The Tucker Carlson Show - Thank God Trump Brokered a Ceasefire. That’s the Last Thing Mark Levin Wanted.

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Thank God Trump brokered a ceasefire. That’s the last thing Mark Levin wanted. (00:00) Fox News’ War Propaganda (10:15) Who’s Really Controlling the Corporate Media Narrative? (21:55) The A...bsurdity of “Woke Right” (27:50) 9-11, Anthrax Attacks, and Forever Wars (33:43) Thomas Massie Is Unpatriotic? (53:38) How Corporate Media Profits off War Paid partnerships with: ExpressVPN: Go to https://ExpressVPN.com/Tucker and find out how you can get 4 months of ExpressVPN free! Byrna: Go to https://Byrna.com or your local Sportsman's Warehouse today. SimpliSafe: Visit https://simplisafe.com/TUCKER to claim 50% off & your first month free! Preborn: To donate please dial #250 and say keyword "BABY" or visit https://preborn.com/TUCKER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:15 Exclusively on FanDuel Casino. Where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit kinexontario. We worked together at Fox News. You were there 10 years. You've since gone on to be a lot more successful than either one of us was at Fox and I think a lot happier and congratulations. No one gets out of it alive except you. But you did. And me. Yeah, no, it's great to beat the odds we both did. But is it weird to look at your former employer, you spent a decade working for them, and see them as like a prime driver
Starting point is 00:01:06 a prime driver for war. It's not weird when if you look at history, right? To me, when I started watching over the past few weeks, this drumbeat for war, I started seeing it's almost like they went to their shelf and they grabbed their book, their manual, they got it off, they dusted it off. Like, what did we do back in 2002? What have we done before that successfully worked and pushed people, an entire populace, along with CNN and MSNBC towards war? They flipped open the pages, they skipped the preamble because they already knew what to do. And they started lining up every show with the same rhetoric.
Starting point is 00:01:50 They started putting up the TVs where they would stand and get up with their big pencils and their fingers on the board. Here's where they're going to attack. These are the bases, almost giving like telegraphing military moves from the same playbook. So it's not stunning. That's called news coverage, Clayton. That's news, right. We're just reporting the news.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Is that news? Where is the journalism? I don't understand it, but particularly this weekend, I became enraged this weekend. I'm not one to get enraged unless my kids leave their shoes in the kitchen or one of my eight-year-old steals my phone charger Like that's when I fly into a rage. I don't even get road rage Like I'm a pretty even-keeled person. Very even-keeled. I can confirm that. Things could be happening all around me And I you know, I just I kind of you know float along. I got enraged this weekend watching this coverage and almost breathlessly as soon as there was this announcement that that Trump had authorized this bombing of these nuclear sites, it was it was almost as if like the
Starting point is 00:03:10 host on these shows were like grabbing an American flag and anyone who opposed this was unpatriotic and this was the most spectacular amazing American moment in history. He'll go down like Reagan and Thatcher, you know, attempting to bring down communism. Everyone tried to do this for decades. Trump is the only one that could do it. I just, you know, one of the hosts, I just got off the phone with Trump a few minutes ago and he said their entire nuclear program has been decimated. It's done. And I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. People didn't vote for this. No.
Starting point is 00:03:47 And to see these networks pushing this coverage, and it's not just Fox, it's CNN, it's MSNBC, and they're all right back to their playbook because it's so incredibly profitable. I mean, just follow the money on all of this. So if we wind, I mean, contextually here, I don't know how much of your audience is aware of like what happened in 2002, 2003. We were sort of in that world at the time. You much more than me at that time, but I was part of the propaganda effort. Yeah. And you were, it was at, were you at MSNBC? I was at CNN, the most trusted name in news. This is CNN. This is CNN. So, and you can't, the American media was all in lockstep and you know that there are almost no dissenting voices allowed on the network
Starting point is 00:04:36 news. Let me repeat that. There were almost no dissenting voices allowed on those shows across the board. MSNBC, we learned, had a two for one booking, official booking plan that meant two pro-war voices for every one anti-war voice, but across the board. I mean, shows change. So they actually were explicit about that. Yeah, I mean, producers who worked for, for instance. I'm getting ahead of myself here because I'm just so it's all right. That's all right I mean people This is not a debate over the next budget agreement. This is not a debate even over
Starting point is 00:05:18 You know boys and girls sports. This is a debate over the future of the world and Millions people could die. That's not a crazy concern. And so, yeah, this really matters. I think it's fair to be worked up about. I'm just trying to be level headed as much as I can be. So I'm just going to look at the, I just want to talk about the facts here because I've looked, I was, I studied this very, very closely at the time. I was infuriated by the edit by the time when George W. Bush would get up there and tell us, you know
Starting point is 00:05:47 why they attack, you know, it's because they hate us. It's because they hate our freedoms. I mean, my bullshit meter, as soon as he said those words, I just wanted to scream at the television back then. They don't hate us because of our freedoms. That's just garbage. Why aren't they attacking Norway? I went on CNN. Well, I repeated that as well, for sure. And I kind of believed it. And then
Starting point is 00:06:12 I went over to the region right after 9-11. And then a year later, I made the mistake of reading Osama bin Laden's manifesto on CNN. Not an endorsement of Osama bin Laden, obviously. Right. But it's news. Well, I just think it's important to know why people do things. You can disagree completely, but I think it's important to be honest about other people's motives. And so I read this, maybe it's all made up or whatever. Can you trust Osama Bin Laden? No. But I think, do I like Osama Bin Laden? No, obviously. But I'm an American, but I think it's important to know at least what he said about why he did it. And the two reasons, there are a number of reasons, but the two big ones were you've got US forces on the Saudi Peninsula,
Starting point is 00:06:57 two most holy cities in Islam, Mecca and Medina. Like that's offensive to me. In his backyard. Yeah, well right, he's Saudi, but also it's just like symbolically offensive. I get it. I don't agree, but it's important to know that. And by the way, the US military moved its base out of Saudi Arabia after that. So like they took it seriously. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:19 It's unnecessarily provocative. And the second reason was your're in critical support of Israel So I read this on the air at CNN. Whoa. Whoa shouldn't have done that. I was immediately denounced as an anti-semite what? Okay, but you're reading Osama bin Laden's words and you are an anti-semite Yeah, I mean I got completely slammed by some group. I can't remember the name of it I was shocked by it, but I'm not endorsing Osama Bin Laden, I despise Osama Bin Laden, he murdered 3,000 Americans, so whatever. You were not allowed to deviate from the talking points, I mean I experienced that.
Starting point is 00:08:00 Right. Like for real. No, you're not. You had to just nod along and be like, yeah, okay. I mean if you think about how ridiculous that is, you know, I had to read Mein Kampf in college, right? We still read Hitler's words to understand the move towards a final solution, understanding bloodline, all of that.
Starting point is 00:08:16 It's written in his own book so you can understand where he got to with this. It's important to understand historically. I agree. I don't endorse Hitler. I don't think so. By the way, I'm with you on that Clayton. Glad we agree on that. We do.
Starting point is 00:08:31 By the way, I read that book in my history of the Holocaust class. Yeah. You know, who was taught, I had a Jewish professor at the University of Pittsburgh. It was an incredible class. But it's crazy to think the country's become so irrational, partly because of training
Starting point is 00:08:45 from cable news, that knowing something is considered the same as endorsing it. And what it really is is an attempt to control your mind, to control what you believe by limiting your access to information. That's really what it is. Also, what I find so offensive about at least cable news now is, maybe it's always been this way, I think it probably now is maybe it's always been this way. I think it probably has, but it's incurious. We can't ask questions.
Starting point is 00:09:13 And if you ask questions, that's an endorsement of that position. So like, we hit these nuclear targets. I would never, if I were still on there and I raised the question with a guess like how do we know we actually destroyed anything with these nuclear targets don't ask that question you better not ask that question you may have heard about a recent proposal to finally protect Americans their privacy from data brokers from theft of your data it's needed badly every day tech vultures collect information about everything you're doing online and they sell it to the highest bidder. Obviously this should be illegal, it's not illegal. The new
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Starting point is 00:11:59 Yeah. So, yeah, true. I was there for 10 years. They were great to me. I love you know, the people are fantastic to me. But it was time to not wake up at 3 in the morning and do that show anymore. I was tired of like personal attacks and you know, all of that. And I didn't get to see my kids on the weekend and I was done. So, and I said, you know what, I'm moving on from this. And I had been in morning television for like 20 years. You know how miserable that is?
Starting point is 00:12:24 Yes. That people get cancer regularly. know how miserable that is? Yes. That people get cancer regularly. I mean, this is a fact. You work the night shift like that, you pretty much can bank on getting like cancer. You know, it's like- Well, I just got fat. Yeah. No, I mean, it's incredibly hard physically.
Starting point is 00:12:40 Yeah. Yeah. Everything about it is hardest job I ever had. So I get it. But you didn't leave, they didn't force you to leave no you left on the terms you just described they were nice to me I want to go do something else that that never happens I just want people to have that content. No they were great to me thank you and I said I'm gonna you know leave this and then they were actually
Starting point is 00:13:01 said well what if we gave you your own show you know and I said no I appreciate that but thank you you know and they were but they were then they were actually said, well, what if we gave you your own show? You know, and I said, no, I appreciate that. But thank you. You know, and they were, but they were great. They were great. And we parted ways on great terms and that was it. So you know, and I felt like while I was there, I was, I was able to, I would get, I think I would get side eyes from people. But when I would question like the military industrial complex, I'm sorry, like why are we spending,
Starting point is 00:13:26 at this at the time, was like $600 billion a year on a military industrial complex budget. And all of these like a Boeing, Northrop Grum, and they build factories in everyone's backyard. So all the members of the House of Representatives, every member of the Senate has like, oh, well, I've got Boeing in my backyard. Oh, that's interesting.
