WEBVTT

00:00:03.190 --> 00:00:07.140
He should have been removed from office
immediately when he threatened nuclear

00:00:07.223 --> 00:00:09.932
war, threatening the offensive
use of nuclear weapons,

00:00:10.015 --> 00:00:12.827
which is to say threatening
the destruction of humanity.

00:00:12.911 --> 00:00:15.930
I said to Trump, you know,
four days before the war started,

00:00:16.013 --> 00:00:19.807
if you do this, you know, the United
States will be kicked out of the Gulf.

00:00:19.891 --> 00:00:22.496
Your legacy will be destroyed
along with your party.

00:00:22.579 --> 00:00:25.185
I said this to Trump to his
face in the Oval Office,

00:00:25.268 --> 00:00:27.750
and he looked at me and said,
yes, you're right.

00:00:30.390 --> 00:00:33.630
way. So it doesn't matter.
That's exactly what he said.

00:00:33.720 --> 00:00:38.634
Hi, this is Steve Inskeep sharing a brand
new episode just released on our sister

00:00:38.717 --> 00:00:41.533
show Newsmakers.
In every episode of that show,

00:00:41.616 --> 00:00:46.283
we interview someone at the center
of this moment in the news or our culture.

00:00:46.366 --> 00:00:49.244
They talk about how things
look from the inside.

00:00:49.327 --> 00:00:52.575
For more interviews like
the one you're about to hear,

00:00:52.659 --> 00:00:55.290
make sure to follow
or subscribe on Spotify,

00:00:55.373 --> 00:01:00.040
YouTube or wherever you watch or listen.
You can also find us on the NPR app,

00:01:00.123 --> 00:01:00.956
of course.

00:01:03.720 --> 00:01:05.400
from NPR's Newsmakers.

00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:12.723
Tucker Carlson has commanded an audience
for decades as a cable TV pundit,

00:01:12.806 --> 00:01:15.773
as a Fox News star,
and then after his firing,

00:01:15.856 --> 00:01:20.811
as the head of an independent network
frequently broadcasting from this barn

00:01:20.895 --> 00:01:25.651
in Maine. In 2024, Carlson spoke
for President Trump's election. In 2026,

00:01:25.734 --> 00:01:29.695
he's turned against the president
over the Iran war and more.

00:01:29.779 --> 00:01:33.160
And that was the starting
point for our discussion.

00:01:34.110 --> 00:01:36.838
Tucker Carlson, thanks for welcoming
us here. This is amazing.

00:01:36.921 --> 00:01:39.513
I have a lot of questions.
Oh, my. I have a lot of answers.

00:01:39.596 --> 00:01:42.233
I want to talk about the economy.
I want to ask about faith.

00:01:42.316 --> 00:01:44.316
I want to ask about AI. I need to begin.

00:01:44.460 --> 00:01:47.337
with the news that you've made
in recent months, your break,

00:01:47.421 --> 00:01:49.771
if that's the right word,
with President Trump.

00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:52.827
I have a specific,
simple question about that.

00:01:52.910 --> 00:01:57.568
You have said that the president in
deciding to go to war with Iran was more

00:01:57.652 --> 00:02:01.437
a hostage than a decision maker,
a slave to foreign interests.

00:02:01.520 --> 00:02:05.700
And it was the single most foolish
thing a president has ever done.

00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:07.030
Given that...

00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:11.420
Should President Trump be impeached
for going to war with Iran? Well,

00:02:11.503 --> 00:02:15.660
let me just say, you know, it's it's
always a painful experience to hear

00:02:15.743 --> 00:02:19.546
your own quotes read back to you
because often they don't hold up.

00:02:19.629 --> 00:02:22.785
Many of mine haven't.
Many of mine haven't. Those have.

00:02:22.868 --> 00:02:25.965
That's every all three
of those observations are true.

00:02:26.048 --> 00:02:29.617
And I think they've been proved
true since I said them. Yeah.

00:02:29.700 --> 00:02:32.877
He was pushed by a foreign
country to do this.

00:02:32.961 --> 00:02:38.477
It is the most profoundly destructive
thing any any single decision a president

00:02:38.561 --> 00:02:44.077
has made in our history. I feel sorry
for him. I'm not angry at him personally.

00:02:44.161 --> 00:02:45.720
I don't think that he.

00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:52.105
had the latitude to make this decision
on his own. So, you know, I have pity.

00:02:52.188 --> 00:02:54.120
Should he be impeached? He,

00:02:55.680 --> 00:02:59.279
I mean, he's not going to be he's not to
be removed for this because both parties

00:02:59.363 --> 00:03:01.280
agree with it.
And that's kind of the point.

00:03:01.363 --> 00:03:03.826
I think the Democratic
leadership probably is, you know,

00:03:03.909 --> 00:03:06.235
an elaborate critique of how
he's prosecuted the war.

00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:09.782
But Chuck Schumer was, of course, always
for a regime change war against Iran.

00:03:09.865 --> 00:03:12.015
So that is kind of the point.
Trump joined.

00:03:12.570 --> 00:03:14.836
the other side in the
unit party to do this.

00:03:14.919 --> 00:03:19.267
So he's not going to be punished for it.
They'll get him on corruption or whatever.

00:03:19.351 --> 00:03:22.791
That's a bit of an evasion, though,
respectfully, in saying, well,

00:03:22.874 --> 00:03:25.461
it's never going to happen.
Should he be punished?

00:03:25.544 --> 00:03:28.878
Should he be removed from office
if you believe, as you've said,

00:03:28.961 --> 00:03:31.150
that he effectively betrayed the country?

00:03:31.260 --> 00:03:32.990
Thank you. Thank you.

00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:37.258
He should be removed. He should have been
removed from office immediately when he

00:03:37.341 --> 00:03:41.062
threatened nuclear war, threatening
the offensive use of nuclear weapons,

00:03:41.146 --> 00:03:44.189
which is to say threatening
the destruction of humanity. OK,

00:03:44.272 --> 00:03:45.937
what about the war in Iran then?

00:03:46.020 --> 00:03:51.177
Thank you. So it's enough for me
to say he should be removed from office.

00:03:51.261 --> 00:03:55.717
He should have been removed from office by
his own cabinet secretaries the moment he

00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:59.933
threatened a nuclear attack. You're
talking now about the 25th Amendment where

00:04:00.016 --> 00:04:02.610
a majority of the cabinet.
That's correct. Yeah.

00:04:02.910 --> 00:04:05.753
He should have been bundled up
and taken out. That's a crime.

00:04:05.836 --> 00:04:09.542
There's no greater crime than that. You
think of all the people you know who go

00:04:09.626 --> 00:04:12.229
to jail for violating Farrah
or cheating on their taxes.

00:04:12.312 --> 00:04:15.312
Here you have a guy threatening
to eliminate the human race.

00:04:16.140 --> 00:04:20.582
And that's not considered a crime. It
tells you how deranged our moral scale has

00:04:20.666 --> 00:04:24.060
become. So he should be removed
from office for threatening.

00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:28.960
first use nuclear strike. Thomas Massey,
representative from Kentucky.

00:04:29.520 --> 00:04:33.056
As we're speaking, a few days ago,
I introduced a resolution to impeach

00:04:33.139 --> 00:04:36.860
the Secretary of Defense, or Secretary
of War, if you like, Pete Hegseth.

00:04:37.690 --> 00:04:40.145
The House seems to have adjourned
to get out of that for the moment.

00:04:40.229 --> 00:04:42.787
What do you make of that?
I mean, I – Again, we...

00:04:42.870 --> 00:04:47.201
were I disagree profoundly with
almost everything the secretary,

00:04:47.284 --> 00:04:51.680
and I'm going to call him the secretary of
defense because I don't acknowledge that

00:04:51.763 --> 00:04:54.300
a decent country would
have a secretary of war.

00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:58.929
The purpose of the military
is to defend the country. It's not to,

00:04:59.012 --> 00:05:03.913
you know, instigate wars of choice. So,
but I disagree with virtually everything

00:05:03.997 --> 00:05:08.649
the Secretary of Defense has said over
the past nine months. But once again,

00:05:08.732 --> 00:05:12.387
that's punishing a subordinate
for decisions made above him.

00:05:12.470 --> 00:05:15.751
And I think that the purpose
of leadership, of course,

00:05:15.835 --> 00:05:20.175
is to take, fundamentally, is to defend
the people you lead and to take

00:05:20.259 --> 00:05:23.000
responsibility for failures
when they occur.

00:05:24.900 --> 00:05:26.960
you

00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:33.894
I want to come back to your
premise about the war in Iran,

00:05:33.977 --> 00:05:36.127
that Israel caused the president to

00:05:36.210 --> 00:05:41.010
To do this, if I may summarize. Not a
premise. It's an observation. Okay. Um...

00:05:41.490 --> 00:05:43.290
Is Israel still calling the shots?

00:05:43.830 --> 00:05:48.834
Shortly before this conversation,
the United States confirmed an arms sale

00:05:48.917 --> 00:05:53.165
to the Israelis, billions
of dollars worth of 2000 pound bombs.

00:05:53.248 --> 00:05:57.457
It's not an arms sale.
It's a gift of 40,000 2000 pound bombs.

00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:01.904
So the scale of that is hard
for the modern mind to comprehend.

00:06:01.988 --> 00:06:05.928
But that's six times
the destructive force of Little Boy,

00:06:06.012 --> 00:06:10.446
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
in August of 45. Six times.

00:06:10.530 --> 00:06:14.470
So it's kind of hard even
to understand how much that is.

00:06:14.554 --> 00:06:17.859
And the Israelis are not
buying this, of course.

00:06:17.942 --> 00:06:23.224
They were given the money appropriated
by Congress to the executive in order

00:06:23.308 --> 00:06:27.120
to purchase these.
So they are getting these for free.

00:06:27.510 --> 00:06:31.905
at a time when the U.S. military is so
short of munitions that we're constrained,

00:06:31.989 --> 00:06:35.389
completely constrained, because
we don't have enough munitions.

00:06:35.472 --> 00:06:37.766
So what does that tell you?
And by the way,

00:06:37.849 --> 00:06:42.024
the committees that approve this, which
would be the House and Senate Foreign

00:06:42.107 --> 00:06:45.452
Relations Committees,
the chairman and ranking member in both,

00:06:45.535 --> 00:06:49.327
so the four people making this decision
in the Congress are all four.

00:06:49.410 --> 00:06:55.210
recipients of huge amounts of Israeli
lobby money and the Republican chairman.

00:06:55.560 --> 00:06:58.017
Brian Mast of Florida served,
volunteered with the IDF,

00:06:58.100 --> 00:07:01.435
and then showed up in the House
of Representatives wearing an IDF uniform,

00:07:01.518 --> 00:07:04.768
a foreign military uniform.
That's the chairman of the committee.

00:07:04.950 --> 00:07:06.600
that signed off on this decision.

00:07:06.960 --> 00:07:11.220
Where did this idea come from? It came
from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, right?

00:07:11.310 --> 00:07:16.173
Who's the ambassador? Mike Huckabee,
completely an extremist and a committed

00:07:16.256 --> 00:07:19.557
Christian Zionist.
His deputy, who runs the embassy,

00:07:19.640 --> 00:07:23.557
is the stepson of Mark Levin.
He's the stepson of Mark Levin.

