know, government by good, lots of, you know, a small number of good people. That will degrade into an oligarchy. I think we've seen a lot of that in recent years. Common good versus private interest. And you can have a democracy. And a democracy can be quite good. You know, the virtue of the early American Republic, that can degrade into a kind of mob rule where it's just people pulling for their own factions and their own private interests. And so you're going to have this cycle of revolutions that's going to go on. What the framers of the Constitution tried to do was escape that cycle by instituting a mixed regime, no matter what they called it. A republic, if you can keep it, or a constitutional system or whatever. And it has held pretty well. It has been increasingly

democratized, so it's probably like leaned a little bit too much onto that side. Trump, I think, now is trying to restore, and this is part of a program that had been going on for decades, restore a little bit more executive authority to balance the whole thing out. But regimes fall. You know, that's the norm in world history. And so we are at a real risk of that if we don't correct some of the degradations in our own regime. So what would that mean? What degradation seem to be corrected in order to forestall revolution?

Well, here's one. The 17th Amendment. I do feel like this country's much more volatile than people publicly acknowledge. Oh, yeah. The 17th Amendment creates direct election of senators. Today we say, what would be wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with more democracy. Isn't that good?

Have you met the senators? I've met a lot of senators. It's the densest collection of douchebags and liars and sex freaks I've ever met in my life. I mean it. And just wait until you go to the house. I work in television. I feel like there are more normal house members, but the Senate. I mean, there are some exceptions who guys I like and a lot, but only a handful.

I like that. Listen, some of my best friends are senators, but a lot of them, I was just with, I'm friends with a couple of them and I say, well, these guys are freaks, man. They're all freaks like John Cornyn, what's his search history? No, I'm serious. You know, I actually don't know John Cornyn. If you had a hold of that guy's iPhone, like, what would you find? Any of these people, Ted Cruz?

I love Ted. Oh my gosh. I love, he's a good friend of mine. He is. Okay, but I get, but I'm just saying, I'll leave Ted out. I'm not going to attack Ted. I've always liked his wife, but I'm just, I don't know. Yeah, it's not working.

It's not, it's not. And think about how these guys got elected. These guys, it used to be, they would be elected by the states, which meant that the states had a role in the government. You know, we're supposed to have states. Yeah. We don't really have states. No, we certainly don't. They're kind of all vassals for this imperial blob of bureaucracy.

But why did we lose that? Antonin Scalia said this to me when I was a student. I got to meet him a couple times undergrad. And he said, we asked him about states' rights. He said, why are you asking me about states' rights? I'm a Fed. What do I care about states' rights? You got rid of your state's rights.

in the progressive amendments when you had the direct election of senators. That's state's rights are done. And the civil rights movement killed it. Civil rights movement killed it. The interpret the implementation of this. I mean, every government office has a civil rights division now. It's like Christopher Caldwell, an excellent guest on your show, and a great writer. Wonderful guy.

His book, Age of Entitlement, basically proves this thesis that there's a parallel constitution, which is in tension with the old constitution. So you do have a crisis of regime that's coming up. How does that play out? I hope peacefully. I really hope. I think it can play out peacefully. You know, some people on the right, they'll say, I want a civil war.

You heard this a lot during BLM and COVID. I want a civil war. On the left and the right, they say, I don't want a civil war. If there's a civil war, I'm going to have to, like, shoot my cousins. Do you know what you're saying? I want a civil war? Do you know what a civil war is like? You know, Dante is one of my favorite writers.

Civil war ruined his life. He said, it's like the worst thing that can happen because the whole point of a political community is to secure peace and order for the common good so that we can flourish. And when you crack that, I mean, the whole political community is just an extension of a family. The Spanish Civil War ended 85 years ago, and then you go to Spain now, they're still mad about it. It still divides that country. Yes. Greece, same way. Yeah. Is that so weird? We have to be angry that the communists were defeated, the Bolsheviks who were killing priests and raeons. Spain is a uniquely sad country. It's a wonderful country.

wonderful people but oh my gosh yeah they had a that was demonic obviously obviously they began by shooting a statue of jesus so that was kind of a sign uh but yeah yeah and every evil person the united states joined and yes the the abraham lincoln brigades yeah i remember when i was a kid i heard that as some guy died he was in the abraham lincoln i said oh it's Abraham lincoln britt i looked into it was there was a communist was Stalinist yes it was Stalinist like the entire american left was Stalinist. This is why, you talk about the changes in the 60s into the 70s, you know, this is why they had to get Nixon.

They never forgave Richard Nixon. I'm aware. He got Alger Hiss. Richard Nixon knew that there were actual communists in the government at the highest levels of the State Department helping to found the United Nations, and he knew it, and he got him dead. And he believed Whitaker Chambers,

and he got him dead to rights, they never forgave him for it. That's totally true. And they made up this whole fake scandal and took out the most popular president in American history. Yes. No, I know. It's very distra. But anyway, I guess the point is a civil war has our own civil war.

It's only finally kind of cooling down. And we're relitigating it. Well, because Reconstruction never really ended. Right. Let's just humiliate the South and turn it cities into slums, which we've done. So yeah, no, it's all, we don't want a civil war. I totally agree. So how do we avoid that?

Well, I think we need strong leadership, which we are getting in Trump. We actually do have an executive who on the right. who's willing to do things. This has been a big problem for the right because of ideologies that were essentially liberal, where the right said, you need to elect us so that we do nothing. That was their explicit pitch.

If you elect me, I won't do anything because I want to principally, with great dignity and integrity and principles, give away all the power. Because if I ever do anything, then the minute the Democrats come into office, they might do all the things they've been doing for 50 years. So we can't have that.

Yeah, it was National Review. Republicanism. I was there for that. I mean, Buckley, at least, I mean, Buckley defended McCarthy for goodness sakes. He did. He did. He did. That he turned on him, but yeah. At a certain point, it was politically incorrect. But you think of those early days, Brent Bezell, you know, who ghostrow conscience of a conservative, an amazing book. Well, Brent Bezell meant it. Right. So he was exiled. Because he really meant it. He was mentally ill. Okay. And he went over in the after the Spanish Civil War. Oh, I know. Yeah, yeah. Of course. Raised his family in Franco, Spain.