Starting point is 00:13:44 Because that's intentional that there's all of these've got Boeing in my backyard. Oh, that's interesting. Cause that's intentional that there's all of these military production facilities in your backyard. So it's always in your backyard. And I just became furious about, I've always been furious about that. I've always had a problem with that. And so occasionally I would ask those questions of guests on the show and I could tell like,
Starting point is 00:14:00 it was not a favorable question to be asking about the military industrial. The producer didn't like it. Yeah, you you know, you knew and you knew There's a there's a lot of unsaid things, right? So I Don't exactly you know, I don't know where it comes from. Maybe the top. I don't know I worked the morning so I was kind of in and out of there and I didn't really have like a lot of Interaction with like suits, you know, I wasn't one of those types of people But you knew that when you were given sort of like, this is what we're covering on the
Starting point is 00:14:28 show today, I don't see anything on here about $800 billion like in a defense budget. Or I don't see anything in here on our show. We've got a four hour show, but we can't ask questions about did we actually hit nuclear weapons or did we actually hit is there anything in Fordo when we hit it I don't see it you know I don't see any of that in here so you knew what sort of the agenda would be for the day did you ever know but no one ever told me what to say you know it's gonna be great but it's it's like you show up I'm being disingenuous because I had the same job that you had, so I know the answer to this question, but it's just people may not understand how
Starting point is 00:15:09 this works. So you show up and like everything's prepared for you. Yeah. So it's not a matter of telling you what to say or what not to say. It's all kind of written down. You're guided in a certain direction. Right. Did you ever figure out who was making those decisions? I didn't, no. Did you? Because again, I was a, I considered myself, I never really got along with like the suits types, you know. I get uncomfortable I think in that
Starting point is 00:15:40 environment, you know. If I have to wear a suit, I cannot wait to take it off. So I don't know those people. I don't have dinner with those people. If I have to see them occasionally to kind of talk about something, it's incredibly uncomfortable for me. So no. So I don't have the answer to that, I could assume, but maybe you have a better clarity. No, no, I know where they come. It comes from the family that owns it. For sure. I mean, I watched it. I did have dinner with Suits a lot. Yeah. You knew that world so much better. I come from a suit world. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, no, the Murdochs
Starting point is 00:16:19 made those decisions who I really liked to this day. I liked the Murdochs, but not against the Murdochs, but it's just a fact that they did do that and they overruled their people on questions of war. I remember, I think it was 2012, I'm pretty sure it was 2012, Roger Ailes was running it. Wonderful man. Wonderful man. Flawed guy, but wonderful. I really liked him and admired him personally. Others disagree but I still feel that way. But anyway he had this guy called Andrew Napolitano, Judge Knapp. Did you ever run into him? Yeah. What a nice guy. Just a really nice guy like everyone liked. Yeah he was great. I still really like him a lot. But anyway he had this show I think was called Judging Freedom
Starting point is 00:17:03 maybe. Yeah and he's more of a libertarian, I would say. Exactly, he was hired as a libertarian. Well, he's a strict libertarian. He's an absolute constitutional. Like stay out of other countries. 100%, he's kind of a more erudite Thomas Massie. The same basic politics, not a hater at all. He's a nice man.
Starting point is 00:17:22 But anyway, he made some anti-war noises on his show and basically said, you know, why are we supporting all these other countries? Like, why are we doing this? Whoa. He lost his show over it and a bunch of people came to Roger Ailes. I remember I talked to him about it at the time and demanded that he fire Judge Napolitano over this. Wow.
Starting point is 00:17:46 And ultimately they stripped him of his show but kept him around as a contributor for another four or five years. As I remember, I may be getting some of the details wrong, but that's basically what happened. They took the show away. I always wondered what happened. Oh my gosh. He was like... I loved watching that show.
Starting point is 00:18:01 Oh, it was great. It was interesting too. He's really smart. Oh man, and I remember thinking, oh that's the red line. They don't care if you get up there and you're like, I think, you know, whatever, some controversial racial opinion or
Starting point is 00:18:16 they'd be like, ah, that's a little hot. Maybe not. Don't go there. You express, you know, an opinion about our foreign policy that they don't like. We're done now. Like they are totally serious about that. Well, you knew Roger Ailes used to watch our show religiously on the weekend because he was home.
Starting point is 00:18:31 And the joke was, well, if you own a network or you run a network, what do you do on the weekend when you wake up and have coffee? You watch your shows. So it was a joke that he would watch our Fox and Friends Weekend show more than just about any other show on the network because it was Saturday morning, he was waking up with coffee. So he would call into the booth all the time, you know, about a graphic being wrong.
Starting point is 00:18:50 He was very, very cautious. But no one ever told me what to say or anything. There was one time where I criticized Mark Zuckerberg and I called him a scumbag on the air. Fair. And I got a talking to about that. Like we don't use the term scumbag. And I was like, oh, I'm from Philly. I thought that was like, that's kind of like, that's how you talk.
Starting point is 00:19:10 I'm sorry. No, we have moms and with their children, we use the word scumbag. I'm like, okay, got it. I'll refrain from calling Zuckerberg a scumbag. But I mean, it makes sense to me. I never hit that red line in that way because as you pointed out, you're being guided a certain way. So all of the segments, for those of your viewers that don't understand, like you have a card, you'd have like a packet of maybe like 10 articles regarding the
Starting point is 00:19:36 segment you're about to do and every segment is like four minutes long. So you and I can talk for two hours. Every segment is like four minutes long, then you've got a commercial break, and you might have two guests during that time. So you're, maybe it's a debate. Can you really have a debate in four minutes? No. So, you have a debate, and always the other person's always sort of set up for failure to begin with anyway, but, and you're sort of guided in what their positions are.
Starting point is 00:20:06 You know that John Smith, he believes this, and Sarah whatever, believes this, and you kind of go from there. If you deviate from that, that's when you have problems. So you're guided through the whole day like that. And that's why this weekend, when we were watching this coverage, I was not surprised as they would sort of hand off coverage from show to show to
Starting point is 00:20:28 show to show. It's all the same. Trump, all the same. Trump did the most amazing thing ever. He carried out, he, he, you know, he destroyed Iran's nuclear infrastructure. This is amazing. Oh, and by the way, if you're anti, if you're anti this attack on Iran, that's the new message now, then you're unpatriotic. Well, you're pro-Iran. You're pro-Iran.
Starting point is 00:20:52 You're pro-Iran. You were never MAGA. You are, you're pro-Islamic terror. You're a bigot. What's it, it just reminds me so much of Black Lives Matter in 2020. Oh yeah. We were on the other side, of course. I certainly was.
Starting point is 00:21:08 And Fox was. Generally. They didn't want to talk about it. They were kind of pro Black Lives Matter, actually, if I'm being totally honest. But I was completely opposed to it from day one, just because I thought it was irrational and destructive and stupid. But it's the same impulse. It's like this hysteria sweeps over America,
Starting point is 00:21:30 fanned by the media, Fox being a big part of that, the biggest media, and anyone who disagrees is just written off as a hater. Like they go right to motive. Oh, you must be taking money from a foreign power. You must hate this or that group. There's no like even attempt to engage with what you're saying. It's like, this write you off. Just like it's, it's the same as shut up racist. Right. You can't ask questions about Black Lives Matter being a corrupt organization,
Starting point is 00:22:01 stealing money, which is a fact. You question. You know, you're a racist. How dare you ask that question? It's Black Lives Matter. We literally paint Black Lives Matter on intersections. How dare you talk about the folks that are running it are actually stealing money. It's a corrupt organization. You can't bring that up. We're sorry to say it, but this is not a very safe country.
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Starting point is 00:24:41 mas is M-A-S-A by the way, masachips.com slash Tucker to start snacking get 25% off We enjoy them you will too What's so hilarious and I guess I shouldn't be surprised because they always accuse you of being exactly the way that they themselves are Is anyone who asked questions or disagrees is woke now? Have you noticed this the woke, right? So like I'm not sure that we should have a war with Iran right now. And like, it seemed like there were a lot of problems here and like people I know are dying of drug ODs.
Starting point is 00:25:10 Shut up, racist. You're woke. It's like, wait, what? Or people who are clearly working on behalf of a foreign country accuse you of working on behalf of a foreign country. It's so amazing. Because well, so many of these were former left wing. Oh yeah. That's the thing right? So these neo cons, let's be honest right? They were left wing.
Starting point is 00:25:31 Oh yeah. So they have now taken the moral high ground to tell me that I'm part of the woke right because I don't want us to intervene in a foreign. So I guess George by that measure then George Washington is a member of the woke Right in his farewell address telling the nation we shouldn't intervene in foreign affairs of other countries So I thought wokeness was a euphemism for engaging in identity politics. It's identity politics What matters most is your identity right ethnic religious, whatever racial? The people who are using the term woke right are practicing like the most vicious kind of identity politics I've ever seen.
Starting point is 00:26:10 It makes the Black Lives Matter people seem like amateurs, which they are, of course. I mean, this is serious identity politics. Like you disagree, you're a Nazi. Right. Like what's that but identity politics? Well, and it's also being described as like insidious. like you're not aware that you're anti-Semitic now. Like Tucker, I don't know if you know just the way that you dress today is now anti-Semitic. It's unconscious bias.
Starting point is 00:26:36 Right. I mean, I literally heard... Did we just hear this five years ago from the left? And now we hear... Unconscious bias? You're racist without knowing it. You don't need to be aware of your bad attitudes, you just exude them. We heard this five years ago from the left and literally driving here, I heard it on Glenn Beck's radio show. Glenn Beck said the exact same thing. I like Glenn Beck. Oh, I love Glenn.
Starting point is 00:26:58 He's an amazing, but he said most people now, it's sort of a, I don't know his exact wording, Glenn don't be mad at me, but it was like, he'll admit it, that we're now, it's sort of a, I don't know his exact wording, Glenn, don't be mad at me, but it was like, he'll admit it, that we're now, it's like an insidious, it's like a sort of soft anti-Semitism that people are now, they just, without really consciously being aware of it, they've become anti-Semitic. So it's, it's the same thing. It's exact, we're going to need to be deprogrammed. But we've been so heavily programmed by the mainstream media with wall to wall coverage. You're not getting any perspective from the Middle East.