00:07:23.640 --> 00:07:27.500
It's like you couldn't make this up.
None of this is an anti-Semitic.

00:07:27.660 --> 00:07:31.132
conspiracy theory.
There's nothing anti-Semitic about it.

00:07:31.216 --> 00:07:36.060
It is what you're seeing now revealed
is the control of what was supposed to be

00:07:36.144 --> 00:07:40.988
the most powerful country in the world
by a country of 9 million people with no

00:07:41.071 --> 00:07:44.419
resources. So it's a bewildering
thing to see out loud,

00:07:44.502 --> 00:07:48.723
and it is out in the open.
And there's an attempt to rewrite history,

00:07:48.806 --> 00:07:52.965
reality in real time and deny
that any of it's true, but it is true.

00:07:53.048 --> 00:07:55.980
Let me push back on a
couple of elements there.

00:07:57.660 --> 00:08:00.700
feeling that the parties
are on the same page. Yes.

00:08:00.783 --> 00:08:03.394
It seems to me that
regarding war with Iran,

00:08:03.478 --> 00:08:08.416
that is demonstrably not true. Obviously,
there are a lot of Democrats who support

00:08:08.499 --> 00:08:13.437
Israel and Israel's point of view. And yet
the last two Democratic presidents made

00:08:13.521 --> 00:08:18.398
a nuclear deal with Iran and then tried
to remake a nuclear deal with Iran rather

00:08:18.481 --> 00:08:21.337
than launching a regime
change war against Iran,

00:08:21.421 --> 00:08:24.360
which is a huge improvement
over what Trump did.

00:08:24.510 --> 00:08:27.354
I will say that. Okay.
As someone who opposed Obama,

00:08:27.438 --> 00:08:30.169
especially in his second
term, it took, I thought,

00:08:30.253 --> 00:08:33.885
courage and a huge amount of effort
to get that nuclear deal done,

00:08:33.968 --> 00:08:35.770
and he should get credit for it.

00:08:35.970 --> 00:08:40.890
And I would, and I'm giving it
to him. However, Um, Thank you.

00:08:41.370 --> 00:08:47.167
The last two administrations, Democratic
administrations, Biden and Obama,

00:08:47.251 --> 00:08:53.370
were committed to an anti-Iran policy,
which was expressed through sanctions.

00:08:54.850 --> 00:08:58.318
Very aggressive sanctions,
which didn't work in any sense.

00:08:58.401 --> 00:09:01.830
Except to get to the nuclear
deal ultimately, but go on.

00:09:02.430 --> 00:09:07.917
Yeah, I guess. But did it – I mean,
like, what did they achieve in the end,

00:09:08.001 --> 00:09:12.819
kind of? Like, I guess the point
is – Tenure agreement. Of course.

00:09:12.903 --> 00:09:16.830
But the orientation itself
is what got us to this war.

00:09:16.913 --> 00:09:19.810
And the orientation was this. Iran is –

00:09:20.430 --> 00:09:26.432
America's greatest enemy. Well, on the
basis of what are we saying that the whole

00:09:26.515 --> 00:09:29.370
the way we looked at it was, you know,

00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:32.690
was in reference to Iran's
relationship with Israel.

00:09:32.774 --> 00:09:35.324
Iran's hostile to Israel,
therefore it's our enemy.

00:09:35.550 --> 00:09:39.539
I just reject that. We should assess our
relationship with countries on the basis

00:09:39.622 --> 00:09:41.130
of their relationship with us.

00:09:41.610 --> 00:09:45.087
What is Iran? What if Iran is not
the enemy of the United States,

00:09:45.170 --> 00:09:49.688
which is a thing that the previous Supreme
Leader and the current one would say they

00:09:49.771 --> 00:09:53.796
are? What are they? Well, of course,
they're an enemy of the United States,

00:09:53.879 --> 00:09:56.070
but do they need to be? So what is Iran?

00:09:56.460 --> 00:10:00.647
Iran is a regional power. Why is Iran a
regional power? Not because as if it's...

00:10:00.730 --> 00:10:05.650
nuclear program or its drone or missile
arsenal, but because of its geography.

00:10:06.280 --> 00:10:10.663
Iran is the longest coastline along
the other side of the Persian Gulf. Yeah.

00:10:10.746 --> 00:10:14.375
And the longest coastline along
the now famous Strait of Hormuz.

00:10:14.458 --> 00:10:18.435
So Iran is a regional power.
It's always going to be a regional power.

00:10:18.518 --> 00:10:22.959
It's also the world's oldest civilization.
So you just have to deal with that.

00:10:23.042 --> 00:10:27.657
You can't the idea that you're going to
break up Iran and cause a permanent civil

00:10:27.740 --> 00:10:28.900
war there simply so.

00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:33.406
Israel can have regional hegemony.
A, I don't think it's possible. B,

00:10:33.489 --> 00:10:37.152
I don't see how that serves
our interests. Clearly it doesn't.

00:10:37.235 --> 00:10:40.800
But I would say to your point
about the Democrats and Iran,

00:10:41.380 --> 00:10:43.480
and the Iran War, you're absolutely right.

00:10:43.870 --> 00:10:47.376
that... Previous presidents,
including Republican presidents,

00:10:47.459 --> 00:10:49.877
resisted pressure from Israel
to do what Trump did.

00:10:49.960 --> 00:10:53.064
So they get credit for that for sure.
But once the war broke out,

00:10:53.148 --> 00:10:56.154
the first thing I noticed
was the absence of anti-war protests.

00:10:56.237 --> 00:11:00.224
As someone who's been to an awful lot of
them as a lifelong resident of Washington,

00:11:00.307 --> 00:11:02.480
D.C., I've been to a lot
of anti-war protests,

00:11:02.563 --> 00:11:05.668
including immediately after we
rolled into Iraq in March of 2003,

00:11:05.751 --> 00:11:08.119
there were anti-war protests.
Six-figure protests,

00:11:08.203 --> 00:11:10.877
hundreds of thousands of people.
Sure. There's not one.

00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:13.757
So right after this war began,
you had the no kings protest.

00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:17.768
Yeah. And those were, you know,
anti-Trump or whatever. There was like,

00:11:17.851 --> 00:11:20.397
where do those protests
come from? Well, of course,

00:11:20.481 --> 00:11:24.760
they're organized by the Democratic Party
through its nonprofit proxies and donors.

00:11:25.270 --> 00:11:28.571
And they didn't choose to use those
protests to say anything really about

00:11:28.655 --> 00:11:30.843
the biggest thing that's
happened in my lifetime,

00:11:30.926 --> 00:11:33.671
which was the initiation of a
regime change war in Iran. Why?

00:11:33.755 --> 00:11:37.519
Because they're for it. That's why. Do you
think it's that they were more concerned

00:11:37.603 --> 00:11:40.579
about what they would describe
as the regime in the United States?

00:11:40.663 --> 00:11:42.587
Maybe they had other things on their mind.

00:11:42.670 --> 00:11:46.949
Well, but they're concerned about the
regime in the United States because they

00:11:47.032 --> 00:11:48.377
say it does crazy things.

00:11:48.460 --> 00:11:51.624
Well, the craziest thing it's ever done
is started a regime change war in Iran,

00:11:51.708 --> 00:11:53.158
but they didn't mention that.

00:11:53.980 --> 00:11:56.332
And they didn't mention it because
they're for it. And Chuck Schumer,

00:11:56.415 --> 00:11:58.037
who was the leader of the Senate.

00:11:58.120 --> 00:11:59.920
Democratic leader of the Senate.

00:12:00.100 --> 00:12:02.707
is talked about this for 30
years. Iran is the problem.

00:12:02.791 --> 00:12:05.887
Its leaders are terrorists.
We've got to do something about them.

00:12:05.970 --> 00:12:07.370
We need regime change there.

00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:13.697
We need to fund the opposition within
Iran to topple the government. I mean,

00:12:13.780 --> 00:12:15.500
it's of a piece with –

00:12:15.670 --> 00:12:18.615
Everything Marco Rubio believes. So
that's what I mean about the unit party.

00:12:18.698 --> 00:12:21.257
Of course, there are
differences between the parties.

00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:26.175
But on the questions that determine the
course of a nation that define history,

00:12:26.259 --> 00:12:29.787
which are economic policy,
what's your tax code look like,

00:12:29.870 --> 00:12:32.837
and your foreign policy,
who do you bomb and why,

00:12:32.921 --> 00:12:35.100
they're in almost strict alignment.

00:12:35.740 --> 00:12:39.936
So I have heard people say that usually
on the left-wing fringes for 30 years

00:12:40.019 --> 00:12:43.715
and always kind of dismiss them
as crazy, the Noam Chomsky critique.

00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:47.800
And there's a lot about Noam Chomsky
that's fake and I don't like, but –

00:12:47.890 --> 00:12:52.409
That critique is true, and I wasn't
able to see it because I was caught in

00:12:52.493 --> 00:12:53.550
the partisan lie.

00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:57.168
I was mesmerized by,
and I was part of, by the way,

00:12:57.251 --> 00:13:00.580
the machinery of this as a
cable news host for 29 years.

00:13:00.670 --> 00:13:02.410
I was part of

00:13:02.590 --> 00:13:09.018
This effectively a deception where
the parties disagree on an issue,

00:13:09.102 --> 00:13:12.017
trans rights, amnesty, amnesty.

00:13:12.100 --> 00:13:15.227
Which are, you know, they're real issues.
I'm not saying they have no meaning.

00:13:15.310 --> 00:13:17.203
You've talked about them
on camera and so forth.

00:13:17.286 --> 00:13:21.137
I've talked about them extensively. In
fact, I've talked about them way too much.

00:13:21.220 --> 00:13:25.720
And sort of missed the fact that,
I don't know, we still tax –

00:13:25.900 --> 00:13:28.260
Income at almost twice the rate of income.

00:13:28.690 --> 00:13:31.762
of investing at labor
at twice rate of capital.

00:13:31.845 --> 00:13:35.470
It's like the capital gains
tax versus the income tax.

00:13:36.430 --> 00:13:40.330
I mean, that's kind of the
biggest fact of our tax code.

00:13:41.230 --> 00:13:44.100
And I don't think I've ever
done a debate on that. Maybe one.

00:13:44.183 --> 00:13:46.375
I want to follow up
on something else you said.

00:13:46.458 --> 00:13:50.151
You said you're not being anti-Semitic
to criticize Israel in this way. Right.

00:13:50.234 --> 00:13:53.184
I want you to have an opportunity
to address this directly.

00:13:53.560 --> 00:13:56.302
I think you understand.
I assume you understand.

00:13:56.385 --> 00:14:00.834
When you start talking about people
with dual loyalty and strange connections

00:14:00.917 --> 00:14:05.072
to Israel or also in the government
and a uniparty that is taking orders

00:14:05.155 --> 00:14:09.640
from outside. People who are
anti-Semitic are liable to hear...

00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:12.040
certain things in that.

00:14:12.220 --> 00:14:15.022
What do you make of that?
What do you make of the way that you...

00:14:15.105 --> 00:14:16.975
People who are anti-Semitic
are liable to...

00:14:17.059 --> 00:14:19.728
I don't really know anybody
who's anti-Semitic, for one thing.