No, I know, he meant it. But that, look, there's always been this hodgepodge on the right of disparate groups, as you well know, that, like, don't totally make sense together. So you have the traditional conservatives, well, the fusionist coalition was the traditional conservatives and the libertarians and some Warhawk Democrats who wanted to take down the Soviet Union. Yes. And I think it made sense at the time. Oh, yeah. In the Soviet Union. I was there for that.

Of course. And it's- I read commentary every month growing up. Did you? Got it at home. Yes, we did. You don't have any copies around here anymore. I don't know where. I was raised on commentary. I mean, we're like this Protestant family getting the official publication of the American Jewish Committee. I read every issue, Arch Puddington, Ruth, Visser, or whatever. I think they'll hate me now.

But whatever, I grew up reading that. One of my favorite lines recently was from Norman Pajoretz who said, they said, you're the founder of neo-conservatism. He said, no, no, I'm so old that I'm now a paleo-neo-conservative. I'm too old for that. And this is, you know, there's the paleo. and the neos and the libertarians and the traditionalists and the this isn't it and obscure political monikers are the right wing version of gender pronouns no it's totally right everyone's got his own thing and this is what i love about trump is trump is is an ideologue i know do you what

kind of ism does trumpism trump is that's what he ascribes to american ism i guess i don't know this is a man who's brought together a disparate coalition of like weirdo crunchy hippies and bow tie wearing traditionalists and libertarians and Silicon Valley tech futurists and like it's the craziest coalition ever and he has brought them together and won the popular vote

for the first time in 20 years as a Republican and it's an amazing thing to see in action because he's got a vision and he's just a force of nature and so the question I think on a lot of our minds now I think this is what all this Trump is dead discourse is about there was this viral meme that Trump died because he got a bruise on his hand or something

he went to play golf one day they said he was dead no he's still around he's around I'm very sure yes He's still around. And I think a lot of that is an anxiety of, wow, we got this reprieve from all the craziness and all the decay and all the division. And we're actually, we won the popular vote. You know, things are on track. And what happens next?

When the Patriarch's gone? Well, I mean, you know, what happens in families when the... It can be really hard. Yes. It can be really hard. I have a lot of confidence in J.D. Vance. Yes. I think he's quite...

clearly at this point set up the vice president as the successor. I hope that's right. It seems like in the cabinet meeting the other day, he said, look, Rubio's done a great job in the 15 jobs that he's doing in the admin. At least. At least 15. But he said in the cabinet meeting the other day, and I noticed it. And no one around me seemed to have heard this line.

He goes, everyone was talking about what a great job Rubio was doing. And he said, wow, Marco, you've just been amazing. I frankly, I hope you never run for another office because I want you to do this for the rest of your life. And I said, well, that seems like a win. If those are the two most, not papabile, they're the most like presidential obelay, you know, for 2028. So that seems like he's saying, no, the vice president is my natural successor.

Trump drops these bombs in every conversation you have with him. I don't, I haven't interviewed him that many times because it's so difficult. Dizzying. Because he does the weave famously. But every time I've interviewed him, like three days later, I'll think, did he just say that right in the middle of the, right? Yes. Yesterday, he was doing an interview with a daily caller.

right in all the interview. He was talking about Israel and I love Israel and no one's done more for Israel than I've done. And, you know, rooting for his A, he's very pro-Israel, of course. And then he goes, they used to own Congress or whatever. He said that. He goes, you know, the Israel lobby is to totally control Congress. Like nobody else. That's not true anymore. I'm like, did you just say that? Yeah. It was amazing. I remember in the interview or the press conference with Netanyahu, this was months ago. And I don't think I was taken in. by theatricality. I think this was real when he said, and look, what we're going to do is the United States is going to take over Gaza. And you look at Netanyahu and he sort of, he looks at Trump and he kind of looks nervously at the audience. He's kind of laughing, but kind of not laughing.

And he's like, what is it? He goes, we're going to take over Gaza, we're going to build a big Trump casino there or whatever. I don't know what he's going to do. We're going to build it. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be the Riviera of the Middle East. And it was, it was so apparently out of left field. And I'm not even convinced he's totally sincere on that.

I think he's a great negotiator and he's working other angles. It was weird. I was actually in the Middle East that day when that happened and I was eating with a bunch of, you know, local residents who run the government in the country. It was in. And I'm like, you know, and I was actually sitting at the table and they played that. Everyone's staring at this. And I thought, I don't know, what the hell is that? What do we have to do with Gaza?

Like my instinct is always like, we get nothing to do with this. I'm out. I'm good. You know, it's like when girls fight. Like, I don't want to get involved. I'll take Monica. I'll take the French Riviera. I don't need the Gaza Riviera.

That's exactly right. But their reaction was, I have no idea if this is true or not, but it was so interesting. They're sophisticated, very sophisticated. They're like, oh, no, no, that's an attack on Netanyahu. Yes. That was their gut reaction. He's basically tweaking that Nanyahu. It wasn't a, you know, a haymaker.

No, no, no, no. He wasn't clobbering on that. It was a little poke. And I think... So you think that, too? Yes, I think it was a little poke. In what way? in the sense that

in the cabinet meeting the other day Trump was asked I said you promised that this war would be over permanently in five seconds after you were inaugurated and so when are we going to get a definitive conclusion to the war and he laughs

definitive conclusion he turns to Steve Wyckoffie says hey Steve how long this conflict this has been going on thousands of years is it yeah there's no definitive conclusion we're just trying to stop the bloodshed we're trying to establish some

kind of peace. And it's this brilliant move because in what other way are you going to get the Israelis and the Arab League and the Iranian regime all united in not liking this one plan by suggesting we're going to go in and take it. And so, you know, it's basically an intractable situation. There will not be any permanent resolution probably until the second coming. So what you want to do is just establish some modicum of political order. What I would especially like to see happen as a preservation of the holy sites and uh you know pilgrimage access and all that uh but you should demand that i mean that's not even it's like no one owns jerusalem sorry yeah of course but there's easier said than done in a messy neck of the woods when you're paying for you can just be like