Starting point is 00:27:36 You're not getting any perspective from Iran. You're not getting any perspective from that side of it. All of the guests that you'll have on television are all pro-Israel. And this is right out of that same playbook from 2002. So if you look at the data on this, I find this fascinating. And again, this is where I'm trying not to be emotional, but I'm trying to just like look at the data after 2002. And I came at this from like a personal perspective and not to talk about me, but like my brother was in the first Gulf War. And he went in with the Navy SEALs before anyone else. He was in Baghdad.
Starting point is 00:28:11 So he was there basically directing Tomahawk missile attacks at himself, you know, he could flying right over his head essentially. He was in Baghdad? Yeah. So we would send like care packages and things like that. But of course, we were all told at the time, tie a yellow ribbon around your tree. You remember the black and white images of Wolf Blitzer with a little helmet on,
Starting point is 00:28:33 you know, talking about how great this was to, you know, to stop Saddam Hussein. So we watched all that happen. Forget how long that lasted, it was like 11 months or something like that. I forget. Ish. Ish. So then 2002 rolls around and here we go again. And now the playbook was set. Is your brother out by this point?
Starting point is 00:28:56 No, he wasn't out at this point. He was still in the Navy, but he didn't have to deal with this part of it. So more of like a land lover, I guess, you know, at that point. But then he was in Afghanistan. So he's had a long history of like having to deal with this. So I saw, if you looked at the media analysis at the time, like 2002 into 2003, like we're attacked on September 11th. I maintain a massive false flag operation, but you do you, you know, but I absolutely believe it was a catalyst to get us into these forever wars.
Starting point is 00:29:33 Shut up, don't ask questions about it. You'll be painted as a, you know, a truth or whatever. Yeah, we can't declassify those documents. Yeah. So whatever. Whose country is this, by the way? I was under the impression it was partly mine. I thought it was a shareholder here, born here.
Starting point is 00:29:48 I'm a citizen. Why don't I have the right to know? I don't understand. I know someone who died on 9-11. I spent years of my life responding to it professionally. So did other members of my family. And I don't have a right to see the documents because tell me how that works. Well, you know, William Randolph Hearst made us sure that we couldn't know the truth. I mean, we want to go back even further into history with the media narratives being how everything
Starting point is 00:30:15 is being framed. I mean, we look at Remember the Main, the reason we went to war with Spain, you know, front pages of Hearst papers, the New York Journal at the time, I think. Journal American. Yeah. So, the playbook was set and after 9-11, these networks, all of the major news networks started the drumbeat for war. CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS News. They started their nightly newscasts every night, would have guests just about.
Starting point is 00:30:47 They were all pro-war. Go take out Saddam Hussein. I think when they did the analysis, the FAIR report at the time looked at just the nightly newscasts. 393 of their guests out of those, three of them, just three of them were anti-war and like moderately anti-war. Not like you or me on there. It's like, maybe we shouldn't. Only three of them. And that was just the nightly newscasts, like the shows that most people don't even watch anyway, you know, the 630 nightly newscasts, the Tom Brokaw era. But then Colin Powell, you know, goes before
Starting point is 00:31:28 Brokaw era. But then Colin Powell goes before Congress and he holds up that fake anthrax vial and pushes us to war in Iraq and says that he has mobile biological weapons labs, we can't really find them so they're mobile, we got to go in there, it's a threat to the region of course, it's a threat to Israel. The network, the cable news channels then, that was when they did the really exhaustive study of the cable news channels. And I found this fascinating that, oh, I think it was like 1,600, I might be off by like a few,
Starting point is 00:31:55 but it's like 1,600 guests they analyzed during that time after Colin Powell sat before Congress and essentially lied, I think unknowingly lied that this was a threat. 1600 of the guests, there were like 67% of the guests were pro-war on across CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, all of the networks, all of the networks, the Brit Hume show on Fox, all of the networks, all of the networks. The Brit Hume show on Fox, the Wolf Blitzer show on CNN, almost overwhelmingly all pro-war. MSNBC at the time then fired Phil Donahue, canceled his show because he was very much in the Judge Napolitano like maybe we shouldn't be going on war so MSNBC fired him canceled his show and replaced it with a show called
Starting point is 00:32:47 Countdown Iraq Countdown Iraq so they fire Phil Donahue who was vehemently anti-war and he was asking questions about this Why are we doing this? Why should we be doing this? This seems like it's a boondoggle. It's a lie Maybe we should be questioning this allowing the weapons inspectors to do this. Oh, and by the way, at the time when all of the networks were pushing this narrative, they did a study and 61% of Americans supported delaying any kind of attack. Let the weapons inspectors do their jobs. We don't want to go to war.
Starting point is 00:33:23 Even with all of that propaganda that was being pushed by these networks, 61% of Americans still said, no, we shouldn't involve ourselves in this. Which by the way, I think if you looked at those numbers would be very similar to what Trump got in this last election with like, do we support, probably way higher. You probably know these numbers better than I do. What percentage of Americans right now want us to be involved in these forever wars? Oh, and by the way, you're not allowed to say forever wars anymore because now you're if you say that you're unpatriotic You're you're part of like the thomas massie You know, uh isolationists if you say forever war is unpatriotic now, apparently that's what he's being called unpatriotic because on fox
Starting point is 00:34:03 uh Well on truth social, I mean, I think we've seen that he's anti-american called unpatriotic because on Fox. Well, on Truth Social. I mean, I think we've seen that he's anti-American. It's hard to imagine. I think Trump just called him that he's unpatriotic and anti-American. I know Thomas Massey. Well, I mean, you don't have to agree with Thomas Massey on anything, but to call him unpatriotic is really shocking.
Starting point is 00:34:21 Right. So again, by that measure. So who is Thomas Massey? Thomas Massey is ideological, but more than that, he's like a gentle man. He's a very decent man personally. He believes in self-restraint. He believes in self-reliance. He built his own off-grid house. He lives in the community he's from, knows everybody. His rise in politics was totally organic. He didn't, you know, wasn't in the Young Leaders program at Davos. He's like the most American person.
Starting point is 00:34:50 Married his high school girlfriend, passed unfortunately. Has great kids who love him. I can't imagine a more American man than Thomas Massie. You can totally disagree with Thomas Massie. You think his ideas are dumb or whatever. It's fine, of course. But to impugn his character is so disgusting to me. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:08 I feel the same way. And, you know, I have him- That makes me- because I know Thomas Massey. I don't agree with everything Thomas Massey says. I don't agree with anything anyone, everything anyone says. But that's disgusting that people would say that about him. And when people attack- I invite him on my show, you know, come on, because I can't stand. I can't stand when people attack him or call him that he's somehow not make America great
Starting point is 00:35:31 again because he stands in the way of a massive multi-trillion dollar debt time bomb that he, that we're going to pass in Congress, that he talks about that or that says we shouldn't bomb other countries. His views are sincere. I mean, you could say, well, you know, there are a million different plausible arguments you can make for and against any potential action, you know. But you can't say that Thomas Massey is thoughtless. You can't say that he's acting on behalf of somebody else.
Starting point is 00:36:00 He's totally transparent about what he believes and why. And he's totally sincere. And he's about what he believes and why. And he's totally sincere. And he's saying what he believes is true. And in a decent society, in a Christian society, that has to matter. Just because you're sincere doesn't mean you're right, of course. But we have to take that into consideration when we assess you as a person, that you're sincere. You're not being paid to say this. You're not being paid for some hidden reason. You're saying this because you really believe it. Like that's meaningful. That has to be meaningful or else we've lost our decency. Everybody wants to feel secure at home. It's your castle. There's nothing like going to sleep with a complete sense of safety. That's why
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Starting point is 00:38:36 just sitting there having friendly debates over politics, you know, having a hard cider at nine in the morning, you know, like our founding fathers did. Maybe we need to bring back hard cider, but that's what they did. That was their breakfast morning, you know, like our founding fathers did. Maybe we need to bring back hard cider, but that's what they did. That was their breakfast drink, you know, John Adams sitting there just having a conversation with, you know, with Thomas Jefferson. In their defense, the water was bad. That was the safest beverage. No, but it's, it's sorry. I'm sorry to get so, wow, that I'm not, not as clued into what people are saying as I probably
Starting point is 00:39:03 should be, but I didn't know that he was being attacked like that vehemently and President Trump just launched a Like large diatribe untruth social about him, you know calling him non, you know Not not MAGA and he's not make America great again and Thomas Massey is the wrong target Yeah, I think it was the first time that I saw Trump get ratioed actually when he attacked Massey a few months ago and Just read the comments. So people usually you know, all of the MAGA people will just jump on and say, you know Whatever you say President Trump. We love you. We love you without any sort of critical
Starting point is 00:39:38 Thought and then when he when he attacked Massey a number of months ago The ratio was unbelievable. I never thought I'd see it. But people overwhelming were like, Mr. President, wrong target. It's wrong target. Wrong target. You can, I understand that Trump is annoyed,
Starting point is 00:39:54 understandably, that Massey's criticizing his bill. Trump thinks the bill's really important and Massey's just totally against it and you can't win Massey's vote because he really means it. I think this is what the president's thinking thinking is my sense. And that annoys him because he really feels like he has to get this bill through. Okay, that's a fair debate. I get it. I get both sides. But to accuse him, for anyone to accuse Massey of having evil motives is really dark and says much more about the accuser than the
Starting point is 00:40:25 accused, I would say. I agree. Yeah. Wow. Okay. We've already got me spun up, Clayton Morris. I've been spun up all weekend, so I have to share some of that energy with you. I mean, I know you've been furious too.