00:14:19.811 --> 00:14:23.057
So I can't confirm that. You would
agree that there have been anti-Semites?

00:14:23.140 --> 00:14:25.640
Of course. Okay, go on,
go on. You know, people...

00:14:26.230 --> 00:14:31.007
There's a lot of tribalism in this world.
True. And now more than ever. And I...

00:14:31.090 --> 00:14:36.610
And I detest it and I fear it
and worry about it a lot. Um, um,

00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:39.390
But you're a thoughtful guy.
Do you ever wonder, wow,

00:14:39.473 --> 00:14:43.075
maybe that's me or maybe I'm having that
effect or giving that impression even if I

00:14:43.158 --> 00:14:43.992
don't mean it?

00:14:44.410 --> 00:14:49.515
I think that we haven't had this
conversation for 60 years because people

00:14:49.598 --> 00:14:55.201
are afraid of being called a bigot for
noticing something that has nothing to do

00:14:55.284 --> 00:14:56.350
with ethnicity.

00:14:58.250 --> 00:15:02.332
And I just refuse to participate in
that because the stakes are now too high.

00:15:02.415 --> 00:15:06.876
And so for decades, I, of course, noticed
the undue influence of Israel as expressed

00:15:06.959 --> 00:15:11.365
through its lobby in Washington, which I
was very familiar with since I lived there

00:15:11.449 --> 00:15:13.450
and knew people in the Israeli lobby.

00:15:14.410 --> 00:15:17.350
them for whatever it's
worth personally, but

00:15:17.650 --> 00:15:20.501
But I decided I'm not going to weigh in
on that because I have all kinds of other

00:15:20.584 --> 00:15:21.417
concerns.

00:15:23.860 --> 00:15:26.487
Of course, I'm not
anti-Semitic in any sense,

00:15:26.571 --> 00:15:30.584
but I don't want to be called
that and I don't want to upset people.

00:15:30.667 --> 00:15:34.559
And I sort of stuck with that up
until the push for war with Iran,

00:15:34.643 --> 00:15:39.040
at which point I thought this will
destroy the United States. This will –

00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:41.578
results in the deaths
of millions of people.

00:15:41.661 --> 00:15:45.636
This is the worst thing I can imagine.
And so I don't really have a choice.

00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:50.074
And by that point, I was in my mid fifties
and my children were grown and I didn't

00:15:50.157 --> 00:15:54.457
have a normal, I didn't have a job anymore
because I've been fired so many times.

00:15:54.540 --> 00:15:57.271
I worked for myself and I
thought I'm in this weird,

00:15:57.354 --> 00:16:01.384
almost unique position where there's
kind of no downside for me. I can take,

00:16:01.467 --> 00:16:04.660
I can take the lumps and I have.
So, but as to whether it's

00:16:09.280 --> 00:16:14.120
of a secular foreign government.
I mean, it goes without saying that, no,

00:16:14.204 --> 00:16:18.520
in fact, that accusation is not
only baseless. It's crazy. Yeah.

00:16:18.760 --> 00:16:22.770
And I almost don't want to dignify
it even by responding to it.

00:16:22.853 --> 00:16:28.162
But since you asked, let me just say that
the majority of American Jews when polled

00:16:28.245 --> 00:16:32.060
are not for Netanyahu.
So not that I need to appeal to that.

00:16:32.143 --> 00:16:36.477
I'm just going to appeal instead
to reason. But just factually true.

00:16:36.561 --> 00:16:38.120
And there's Netanyahu's.

00:16:38.980 --> 00:16:43.176
claim that which is specious
and totally dishonorable,

00:16:43.260 --> 00:16:47.209
is that when you criticize me,
you criticize global Jewry.

00:16:47.292 --> 00:16:51.887
You criticize all Jews. And it's
sort of not my job to defend Jews.

00:16:51.970 --> 00:16:56.755
All Jews as an Episcopalian.
I'm not even in. It's like not my fight.

00:16:56.839 --> 00:17:02.400
But I I feel somebody should stand up
and say that's an outrageous thing to say.

00:17:02.484 --> 00:17:07.551
Who gave Benjamin Netanyahu, who's
some sleazy day trader politician with

00:17:07.635 --> 00:17:12.491
a murderous history, whose government
has murdered to 20,000 children?

00:17:12.574 --> 00:17:17.090
What who gave that guy the right
to speak for an entire country?

00:17:18.040 --> 00:17:20.649
Group, we could have a whole
discussion about this,

00:17:20.733 --> 00:17:23.817
but let me refocus for a moment
on the administration. Yeah.

00:17:23.900 --> 00:17:27.860
Do you include Vice President Vance
in your critique of the administration?

00:17:28.450 --> 00:17:32.414
Well, it depends what critique. You're
just talking about going to war. Well,

00:17:32.498 --> 00:17:35.253
I don't think the vice
president was for going to war.

00:17:35.336 --> 00:17:39.195
I think it's pretty obvious. I mean,
he'd spent his entire relatively short

00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:42.822
but well-publicized political career
arguing against a war like this.

00:17:42.906 --> 00:17:46.765
He was reported to be against, but
publicly he's done his job and supported

00:17:46.848 --> 00:17:48.973
the president. Yeah, I mean, I think the –

00:17:49.056 --> 00:17:52.547
let me just say point blank that I
not only know the vice president,

00:17:52.631 --> 00:17:54.808
but I've been pretty
good friends with him.

00:17:54.891 --> 00:17:58.150
I don't think I've ever been
friends with a politician before.

00:17:58.690 --> 00:18:01.804
Don't think I ever will be again,
but I am friends with J.D.

00:18:01.887 --> 00:18:05.054
Vance because I think he is a
genuinely decent person, smart,

00:18:05.138 --> 00:18:08.518
thoughtful, self-aware, loves his
family, has a wonderful family.

00:18:08.601 --> 00:18:12.834
So there's so much about him I like. I've
considered him a friend since before he

00:18:12.918 --> 00:18:17.833
went into politics. which puts me
in a little bit of an awkward position,

00:18:17.916 --> 00:18:22.709
but it also puts me in a position
of like some knowledge of what he thinks.

00:18:22.792 --> 00:18:27.455
But everyone who's paid attention
to him knows what he thought. And it's,

00:18:27.539 --> 00:18:30.511
you know, I don't almost
ever vote for anybody,

00:18:30.594 --> 00:18:33.130
but I voted for Donald Trump this time.

00:18:33.640 --> 00:18:37.369
In part, heavily in part, because J.D.
Vance was his running mate.

00:18:37.452 --> 00:18:42.048
And J.D. Vance's views on foreign policy
are squarely in the center of where most

00:18:42.131 --> 00:18:42.965
Americans are.

00:18:43.600 --> 00:18:47.998
Like, hey, let's not have another
insane, counterproductive, deadly,

00:18:48.081 --> 00:18:52.545
expensive Middle East war on behalf
of Israel. That was his position.

00:18:52.629 --> 00:18:55.660
And yet we did.
And so that happened without –

00:18:55.990 --> 00:19:00.238
His encouragement, he clearly sees his job
primarily as backstopping the president,

00:19:00.322 --> 00:19:03.839
supporting the president, displaying
public loyalty to the president.

00:19:03.923 --> 00:19:06.010
Most vice presidents have felt that way.

00:19:07.900 --> 00:19:10.697
But, you know, so I grieve
for the position that he's in.

00:19:10.780 --> 00:19:13.880
And I say that with deep affection
for him, which I still have.

00:19:13.963 --> 00:19:15.580
Have you urged him to speak out?

00:19:15.940 --> 00:19:21.420
I, you know, my friendship
with J.D. Vance has been used

00:19:21.610 --> 00:19:25.967
It's really since the moment
he was chosen to undermine him.

00:19:26.050 --> 00:19:30.185
This is an intro Republican Party struggle
that I assume most NPR viewers are not

00:19:30.268 --> 00:19:31.830
that familiar with, listeners.

00:19:33.230 --> 00:19:36.444
We could have a discussion about
the NPR audience, but please. No, no, no,

00:19:36.527 --> 00:19:39.830
I'm not attacking the NPR audience.
I'm just saying in case you don't follow

00:19:39.913 --> 00:19:43.613
Republican politics closely, you may
not know that the battle is between –

00:19:43.780 --> 00:19:48.294
The neoconservatives who, you know, define
the Bush administration, for example,

00:19:48.378 --> 00:19:52.662
got us into the Iraq war and people
who learned something from the Iraq war,

00:19:52.746 --> 00:19:57.203
often called the realists. And G.D. Vance
was was very much on the latter side,

00:19:57.286 --> 00:19:59.240
on the realist side. And that was.

00:19:59.380 --> 00:20:02.580
overwhelmingly important to me
that the Republican Party change.

00:20:03.320 --> 00:20:08.672
from being a tool of a foreign country
to being an instrument of uplift for

00:20:08.755 --> 00:20:10.060
the United States.

00:20:11.570 --> 00:20:16.910
So it didn't happen. OK.
And I'm nothing has ever made me sadder.

00:20:19.070 --> 00:20:22.053
And it brings me no pleasure
to be vindicated in my predictions.

00:20:22.137 --> 00:20:26.137
And I said to Trump, you know, four days
before the war started, if you do this,

00:20:26.510 --> 00:20:28.797
The United States will
be kicked out of the Gulf.

00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:32.191
The American empire
will begin to collapse.

00:20:32.275 --> 00:20:36.380
Your legacy will be destroyed
along with your party.

00:20:36.740 --> 00:20:39.888
And a lot of people are going to die.
But getting back to that question,

00:20:39.972 --> 00:20:42.922
have you urged the vice president
to speak out in some way?

00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:47.367
I mean, I'm not going to...

00:20:47.450 --> 00:20:54.148
No one is listening to me, obviously. So I
would say I I would urge not simply that.

00:20:54.232 --> 00:20:59.558
Well, let me do it now. I would
urge not simply the vice president,

00:20:59.641 --> 00:21:06.259
but every member of the cabinet, everyone
who works for the president to march into

00:21:06.342 --> 00:21:07.230
his office.

00:21:07.430 --> 00:21:14.430
and demand that he renounce his statements
calling for the use or threatening the use

00:21:14.686 --> 00:21:17.930
of nuclear weapons. And if he doesn't,

00:21:18.500 --> 00:21:21.250
Doesn't do that. They should quit.
That's what I think.

00:21:21.350 --> 00:21:24.059
If you're concerned
about foreign influence,

00:21:24.142 --> 00:21:29.389
which is what we're talking about, foreign
government influencing the United States,

00:21:29.472 --> 00:21:34.148
are you also concerned about foreign
influence on the United States through

00:21:34.232 --> 00:21:38.547
the president's business dealings
and his family's business dealings?

00:21:38.630 --> 00:21:42.130
Well, there's a lot of foreign money
sloshing around, that's for sure.

00:21:42.830 --> 00:21:49.508
Um, what's the effect? I mean, if the,
if Russian businessmen could pay the Trump

00:21:49.592 --> 00:21:52.797
family, um, And push Trump.

00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:57.020
through those payments to end
the war in Ukraine, I would be for it.

00:21:58.850 --> 00:22:02.397
The main problem, as I sort
of explained a moment ago,

00:22:02.481 --> 00:22:06.902
with Israeli influence over the U.S.
government is that it leads to

00:22:06.985 --> 00:22:08.817
the destruction of – Thank you.