look our first demand is christians need to be able to visit the church's holy sepulchre so of course of course well you know i don't know i don't know it seems to me that the holy sites still seem to be okay uh in gaza So there was unfortunately the attack on St. Perfurious, which I grant was accidental. I don't think it was, I don't see why from a strategic perspective it would be beneficial to the Israelis to like particularly stick a finger in the eye of the Christians when America is your last political protector. There's been a lot of it. I don't know. I don't understand it. I think it's self-destructive behavior, but what I care about is the effect on Christians and it's just not good at all. Well, and you have to ask yourself, too, okay, what's the conclusion? You could either have the state of Israel take over Gaza again. Had Gaza from what, 67 until 05, then just gave it away in 2005. Hamas gets elected. Hamas runs it for a little bit. And then there's the October 7th attack. Israel's going to say now, okay, this is an unacceptable security risk. We're not dealing with this anymore. So you could have Israel take it over. That's going to be probably an unsatisfactory resolution. You could have the Arab League take it over. Some of Egypt take it over. I don't know that they really want to do it. No one wants to touch that hot potato.

You could have. And then Trump just drops out of the air. And he says, yeah, we're taking it. And we're going to develop condominiums. And we're going to ship all of the residents to South Sudan. That was floated, I think, in the Israeli government. South Sudan, the one place on earth that's less pleasant than Gaza. And I don't think that's going to work out well at all.

And what is, I think Trump is totally sincere in what he says. He goes, my solution here is not some permanent answer that will totally make the Israelis, happy and totally irritate all the Arabs and the Persians. My answer is not going to totally make the Israelis unhappy and totally satisfy Egypt or whatever, the Arably. It's, I just want some semblance of peace, which is where, I feel totally vindicated on this. I've said for years, when everyone is calling Trump the N-word, you know, they always call him the N-word, a nationalist. Oh, yeah. Always. They call him the N-word. And I said, I don't really think he's a nationalist. He loves the nation. He's a great patriot. He supports strong borders. But I don't think he's really a nationalist. I think he's kind of an imperialist. He wants to acquire Greenland and invade Canada. I don't think that's not generally what like yeoman farmers do. No. No, that's a Teddy Roosevelt move. Yes. I think his vision of America first is that America will take due care to prioritize her national interests, part of which is accepting the political reality that we're the global hegemon and we need to maintain some

modicum of world order. And this goes back to the really, a really ancient conception of the political order, which is that the purpose of empire is to just have peace and order. This is, you know, this is in the Aeneid, in book six of the Aeneid, Annius goes down to his dad in the underworld, and the dad gives him this whole view of what's going to happen to Rome. And he says, you know, look, different peoples are given different arts. The, I don't know, the Greeks are good at making Suflocki. the the Chinese are good at making bad soup and the Romans awful soup awful I've I've never even tried the panglin is good I've never tried the bat he says the Romans their art is to govern and it's it's not governing is not like fun it's not the most

glorious necessarily you know in some ways it'd be more fun to be a writer be more fun to be a poet be more fun to good but that's what the Romans are given is to govern and it's just a job in the world and someone's got to do it and you just need to establish relative peace and protect the rights of nations and just keep on keeping on. Do you think we're suited for that? I think Trump is quite suited for it as an individual, as a national leader. Is America suited for it? That's not how we started. We weren't we weren't looking for it when the country began, but we got it. I mean, I totally agree. Someone's got to be dad. I mean, that it's absolutely just the nature of man and there's no getting around it. In shirking,

it doesn't make it go away. So I completely agree with that. That's where I do agree with the neocons, I guess. Yeah, kind of, that is it, yeah. But in a different way, like, because the neocons, at their most extreme, would say we have an obligation because of the demands of history with a capital H to spread liberal democracy around the world. Well, that's just stupid. It's crazy. But like the smart, like I remember David Brooks, who was impressive, I know it's hard to believe, but at one point, when I knew him 30 years ago, was smart.

And he would say, look, someone's got to take control because there has to be order at the center. And that's not stupid where I began to really hate the neocons, where my whole politics began to revolve around opposing them as an ideology, not as individuals, but just the idea is bad. Some of the individuals, some of them. John Padhurst. But, no, it's when I went to Iraq. And the main takeaway for me is we're not good at it. We're just like leaving aside the dumb spread democracy and all that nonsense turned Baghdad into Belgium. It's stupid.

But what's not stupid is the idea that you can't have disorder because it metastasizes. And I'm getting there, my assessment and has not changed in 25 years is we're just not, we're not suited for this at all. Because we don't have the self-confidence required to do it because our society at its core is really thin. There's nothing really there, actually, other than some distorted version of. of capitalism, which is kind of disgusting. Do you think that was true, say, in the 50s and 60s, and it's changed? I think the fight in the Cold War, the battle against the Soviets, gave a kind of clarity and purpose.

Yeah. But even then, you know, the U.S. sided with the Vietnam, actually, in 1954 at Dien Ben-Fu against the French. Like, there was never really a kind of consistent, that's little known. Yeah. Yeah, but not even grand strategy, but like a consistent worldview or instinct. Like the English, for all their many faults, at the height of empire, the height of the Victorian period, like, they really believe they were superior. Now we derived that as racist, but you have to have that.

You have to believe my way is the better way or why are we doing this in the first place, to extract minerals? Like, that's not over time. People can't sustain that. You really have to have an evangelical spirit, and we don't have that. Well, and think about what Trump's been knocked for, especially in the recent Alaska summit. he's been knocked for shaking hands with Putin and, you know, being nice to him. Yeah. And I think, hold on, we've tried the other way.

Bush, W. Bush, tried to talk a little tough, or tried to be sweet and then talk tough. And Putin invaded Georgia. And then Obama, man, he talked tough. After the reset failed and Hillary Clinton couldn't spell of simple word in Russian, then that failed. And he talked really tough. Oh, boy, was he tough. And Putin invaded into Crimea. And then you had Trump.

And everyone just kind of chilled. And then you had Biden, man, no one talked tougher than Biden, huh? Oh, didn't he have such moral clarity? And Putin invaded further into Ukraine. The World Order collapse. Well, clarity thing is a clarity. If you think that Joe Biden was a better leader or a better man than Vladimir Putin, like, I don't even know what to say to you. But that's insane.