Starting point is 00:40:37 Well, also ashamed because I was part of the propaganda push in 2002 and 2003 up until December 15th of that year when I changed my life and views. But I don't remember anyone ever talking about it. So I was in TV from 2003. I'd been in it long before that, but I was in 2003 to I got fired in 2023. So that's that's 20 years. I guess that's exactly 20 years. Yeah, I don't remember really any conversation You know backstage
Starting point is 00:41:11 About our role the media's role in the run-up to a rock. Did anyone ever talk about that in your experience? No No, and it's such a vital part of this it's such a vital part of this. It's such a important piece of this to have that propaganda piece of this, the manufacturing of consent for war. And we have, again, a long history of this. You don't do it without the newspapers. You don't do it without the television stations.
Starting point is 00:41:36 You don't do it without the Fox News or the CNNs, the MSNBCs. You're totally right. I mean, CBS changed the name of their show to Showdown with Saddam. Hi, I'm Clayton Morris, show to showdown with Saddam. Hi, you know, I'm Clayton Morris, host of Showdown with Saddam. We haven't attacked them yet, but that's the name of my show. Welcome to, we're replacing Phil Donahue with Countdown Iraq.
Starting point is 00:41:59 So you're framing all of this ahead of time. The propaganda is there ahead of time. So it's all being laid out. It's basically, it becomes an inevitability that we are going to attack. Exactly. The show should have been called, What the hell does Saddam Hussein have to do with 9-11? Hosted by Graeme Moore. You can't ask that.
Starting point is 00:42:18 You can't ask that. No, but that's like, even I, who was a semi-witting cog in the propaganda machine those years, even I was like always baffled, what the hell does Saddam have to do with 9-11? And there was this character Steve Hayes, who later became a Fox News contributor member who was like, who's just kind of dumb, not evil or anything, he's just stupid and ambitious and trying to feed his family. But he wound up writing this book and I think the Cheney people leaked him a bunch of lies and he was dumb enough to believe them.
Starting point is 00:42:52 And it was like a book like, no, actually Saddam was behind 9-11. And even I, and I liked Taze too at the time, we worked together actually. I was like, ah, I don't think you really made the case there What when did he publish that book was that before Colin Powell's anthrax? I you know, I can't it's all a blur to me It was a long time ago and I was right in the middle of it So it was it was hard. It's harder to see the outlines or in the middle of something I didn't have clarity and like the fair report at the time I would have been like fair is a very liberal group, I would have been like, FAIR is a very liberal group, and I would have been like, well.
Starting point is 00:43:25 Liberals, yeah. Who gives a shit what they think? And I'm still very opposed to liberals, but the definition of liberal has changed. But now I would hope I would say, I don't care where the information comes from, what matters to me is whether or not it's true. Right.
Starting point is 00:43:40 You have to be focused on what's true, period. Like that has to be your North Star or else you're gonna wind up participating in lies, as I did. Do you remember a curve ball? Yeah. So this is the media complicity with this. So I spoke to an FBI agent who told me,
Starting point is 00:43:57 he said, you know, when we wanna leak information, you know, we push it out to the Washington Post or we push it out to intelligence agencies, want to push and leak stories or plant stories. We go to the New York Times, we go to the Washington Post, etc. And of course, it used to be, back in the day, they were embedded inside of newsrooms, right? So you had them inside the CBS newsroom and all of that.
Starting point is 00:44:22 Now they just give them the information and then they run with it. They don't question it at all. So curveball, this has always been fascinating to me. Colin Powell gets up there and holds up this vial. And it's been kept from him that this guy, Curveball, was a defector from Iraq. He defects to Germany and starts talking all kinds of shit about Saddam Hussein. He's got mobile biological weapons labs. Mobile bio labs. I remember that. He's European chief, I think his name was like
Starting point is 00:45:06 Tyler Drumheller or something like that, he knew that this guy screwball was had a screw loose and he warned his counterparts in DC like don't pay attention to what this guy curveball is saying. This information is not accurate. He's got an agenda. This smells bad. Don't base anything that you're giving Colin Powell or anybody else, any reason to go into Iraq. Don't base it on curveball. DC ignores it on purpose, hides it from Colin Powell. So then Colin Powell goes before the American people with a little vial of fake anthrax and says mobile biological weapons labs and I mean all of the networks run with it
Starting point is 00:45:53 There were people in the media who were aware that curveball was had a screw loose But it didn't matter because the narrative had been set. We ignored it. So the you know DC DC offices ignored it on purpose and cordoned it off. I think Colin Powell's speechwriter at the time and head of his office said we were completely deceived because they withheld this information. And this was, Colin Powell spent weeks at CIA headquarters going over all of the documents. Not one of them that he find credible.
Starting point is 00:46:27 The one that he ended up using, one of maybe two, was the mobile biological weapons labs that all came from curveball, which was all made up. And then of course in 2011, curveball comes out and says, yeah, I made the whole thing up because I hated Saddam and I just wanted a regime change. And I knew if I planted the seed It would lead to regime change Shouldn't we have a stronger predicate to go into these countries and shouldn't the the incurious media be asking questions of these people? but they go along with it because it's part of You know, I don't who's feeding them these sort of like deep state talking points that they need to carry on with this
Starting point is 00:47:01 but they're to me they're an extension of The Pentagon I mean when you have like me, they're an extension of the Pentagon. I mean, when you have like, Fox News has like an office in the Pentagon. And who works in that office? I think Jennifer Griffin. Oh, Jennifer Griffin, yeah. So you have these people that are literally inside the buildings.
Starting point is 00:47:18 Jennifer Griffin is, even by the standards of Pentagon employees, like she's not technically an employee of the Pentagon. She's a shill, obviously, for the deepest of the deep states, but she's like a parody. She's like a parody. It's like the whole thing. She had this amazing tweet yesterday.
Starting point is 00:47:37 I guess the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, our former colleague, said something about, referring to the pilots of the B2s who dropped the bunker busters in Iran, said something like, good work boys. I think there's something like that. And Jennifer Griffin immediately comes back and goes, breaking news. Actually one of the pilots was a female, a woman. And like, so all of a sudden Fox News is like celebrating the diversity of the bomber pilots. It's like, there was this meme years ago, several years ago, making fun of the left.
Starting point is 00:48:10 And it was like, you know, someone getting bombed in some, you know, benighted country and by the US or by NATO. And it was like, but you know, at least the pilots are gay. And all of a sudden Fox is like, no, no actually we should celebrate now because one of the B2 pilots was a woman. So Roe v Wade was overturned three years ago and people celebrated but the battle over abortion is not over. In fact did you know that abortions are at a 10 year high in a lot of ways it's the saddest thing that happens in this country. The birth rate falls and the killing of children accelerates. It's awful. Pre-born is fighting this trend. They're expanding their life-affirming care in the darkest corners of the country to help
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Starting point is 00:49:23 Preborn has already rescued over 350,000 babies. There's still many, many more who need help. Dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby to support their cause. That's pound 250 baby. Go to preborn.com slash Tucker, preborn.com slash Tucker, because children are the greatest gift period. You know what's amazing if you look at, well first of all her coverage of this in the immediate aftermath of the bombing was, this is spectacular.
Starting point is 00:49:50 You know, Sean, this is spectacular. This was an amazing operation. There was not one leak, no one. You love the explosions. Jennifer Griffin has fought in a lot of wars. She's personally courageous to put a lot on the line. So many of these people are. Even like that Jim Sciuto from CNN, you know, unbelievable. He was embedded in Ukraine and he's like, you know, we know this massive offensive is coming,
Starting point is 00:50:15 here's this and this, you know, being fed information directly from the deep state, you know, these guys. So they're all an extension, you know, CNN and all these, they're all an extension of the intelligence, CNN and all these, they're all an extension of the intelligence community being fed this information and given these sources. So they can never say a negative thing about them because then you cut off your sources. You know, Jennifer Griffin, as this was all unfolding, and it was clear to me that there are a lot of questions about what was actually in those nuclear sites because a week earlier Israel had struck two of them. So do you think that Iran just kind of hung out and just like got a broom out
Starting point is 00:50:51 and cleaned some stuff up and just put like the pictures back up on the wall? No, they were empty. And Fordo, by all accounts, was empty as well. So what exactly did we hit? And then this information was coming out almost in real time, but I was watching the network news coverage and there was no sort of walking it back. There was no assessment. Telling the truth. Right. Just lying. Just continuing with this. This is the greatest moment in American history. The crazy thing is Jen Griffin is a liar, but also very liberal. A true Trump hater. To the point where I complained about her and I really tried not to complain about other people at Fox when I worked there because I don't like that, you know, office politics
Starting point is 00:51:34 stuff, but she was discrediting the channel. She was such a Trump hater. And it was like emotional, like her internal memos, you know, from the Pentagon sources are telling us, were like screeds. It was like, I'll just read political playbook if that's what you know, or whatever. I'll read Mother Jones. And I said to an executive of Fox, like, what are we doing with this Jennifer Griffin person? She's an idiot.
Starting point is 00:52:00 She doesn't tell the truth. She misleads our viewers. And she's like a screaming liberal who hates Trump who our viewers love. So what are we getting out of this? And I was like, oh, it's like, boy, you could not touch Jennifer Griffin. I don't know what that's about. But well, if you have an office in the Pentagon, maybe that's what that's about.
Starting point is 00:52:21 Maybe I mean, or I don't know. That's that whole other world that I'm not a part of, but I just cannot tolerate it. And it's why so many people are so fed up with cable news. But you have to understand, well, you understand it. Maybe your viewers don't fully understand or appreciate how profitable it is for these networks during war. So if you look at the numbers from like Q1 of 2002,
Starting point is 00:52:54 before we went into Iraq, the numbers for revenue for Fox was about 70 or so, I forget the numbers exactly, but anyway, in that following quarter when the war started in March, the numbers went up 150%. No way. 150%. So war is incredibly profitable.