00:22:08.900 --> 00:22:10.560
the US and American interests.

00:22:11.720 --> 00:22:16.957
So we have an overriding interest
in seeing a negotiated settlement to these

00:22:17.040 --> 00:22:18.860
two wars. And if we don't,

00:22:19.010 --> 00:22:22.250
We will be destroyed. It's that simple.
So my orientation is always,

00:22:22.334 --> 00:22:24.792
you know, because I live
here and my kids live here.

00:22:24.875 --> 00:22:28.165
What's good for the United States?
We need to get the war in Ukraine.

00:22:28.248 --> 00:22:29.081
We need to stop.

00:22:29.390 --> 00:22:32.946
prosecuting a war against Russia,
which is what we're doing right now.

00:22:33.029 --> 00:22:36.949
But you focus on Israel. The president
and his family have business relations

00:22:37.032 --> 00:22:41.004
with people throughout the Middle East
in other countries affected by this war

00:22:41.088 --> 00:22:44.124
through the cryptocurrency enterprises.
Oh, extensive. Well,

00:22:44.207 --> 00:22:48.470
the Qataris gave Trump a plane. There you
go. Of course. And what did it get them?

00:22:48.890 --> 00:22:51.511
Got them nothing. The United
States did not defend Qatar.

00:22:51.594 --> 00:22:54.794
The United States moved THAAD
batteries from the Gulf to Israel.

00:22:55.520 --> 00:22:58.270
And of course, Israel has
given us nothing, only taken.

00:22:58.670 --> 00:23:04.390
$350 billion total since 1951. So,

00:23:05.480 --> 00:23:08.073
I mean, it was a bad bet.
You know, of course,

00:23:08.156 --> 00:23:11.971
if your point is it's corrupt
to take foreign money. Yeah, I agree.

00:23:12.054 --> 00:23:15.461
I've never taken a dollar
from any foreign government. Also,

00:23:15.545 --> 00:23:18.894
my question is whether that would
be a source of influence.

00:23:18.977 --> 00:23:23.723
They didn't get – well, it wasn't a source
of influence because when Iranian drones

00:23:23.806 --> 00:23:27.504
and missiles poured into the Gulf,
into Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh,

00:23:27.588 --> 00:23:31.020
American bases, all the way
in Jordan and then into Qatar –

00:23:31.250 --> 00:23:35.127
The United States didn't do anything
about it. In fact, last week,

00:23:35.210 --> 00:23:39.447
the Saudis were routed in Yemen,
thereby giving the Houthis control over

00:23:39.530 --> 00:23:42.627
the entrance to the Red Sea.
And Mohammed bin Salman,

00:23:42.710 --> 00:23:47.127
the crown prince of Saudi, apparently
called Trump twice and said, help us.

00:23:47.210 --> 00:23:49.767
And he didn't.
So what did their investment?

00:23:49.850 --> 00:23:53.810
What are the billions they gave
Jared Kushner get them in the end?

00:23:54.170 --> 00:23:58.558
A middle finger. But let me ask one
counter question about the president's

00:23:58.641 --> 00:24:03.572
motives. Your idea is he was told to go to
war by someone and did it almost against

00:24:03.655 --> 00:24:06.532
his will. I'm thinking
it's called Occam's razor.

00:24:06.616 --> 00:24:11.570
The idea that the most likely explanation
for something is a simplest. Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:11.750 --> 00:24:15.423
Would a simpler explanation be
the president has no idea about foreign

00:24:15.506 --> 00:24:18.350
affairs, doesn't listen
to people and made a mistake?

00:24:18.590 --> 00:24:21.886
Well, that's not likely in his
case because it's not true.

00:24:21.969 --> 00:24:24.974
And I'm not guessing about this.
I was there. I mean,

00:24:25.057 --> 00:24:28.470
I spoke to Trump at least 10
times in the month of February,

00:24:28.553 --> 00:24:32.548
probably more in the month of January.
I visited almost every single –

00:24:32.631 --> 00:24:37.093
except for Iran. I visited every country
now involved in this war in the month

00:24:37.176 --> 00:24:38.050
before the war.

00:24:48.590 --> 00:24:51.884
And of course, I heard from people
in the meeting why he was there.

00:24:51.968 --> 00:24:54.304
He was there to push
the war we're currently in.

00:24:54.387 --> 00:24:58.286
So I knew that Trump was under immense
pressure. And therefore, beginning then,

00:24:58.370 --> 00:25:01.587
I talked to him about it.
you know, for a full year.

00:25:01.670 --> 00:25:06.950
And he was not only aware
of the risks, he understood them.

00:25:08.420 --> 00:25:11.126
And he understood them
because they're so obvious,

00:25:11.210 --> 00:25:14.865
but they also are exactly the kind
of thing that Trump understands.

00:25:14.948 --> 00:25:17.180
Commodities prices, for example. Mm-hmm.

00:25:17.540 --> 00:25:19.365
which don't tell the whole
story about anything,

00:25:19.448 --> 00:25:21.147
but they are the basis really of...

00:25:21.230 --> 00:25:23.130
Any economy, the price of commodities.

00:25:24.050 --> 00:25:28.039
And Trump follows them closely.
And the commodity he follows most closely,

00:25:28.122 --> 00:25:32.331
of course, is energy, is oil and gas.
And he's really interested in the topic.

00:25:32.414 --> 00:25:35.907
He talks about it constantly.
And he understood that this entire,

00:25:35.991 --> 00:25:40.309
the pivotal oil and gas region in the
world could be shut down very quickly once

00:25:40.393 --> 00:25:43.886
this war began. He understood that.
We talked about it at length,

00:25:43.969 --> 00:25:45.510
and he didn't want to do it.

00:25:45.770 --> 00:25:51.438
He also talked about, beginning in 2003,
the foolishness of fighting a war across

00:25:51.521 --> 00:25:55.911
the world whose aims are unclear.
In other words, the Iraq War,

00:25:55.994 --> 00:25:59.970
which he was offended by instantly,
to his great credit.

00:26:00.650 --> 00:26:03.387
He knew that that's
the destruction of a president.

00:26:03.470 --> 00:26:07.770
I mean, he once said to me, when George W.
Bush took office, he had all these plans.

00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:10.986
Among them, reforming Social Security,
charitable choice. I mean,

00:26:11.069 --> 00:26:12.919
you sort of go back to his inaugural.

00:26:13.820 --> 00:26:18.141
A war – a land war with Iraq was not
on the list, and yet, of course,

00:26:18.224 --> 00:26:23.502
it defined his presidency and will for all
time and destroyed his presidency and him

00:26:23.586 --> 00:26:25.240
as a man. Trump.

00:26:25.970 --> 00:26:27.290
meditated on that.

00:26:28.250 --> 00:26:32.804
For 20 years. And so the idea that Trump
didn't know the risks, and once again,

00:26:32.887 --> 00:26:35.068
I'm in an unusual position
because I talked to Trump.

00:26:35.151 --> 00:26:38.217
But you've quoted him as waving off
the risk by saying it'll all be fine.

00:26:38.300 --> 00:26:41.030
Which could you want to know what he said?
Go tell you exactly what he said.

00:26:41.113 --> 00:26:43.647
I haven't said this, but I'm
just going to tell you. Sure.

00:26:43.730 --> 00:26:44.790
And this is a fact.

00:26:45.830 --> 00:26:48.271
And I could look at my calendar,
but it was in –

00:26:48.354 --> 00:26:51.846
I had flown back from Tel Aviv,
from Ben-Gurion Airport after seeing

00:26:51.929 --> 00:26:55.610
the ambassador, and two days later
I was in the Oval with Trump alone.

00:26:56.660 --> 00:26:59.713
And he was annoyed that I had given
Huckabee a hard time in this whole

00:26:59.796 --> 00:27:02.267
conversation about Huckabee.
And I said, here, you're US.

00:27:02.350 --> 00:27:04.497
As the son of an ambassador,
I know what the job is.

00:27:04.580 --> 00:27:05.640
entails,

00:27:06.050 --> 00:27:10.605
And your ambassador, your representative
to this nation just called for rearranging

00:27:10.688 --> 00:27:14.293
the Middle East and allowing Israel
to take parts of Saudi Arabia,

00:27:14.377 --> 00:27:17.199
Jordan and Syria like
this is a diplomatic incident.

00:27:17.283 --> 00:27:21.530
And so we had this whole conversation
about this. But then I said this war –

00:27:21.710 --> 00:27:26.028
is not about Iran's nuclear program,
which you told me in the world that you

00:27:26.112 --> 00:27:28.740
eliminated back in –
Last summer in June. Yeah.

00:27:29.660 --> 00:27:31.077
This war...

00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:35.878
is being pushed by Israel with three aims.
One, its own regional hegemony,

00:27:35.961 --> 00:27:36.795
take Israel.

00:27:37.580 --> 00:27:42.178
Iran off the map. They don't have freedom
of movement as long as Iran is a regional

00:27:42.262 --> 00:27:43.095
power.

00:27:43.490 --> 00:27:44.570
Two...

00:27:45.380 --> 00:27:48.137
Diminishing the power of the GCC,
the six Gulf states,

00:27:48.221 --> 00:27:51.925
which are a rival to Israel and are
becoming this kind of Switzerland in

00:27:52.008 --> 00:27:55.292
the Middle East. And that's bad
for Israeli interest. And three,

00:27:55.375 --> 00:27:59.462
getting the U.S. out. of the Middle East
because we constrain their ambitions,

00:27:59.545 --> 00:28:01.752
getting our bases out,
destroying our bases.

00:28:01.835 --> 00:28:04.146
Israel wants our bases
out of the Middle East.

00:28:04.230 --> 00:28:08.290
I said this to Trump to his face in the
Oval Office days before the war began.

00:28:09.560 --> 00:28:14.780
And he looked at me and said, yes, you're
right. But in the end, we all die anyway.

00:28:15.380 --> 00:28:20.707
So it doesn't matter. That's exactly what
he said. In the end, we all die anyway.

00:28:20.790 --> 00:28:22.580
And I said to him, shocked,

00:28:23.060 --> 00:28:26.780
But what about our kids and our
grandkids and like our country?

00:28:27.380 --> 00:28:28.213
And he goes, ah.

00:28:29.750 --> 00:28:34.130
What does that mean? I don't know.
That's a verbatim exchange.

00:28:34.310 --> 00:28:36.890
And I said, And I'm...

00:28:37.220 --> 00:28:41.319
And it was God watches I said that.
Okay. And I thought it was true then,

00:28:41.403 --> 00:28:43.580
and I think it's been proven true now.

00:28:44.030 --> 00:28:47.265
The goal was to get the U.S.
out, to diminish the GCC,

00:28:47.349 --> 00:28:52.305
and obviously to take Iran off the map and
sink it into permanent internal strife,

00:28:52.388 --> 00:28:55.890
into civil war. sectarian strife.

00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.879
And he said it doesn't matter because
in the end we're all dead anyway.

00:28:59.963 --> 00:29:04.177
And I was shocked by that because it's
nihilism and that's the last thing any

00:29:04.260 --> 00:29:08.000
leader should display or any person
should display. It does matter.

00:29:08.300 --> 00:29:11.704
Who lives or dies does matter.
The future does matter. I believe it.