There's by no measure, by no measure, did Joe Biden's country, the people he solemnly swore to help and defend, did they thrive? No, they withered. Putin, who's been there for 25 years, his countries improve the people are happier. They like him, actually. The war has been a little tough on Putin. The wars, of course it's been tough. I'd be curious about public opinion today

this far into the war. Well, actually, it's measured a lot. Yeah, look it up. And you can say, oh, that's all a lie. Okay, well, show me one. Yeah. Go there. And look, I'm not moving to Russia,

but, I mean, Putin has been the most effective leader in my lifetime. I can't think of a more effective one. He's been a very stable leader for Russia. But why is he more evil than Joe Biden? Well, I can't even conceptualize that. Like, you know, you could say, look, I don't know his religious views, but he's promoted Christianity within Russia. Aggressively.

Yes, to combat, you know, liberalism and all these other forces. Joe Biden has, you know, imprisoned pro-lifers and sued none. Well, exactly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whatever. I guess the reason that I kind of pull away a little bit from the this is kind of neocani to me is the sort of purely good and evil I totally agree with that and to me I think well look I'm on the side of my country even if Joe Biden is running it which is a great pity of he is and I am because it's dude I'm with you of course patriotism is is an extension of filial piety just like just like you know all liberalism comes down to saying screw you dad like I hate my mom or whatever and I think no no we are called to respect our parents and to love our countries. And Russia has interests that are not aligned with ours. And they have missed us pointed at us.

And you think, well, okay, Putin, for all of his sins, Putin is defending the interests of Russia. And I think there was a cent. Look, Biden would say he was defending the interests of the United States or NATO or whatever. He didn't do a very good job at it. By the way, NATO, yeah, exactly. And this is why you'll notice Trump doesn't use this good and evil language all the time. And the way he talks about Putin, he says, look, Putin has interests. He has hard interests.

That's how I feel. And I have hard interests. And I'm good, if I can be a little diplomatic with him, I'm going to do it. I'm reminded of, do you remember the Jeffrey Goldberg article in the Atlantic, which said, it was the Obama doctrine. This was back in 2016. Never forget it. This piece. And what's so funny now is.

It was a fascinating piece. Fascinating piece. Goldberg is a liar. I know him and one of the most dishonest people I've ever met. I'm truly dishonest. But a very talented pro stylist. Yes. And the piece, it's like an interesting reporter. Oh, I read every word of that piece. In that piece, they are lauding Obama for saying things like Russia is always going to have a

Oh, I remember. Oh, I remember. They're always going to have escalatory power. Trump says the exact same thing. And all this people are willing. By the way, Obama, who I think kind of wrecked America, can't, comes off as pretty reasonable in that piece. Just being honest. Yes. If you read that piece now and just like take Obama out and just put another name in there, it's like, I kind of agree with most of this. And Trump is saying most of those things. Oh, I know. And there's one big difference. Trump can actually implement it. And Obama couldn't really implement it.

The world order was fraying under him. And so it is so ironic that these people who, you know, accused Trump of being like a KGB agent or whatever, that these people would knock Trump for saying the same thing that they were, they were parroting for years. They're all just children. Like, these are not, they're the people who told you that Russia was a gas station with nuclear weapons. People like John McCain, like 95 IQ and his sad, idiot daughter. I mean, he's just like not... I've just gotten along with the drama. I never met John McCain.

She's fine. I mean, McCain was charming in his way. I mean, I love McCain, actually. When I knew him well, but a very charming guy, but like, not a serious person at all. He killed the repeal of Obamacare, which is very difficult to get over. But he just wasn't serious. He was just a shallow was actually. And he was one of the last.

the true hawkish anti-Russia, you know, coming out of the Cold War, though he was younger. Just you've, you just got to bomb. You just got to, you know, implement your will. It was this deep. I mean, I spent a lot of time talking to the guy on the road, traveled to various countries with him, knew him, I think, as well as I've ever known a politician. And there was so much to like about the guy. He just ruled was a charming, very aristocratic bearing, hilarious, vulgar in a way that I always enjoy. but if you pushed him on any issue,

like he hadn't spent 15 minutes thinking about anything. You know, this is something you notice on Capitol Hill generally is there are some people who are very intelligent and decently well read. A lot of them, though, their skill is not doing a lot of reading. You know, that's not the skill that's like... Dude, I went to boarding school. I know what that is.

That's like memorized three famous quotes, throw them out like you've read the whole book. And that was McCain, man. And he, on any question, including the foreign policy questions he was supposedly an expert on, he knew nothing to say Russia is a gas station with nuclear weapons. Like, you're, you're an idiot. This is the nation of, you know, like Tolstoy. Oh, my God, the winner policy. St. Petersburg, great, all right.

There's no city in Europe. There's certainly no city of the United States that approaches their two main cities. Well, this is what was fascinating. I mean, I'm now remembering. It's just a fact. And the fact that you got to interview Putin. And when you listen to that interview, this is a man. Say what you will about his yarn that he spun. It was a very compelling yarn. He had a view of his own country that was a very strong view.

And I wonder, look, Trump in his own way tells a story about America. He hugs the flag, he kisses the flag. He's got it really in his gut. how many American statesmen today, after all these decades of just dissolution and hatred of country, how many of them can tell a compelling story about what the country is, why we ought to love the country beyond mere filial piety, and where we're going? How many of them are there? It's hard. I mean, because who are the American people? That's the question. And that's what really bothers me as someone who is not a race guy. And I don't think your DNA should just determine the course of your life or the nation you live in. I just don't, I'm American.

I'm from California. I don't feel that way. However, all of history suggests I'm wrong. Because when Putin talks about Russia, he's talking about the Russian people whose DNA you can map. And they're the indigenous population. He's not talking about the Chechnyans. He's not. No.

No, by the way, he gets along with them really well. Well, that's the other thing. He's got 20% Muslim population. He's promoting Christianity. But the Muslims all like him. Like, how do you do that? Yes. Don't try that at home.

That's hard. And it's a skill that is... I mean, this is why I keep coming back to empire is because our country looks more like an empire than it does like a yeoman republic. Russia certainly looks like an empire. You know, it's spanning a continent and it has all these peoples.