Starting point is 00:53:19 I mean, CNN was built on it, right? I mean, CNN- Of course, literally started or was brought to public attention during the war that your brother served in in 1990. So they made, you know, billions off of war. So Countdown to Iraq, Showdown with Saddam, like all of the sort of build up to war, people are going to tune in, they're going to make money from ad revenue, when in an era where ad revenue is plummeting. The young people don't
Starting point is 00:53:46 watch cable news. They get their news from like TikTok and X and little sound bites here and they YouTube and places like that. They're not buying a cable subscription. Do you know any young people that have a cable? I bet if you asked any of your staff, do you? Any of you guys own a cable subscription so you can watch CNN or Fox News? No, so that audience is getting much, much older. So it's going to be very interesting to see what happens to the cable news landscape in the next few years. Do you remember Benghazi?
Starting point is 00:54:18 Right. I'm glad you brought that up for a whole host of reasons, but go ahead. I don't mean to... Well, that was kind of in progress when I got to Fox. I've been fired from a couple other channels. Roger Ailes hired me. So nice of him. I'll never stop being grateful. But I show up in this Benghazi thing.
Starting point is 00:54:36 It's like going bonkers and Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. And this is like the touchstone to this is the Rosetta Stone to the Obama administration where I take him down with Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. And this is like the touchstone to this is the Rosetta stone to the Obama administration, right? Take them down with Benghazi. And of course, the US ambassador was killed. And so whatever, I mean, that's I'm totally opposed to you. My father's US ambassador. I'm against US ambassadors being killed, right? Through the streets. Yeah, yeah, completely. So I was on board. And we talked about it a lot on TV. And I remember one day I was thinking, I saw some number of the number of CIA operations, CIA officers who were there. And Benghazi is like an ancient city,
Starting point is 00:55:10 I think it's across from Cyprus, it's on the Med, and second city of Libya, it's a real place, but we had so many CIA personnel in Benghazi, Libya. And I remember this was after we NATO killed Gaddafi and I was like, why, what, what were they doing there? What was people doing there? So I asked that question on TV and it turns out they were there helping to move Gaddafi's arm stockpiles to fund the war in Syria, which we were not prosecuting on our own behalf. It was 100% for a foreign country we were doing this.
Starting point is 00:55:49 We had no national interest in stoking a civil war in Syria. We did that really at the behest of another country. Shamefully killed all these people. But whatever. Anyway, I didn't know any of this, but I was just, I asked like one day, why do we have so many CIA officers? I sort of understood that world a little bit. And I was like, that's weird that we have 35 operations guys in Benghazi, Libya, like what is, or whatever the number was.
Starting point is 00:56:11 Whoa, I got immediately, whoa, that's not the Benghazi story we're looking at. Really, Fox told you that? Oh, a hundred percent. Like, I don't know, like, what does that have to do with it? The point is a US ambassador was killed. That's bad. Let's just keep it there. Like, we don't, that's not our area.
Starting point is 00:56:27 I'm glad you bring this up. And I was like, oh my gosh, something big is going on here. Because, you know, Fox hated Obama, of course. Yeah, yeah, me too. So, yeah, vehemently. Hated Hillary Clinton. Me too. Vehemently.
Starting point is 00:56:42 So they're responsible for the Benghazi disaster, killing of US ambassador. But you couldn't ask questions about like, why the hell are we in Libya to begin with? Exactly. So isn't that amazing? So you, because that speaks to the heart of it, which is the Uniparty, right? That speaks to the heart of it, which is both that liberals, neocons, they're all operating from the same playbook. Exactly. So you can't question like, why are we in Libya in the first place? Why did we go in and, you know, just because, you know, Qaddafi wanted to make his own country prosperous? That we can't have that in the Middle East
Starting point is 00:57:21 in the same way that we couldn't have Iran nationalizing their own oil in the 1950s, right? It's the same thing. So you can't ask that question. And so it just speaks to the military industrial complex control, the Uniparty that operates in Washington DC, that fully is an operational at the media networks as well. Don't question why we're in Libya. Just focus on the Hillary Clinton piece of what happened in Benghazi. Don't question what's going on in Syria, just
Starting point is 00:57:50 you know focus on Assad as a madman and he's gonna kill, he's gassed all these people which was fake. It was fake, I said it was fake, boy they wanted to kill me for saying that. I mean this sort of predicate these propaganda pieces that they use and it becomes part of like, you know, this national vernacular on television, you know, Saddam is, you know, Assad is gassing his own people. It's not true. They were so emotionally, so that by that point, I'm neutral on Assad, always have been,
Starting point is 00:58:21 but there was a thriving Christian community there. I am a Christian, so I felt legitimate for me to ask, like, how does it affect the Christians? I don't know. No one else is saying it, so I thought I would. And I said that. Wow, people didn't like that. And then the gas attack came, which was, of course, the justification for a bombing campaign, another bombing campaign in Syria. And someone high level person tipped me off, hey, this is not real. Well, there's no evidence it's real. If it's real, show me how it's real.
Starting point is 00:58:47 Yeah. In fact, it's been not only no evidence, it's been debunked. Right. But this was like the day after the day of. So I said that on TV, boy, I got taken aside by a senior person there who I really liked had known my whole life, honestly. And I was like, Tucker, I don't know what you're doing here, but this is, this is, and I was like, and very emotional don't know what you're doing here, but this is, this is, and I was like, and very emotional.
Starting point is 00:59:06 Like why are you defending Assad? I was like, I'm not defending Assad. We're using the US military to kill people and I just want to know if the justification for that is real and they haven't shown that it is and they're clearly lying. And I don't know much about anything, but I do know lying when I see it. I have a good instinct for that and I think they're lying. Wow, I got scolded by somebody who I really liked and was close to personally, but was like emotional.
Starting point is 00:59:31 Like, how dare you? What is that? I don't, I never have, I don't understand it to this day. I think I understand it in a, if you look at it with this like broader brush that we're, we can't have dissent when you're trying to do the bidding of a foreign country. I mean, Israel absolutely wanted us to take out Assad. They've been wanting the same thing with Libya.
Starting point is 00:59:54 And if you go back to Netanyahu sitting there in front of Congress telling us about Iraq that Saddam Hussein 100% has weapons of mass destruction, 100% there's no doubt in my mind he has weapons of mass destruction, 100% there's no doubt in my mind he has weapons of mass destruction. You need to go in there. By the way, it's a risk to America. So this is always the story, which is it's a risk to America if you don't go and bomb Iran. It's a risk to America. We're defending freedom together. And the same with Syria, that Syria is going to launch attacks. Which by the way, Syria was one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Damascus, a beautiful country, a beautiful city.
Starting point is 01:00:30 One of the most peaceful countries in the world. Look it up. But when you want to take care of your own people and you want to sort of de-Westernize, that's a huge threat. In the same way that Iran wanting to nationalize its own oil and kick British petroleum out of its country, we're going to keep our own oil. I mean, look what it did to Norway in the late 70s. Norway became one of the richest and wealthiest countries in the world. Number one per capita.
Starting point is 01:00:56 So if there's a history lesson here, like Iran was basically trying to do what Norway did in the late 70s. We're going to nationalize our own oil, but keep the profitability for ourselves. And then what happened? The United States took it over. British Petroleum came back in. We installed the Shah. They end up using all of this oil, funneling off to other places. So it doesn't enrich the Iranians at all. Widespread poverty. It's like something out of Mao's playbook. Take all of your food and then just ship it off to Russia.
Starting point is 01:01:25 Exactly. Right. And then also charge your Chinese people really high taxes, give them no food, produce a bountiful amount of food, just like Iran with oil, but instead of keeping it, send it to Stalin so that you're fattening them up. The wheat goes to Russia, it doesn't go to the Chinese people It's a play. You know, it's right out that playbook. So we cannot have a strong Libya That you know serves its own self-interest we cannot have a strong Iran that wants to enrich its own people
Starting point is 01:01:58 Have you ever seen the photos of like Iran in the 1950s? I have it's unbelievable people should look it up. I mean of like Iran in the 1950s. I have. It's unbelievable. People should look it up. I mean, girls in miniskirts, walking. You'd be hard pressed to tell like the difference between like downtown Rochester, New York, these black and white photos. Which was also thriving. Yeah. In 1954. Yeah. Sad. No, it's sad. And I don't know. I've managed to see the Israeli perspective on, I don't see it on Gaza, I'm just gonna say that. But on most things, I've managed to see the Israeli perspective and they think they're acting in their own interests and my kind of gut level view
Starting point is 01:02:37 is that every country acts in its own interests, every person acts in his family's interest. That makes sense to me. I've never been mad about it. Again, Gaza, I think is too much. It's my personal opinion. Sorry, call me a hater. But whatever, but just in general, countries act to their interests. That's okay. I don't understand the Americans who were bought in on that. Or change their profiles so that they've got their Christian Americans and they've got an Israeli flag.
Starting point is 01:03:08 I don't get that. I don't understand. I don't get that. Everyone's like, oh, you hate Israel. No, my real rage is reserved for people who sell out their own country. Yeah. Like I get their perspective. They think they're doing what they need to do.
Starting point is 01:03:19 They could be right or wrong. We can debate it, whether what they're doing is good for them. You know, doesn't seem like it, but maybe they're, what do I know? No, I think Israel, I mean, I'll say it. I think Israel is killing themselves. Yeah. Okay. But that's their country.
Starting point is 01:03:31 Right. I don't understand why the selling out of my country, where I'm from, by my countrymen, that really offends me. That's fair, isn't it? Right. Because I don't hear Israelis wanting to pump us with billions of dollars, telling us that you guys have a fentanyl problem, or coming into our country, like the IDF is going to protect our southern borders to protect us.
Starting point is 01:03:56 Why are we sending billions of dollars? Israel has a surplus, a budget surplus, and a space space force like space program. Like why are we, I mean, just driving down the streets, seeing like homeless people. I was driving down the street just the other day, just this guy like with a bag, just like, you know, falling out of the trees. I was in California a few weeks ago and just the tents and I couldn't believe the amount of tent cities underneath the overpass. It's a national emergency.