00:29:11.787 --> 00:29:15.756
I have four children. You believe him
to have agreed with your idea that Israel

00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:19.448
was pushing against American interests
specifically. Here's what I said,

00:29:19.532 --> 00:29:20.660
and this is the truth.

00:29:21.800 --> 00:29:25.777
We don't consider anything in foreign
affairs ever from the perspective of other

00:29:25.861 --> 00:29:29.483
nations because we have been in this
position for so long that it doesn't

00:29:29.566 --> 00:29:32.376
matter. We're exceptional
and like people do what we say.

00:29:32.459 --> 00:29:35.117
But in order to understand
why people do what they do,

00:29:35.201 --> 00:29:37.807
you do have to look at things
from their perspective.

00:29:37.891 --> 00:29:41.259
So I was taking what I think is a
charitable position toward Israel.

00:29:41.342 --> 00:29:44.965
Actually, Israel has nuclear weapons.
Israel is a legitimate global power

00:29:45.048 --> 00:29:45.881
because of that.

00:29:46.820 --> 00:29:50.480
And so from Israel's perspective,
Israel wants to control its region.

00:29:50.840 --> 00:29:54.674
Why wouldn't they? We've got the Monroe
Doctrine because we want to control ours.

00:29:54.757 --> 00:29:57.407
We had the Cuban Missile
Crisis for the same reason –

00:29:57.650 --> 00:29:59.917
Obviously, China is inflamed.

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.317
by American troops in Japan
for the same reason. Same with Taiwan.

00:30:03.401 --> 00:30:06.924
China wants control of the South
China Sea, wants control of the East.

00:30:07.007 --> 00:30:09.120
Why shouldn't it have that? Russia was...

00:30:09.240 --> 00:30:11.695
provoked into war over
Ukraine for the same reason.

00:30:11.779 --> 00:30:14.284
Russia wants to control
Belarus for the same reason.

00:30:14.367 --> 00:30:18.017
Control is not the same as enslaved,
but you want control over your region.

00:30:18.100 --> 00:30:20.350
You don't want your enemies
at your doorstep.

00:30:20.700 --> 00:30:24.240
Every great power feels this way
and always has and always will.

00:30:24.630 --> 00:30:28.930
This is what I said to Trump. And so
from Israel's perspective, what are –

00:30:29.070 --> 00:30:33.026
the barriers to regional control,
full regional control, like elbow room.

00:30:33.110 --> 00:30:37.011
We want to, you know, I don't get
hassled over southern Lebanon or Gaza.

00:30:37.094 --> 00:30:39.750
Who's hassling us? Well,
the GCC is hassling us.

00:30:39.900 --> 00:30:42.750
Iran is hassling us and the
United States is hassling us.

00:30:43.170 --> 00:30:46.165
And I didn't present it as,
you know, Israel wants to kill people.

00:30:46.248 --> 00:30:48.450
I was just like, Israel
is a nuclear armed power.

00:30:48.533 --> 00:30:51.761
So of course they want control over
the Middle East. Why wouldn't they?

00:30:51.844 --> 00:30:53.347
And what's standing in the way?

00:30:53.430 --> 00:30:56.030
That's exactly what I said.
And I think that's true.

00:30:56.370 --> 00:31:00.150
And I just want the record
to reflect that I am –

00:31:00.270 --> 00:31:04.925
Giving Israel grace in this Israel
is the same motives that any power does,

00:31:05.009 --> 00:31:05.842
including us.

00:31:07.290 --> 00:31:10.731
Has your concern about the president
reached the point where you would advocate

00:31:10.815 --> 00:31:14.015
for people in this year's elections,
which are pretty important?

00:31:14.610 --> 00:31:15.710
to vote for Democrats.

00:31:16.110 --> 00:31:19.126
Who say they want to put a check
on the president. I mean, you know,

00:31:19.209 --> 00:31:21.909
you would like – I don't
want anyone to vote for this.

00:31:23.370 --> 00:31:27.879
You know, you have like Fox News
politics and unhappy rich girl politics.

00:31:27.962 --> 00:31:32.345
Those are your options. You know,
you've got one party that's like, oh,

00:31:32.428 --> 00:31:35.364
we need to ban Sharia
law and kill more Muslims.

00:31:35.448 --> 00:31:40.082
And you've got another party that's
just like the politics of Jackson Hole.

00:31:40.166 --> 00:31:44.234
You know what I mean? It's like
unhappy inherited money rich girl.

00:31:44.317 --> 00:31:48.345
Trans people. Ice is bad. Like,
how about we get an adult party here?

00:31:48.429 --> 00:31:51.547
When you have talked recently
about finding some third way.

00:31:51.630 --> 00:31:53.950
Is that a wish or a plan?

00:31:55.790 --> 00:31:59.751
Well, I don't think I could organize
your daughter's birthday party.

00:31:59.834 --> 00:32:02.902
I mean I'm just lacking
the skills required to mount.

00:32:02.986 --> 00:32:07.482
She prefers a small one. I think you can.
If it's the three of us at the Palm

00:32:07.565 --> 00:32:11.490
for dinner, I can do it. Got it,
got it. But anything beyond that.

00:32:11.790 --> 00:32:15.565
Out of my capacity.
I don't have the skills for that.

00:32:15.648 --> 00:32:20.887
My skills are rhetorical, I think.
My self-assessment is I think I can –

00:32:20.970 --> 00:32:24.510
understand big picture trends
and I think I can explain them

00:32:24.600 --> 00:32:28.071
in a way that's understandable.
That's kind of it.

00:32:28.154 --> 00:32:31.838
So I wouldn't even attempt
to organize anything ever.

00:32:31.921 --> 00:32:36.671
What I can do is what I do do,
which is try to identify the problem,

00:32:36.754 --> 00:32:41.007
speak the truth out loud.
That's the beginning of all change,

00:32:41.090 --> 00:32:46.195
positive change. And the core problem
is that no matter who you vote for,

00:32:46.278 --> 00:32:47.700
you get John McCain.

00:32:48.030 --> 00:32:53.017
And most Americans don't want John McCain.
Nothing. It's John McCain personally,

00:32:53.100 --> 00:32:58.151
whom I knew very well and liked, but his
views are totally out of the mainstream,

00:32:58.234 --> 00:33:03.094
completely out of the mainstream. So we
just need a leadership that represents

00:33:03.177 --> 00:33:06.790
the majority of the population.
It's kind of that simple.

00:33:06.930 --> 00:33:09.920
in its priorities.
You got to vote this fall?

00:33:10.320 --> 00:33:14.761
No. As I said, I almost never vote
just because of the weirdness of my job,

00:33:14.844 --> 00:33:17.536
not because I'm against
the democratic system.

00:33:17.619 --> 00:33:21.480
It's our only hope because after
that comes violence, of course.

00:33:21.870 --> 00:33:25.153
Your neighbors here in Maine have an
opportunity to decide control of the U.S.

00:33:25.237 --> 00:33:27.355
Senate. They've got a Senate
race that means a lot.

00:33:27.438 --> 00:33:30.117
What would you tell them to do
or think about or consider? Well,

00:33:30.200 --> 00:33:32.250
they have less of a choice than they did.

00:33:32.490 --> 00:33:35.429
They had a choice between Susan
Collins and Graham Plattner.

00:33:35.513 --> 00:33:37.830
I'm not really on either
side, actually. Yeah.

00:33:38.100 --> 00:33:42.053
I know them both and kind of like
them both. I'll just say that,

00:33:42.136 --> 00:33:46.740
though I think it's illegal to like
Graham Platner, but I do as a person.

00:33:46.830 --> 00:33:50.593
But Graham Plattner was slightly different
from your conventional democratic offering

00:33:50.677 --> 00:33:54.037
in that his foreign policy views,
which he earned, were a lot of money.

00:33:54.120 --> 00:33:57.075
by serving multiple tours
in Iraq and almost getting killed.

00:33:57.158 --> 00:34:01.024
He has a right to those views. His views
were out of the democratic mainstream

00:34:01.108 --> 00:34:04.500
and he was destroyed by the democratic
party in a fake sex scandal.

00:34:04.890 --> 00:34:07.720
So Graham Plattner should still be
the Democratic nominee. Of course.

00:34:07.803 --> 00:34:10.537
Graham Plattner was – by the way,
Graham Plattner was the choice –

00:34:10.620 --> 00:34:13.170
of voters. Remember them? In Maine.

00:34:13.410 --> 00:34:14.690
He won. He won.

00:34:15.390 --> 00:34:17.850
So, yeah, he was an overwhelming choice.

00:34:18.510 --> 00:34:22.154
But of course, they don't get to vote
for him in the fall because the Democratic

00:34:22.237 --> 00:34:24.344
Party, including
the Democratic Party of Maine,

00:34:24.427 --> 00:34:26.887
which is run by people who
weren't even from Maine –

00:34:26.970 --> 00:34:29.904
Rich girls, not from Maine.
Literally, rich girls, not from Maine.

00:34:29.987 --> 00:34:32.637
I hope everyone's offended
by that because it's true.

00:34:33.630 --> 00:34:37.730
Yeah, they took them out. It took him
out in a fake sex scandal. So my view,

00:34:37.814 --> 00:34:41.396
I'm not here to endorse Graham Plattner.
I'm not endorsing Graham Plattner.

00:34:41.479 --> 00:34:44.328
I'm not voting in, you know,
I'm not voting at all. However,

00:34:44.411 --> 00:34:47.561
I'm endorsing the idea that voters
ought to have a real choice.

00:34:48.180 --> 00:34:50.235
Not between two species
of the same flavor,

00:34:50.319 --> 00:34:52.623
but between flavors
that they choose themselves.

00:34:52.706 --> 00:34:56.104
Do you not care at all who controls
the Senate of the House next year?

00:34:56.188 --> 00:35:00.232
Of course I do. I just think there's less
of a difference than I thought there was.

00:35:00.316 --> 00:35:03.316
And for me, as someone who
is involved in partisan politics,

00:35:03.450 --> 00:35:07.163
arguing for 29 years, I can promise
you it's a bewildering realization,

00:35:07.246 --> 00:35:11.470
one I did not want to have, because what
does it say about how I spent my life?

00:35:12.240 --> 00:35:14.469
What does it say about how
you spent your life? Well,

00:35:14.553 --> 00:35:17.257
a lot of it was wasted because
I was having fake debates.

00:35:17.340 --> 00:35:21.236
And I'm not exactly sure why I didn't
see that or allow myself to see it,

00:35:21.319 --> 00:35:23.500
maybe because I was at the center of it.

00:35:24.720 --> 00:35:26.782
There's a famous quote,
which I'm going to mangle,

00:35:26.866 --> 00:35:28.756
so I'm not going to attempt it.
But basically,

00:35:28.839 --> 00:35:31.939
the idea is if you're paid not
to notice something, you don't.

00:35:32.190 --> 00:35:34.267
And I think that may have happened to me.

00:35:34.350 --> 00:35:38.328
And I'm ashamed to say that. I don't
actually know why I couldn't see some

00:35:38.411 --> 00:35:39.244
of this.

00:35:39.780 --> 00:35:42.460
But I couldn't, and...

00:35:42.690 --> 00:35:46.659
Now I can, and I'm shocked by it.
I'm absolutely shocked by it.