And so on this question, which is... Well, we don't even know who lives here. Yeah. Trump said to me recently, we think there are about maybe 50 million people here legally. Yeah. 50 million? I mean, but who no one knows,

the President of the United States doesn't really know. We've got facial recognition technology, but somehow we can't know who lives here. Yes. And so when you talk about my country are people who are, you can't even visualize who they are. Yes. And this gets, I mean, you just said, look, I'm not a race guy. I'm not a race guy, actually. But when you think, I'm a sexist, not a racist. I always say that. No one believes me. I think about sex all the time, actually. I do, too. I, but when you, when you think, what is America now, you know, in 2025, there was this line where it's America is just an idea, you know, or diversity is our strength or all these kind of slogans from the 90s and 2000.

You think, well, no, it's not, a country's not just an idea. There is a critical aspect, but it's not like an idea floating in outer space. What are you talking about? And so there has to be a real grappling with, okay, well, look, a country is also geography. You know, like there is no America without the rivers, for instance. Okay, you know, it's not, the rivers aren't just an idea. You're speaking to a fly fisherman now, Mr. Nolz. It's not a country without trout.

It's not a country without the oceans. And it's not a country without people. And this also is where. Someone can just, like, show up from Delhi and, like, start lecturing me about American values. Yes. Can't even speak American English. And no one says anything like, hey, son, settle down. You just got here.

Don't start lecturing someone whose family's been here 400 years about what America is. Then there's kind of no America, actually, at that point. Of course. And so this is where even the grappling with, even the grappling with ethnicity, you know, like what we've come out of this very liberal period where we have been. told there's no such thing as ethnicity or race or anything like that. Except it, but simultaneously it's the most important thing. All that matters is race, but it doesn't exist. And the reality is, again, to this kind of via media, it's okay, it's okay when Joe DiMaggio

hit a home run. It's okay that the Italian Americans in New York got a special little thrill out of that. It's okay. They say, that kind of looks like me and he hit that home run. That's kind of, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. thing wrong with recognizing that there are differences between peoples. There are two simultaneous errors, which we fall into, it seems actually at the same time, which is we say, ethnicity means

nothing at all whatsoever, and ethnicity is totally deterministic and means everything. And the reality is, I mean, this is where our Christian heritage, Christianity, which animates the whole civilization comes in, you say, no, we are in a very real way, all children of God. Like, in a very real way, there's only one race, the human race, or whatever, like the liberals like to say. there is there is that is true and also there is vibrant diversity among peoples and that's fine to acknowledge god created that god created different people as long as that is ordered toward charity as long as a proper love of that which is similar to one is is not ordered toward cruelty or any and is ordered within charity for the common good yeah that's called having a country of course

when is we're not allowed to say that now yeah i just feel like it's gotten um I don't know. They've been so tough on whites for so long. Yes, of course. So cruel to whites that I think, like, there's a crazy backlash coming. Without question. Well, it's well-deserved backlash. It's already happening. Is it? I think so. And, you know, as Tucker, you know, I'm part Sicilian. Not a non-white people. A racially liminal people. We Sicilians. I love Sicilians. Children of Mesojourna, yes. And so you get a kind of look at it, which is, I mean, even early on, I get these wasp ancestors. and I got some Irish ancestors in there.

The Italians came in a little bit later. And so there's a little mixing of all of Europe in there. And the reality is, in order to have a, like, a sense of a country, you do need to have some kind of a sense of a common people. And so to your point on the guy from Delhi, it's not even that the guy from Delhi can't be, like, quite American three generations from now. But you can't just, like, land in a place. and because you read a book about America

or because you watched a YouTube video, you just totally get America. To have a country is to have a lived experience that has passed sometimes ineffably, without words, from generation to generation. I'm looking around your house here. I mean, there's pretty old stuff, and you just kind of do it,

and there are habits that are inculcated in people. And there are inclinations that the American people have, observed by Toekville back in the 19th century, that they're not even aware of, that it takes some random Frenchmen to come in and notice it. I totally agree. So you've got to be very careful. But I just want to be clear, since I have a million Indian friends

and actually like India a lot as a country. You hate the Indians. I'm probably the most pro-Indian right-winger will ever meet. But sincerely, but it's not even lecturing, showing up and lecturing me about what it is to be an American. It's showing up and attacking whites. Yeah. And boy, did you see a lot of that?

And not just, it wasn't just Indians, but like people, immigrants would show up, you know, taking all these benefits from the country and the permanent population here and then start immediately attacking whites. Now, they attack whites because they were encouraged to do that by a ruling class. Like they got into Stanford. The schools. 100% and then they get to Stanford and it's like, oh, you want to succeed. You have to attack the whites. Yeah. And they just, they're status oriented.

All immigrants just like want to fit in and want to do the, get the merit badges that the society demands they get. And one of those merit badges required them to denounce whites. and I felt like that is the most destructive thing that you could ever do. You know, I have a solution to this, though. My solution to this, we're always told, you know, it's all just got to be kind of organic from the culture and the people, and that's politics, it's purely downstream of culture and whatever.

I have a little more of a classical, political view of that. I think people respond to incentives. That's exactly right. When you mention these institutions, and Trump is very good at this, taking, beating up Harvard, I think was a brilliant political attack. You see some of that. in Florida taking in some of the universities. It's happening around the country. I'll give you a Pete Buttigieg. I don't know Pete Buttigieg. The fake guy? I have a friend who thinks he's a fake

gay. My gay producer is always like, he's not gay. He was with a girl like 20 minutes ago. And like he wants to be the Democratic nominee. It's like time for a gay guy. It's playing the long game. I mean, that is, that's going, look. Well, it's suffering for your art. I'll say that. he look just because i don't know him i know a hundred people to judges i know this character oh i do too and he went to the elite school and then he goes to mackenzie and then he does the checks and i think then find some benighted midwestern town that he can just like become mayor of i'm a mayor now talking about the great i was talking a big democrat uh figure and he said you know say what you well about pete he's the greatest careerist we've ever seen you're mayor of this tiny town

you become the secretary of transportation no but of course but the town kind of sucks actually he didn't do a good job if he didn't have the college there but i've always want to interview him he's never agreed to interview but i'm going to ask him like some very specific questions about gay sex and see if he can even answer i doubt he even knows where does yeah no totally yeah i don't i'm not gay dude stop i think about pete boodyidge if we controlled the universities if we controlled the culture and if the incentives in the corporations and all of the DEI offices, we can rename them. If all the incentives were not to be like America hating, gay, liberal,

Elgin. Pete Buttigieg, I am convinced, this is, look, this is purely my gut telling me this. He would be, like, waving the stars and bars doing dip, like, whatever incentive were there, he would go to it. And so I think this is where the Trump, a little more muscular view of politics comes in. He says, no, forget about this stupid, like, everything's just going to be organic. That's never how culture has changed. We're going to go in.