Starting point is 01:04:23 It's the most pressing national emergency I can imagine if your countrymen are dying of drug odys by the hundreds of thousands and living on the street by the millions Which they are yeah, how is that not the most important thing that's happening in your country? They'll say it's a false dichotomy how what is us sending billions to Israel have to do with all the homeless people know I mean, that's it's silly how disc space, how much attention of our leaders is focused abroad versus how much is focused here. It's simple. It's not even about the money though.
Starting point is 01:04:52 It is on some level about the money, but it's about the attention. If I'm totally absorbed in the problems of my neighbor's children, it leaves less time from the problems of my own children. It's that simple. Well, Ted Cruz said to you in your interview with him, the very first thing out of his mouth, the very first reason he wanted to become a part of the United States Congress is because he wanted to see how he could serve Israel. I think those were his... maybe... The problem with that is
Starting point is 01:05:13 once you start saying that stuff out loud, I mean, you know, it's not good. People are, you know, once you see how things actually operate, it radicalizes people and as a true temperamental moderate, how things actually operate, it radicalizes people. And as a true temperamental moderate, let me say, I don't want that. I don't want a country full of angry people. You know what I mean? But people like Ted Cruz, who is just sort of admits that the US is not his main interest in life. But he is a United States senator representing one of our biggest states. That radicalizes people. I mean, why wouldn't it?
Starting point is 01:05:48 I just don't want that. I don't want everyone to be kind of happy and I want people to be pissed off and writing crazy shit on X and which they're now doing. You know what I mean? All of it. Anyway, so can I, you said you saw Fox News recently. You're not a huge Fox. Well, you lived out of the country for years.
Starting point is 01:06:06 Yeah. I guess it's not. I never really watched it for years, yeah. Yeah. But now you're back in the United States and you saw it. Can I just play, we just put together a montage, which I think is fair. By the way, Fox canned me over two years ago.
Starting point is 01:06:19 I've never attacked Fox. I'm not mad at Fox. I've always liked Fox and been grateful to them. This is really the first time I've attacked them But I think it really matters. I think this is a fair representation of what's on Fox Fox's air right now. Okay, here it is The greater risk would be to do nothing in the face of a clear and present danger the world cannot experience another Holocaust if Iran gets a nuclear weapon I think the odds are
Starting point is 01:06:45 unacceptably high that we would find out with a mushroom cloud over New York City or Los Angeles or Tel Aviv and Israel, Israel is doing an enormous favor to the United States right now. Nuclear Iran is not just an existential threat to Israel it is an existential threat to America. Take these enemies not just figuratively, not just seriously, but literally. When they say they want a second genocide, they want a nuclear holocaust, they mean it. If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations. But here's the bigger question.
Starting point is 01:07:23 Wouldn't the world be better off if the Ayatollahs went away and replaced by something better? Wouldn't Iran be better off? America first is not sitting in a beach chair and using words. It's taking decisive action when we can take out Fordo, the one swoop of an airplane.
Starting point is 01:07:38 What the hell is it gonna take to realize what we're up against here? This country should be united, united in its own defense. Nobody's dragging us into anything. It's not the Jews, it's not Israel again. No. Long-range, intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are for you and me and your children and your grandchildren. That's what's airing on Fox.
Starting point is 01:08:09 By the way, that same person, Mark Levin, who was a totally minor player in Fox World up until recently, I can tell you firsthand, suggested today that we send nuclear weapons to Ukraine too. But I should just make it clear, in the last clip that we played, he said, intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads are meant for you. They're going to kill you, the mullahs. Iran doesn't have intercontinental ballistic missiles. It doesn't have nuclear warheads.
Starting point is 01:08:39 Like all of this is, it's deranged. And the point is to scare old people into obedience. And let me say one last thing that everyone on that list, so we've got Hannity, Cruz, Barry Weiss, Lindsey Graham, Kayleigh McEnany, Mark Levin. Of those people, Hannity is I think a genuine friend of Trump's. I think Hannity really likes Trump and I just want to say again, I really like Sean Hannity's, I think, a genuine friend of Trump's. I think Hannity really likes Trump. And I just want to say again, I really like Sean Hannity personally. Got no problem with Sean Hannity at all, personally.
Starting point is 01:09:12 And he likes Trump. I don't know Kayleigh McEnany, what she thinks of Trump. But Ted Cruz, Barry Weiss, Lindsey Graham, and Mark Levin hate Donald Trump. They're all never Trumpers. Well, I mean, you know, one of them tech roos ran against him. Right. So like, right. These are people who hate Donald Trump. I'm not guessing. I know them all. They're like Nikki Haley supporters. 100% right. Ron DeSantis. And they're all now saying how much they love Trump. Like, anyway, I'm going to
Starting point is 01:09:44 stand back and just let you assess like what we just saw. Well, one thing I noticed, I didn't see any dissenting voices at all. Again, goes right back to the 2002 playbook. I didn't see anybody saying, wait a second. Challenging Mark Levin about intercontinental ballistic missiles. There was no. Questioning of that, There's just there's no one there to question it. There was a guy who would have questioned him
Starting point is 01:10:07 but they fired him a couple years ago. And now he's got a much bigger platform. No, I didn't mean to sound self-pitying. But it is true. Is Hannity, I mean I think Ted Cruz, I don't know whose show he was on during that, but is Hannity gonna question? Like I saw Marc Levin go on a tirade the other day on Hannity's show and then Hannity basically jumped in and supported that tirade, praising Trump as maybe, you know, that decades of presidents had the opportunity to attack and didn't do it. It took Donald Trump like, you know, God basically to attack and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. But I didn't see any dissenting voices on this at all.
Starting point is 01:10:47 And the idea of Barry Weiss saying that, that this is a threat to America. So that's what we keep hearing. This is a threat to America. Barry Weiss will say whatever she needs to say. Barry Weiss's interest is not the United States at all. It's odd, I mean. But factually, is it a threat to America?
Starting point is 01:11:04 That's what I wanna know. Like who, and if it is. Youually, is it a threat to America? That's what I wanna know. Like who, and if it is- You could certainly make it a threat to America. Right, and that's the beauty of, now we're hearing about, now they're sleeper cells. So I spoke to a CIA agent, former CIA agent, a couple months ago, and he said, my biggest fear is that they will use,
Starting point is 01:11:24 he said, this is the CIA plan, this is what we do. So we use a dumb Muslim, we'll get a dumb Muslim who's easily brainwashable and we'll have them carry out an attack as a catalyst for us to go into war, go into war in Iran. And then, oh, this guy's Iran, this guy's an Iranian? There you go. We're a dumb Palestinian Christian like Serhan Serhan. Just throw on that. Yeah, exactly. So we will use a Patsy and that will be the catalyst. Did you see what they did in Wayne, Michigan? Did you see what they did? There was a, you know, carrying out this attack. By the way, these accounts, as soon as we
Starting point is 01:12:00 attacked the nuclear sites, almost immediately there were videos being surfaced and flooded on social media about like Islamists running towards subways in New York City. This is so reckless and dangerous. It's so immoral. But so profitable, Tucker. So much money they'll make off of this. I mean, I think Mark Levin and Barry Weiss, you know,
Starting point is 01:12:24 whatever, I mean, these are people who just really just don't care at all. Okay. But there are other people here, Lindsey Graham, who everyone hates Lindsey Graham, but I always say this and I mean it. One's an absolutely delightful person. Delightful person, hilarious, nice. Like he's not in person. He's not some kind of monster at all.
Starting point is 01:12:42 He's like, fun guy to have dinner with, which I have done. What's he thinking? Does part of him think, geez, a lot of people could die. When they die, do I feel bad about it? It's an unpatriotic question, Tucker. No, but this is so reckless. That's an anti-Semitic question. How can you dare?
Starting point is 01:13:00 Do you think he really thinks that? I think he's so bought and paid for by the military industrial complex How much money he's made from the military industrial complex people are dying. I don't think they care at all They're in a bubble man. I don't think they care at all and so they don't think at some point They're gonna have to answer for this Maybe in the afterlife they will but because it always happens over there. We don't live that long. Like human life span is pretty short. I don't know, you're really rolling the dice with this kind of stuff. I mean, maybe there's no God and you know, it's fine and like the guy who dies richest wins, I guess maybe. But what if you're, what
Starting point is 01:13:36 if you know, the Blaise Pascal formula is like right? Like why would you, why would you risk that? He's only risking like purgatory for a few thousand years and then he'll eventually get shot off one way or the other. But it's incredibly profitable. Like if somebody sent you $10 million to say that, you know, Firestone tires are better than Bridgestone tires, assuming they're not the same company, which I think they may be, but whatever.
Starting point is 01:14:00 You know what I mean? You'd be like, okay, I'm for Firestone now, $10 million. But if someone sent you $10 million or $100 million or $10 billion to say something was untrue that you knew would get people killed, you want $10 billion, but you'd be like, I don't know, that's not a good idea. Kind of rolling with my soul here. But these people are soulless and they're not going to ask these tough questions. They're not going to challenge this.
Starting point is 01:14:25 As you and I talked about last night, I'm thinking of that Upton Sinclair quote where he said what you, it's- Hard to convince a man of something he's paid not to see. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, if you're paying, if you're on the salary, if he's being paid to not see it, if your whole salary relies on knowing something, or not knowing something, it's difficult. So all these different anchors on these different televisions, they want the prestige of being on TV and having people put makeup on them and all of that.