00:35:46.743 --> 00:35:51.291
Let me ask about another aspect
of this presidency that you've commented

00:35:51.375 --> 00:35:55.117
on recently. There's a Vanity
Fair article that quotes you.

00:35:55.200 --> 00:36:00.470
describing a meeting with the president
in which the Epstein files came up. Yeah.

00:36:00.553 --> 00:36:05.228
And you got from the president
an explanation of why he was so reluctant

00:36:05.311 --> 00:36:09.259
to release them. I remember
the conversation very, very well.

00:36:09.343 --> 00:36:13.885
So I knew a million people in that
world because of my age and my job.

00:36:13.969 --> 00:36:17.256
I knew a million people
who had eaten with Epstein.

00:36:17.339 --> 00:36:22.560
I knew people who knew Epstein very well.
I knew people who worked for Epstein.

00:36:25.200 --> 00:36:28.010
world famous criminal
slash intel operative.

00:36:28.093 --> 00:36:32.217
He was also someone who circulated
in the world that I lived in.

00:36:32.301 --> 00:36:37.017
I never met Epstein, thank God,
but I knew a million people who knew him.

00:36:37.100 --> 00:36:41.685
So I knew a lot about the story and I
thought it was really interesting

00:36:41.768 --> 00:36:44.270
and dark. Thank you. So when it

00:36:44.970 --> 00:36:48.919
When this all came to a head last
summer, I think it was in July,

00:36:49.002 --> 00:36:53.633
and it became clear that Trump didn't
want to release the files that the DOJ

00:36:53.717 --> 00:36:55.950
was holding, I said to Trump, dude –

00:36:56.550 --> 00:36:59.815
You know, what are you doing?
I don't think that this implicates you.

00:36:59.898 --> 00:37:03.697
I have never thought. And I don't think
to this day that there's some hidden sex

00:37:03.780 --> 00:37:06.560
crime that Trump committed.
For all my criticisms of Trump,

00:37:06.643 --> 00:37:10.199
I don't think he molested girls on Epstein
Island. I just don't think that.

00:37:10.282 --> 00:37:13.741
I mean, my view will change if evidence
emerges, but I didn't think that.

00:37:13.824 --> 00:37:17.768
I don't I didn't think it. I don't think
there's a deep secret in the Epstein files

00:37:17.852 --> 00:37:21.311
that we don't yet know. I do think
President Trump, I mean, specifically.

00:37:21.394 --> 00:37:22.544
No, go on. You tell me.

00:37:26.550 --> 00:37:28.496
sex related. I didn't think
that then. So I said, what,

00:37:28.579 --> 00:37:31.477
why don't you just release all
the fouls? You said you would.

00:37:31.560 --> 00:37:34.087
And I don't think it's going to hurt you.

00:37:34.170 --> 00:37:40.008
Yes. And he said, oh, this is all a plot
to discredit me. It's like Russiagate,

00:37:40.091 --> 00:37:44.570
which was a plot to discredit
him and totally absurd, actually.

00:37:46.080 --> 00:37:49.302
And I often said that on Fox and I
mean it. And it turned out to be true.

00:37:49.385 --> 00:37:52.199
It was absurd. So he said, well,
it's like that. And I said, no,

00:37:52.283 --> 00:37:53.583
it's not like that at all.

00:37:54.480 --> 00:37:57.788
Like, you just release it.
Like, why do you care?

00:37:57.872 --> 00:38:02.440
And he was upset about it and,
like, paranoid about it. And, um...

00:38:02.610 --> 00:38:06.175
And of course, we saw what happened next,
which is he wound up taking credit

00:38:06.258 --> 00:38:08.458
for Epstein's crimes.
Why would you do that?

00:38:09.540 --> 00:38:14.645
Being blamed for Epstein's crimes. So he
was withholding the evidence because he

00:38:14.728 --> 00:38:19.225
thought it would be Used against him
politically. He thought the whole – look,

00:38:19.308 --> 00:38:23.306
I don't know what he actually thought.
I'll just tell you what he told me.

00:38:23.389 --> 00:38:27.441
He said, yes. Yes. He said to me,
the whole conversation will be twisted by

00:38:27.525 --> 00:38:31.688
the media to implicate me in what Epstein
did. I got nothing to do with this.

00:38:31.771 --> 00:38:35.879
I broke off with my friendship with him
many years ago after he hit on girls

00:38:35.962 --> 00:38:39.739
at the spa at Mar-a-Lago. That's
what he told me. The guy was a creep.

00:38:39.822 --> 00:38:42.910
I didn't like him. And I've
got nothing to do with this.

00:38:46.110 --> 00:38:48.410
to implicate me in Epstein
because I knew him.

00:38:56.730 --> 00:39:00.796
I want to move on to another question,
another aspect of the world,

00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:05.070
and in this case, the president,
at least at the beginning. You said,

00:39:05.153 --> 00:39:06.830
I never believed... Trump.

00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:08.700
was a Christian.

00:39:09.450 --> 00:39:12.615
He has in fact said, quote, I am
a Christian. Why do you think he's not?

00:39:12.699 --> 00:39:16.225
I think he said I'm not a Christian. He
also said I'm not going to heaven twice.

00:39:16.308 --> 00:39:19.058
I want to ask about that, too.
I don't know the answer.

00:39:20.790 --> 00:39:24.350
You know, I... Thank you. Thank you.

00:39:24.720 --> 00:39:30.825
I don't ever want to make judgments
about other people's religious faith.

00:39:30.908 --> 00:39:36.674
I respect religious faith, all faiths.
Through the course of my life,

00:39:36.757 --> 00:39:39.300
reflexively defended religion.

00:39:39.810 --> 00:39:44.131
faithful Muslims, Orthodox Jews,
faithful Hindus, and faithful Christians.

00:39:44.214 --> 00:39:47.130
I just like people of faith.
I like people who...

00:39:47.340 --> 00:39:50.440
Bow down before a higher power
because I think it's essential.

00:39:50.700 --> 00:39:54.382
As a prophylactic against hubris,
if nothing else. So humility is good.

00:39:54.465 --> 00:39:58.253
Go on. It's essential. And in leadership,
it's the indispensable humility

00:39:58.336 --> 00:39:59.927
and courage are the two things.

00:40:00.010 --> 00:40:03.326
You need much more than
intelligence. But anyway,

00:40:03.409 --> 00:40:06.670
so I feel uncomfortable
declaring intelligence.

00:40:07.300 --> 00:40:12.520
Trump's a Christian or not, but I
believe he has said I'm not a Christian.

00:40:12.603 --> 00:40:17.178
So you think he's not a Christian
because – I shouldn't say that.

00:40:17.262 --> 00:40:20.200
I mean as a pretty bad Christian myself –

00:40:20.590 --> 00:40:25.570
I it's really not my job. In fact, I'm
not allowed to run around judging other

00:40:25.653 --> 00:40:30.710
people's spiritual conditions. So if
First of all, I'm sorry for saying that.

00:40:31.360 --> 00:40:33.180
And second, um...

00:40:33.910 --> 00:40:37.253
I said it on the basis of what I thought
was a real quote on a video that I saw.

00:40:37.336 --> 00:40:40.379
I was not there. Okay. Christian said it.
There may well be such a quote.

00:40:40.462 --> 00:40:41.312
We'll look it up.

00:40:42.570 --> 00:40:45.497
There's another aspect to this, though.
Let's talk about something that he said.

00:40:45.580 --> 00:40:48.340
You correctly noted –
Something the president said.

00:40:48.490 --> 00:40:51.123
In October 2025,
the president told reporters,

00:40:51.206 --> 00:40:53.450
I don't think I'm getting into heaven.

00:40:53.980 --> 00:40:56.027
He said it three times,
three different ways.

00:40:56.110 --> 00:40:59.472
As someone who knows him, who's
had long conversations with him,

00:40:59.555 --> 00:41:01.870
why do you think he
would not believe that?

00:41:02.440 --> 00:41:05.981
He's getting it to heaven.
Because I think he feels that way.

00:41:06.064 --> 00:41:10.580
I think he feels that way. He fears that.
I will also say that Trump drops –

00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:14.980
a lot of kind of self-aware
comments parenthetically,

00:41:15.400 --> 00:41:17.900
You know, speaking to Trump is...

00:41:18.580 --> 00:41:24.857
an amazing experience. And it's so amusing
and interesting. And it's almost like,

00:41:24.940 --> 00:41:27.427
being hit with a wave
of warm water, you're kind of,

00:41:27.510 --> 00:41:30.442
you lose orientation for a second.
There's just a lot, right?

00:41:30.525 --> 00:41:31.875
And part of it's by design.

00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:36.511
to throw you off balance and to subdue
you with words, um, disconnect,

00:41:36.594 --> 00:41:40.034
control the room. If you're the one
a hundred percent, that's it.

00:41:40.118 --> 00:41:42.317
And I know you've had the experience. Um,

00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.683
Um, so it's, you know, it's,
it's something that he does on purpose.

00:41:45.766 --> 00:41:49.445
It's a tactic, but it's also a tick.
It's something that just, he just does.

00:41:49.528 --> 00:41:52.365
Cause that's who he is.
And one of the things that he does,

00:41:52.449 --> 00:41:56.299
he throws these lines out that kind
of stick with you later. Did he say that?

00:41:57.460 --> 00:41:59.507
I mean, he once said
to me in conversation...

00:41:59.590 --> 00:42:01.390
He said, I'm really insecure.

00:42:01.870 --> 00:42:04.667
which I've always known,
of course, because I know him.

00:42:04.750 --> 00:42:07.630
And then he said it again,
because I'm really insecure.

00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:12.084
And you sort of, is he joking?
Is he not? No, he's not joking.

00:42:12.167 --> 00:42:15.797
He tells the truth about how he
feels in the middle of this kind of,

00:42:15.880 --> 00:42:22.880
roiling boobies of words and ideas
and grunts and inarticulately expressed.

00:42:23.680 --> 00:42:28.564
uh concepts he'll sort of throw out this
thing that he's thinking about and um i

00:42:28.648 --> 00:42:33.532
felt that his public declaration on not
getting into heaven was was real i don't

00:42:33.615 --> 00:42:38.561
know that i've never asked him about it
but i think that's right i know that he's

00:42:38.645 --> 00:42:40.880
uncomfortable with the idea of death

00:42:42.190 --> 00:42:45.610
Very. And that's been
a good thing, by the way.

00:42:45.790 --> 00:42:49.057
Trump in his first term
didn't get us into, you know,

00:42:49.140 --> 00:42:53.355
by the standards of American presidents,
he was a restrained leader,

00:42:53.439 --> 00:42:54.437
very restrained.

00:42:54.520 --> 00:42:58.037
Most restrained since Jimmy Carter, and I
love that about him. I love that then,

00:42:58.120 --> 00:43:01.212
and I'm grateful for it. You think
that his genuine state of mind is,

00:43:01.295 --> 00:43:03.895
I think I've done some
terrible things in the world.

00:43:04.540 --> 00:43:08.129
Why ever I did them, I did them,
and I don't think I'm getting into heaven.