I'm going to pummel Harvard into the dirt. I'm going to go in. I'm going to pummel these bureaucracy, the Kennedy Center, whatever. And I'm going to create new incentives such that the best and the brightest and the most ambitious are incentivized to like our country and do good stuff. It's totally right. I'm at the inauguration.

January 20th sitting there and it was indoors for so I can't remember why. But I'm sitting there chatting away, of course. That next is Laura Ingram. I'm gossiping about Fox. And all of a sudden look up and there's Jeff Bezos sitting like right in front. me. Yes. What's Jeff Bezos doing here? And then all these people fire in Sun Cook, Sondar Pichai. Wow. Yeah, that's right. I noticed all of a sudden, after the inauguration, after the election, really, my phone starts ringing from news networks that have never been interested in talking to me before. Yeah. And all of us, and all of a sudden, some of the big corporations that we work with with my show, they're more interested in helping us. And, you know, they want to.

make sure our experience. I said, oh, this is what power is. Yeah. And it is incumbent upon statesmen on the happy occasions that they get power from the people, that they actually use it in a good way and make hay while the sun shines. So we have a couple of viewer questions. We've never done this before, but, you know, it's the internet. I'm in. Okay. Lots of people ask this one, my producer said. Michael Knowles, do you miss working with Candace Owens? Well, you know, I still see Candace all the time. You know, I'm the godfather to Candace's daughter. Actually?

Yeah, yeah. I'm the godfather to Candace's daughter. I'm very good friends with her husband. And, you know, it's kind of weird for a mirror. I like her husband. Yeah, we have many Mayflower cigars, you know, over the time. And I still, I don't see Candace at work, obviously, anymore. But I do see her at church.

She actually goes to the earlier mess than I do. Because she converted. You know, she came into the church like a year or something ago. And in fact, I was the godfather. to her daughter before she came into the church. And then all those smells and bells just kept pulling her in. And there was one time I was invited to the baptism of their next kid. And I just couldn't make it.

I was visiting my grandma or something. And people kept telling me, like, no, you should really come. I was like, no, look, I mean, I love the former family, but I'm got to go see my granny, whatever, you know. And they kept, I said, what's this about? I don't know. They have like a kid every six months. So, like, they'll have another one soon.

And, but then I thought it was because she was being baptized and she wasn't telling anybody. So anyway, she came in and now at least, now at least I get to see her at Mass. People love her. It is wild. She has actual star quality. She has this thing. She could tell me something. She could tell me something not only that I don't agree with, she could tell me something about myself that, you tell me I have blonde hair.

And I would just, the whole time, I just feel like, go on, tell me everything. Well, it's wild. I mean, I was telling you this off there, but I was just going to say it. I was in Oslo, Norway last week, salmon fishing with my kids. I'm coming, walking back from dinner with one of my kids in downtown Oslo in the sky because it was Tucker Carlson, yes, you know Candace Owens. I was like, yes. He goes, tell her that I love her.

And I was like, how famous do you have to be where people will come up to you in the street just because you know somebody else? where people will come up to another very famous guy. Nothing to do with me at all. You say, hey, you know, hi, I'm Tucker, by the way. No, no, I was so impressed by it that I didn't hurt my feelings at all. That is unbelievable. But yes, the main thing that he liked about me was that I knew Candace Owens.

I was like, wow, that's devotion. So I was impressed. I called her. I said, wow, man, you're really at another level. I've got to start trying that at restaurants. Hey, can I get a free dessert or something? I know Candace. No, it's not my birthday, but, okay, this is an interesting one.

This is a question. I think I've inadvertently led my two sons ages 25 and 23 to have a mindset to put off having a family. I think I've made a mistake. How do I convince them to hurry up, get married, and have kids? The question, the answer that I would, or the evidence that I would need here is how old the kids are. 23 and 25. You got, okay, 23 and 25. Yeah, you should get serious.

I mean, these days you'd be like a child groom at that age. but you need to start getting serious. I guess the reason is this. I had a kid at 25. Yeah. I mean, people used to get married. I have a good friend. Very successful guy, though he struggled for a long time.

Six kids got married at 20 or 19 or something. It started spitting out kids right away. And the way to maybe present this to your sons is we screw up everything in modern life. We just get everything perverted or inward or wrong. And we now view marriage as the capstone to our lives. Exactly. We say, I've lived, now that I've lived, now that I've had sex with 100,000 people, and I've made a million dollars, and now that I've done everything, traveled all over the world, now I'm going to get married. Now that I'm going to get married. And you think, okay, that's not what marriage is. Marriage is when two people leave their families, come together and become one flesh, and do something together. And so it's really supposed to be more like the beginning of your life. But here's there's a real practical reason why you shouldn't do it that way. I married my high school

sweetheart. You married your high school sweetheart. Yes, I did. And highly recommend it. And I've seen many, many good marriages where people marry their high school sweetheart because it's like our bones. You know, when you grow, your bones are kind of agile and malleable and they grow. Yeah. And then they harden. Yes. And then it's, it's really hard when two people harden into their own ways to mash that together. But if you're still kind of young and a little more malignant, even, you know, in your 20s, you're starting to really harden your views. You need to do that in such a way that you're fused together. So, I mean, to me, no, that's right.

The notion of divorce. Then you get really rigid, too, is they get older living alone. Yes, get weird. Oh, so weird. And you, I'm entirely opposed to divorce. I would not divorce under any circumstances. I know people do it. I know it happens.