Starting point is 01:14:55 And they rely on that contract, they rely on that salary. And then if they don't have that, they go off and try to do things like what Don Lemon did or whatever. And if you're part of that machine, no one wants to watch your stuff You know because Well for for 10 years you were a liar So now you're going to go off and do an independent show and now and now we're going to watch you and trust you like you Were lying for money
Starting point is 01:15:19 For so many years pushing a narrative and now you're going to go off. We're not going to watch it so I just find it so... No, it's such a good point. It's the same argument that they used in 2002 that it's an existential threat to the United States of America, that Saddam Hussein is going to use intercontinental ballistic missiles. He's going to gather a warhead with anthrax. He's going to shoot it into some mall somewhere.
Starting point is 01:15:47 So that's the fear, right? They're playing on our fear that we are going to be attacked by Iran. And they don't have an intercontinental ballistic missile to hit us. Just don't let the facts get in the way. They actually don't have a nuclear warhead. They don't have the reentry mechanism to even make that happen, but we need to be fearful of it. Like I don't wake up fearful of Iran in the morning. Maybe I'm dumb. Maybe I'm an idiot and I should. That should be the first thing that I do when I wake up in the
Starting point is 01:16:14 morning. Not like the Trende Aragua gang down the street. I should be more worried about Iran is going to attack me. And by the way, why would they attack us? I know. Like why aren't they attacking Sweden right now? If they hate our freedoms, Iran is going to attack me. And by the way, why would they attack us? I know. Why aren't they attacking Sweden right now? If they hate our freedoms, why aren't they attacking Norway right now? Why would they attack us? If we get the hell out of there, maybe we wouldn't have these problems. If we wouldn't build these bases in their backyard. If we wouldn't meddle in trying to decapitate
Starting point is 01:16:45 their leadership and overthrow and install a pro-Western government and tell them to open McDonald's. But we can't, we seem like we're so addicted to doing it. And we thought under Trump that this would be a realignment. We're not going to do this. Well, the whole game has been to manipulate the president, of course. And I think that's true with any president. I mean to manipulate the president, of course.
Starting point is 01:17:05 And you know, I think that's true with any president. I mean, that's the seat of power. So of course, a lot of people are interested in, you know, moving in their direction. I get it. You know, it's all, it's not surprising. It's not even offensive. It's just the way things are. I'm just offended watching these people who I know personally, and I know for a fact they
Starting point is 01:17:22 hate Trump, the Murdochs really hate Trump. There's no one who hates Trump more than the Murdochs. I mean, I got fired in April of 2023. In May of 2023, they asked me to run for president against Trump and said they would back me. Obviously I'm not running for any, I would never get elected any plus I like Trump. The funny thing is I actually genuinely, I get frustrated. I'm frustrated now. So hold on. I'm sorry. You just said that and people buy, I mean, they asked you to run for president against Trump, the Murdochs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lachlan Marks said you should run for president. We'll back you. The whole thing, the whole-
Starting point is 01:17:58 The whole Fox News apparatus. And not just Fox, but you know, Wall Street Journal, all of their papers. All of their papers, everything. Absolutely. Yeah, I will back you. And that came right from Lockheed. I was already gone, they had already canceled my show. I was still under contract, but they canceled my show. You should run, we support you, you should run.
Starting point is 01:18:12 We wanna stop Trump. Yeah, well he was running. It was like, and first of all, I liked Trump, and I thought DeSantis was kind of promising, and then he signed some hate speech bill out of the country. And I was like, ooh, you're a betrayer. That's so offensive to me.
Starting point is 01:18:29 I can't even, any hate speech bill is so offensive to me. Can't criminalize opinions. Right. What? Criminalized violence, which they don't. And I liked DeSantis, but that was, I was like, no, I can't. That's so a violation of my principles. And I really, I've always liked Trump despite
Starting point is 01:18:45 getting frustrated as I do with everyone I love. We get frustrated, but I always like the guy a lot and I still do. Anyway, but whatever. And also I couldn't get elected to anything and I don't want to be elected to anything. It's not my world. I'm not in zero interest. I've never had any interest. But he looked at me, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely at dinner. You should run. And I was like, that's not my world. Like I'm an opinion guy. I can sit behind a mic and tell you what I think and that's what I've done my whole life, that's what I want to do.
Starting point is 01:19:14 It's all I'm qualified to do. And he's like, no, no, no, no, you should do that. That's a fact. So that's fine. I mean, lots of people dislike Trump. It just bothers me that this channel run and staffed by Trump haters, they're not all Trump haters. Again, Sean Hannity likes Trump, good for him. Like for real, he does.
Starting point is 01:19:35 And there are a few other people there who like Trump, but most people hate Trump. They wouldn't allow Trump on my show, period. Like Trump would call in what they call a beeper or a phoneer. I mean, we had them on our show all the time. Trump would call in. They're like, nope, not doing that. I did an interview in April of 2023 with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Starting point is 01:19:55 right before I got canned, like a week before I got canned. And boy, they were furious that I talked to Trump in that interview. Because they didn't want him promoted And I don't know that it's personal. They just dislike his views. They they dislike his views on economics They dislike his views on foreign policy and they're very serious about it. So Again, that's fine. You can disagree you're allowed to I believe in disagreement Sincere disagreement. I'm just blown away that those same people like, no, no, we're here with MAGA. We're policing MAGA. You're not MAGA says Mark Levin or whatever his name is. It's like,
Starting point is 01:20:35 are you serious? And they were supporting DeSantis. I mean, they were up until the primary. Mark Levin hates Trump. So like, which is again, that's fine. I'm not attacking him. I believe that everyone is allowed to come to his own conclusions about everything. Because I believe that people have souls. They're not slaves, or animals or machines. They are autonomous beings created by God. And so they're allowed and have to be allowed to come to their own conclusions. And all conclusions are legal. I'm not the one who's trying to criminalize opinions as they have done in Europe and they're trying to do here. I reject that. But Mark Levin is on the other side, Levin.
Starting point is 01:21:11 But for him to be like, oh, I just love Trump and Trump's the man if you're a true paper. No, you're a Trump hater and so are your bosses and so are your colleagues and Jen Griffin, you're a Trump hater. It just drives me bonkers because it's a lie. It's fake. That's the part that bothers me. I have much more respect for, I don't know, just some sincere lefties like, yeah, I don't like Trump. Now I didn't like him then. I disagree. Like that just seems straightforward and sort of manly to me. This just seems totally creepy. Like Ted Cruz, like, oh, I love Trump. And sycophantic.
Starting point is 01:21:48 Totally. Yeah, it's always, yeah, it's always, that's always bothered me, you know, the sycophantic, you know, ass kissing on the air. But then the other part of it is that you know that Trump watches Fox all day. Yeah. So.
Starting point is 01:22:03 Well, they know that, that's why they're doing that. They know that. So when they start an hour of a broadcast and say Trump just carried out the most magnificent attack in American history on nuclear sites, Trump's sitting there watching it. Oh yeah I did that. So it's like feeding this ego. It's like a weird loop. I don't understand it. Yeah, I know. It's going to be very interesting when these... I mean, I do understand it. It's like, it's the same reason people check their Twitter mentions or whatever they call it or Google themselves, something I've never done.
Starting point is 01:22:36 But I don't approve of it. I think it's bad. I think it makes you more insecure when you look to other people for approval, people you don't know. Who cares what people you don't know think of you, like it's so weird to me. But anyway, but I think you know it's a super tough call right now. He's under, the president's under enormous pressure from outside the White House, from donors and etc. And I think it's natural for people to seek affirmation.
Starting point is 01:23:05 The problem is that you don't, you know, you don't want to be unduly influenced by flattery. I think that's a, just for all of us, that's a weakness that all of us have. And I think you need to approach flatterers with hostility. I agree. Flattery is way more dangerous than criticism. Yeah, and people often ignore the flattery part and just soak it in.
Starting point is 01:23:27 So it's very easy to get like a thousand comments that are praising you, we love you Tucker, and then there's like one negative really goes after you, calls you whatever, and you can dwell on that and lose sleep over that. But maybe the more insidious and more dangerous are the thousand love comments. Of course. But maybe the more insidious and more dangerous or the thousand love comments. Of course. Of course there's a kind of, I mean again, there's false criticism. You work for Qatar.
Starting point is 01:23:56 But like there's also legitimate criticism, which I think is really important to hear. I seek it, always. I try to, I want to anyway. But flattery is the most deceptive of all. It's the most insidious, it's the most dangerous. It shows the least respect to you. Someone who flatters you has no respect for you at all. If you were gonna try to bring the conversation back
Starting point is 01:24:18 to like a non-emotional level with what's going on there, where would you go? Would it be- How's America doing? It's really simple. How's America doing? It's really simple. How's America doing? Countries defined by its cities, go to our 10 biggest cities, walk around, spend a day in each.
Starting point is 01:24:31 How's it going? Doing a good job? Are leaders doing a pretty good job? That's a fucking disaster. It is. And I live in rural pockets that are great because they're more like the country was in the 80s. Yeah. But that's not the country. The country is its cities. Right. Any country.
Starting point is 01:24:48 I mean, in fact, there weren't even countries until fairly recently. There were cities. I mean, that's Rome was a city. It controlled the world. Right. The idea of a nation state is a pretty new concept. No, cities matter. They really matter. I hate them. I don't go to them because they're terrible. Right. So I would just say the pressing problem in America is the condition of its cities because that is America. It's not Iran with an intercontinental ballistic missile coming. No, it's not Iran. It's also not Malibu or Jackson Hole or the weird little pockets where I live. It's not. It's New York, Chicago, LA. It is. It's Atlanta. It's Minneapolis. It's... Have you seen Sunset
Starting point is 01:25:26 Boulevard recently? No. I just did an interview with someone who grew up in Hollywood and you know Hollywood's collapsing but Sunset Boulevard all the big stores are closed. Oh, seen actual Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Yeah, yeah. Not like the play. The East West artery that defines the city. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I know it very well. It's like all these classic stores, 80 year old restaurants closed up. In Hollywood? Oh, yeah. So in Franks is like, yeah, that whole area. No, I know that area really well. I grew up for a time in my childhood right there and I and I love it. San Francisco, go to Union Square. I went there with my great grandmother who survived the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.