00:43:08.212 --> 00:43:10.262
Well, I mean, I've been around a lot of –

00:43:10.780 --> 00:43:14.917
as we all have at a certain age, but
around people who are on their way out,

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.526
you know, who can see death approaching.
And of course that these are the questions

00:43:19.609 --> 00:43:23.444
that they fixate on. It's not, how am
I going to make more money? You know,

00:43:23.527 --> 00:43:27.497
the temporal concerns tend to kind of fade
as you have a sight picture of eternity.

00:43:27.581 --> 00:43:31.481
Although he's been making a lot of money.
Well, he certainly has. Okay, go on.

00:43:31.720 --> 00:43:32.720
which is disgusting.

00:43:33.490 --> 00:43:36.416
No president should ever make a dollar
as president. That should be completely,

00:43:36.499 --> 00:43:38.299
I don't know why that's not illegal.

00:43:39.570 --> 00:43:43.420
I hope it is. No member of Congress
should be using his office to make money.

00:43:45.010 --> 00:43:47.736
Anyway, but I do think people as they age,

00:43:47.819 --> 00:43:52.552
all of a sudden begin to think about
the questions that American society

00:43:52.635 --> 00:43:56.097
discourages people from asking
for most of our lives,

00:43:56.180 --> 00:44:01.277
which is like what happens after that's
natural. I think it's important. And,

00:44:01.360 --> 00:44:05.034
I've known other people who feel
despondent as they approach the end

00:44:05.117 --> 00:44:09.040
because they don't have confidence
something better is coming for them.

00:44:09.490 --> 00:44:12.793
It's totally the most it's
the most understandable thing.

00:44:12.876 --> 00:44:17.450
But when he said to me, it doesn't
matter because in the end, we're all dead.

00:44:18.010 --> 00:44:25.010
that suggested to me someone who's
like made decisions about, um,

00:44:25.690 --> 00:44:29.444
What happens next? Like, I just
don't care at this point. Like,

00:44:29.527 --> 00:44:33.730
I'm just proceeding with the knowledge
that blackness awaits forever.

00:44:34.540 --> 00:44:38.480
Boy, that is not a healthy worldview, and
it's an unacceptable worldview for a man

00:44:38.563 --> 00:44:42.061
with decision-making power. I have
a question about your own faith. Yeah.

00:44:42.144 --> 00:44:45.642
You describe yourself as Episcopalian.
You grew up that way. You grew up.

00:44:45.726 --> 00:44:47.850
You were raised Episcopalian.
Has your faith—

00:44:47.933 --> 00:44:50.696
So you said that means anything.
Well, it means a certain—

00:44:50.779 --> 00:44:53.541
It's a cultural designation,
really. It's a cultural—okay,

00:44:53.624 --> 00:44:56.632
that's a fair point. Yeah,
but I'm a generational Episcopalian.

00:44:56.715 --> 00:45:00.715
There's religion, which is maybe different
from someone's faith. Yeah, for sure.

00:45:01.270 --> 00:45:05.323
Has your faith evolved or changed
in some way? Oh, so dramatically. Yes,

00:45:05.406 --> 00:45:06.670
so dramatically. Yeah.

00:45:07.510 --> 00:45:12.689
I mean, I wouldn't hold myself out as
a role model for anybody in any category

00:45:12.773 --> 00:45:13.606
ever.

00:45:14.020 --> 00:45:15.797
and particularly not

00:45:15.880 --> 00:45:20.056
with my faith. I don't think I'm
an especially good person. In fact,

00:45:20.140 --> 00:45:24.880
if there's one thing, I had a long
conversation with one of my many daughters

00:45:24.963 --> 00:45:29.147
this morning on this exact topic,
that if there's one thing that...

00:45:29.230 --> 00:45:33.424
An attempt to follow Jesus inspires
and all people who sincerely do.

00:45:33.507 --> 00:45:38.350
It's like a deep knowledge of your own
inadequacy and crappiness as a person.

00:45:39.040 --> 00:45:41.862
So, I mean, my personal view
is that if you decide, like,

00:45:41.945 --> 00:45:44.800
I'm going to really try to be
a good Christian and you –

00:45:45.010 --> 00:45:47.259
start to believe that you really,
really are a good Christian,

00:45:47.342 --> 00:45:48.442
you're doing it wrong.

00:45:49.240 --> 00:45:51.677
Like humility is the ticket price.

00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:57.225
repentance, um, Is the first step.
Is that the evolution for you,

00:45:57.308 --> 00:46:01.454
is realizing that in a deeper way
than maybe 10, 20, 30 years ago? Yeah,

00:46:01.538 --> 00:46:02.830
100%. Yeah, I mean I –

00:46:03.730 --> 00:46:06.502
It's been a process.
You know, I had to quit drinking.

00:46:06.585 --> 00:46:09.568
I'm no longer allowed to drink
for 24 years. So, you know,

00:46:09.651 --> 00:46:13.851
when you everyone else is drinking and you
realize you can't drink because you're

00:46:13.934 --> 00:46:15.150
just like a slobbering.

00:46:15.850 --> 00:46:18.797
pathetic and content and alcoholic.
Like that's a –

00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:22.337
that's a constant reminder that
you're not like a perfect person.

00:46:22.420 --> 00:46:27.712
right? Okay. Which is nice, which is why
AA is so great and so much better than any

00:46:27.795 --> 00:46:30.557
church I've ever been
to because, you know,

00:46:30.640 --> 00:46:35.927
You can't even talk until you
admit in public your first name,

00:46:36.010 --> 00:46:40.050
Not your last name. Like they detach
you from your family. So it's just you.

00:46:40.780 --> 00:46:43.692
Hi, I'm Tucker, and I'm an alcoholic.
Imagine saying something like that.

00:46:43.776 --> 00:46:45.926
It's so embarrassing.
An alcoholic? Really?

00:46:46.330 --> 00:46:49.676
like a spreading urine stain on Skid Row.
It's like embarrassing.

00:46:49.760 --> 00:46:53.770
But you have to say that or you can't
talk. So there's something about that.

00:46:54.730 --> 00:46:58.973
And this is, of course, by design
and people who wrote the 12 steps were

00:46:59.057 --> 00:47:02.278
Christians, but it very much
identical to Christianity.

00:47:02.362 --> 00:47:06.365
Like you don't come before God
in prayer before admitting, you know,

00:47:06.448 --> 00:47:07.650
forgive us our sins.

00:47:08.290 --> 00:47:11.794
as we forgive those who sin
against us, I'm no better than you.

00:47:11.878 --> 00:47:15.010
That's like a basic Christian
precept. And I love that.

00:47:15.400 --> 00:47:20.381
I love that. It's like it's the greatest.
I don't know of another faith that demands

00:47:20.465 --> 00:47:24.963
that. There are people who imagine
an impersonal God that created the world,

00:47:25.047 --> 00:47:29.726
but it's not talking to the individual.
And there are people who feel they have

00:47:29.810 --> 00:47:31.920
a personal relationship with Jesus.

00:47:32.500 --> 00:47:33.700
Where are you on that?

00:47:34.600 --> 00:47:40.163
A serious question? If you're comfortable
answering, if you're uncomfortable.

00:47:40.247 --> 00:47:44.500
Of course. I mean, I have zero
interest in Watchmaker God.

00:47:44.620 --> 00:47:47.586
Like, okay, how's that
different from the Big Bang?

00:47:47.669 --> 00:47:51.712
The watchmaker who makes the thing.
Yes, sorry, sorry. Exactly. Yeah,

00:47:51.795 --> 00:47:56.076
how is that different from the Big Bang?
It's not in any way. No, no, no,

00:47:56.160 --> 00:47:59.784
you don't. And by the way,
I feel like, this is self-flattery,

00:47:59.867 --> 00:48:01.840
but I feel like I'm kind of busy.

00:48:01.990 --> 00:48:06.450
We don't have time for any of this
stuff unless it's real, unless God...

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:11.188
is alive and showing his power every
day through other people and in nature.

00:48:11.271 --> 00:48:15.403
I mean, I don't I don't have time for it.
The conversation about artificial

00:48:15.486 --> 00:48:17.060
and artificial intelligence.

00:48:17.680 --> 00:48:22.717
touches on God again and again. You hear
about people who think they're creating

00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:23.387
a new God.

00:48:23.470 --> 00:48:27.483
The Sand God Silicon. Interesting.
You hear about people who think that

00:48:27.566 --> 00:48:30.021
by developing AI,
they'll get closer to God.

00:48:30.105 --> 00:48:33.598
They'll get closer to the knowledge
of how the universe works.

00:48:33.682 --> 00:48:36.137
What do you think about
that line of reason?

00:48:36.220 --> 00:48:38.470
You get closer to God through humility.

00:48:39.340 --> 00:48:44.224
You can't approach God before you
acknowledge you're not God. Okay.

00:48:44.308 --> 00:48:49.720
So anything that causes people
to embrace the lie that they are God-like,

00:48:50.290 --> 00:48:55.778
that they're not lumpy, furry, pathetic
primates stumbling around in the dark,

00:48:55.861 --> 00:48:57.767
gets them farther from God.

00:48:57.850 --> 00:49:02.239
Okay, so let's just start there. Okay.
And I think the three Abrahamic faiths

00:49:02.323 --> 00:49:06.137
acknowledge that. In fact,
that's core, certainly core to Judaism,

00:49:06.220 --> 00:49:09.037
whose core texts are also
the core Christian texts.

00:49:09.121 --> 00:49:12.590
So I've read them a lot.
And I think it's true in Islam, too.

00:49:12.850 --> 00:49:17.830
You bow down before God five times a day.
So I would just say, again...

00:49:18.820 --> 00:49:22.274
So you're not getting close to God
until you acknowledge you're not God.

00:49:22.357 --> 00:49:25.664
And my sense is that a lot of the
developers of AI mistake themselves

00:49:25.747 --> 00:49:28.584
for God. And I have interviewed
a lot of them. I know a lot of them.

00:49:28.668 --> 00:49:30.922
I've spent a few years on this topic,
both professionally.

00:49:31.005 --> 00:49:33.259
I've done a bunch of interviews on it.
But more than that,

00:49:33.342 --> 00:49:36.080
I've traveled to a number of different
countries and talked to a bunch

00:49:36.163 --> 00:49:39.384
of different people off camera because I'm
really interested in it. And of course,

00:49:39.467 --> 00:49:42.887
I don't understand it. But what I'm
struck by is how little they understand.

00:49:42.970 --> 00:49:45.947
about AI, the people who are
developing it. And I mean the biggest...

00:49:46.030 --> 00:49:48.506
companies. And I've talked to all
of them except the anthropic.

00:49:48.590 --> 00:49:50.741
Even some of the engineers
don't get why things happen.

00:49:50.825 --> 00:49:52.692
So they don't understand
two key things. I mean,

00:49:52.775 --> 00:49:56.023
I think they don't understand a lot. But
the two key things they don't understand,

00:49:56.107 --> 00:49:57.887
and they'll tell you if you ask them.

00:49:57.970 --> 00:49:59.937
One is how the large language models work.

00:50:00.020 --> 00:50:00.327
Thank you.

00:50:00.410 --> 00:50:04.076
They don't understand. So their large
language violence are based on one paper

00:50:04.160 --> 00:50:08.310
that theorized if you do this, something
wild will happen. And the paper was right.