It's a fallen world. But it seems to me that if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, you're a whole set person and you marry someone and you sign a pre-nup and you keep separate bank accounts and you just, you're kind of setting yourself up to prepare for when you're just going to crack apart. But if you do it a little bit younger and you're just totally enmeshed, all the way. It's unthinkable, yeah. I also think, you know, young men especially are really concerned about the economy, which is like basically been designed to exclude them. And they feel like they're not going to be able to succeed and provide for their children the lives that they had from their

parents. Just as a math question, getting married is like it just, there's a lot of research on this is the single most effective thing you can do to be more successful. Yes. Yes, of course. I was talking to a buddy of mine, even with the kids, you know, when I had my, it took us a couple years. And then we had our first kid. I said, oh, I hope I hope I have enough money. Oh, you will. Yes. My friend said that babies are like little money bags. You just, you just make more. You just make more. You just make it work. You were, yes. When I had my first, I was working at the weekly standard hard to believe I ever worked there. But for Bill Crystal, I know it's so shocking. You know, he was a teacher of mine. We have that, we have that in common. Bill Crystal was a teacher of yours? I did one of these

fellowships, like a summer fellowship. He taught me, I don't know, like Machiavelli or something. And to think now, I mean, now his publications have taken shots at me over the years. And I just think, man, where did you lose the plot? buddy? I don't know what happened. I don't know. It's distressing, but I think he kind of collapsed inside as a person. Depressing. It can happen, by the way. We have to be on guard against it. But anyway, I remember I had this editor called Richard Starr. It was such a nice man. And I had this child at 25 and he goes, your life's going to change. And I was like, everyone says that what do you mean? And he goes, when you have a child, especially when you're young,

you realize you will do whatever it takes to provide for that child. You need to rob a fucking liquor store? Yes. No problem. Yes. And I was like, wow, that's so true. It even made me... Not that I ever robbed any liquor stores, but like I would have. But you might have. You might still. I, when we got married, I was a little old.

I was maybe 27 when we got engaged, 28, we got married. This is my one, I kind of wish we'd gotten married younger. We were kind of moving. We're long distance, all this stuff. And it's all works out in Providence, but it's one regret I had. We should have got, my wife says it to it. We should have got married younger and started having kids younger. And I remember, though, I started my show after I got married, or right around the time.

I got married. And I thought, man, thank goodness. I'm not single in this career in particular because you're probably, can you imagine? And you just, all you do is just like stay up late and go drink and screw around. And that's, and when you're married and you have kids, you have a sense of purpose that you're doing things for something. Of course. Of course. And if you're under like real stress, if you have, you know, performing in public or whatever, any job where you're like under pressure and or feel like we're on a tightrope all the time. But if you didn't have a wife, I don't know how you would do that. Yeah, I almost...

They all melt down. I mean, you know, you need a wife. Yes. I mean, even my wife will... She'll sometimes say, I'll do my show. She'll listen to my show. She'll come, you know, Mike, you were a little bit, kind of live over there. You kind of went a little squishy on.

I'd be like, man, you're the... You know, she's like the rock solid one. Well, she's the only person I'll ever let write some of my show. She gets it. Really? Yeah, yeah. It's not. She was no political nerd or anything.

like that. But she has a very conservative disposition. Yeah. And she just has this gut instinct. When moms go right wing, boy, they're not dicking around at all. I've seen that a lot. Yeah. Members of Congress who I respect 100% have wives who are like, what? No. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. No, I can think of a couple of them. Okay. Last question. This is kind of a weird one. Michael, do you detest boomers as much as Tucker seems to? I was born in 1951. What's the main thing I ought to do or stop doing to help improve life here in the United States? So this is a boomer, I take it.

This is a boomer. This is a boomer. Baby boom, 1946, 1964, I think. The boomers have attracted a lot of ire. Yes. Rightly so. My defense of the boomers is they came from somewhere. Yeah.

They came from somewhere. So even, I mean, you know, our grandparents' generation. And they're human beings. I don't mean to talk about them like they're animals. No, but things went really screwy during the boomer generation. You think? You might have noticed. And I think what it has come down to is an ideological selfishness.

I'm not even saying a lot of boomers, like they have all this stress and anxiety for their kids and the future. Yes. So it's not like even a personal selfishness. It's an ideological selfishness that says, hey, I'm going to, you know, do what you want. Hey, follow your bliss. Do what makes you happy. And I would say that came from a good place for a lot of the boomers who were a little hippie-dippy, whatever.

I don't think that's helpful to kids. I actually think a little bit more clarity is better. Clarity is charity. And I think a little bit more on the guardrails, a little bit more of saying, hey, son, don't just follow your bliss. It's an ideological selfishness. Boy, that is, I've never thought of that. That is really smart because it is, of course, it's true that boomers, which again is

everybody born between, you know, the end of World War II and just before Woodstock, there are a lot of nice people who really care about their kids and grandkids. But they... But it's ideological. Yes. They can't even... What are you talking about? If I were to say that right is right and wrong is wrong, well, I'd be, that would be, I don't know, authoritarian or judgmental. Yes. And you think, well, you have to make judgments in life. And sometimes parents actually do know what's best for their kids and you just need to I think, state not, have the confidence to state that. Have the confidence to help your kid, even if it might make him angry in the short run.

Let me, that's a really smart point. Let me just end by asking you, because I'm legit interested. How did you get into the tobacco business? Can I offer you one? I don't want to make you smoke at 10 o'clock in the morning. I'm going, shooting after this. I'm going to burn one of these. Okay, great.

I can't wait. I have loved cigars since I was 15, which is a little old to start. in New York as an Italian-American, but I was, you know... Totally. If I ever get rich, I'm going to start a nicotine for the Children Foundation, just to make sure that they have enough. I'm serious. It's charity. I couldn't agree more. I was 15, and I never liked cigarettes. I never liked, but I loved cigars. And a family friend gave me one when I was 15. I really liked it.

And I would go grocery shopping in the Bronx in the Italian neighborhood. And they had these guys rolling the cigars. And I was too young to buy them. So they would just give them to me. They'd give me four a week. And I got into, I smoked them. really, I wrote my college admission essay about how much I loved cigars. I called it the Count of Monte Cristo. Because I said write about something you're passionate about. I'm very passionate about cigars. They let you into Yale, one of the cigar essay?