Starting point is 01:26:09 I went to Gump's with her as a child over Christmas. I'll never forget how charming Union Square was. And I was born there. And I was there this spring. And I was like, coming down off Knobstang and Knob Hill, come down to Union Square. And I was just like, my heart broke. So that's the problem. It's really simple.
Starting point is 01:26:27 And you mentioned to someone like Ted Cruz or I mean Mark Levin and Barry Weiss are like what? They don't even know what you're talking about. They don't care. They have no interest in America at all. But some of these people, I mean certainly Lindsey Graham, he should care. He doesn't. But again, it's Upton Sinclair, right? If you're, it's very
Starting point is 01:26:46 difficult to get someone to understand something or care if their entire salary depends on them not caring. So his entire salary, the money that he makes from all of these lobbying groups, all the military industrial complex, funds his mania, his wanting to, you know, decapitate Putin, regime change in Russia, regime change in Iran, doing the bidding of all of these foreign countries, doing the bidding of military industrial complex, which stands to make a lot of money. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could, that truly, like you brought up a great point the other day, but that trillion dollar budget that we now have for the military industrial complex,
Starting point is 01:27:28 like why do we not have the material to protect ourselves? Like, you think that kind of budget? I don't know, ask Jen Griffin, shut up. You hate the military. You love Iran. You love our enemies. Yeah, no, it's so frustrating. And again, I don't love Iran, I don't hate Israel.
Starting point is 01:27:48 I really am angry at the people who abandoned their own country, who are in positions of responsibility in their nation, the nation of their birth, and just abandoned it. I look on them as I view a father who abandoned his family with true contempt. I don't care how hot she was. I don't care what bad your drinking problem was.
Starting point is 01:28:04 I don't care what your excuse was. You left your family. And I just, I, I, I have total contempt for that. By the way, that's not even considered bad now. Right. No, it's encouraged. Like, totally. I mean, you abandon your children. That's cool. I mean, I was in a Barnes and Noble the other day and I haven't been in one of those in a long time. Like a big bookstore. That still exists? It still exists. Where? It was in one of those in a long time, like a big bookstore. That still exists? It still exists.
Starting point is 01:28:26 Where? It was outside of Denver, Colorado. How? And I used to love going to- I would sit there for hours and read books, get a coffee, and that's how I did most of my studying at the University of Pittsburgh was the Barnes and Noble down the street and I loved it. I loved being around books. I loved that environment.
Starting point is 01:28:41 But my wife and I went, she's like, oh my God, I got to get out of here. Like all of the little tables for like gender studies. And then there was the whole family, this really stunned us. The whole family section was not about like how to improve your marriage or have a better family. It was all how to get divorced. Next to that, how to get divorced. And get divorced? Next to how to kill yourself, I'll.
Starting point is 01:29:07 Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what, and they, of course, they pushed this and this is what they want. They don't want us to have a strong nuclear family. They don't want us to have strong neighbors, friendships in the neighborhood. They want us to, they want women to say they don't need men. Get rid of men in your life Oh, man It's it's
Starting point is 01:29:31 Yeah, it's so these I guess I mean I have opinions and everything you said But I don't want to keep repeating myself like an old person, but I guess I would just say We have a lot of problems like real real problems not just inflation or GDP or like actual systemic problems to steal a term that they love and You know anything that that diverts attention from that it seems really bad So this is the madness that I this is another part of my rage because I watch the the economic numbers also I'm not an economist play one on television. I'm not an economist. Play one on television. I am. I remember when I graduated from HBS and went to the New York Fed just for five
Starting point is 01:30:11 years as an internship and thinking I could make this a career, but I instead went into cable news. Yeah. You could have worked at the Treasury, but you know that. Excuse me. So if you think about it right now, what would devastate the United States of America? It's is it an intercontinental ballistic missile. No, no, what would devastate the United States of America would be $5 gasoline So have we thought about that because when I heard them come out on TV the other night say We've thought through every possible scenario as a as an attack against us after we launched these attacks on these
Starting point is 01:30:45 nuclear sites. We've gamed out everything, were there words. We've gamed out everything. Did you game out that the Iranian parliament just voted to close the Straits of Hormuz? Did you figure that part of it out? Because I remember in 2022 under Biden, when gas hit $5.01, you had people filling up the flatbed of their truck with tarps, with gasoline, because they were in panic mode. Biden literally emptied the strategic oil reserves as a response. Inflation went over 9%. The CPI number went over 9%, which is the consumer price index, which means how much
Starting point is 01:31:23 are people paying for their groceries? How much gas prices are included in the CPI number? $5. Closing the Straits of Hormuz could put oil or gas prices in the United States between $7 and $10. It's only 20% of the world's petroleum flows through there, not a big deal. Have we thought about this? Have we thought about how everything that we're doing right now, the lights on, the food that we get on our tables, would be affected by this in a massive way? I mean, the only silver lining is that also China relies on the Straits of Hormuz in a very large way. Luckily, they don't play the long game though, so it's not a concern.
Starting point is 01:32:07 I'm sure they're day traders just like us. So China just can't flip on that Siberian oil pipeline to Russia, hey, we need instead of the 800,000 barrels a day that we normally get from you, like let's crank it up to three. You OK with that, Putin? Do you think that they have a relationship, the BRICS nations have a relationship to soften this? They do now. They do now. So what, boy, you're making me sad. So I'm going to end on some- It's what I do. Clayton, it's so great to see you. That's great. So
Starting point is 01:32:35 let me end on what I hope is a hopeful note. So both of us worked in television our whole lives were, well, you left voluntarily because you're smarter than I am but I was expelled like a hairball from the system and So you've been out how long what year did you leave 2017 so eight years ago Wow crazy. I've been out two years My head is starting to clear. I feel better. Yeah, I feel like I'm a gentleman But um, what's the what's the future of that of that business of that medium? out two years, my head is starting to clear, I feel better. I feel like a much younger man. But what's the future of that business, of that medium?
Starting point is 01:33:18 Well, I think it's collapsing in real time. And I said that while I was there, that this idea that people are going to pay for a cable subscription in order to get their CNN or Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity, like that's dying and that audience is dying with them. I don't know if you've ever watched Fox in the afternoon, it's all ads for hip replacement or like, don't fall out of your shower stalls because you're elderly. So they know their audience, they know it's aging out. The joke back when I was at
Starting point is 01:33:45 Fox was that, oh, CBS's audience is like 90. It was like 75 at the time, but I'm just being exaggerating. So now those people are in their 90s. That audience is not getting any younger. Again, I don't know anybody watching right now who's buying a cable box when they go to Xfinity or Comcast and they're starting out, they're like a young couple, they're in their 20s, they want to have children. They don't even know what a cable box is. So they're going, now maybe with like, you know- They'll buy a phonograph, but not a cable box.
Starting point is 01:34:21 And a lot of this is like shifted over to like YouTube TV and things like that, you know, things. So, I mean, there'll be people that'll still flip through But I think it's those era of like those massive salaries and everyone's kind of I think that era is gone So I think you just answered the question that's been bothering me for the past month Which is why do old people love killing so much? And I I love old people. I'm not one of those people who hates the elderly. I love the elderly. My favorite person, my dad, was elderly when he died in 84.
Starting point is 01:34:51 I've always thought we should respect our elders. My whole life I've thought that. That's why I'm conservative. But in the last month, every old person I come into contact with is like, let's just kill them thoughtlessly. Just kill people. And it's like, you're going to face judgment really soon. Should you really be calling for killing people in your final days here?
Starting point is 01:35:10 I always think that I never say it, but why is that? And I do think it's at least in part, the result of watching this filth and it is filth. It's it's wall to wall. They don't turn it off. It's worse than pornography. It's disgusting Yeah, Keith Kellogg talking about killing people Keith Kellogg was a complete idiot. I know Keith Kellogg is like truly stupid
Starting point is 01:35:32 The idea that Keith Kellogg could have any influence over anything. It's like shocking totally ignorant Just enthusiastic about killing And reckless and just not not qualified to drive my car. And I'm like, who are these people? And why are old people so into killing? I honestly think it's because they're watching it. Yeah, and you and I know this to be true, which is that I think even Roger Ailes told us
Starting point is 01:35:59 that the reason Fox and Friends in the morning would do so well is because the people at night would leave their TV on set to that channel and they'd wake up and it was the first thing would click on to that show. And then they leave it on all day. I've heard from so many viewers over the years that are like, oh, my parents would just turn it on and they would leave it run all day. It's just kind of like a noise in the background.
Starting point is 01:36:21 So every hour, it doesn't matter what panel show it is with four people sitting there on a couch or one person hosting a show. When 80% of your guests are pro-war and the entire narrative all day is about how Trump is amazing and carried out the most spectacular attack on America, you know, in the Middle East since Normandy, then they're just sucking that in. That Barnes and Noble the other day, in the Middle East since Normandy.
Starting point is 01:36:45 Then they're just sucking that in. That Barnes and Noble the other day, I met an old gentleman, lovely guy, and I was in the history section. And he just started chatting and we just started chatting and talking to my wife and he said, yeah, I'm really concerned about Iran getting this nuclear weapon. Iran getting this nuclear weapon. And we said, do you know that Israel has a nuclear weapon? Right?
Starting point is 01:37:07 He said, what? I've never heard that. Is that true? And he's like, well, I just have it on the news on they just tell me that Iran, we gotta be worried about Iran. So do you ever hear them talking about that Israel has an entire nuclear weapons program,
Starting point is 01:37:24 that JFK pushed them for inspections and then pushed and pushed and pushed Ben-Gurion for inspections and then was assassinated? Not saying they're related. That Eisenhower warned JFK about it? Like this goes back to the 60s. Why don't we know about this? So this guy, because he's watching this like spoon-fed propaganda all day, doesn't know any of that. Clayton Morris, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you.
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