I probably wouldn't have worked out today. Yeah. Better than writing about my political news. Your parents, big donors? They were not. Safe to say they were not. And I, so the story of this company, I wanted to start that for a long time. Because despite my swarthy appearance, I do have this kind of wasp, Mayflower,

ancestor. And I said, I wanted to be Mayflower. I want it to be patriotic, but I don't want it to just be like, you know, guns and fried chicken cigars. I want it to be a little more elevated, but and there's this paradox with the Mayflower, which is kind of like the founding stock. On the one hand, they're blue blood elites. On the other, this is, these are salt of the earth people. Yeah, they're rugged, rugged, weirdos, kind of booted out of England. Yeah. And I said, I like that paradox because cigars are a luxury, but they're also, very accessible. You can have an amazing cigar for like $12, you know. Yes. And so I said, I want it to be that. And I wanted to work with a particular company. When I was a kid, my mother, shortly before

she died, gave me a box of Oliva cigars, Oliva Series O Robusto for Christmas. Yeah. We did not have a lot of money, and this was a really nice present. When she died unexpectedly, I still had half the box. And I said, oh, well, these are special. I need to save them for special occasions, graduate high school, get married, first kid, that kind of thing. Maybe I'll give some to my kids if I have any left over. This is providential. I was trying to start the cigar company. It was kind of tough. Daily Wire was allowing me to kind of explore this and use the platform to start a cigar company. So, great. But what do I know? I don't know anything about starting that. I'm backstage at a TV show. And a guy calls that to me, says, hey, Knowles, you're a cigar guy, right?

I said, yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, yeah, I got the cigar. You got to come by this cigar club that I'm a member of. I said, oh, that's a great idea. I don't know him. He goes, yeah, I'll give you one of mine. It's a, it's an oliva. Rebanded Olias. I said, do you know oliva cigars? He said, yeah, I said, I can't get in touch with them. He goes, I'll put you in touch. Well, that's fortuitous. 15 minutes, we have the deal for production and distribution for a test cigar. Only because of a happenstance of business, it couldn't, it basically couldn't have worked with any other company. I, we go through it, we blend, I'm blending meticulously. I wanted to go to Nicaragua. Had a little trouble getting into the country

of Nicaragua. I'm blending it for long distance. We finally launch it. Now, how hard is it to get to the right blend? If you're obsessive, if you're horrifically obsessive, I was such a terrible person to work with. That's the way to be. But you have to be. Because I said, with those, I said, look, this is something I care about. I'm not really doing this primarily to make money. I'll make many other ways. I'm doing this because this is a thrill. I've wanted to do it for 15 years. and I landed on a blend, a Connecticut blend, which is the Mayflower Dawn. It's kind of the more mainstream one. The Mayflower Dusk, which is an Ecuador-Hibano rapper, that was really blended just for my tastes.

And a double Maduro, the Mayflower Dream. Comes from a painting by William Halsall of the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor. And it's an orange sky. And you can't tell if the sun is rising or setting on America, which I love this ambiguous painting. Is we getting in tomorrow or is the light going out? And I said, that's what I wanted to be, dawn, dusk, and twas. stream. We get the cigars. The cigars are made at the same factory that made the box that my mother gave me. No way. Yeah. How do you plan that? Talk about providence. How do you plan that? That's wild.

Yeah. And so- Do you smoke them? All the time. You smoke your own brand. Oh, yes. They were made, they were actually made for my taste. And they are, say, with no false modesty and true humility, they're exquisite. And so we've got three lines now. I even made the, I was so brutal about it. I made these little mini ones. I called them Mayflower Compacts. They're a little petite coronas. Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Thank you. And, uh, but they're a premium hand-rolled long filler, so it's not a cigaria or something. I, I, I just love them. And they, they sold out immediately. It was a good problem to have because I sold like four months supply in one day and was out of stock for Black Friday, out of stock for Christmas, fine, we're picking up production. We're now we're in retail stores. This brings us all the way back to the top of our conversation.

Because one of the reasons I started this company is I want people, especially guys, to get out in the physical world and spend time together and speak the best conversations I've had in my life are over cigars. I agree. And I want them to do that, not be in their rooms, not be just on Zoom, I want them to be in this. And to recognize, you know, thus passeth the glories of the world, Siktranzi, Gloria, Mundi, 45 minutes you have your conversation, then it's over. light another one, maybe tomorrow. But I think it's instructive. And it's whatever people say about the health effects of cigars, I have always found, I think this quotes, was it George Burns or someone, that I've taken more out of cigars than cigars have taken out of me. Well, I feel that way. It's very, very strongly about tobacco. Can you, can you just like start a

cigar company and start selling them? Do you have to go through FDA hoops? It's so hard. And through sheer providential blessing, I was able to leapfrog over a lot of that. It still took me over a year, basically, to go from beginning the deal to launching. To get them into stores is almost impossible. Why? Because of all these stupid regulations. If I started a pot company, I'd probably be in 57 states in the country. Oh, for sure. Yes. It's very different. Certain states I just can't do business in. I wish I could. I have stores begging me for them. I just can't, I can't. Why? The regulations are so brutal. I mean, certain places are trying to ban smoking just like, forever. Massachusetts, you know, tried to set a date after which you could just never

buy tobacco. So it kept aging with you. I mean, crazy, crazy stuff like that. California's awful on the regs. And so we're trying to sneak them out as best we can. Yeah. It does seem like tobacco should be part of the backlash. Of course. Is it? Well, it's the American crop. First of help build the country. Washington grew it. Where did it come from? The American South. The American Indians. And, oh, originally, that's right.

Yeah, it's not native to Europe. It's native to North America. And you know who really discovered it was Christopher Columbus. I know. I grabbed the Taino Indians. They would smoke them up their nose, which I don't think I've ever tried. But yes. The two things he took away, in addition to corn, tobacco and syphilis.

Yeah. And I don't sell syphilis. Or have it. Michael Knowles, that was great. Tucker, thank you for that. And I really, really appreciate it. And it's great to see you after six years, totally vindicated. You're not the disgusting one, Michael Knowles.

Thank you, Tucker. And thank you for your help. Oh, my gosh. Lose nothing. Thank you. We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor.

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