00:50:08.540 --> 00:50:11.776
something wild did happen.
But if you ask any AI engineer, well,

00:50:11.860 --> 00:50:13.260
how exactly does that work?

00:50:14.510 --> 00:50:16.017
They can't tell you
because they don't know.

00:50:16.100 --> 00:50:19.080
The second thing they don't
know is the energy draw.

00:50:19.370 --> 00:50:23.663
They don't – nobody,
as of yesterday at least,

00:50:23.747 --> 00:50:30.747
understands exactly and can predict with
precision how much energy AI compute will

00:50:31.549 --> 00:50:35.010
consume. So, They can't
scale it out. Yeah.

00:50:35.720 --> 00:50:38.056
And so those are big
unknowns, huge unknowns.

00:50:38.139 --> 00:50:42.087
Like on the basis of those two facts
alone, we don't know these two things.

00:50:42.171 --> 00:50:44.990
We need to slow down.
That's my view right there. You,

00:50:45.073 --> 00:50:49.290
for several years since leaving Fox News,
have made your living on the Internet.

00:50:49.374 --> 00:50:52.408
Yeah. And you're a thoughtful guy.
But not in pornography,

00:50:52.492 --> 00:50:56.547
like totally legitimate. That's good
to know. Good to know. Not the dark web,

00:50:56.631 --> 00:51:00.794
just the normal web. Thank you. Thank
you for confirming that. I appreciate it.

00:51:00.877 --> 00:51:02.060
I appreciate it. Yeah.

00:51:02.210 --> 00:51:06.282
You've made your living on the Internet,
and I'm sure you're very thoughtful

00:51:06.366 --> 00:51:10.001
and you understand the incentives,
the incentives to get more views,

00:51:10.084 --> 00:51:12.490
to get more clicks,
to build up the numbers.

00:51:14.360 --> 00:51:18.657
the incentives seem to cause people
to tend toward more extreme...

00:51:18.740 --> 00:51:23.180
or divisive or wild statements.

00:51:23.930 --> 00:51:28.571
How do you guard against that danger
yourself as you talk in front of people

00:51:28.654 --> 00:51:32.517
all the time? And do you think
you've ever been affected by it?

00:51:32.600 --> 00:51:38.181
Well, I've been in audience-incentivized
media like you, like my whole life.

00:51:38.265 --> 00:51:43.399
So cable news measures its audience
response way more precisely, yeah,

00:51:43.482 --> 00:51:45.417
and much more hangs on it.

00:51:45.500 --> 00:51:48.538
So I've definitely lived, it's not
just the internet that's like this.

00:51:48.622 --> 00:51:51.214
It's the New York Times,
it's the Washington Post, it's NPR,

00:51:51.298 --> 00:51:53.132
it's me. Circulation,
audience, absolutely.

00:51:53.215 --> 00:51:56.343
But there's something special about
the internet, that instant feedback,

00:51:56.426 --> 00:51:58.974
success or failure. I mean,
I'll give you an honest answer,

00:51:59.057 --> 00:52:01.695
which you won't believe,
but you can talk. I've got a couple,

00:52:01.778 --> 00:52:04.326
three people who work here
and you can ask them off camera.

00:52:04.409 --> 00:52:07.626
I'm not claiming to believe or disbelieve
anything. I don't pay attention.

00:52:07.709 --> 00:52:11.194
You don't pay attention? I was the only
anchor at Fox who was not on the ratings

00:52:11.277 --> 00:52:14.321
list. I never learned how
to read ratings in television.

00:52:14.404 --> 00:52:17.487
The ratings list was like an email
distribution. Internal email,

00:52:17.571 --> 00:52:20.902
like every day. I wasn't on Fox email,
so I don't do email. Honestly,

00:52:20.985 --> 00:52:24.266
when you were on Fox, you didn't
need to keep track of your ratings.

00:52:24.350 --> 00:52:28.373
Everybody knew they were very high. But my
ratings were up because I didn't pay any

00:52:28.457 --> 00:52:30.600
attention to them.
And when I started at Fox,

00:52:30.683 --> 00:52:33.866
which was the week Trump got
elected in 2016, I thought to myself,

00:52:33.949 --> 00:52:37.280
what do I want to do with this?
I've been in television for 20 years,

00:52:37.363 --> 00:52:41.513
and I had a lot of shows. And I thought,
now I'm in primetime at Fox. People watch.

00:52:41.930 --> 00:52:46.231
to achieve. And the number one thing I
wanted to achieve was get the neocons out

00:52:46.315 --> 00:52:50.988
of the Republican party. because they
did the Iraq war. And I was really mad.

00:52:51.072 --> 00:52:55.624
I remain mad about the Iraq war. And so
I systematically brought on Fox News

00:52:55.707 --> 00:53:00.160
contributors like Max Boot or John
Bolton, and I grilled them on my show.

00:53:00.560 --> 00:53:07.114
And the audience hated it. They hated
it because a key plank of the Republican

00:53:07.198 --> 00:53:09.177
platform since George W.

00:53:09.260 --> 00:53:14.670
Bush was we're neocons like we're, we're
the world's policemen and we're doing

00:53:14.753 --> 00:53:15.880
this because we,

00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:19.900
We're bringing freedom and they hate us
for our freedoms and all that nonsense.

00:53:19.983 --> 00:53:23.883
And so I went against our audience and
my producer's like, what are you doing?

00:53:24.440 --> 00:53:27.440
And I thought it was right.
And by the way, I also thought –

00:53:28.040 --> 00:53:32.205
It would work over time. Like people,
I always felt that people agreed with me

00:53:32.288 --> 00:53:36.700
secretly. Maybe I, maybe I'm more arrogant
than I think I am. Anyway, I did that.

00:53:37.430 --> 00:53:41.024
And it didn't help our ratings.
But ultimately, I think it did.

00:53:41.107 --> 00:53:45.635
But day-to-day ratings are a trap. You
wind up like Sean Hannity doing the same

00:53:45.718 --> 00:53:49.570
show every night because it worked
three years ago. Don't do that.

00:53:50.930 --> 00:53:52.671
Be more like, honestly,
like Rachel Maddow,

00:53:52.755 --> 00:53:56.151
who I don't agree with on a lot of stuff,
but Rachel Maddow would just do whatever

00:53:56.234 --> 00:53:58.697
she wanted to do. If Rachel
Maddow thought it was important,

00:53:58.780 --> 00:54:02.367
and I used to work with her, so I know
her, she'd be like, well, I don't care.

00:54:02.450 --> 00:54:03.670
I think it's important.

00:54:03.890 --> 00:54:07.225
And she got to be number one in her
area, liberal television, doing that.

00:54:07.309 --> 00:54:10.363
And I just think it works.
So I don't pay attention to the numbers.

00:54:10.446 --> 00:54:12.845
I don't even know what
the numbers are actually here.

00:54:12.928 --> 00:54:15.140
The only numbers I ever
see are the YouTube ones.

00:54:15.223 --> 00:54:17.323
I don't know what our podcast numbers are.

00:54:18.020 --> 00:54:22.977
Um, I do know because we had a company
meeting yesterday that a lot of

00:54:23.060 --> 00:54:27.740
the viewers who came with us when
I was fired from Fox have gone.

00:54:28.250 --> 00:54:31.574
That was the analysis of people
who work here. That's okay.

00:54:31.657 --> 00:54:33.390
What's the reason if you know?

00:54:33.830 --> 00:54:35.430
Or Trump.

00:54:35.630 --> 00:54:39.747
You know, they love Trump and Trump called
me low IQ and made fun of the fact that I

00:54:39.830 --> 00:54:42.147
didn't graduate from college.
And he's an idiot.

00:54:42.230 --> 00:54:44.630
He didn't graduate from he
didn't go to Wharton.

00:54:44.840 --> 00:54:45.980
OK. Busted.

00:54:48.110 --> 00:54:53.210
And so they – that's okay.
That's all right. I mean I'm not –

00:54:53.600 --> 00:54:57.411
we're doing fine. And actually,
I think our numbers are strong,

00:54:57.494 --> 00:55:00.254
but I would say the same
thing no matter what.

00:55:00.337 --> 00:55:03.860
The real threat is not audience
capture, at least for me.

00:55:04.640 --> 00:55:06.940
And again, you don't have to believe me.

00:55:07.040 --> 00:55:12.207
but it is true, the real threat is,
is that you become a monomaniac.

00:55:12.290 --> 00:55:16.590
that you get so mad about a topic
that you can't stop talking about it.

00:55:16.700 --> 00:55:19.460
And that's the threat to me.

00:55:19.730 --> 00:55:22.703
Like where you just become totally
fixated on this thing. Okay.

00:55:22.786 --> 00:55:26.535
And there are a lot of things going on.
Do you have moments where you think I'm

00:55:26.618 --> 00:55:28.718
heading in that direction?
A hundred percent.

00:55:28.801 --> 00:55:31.289
And so the key is don't pay
attention to the attacks.

00:55:31.372 --> 00:55:35.472
The way that people get captured by their
enemies is by fixating on their enemies.

00:55:36.590 --> 00:55:42.278
And I had an experience once in a very
bad car accident during the Iraq war with

00:55:42.362 --> 00:55:45.886
a guy who was driving.
I was in the backseat, man.

00:55:45.969 --> 00:55:48.297
We almost hit this building. Hmm.

00:55:48.380 --> 00:55:50.668
And someone fired on the car,
and we went into this dead spin.

00:55:50.752 --> 00:55:53.614
Someone fired on the car? Yeah, we were
driving through Nazarene, Iraq. Okay,

00:55:53.697 --> 00:55:55.897
go on. Okay, yeah, got it.
Here's the point.

00:55:56.600 --> 00:55:58.578
He lost control of the vehicle
and we didn't hit the building.

00:55:58.661 --> 00:56:00.306
And I was like, that's
the craziest thing I've ever,

00:56:00.390 --> 00:56:02.007
how did you not hit that building?

00:56:02.090 --> 00:56:03.770
And he goes, don't look at it.

00:56:03.920 --> 00:56:07.071
He was actually turned out he was a guy
called Bill Frost, wonderful guy,

00:56:07.154 --> 00:56:09.773
former a force recon Marine.
And he taught defensive driving.

00:56:09.857 --> 00:56:13.096
And he said the first rule of defensive
driving is if you don't want to hit

00:56:13.179 --> 00:56:14.579
something, don't look at it.

00:56:14.720 --> 00:56:18.045
And I thought that's the, that's
like the deepest life rule ever.

00:56:18.128 --> 00:56:20.823
If you don't want to hit
something, don't look at it.

00:56:20.907 --> 00:56:23.937
If you don't want to become
your enemies, don't look at it.

00:56:24.020 --> 00:56:27.587
Don't fixate on your enemies.
And that's so true in our business.

00:56:27.670 --> 00:56:32.304
Like if you spend your entire life reading
people's attacks on you and the internet,

00:56:32.387 --> 00:56:35.377
you're, And you're like,
they're haters. They're horrible.

00:56:35.460 --> 00:56:37.610
You become a hater
and you become horrible.

00:56:38.150 --> 00:56:40.817
by letting them in. And so,
again, you can ask anybody.

00:56:40.900 --> 00:56:43.967
It's one of the reasons that I
try to stay away from that crap.

00:56:44.050 --> 00:56:46.750
I don't read replies.
I'm not on the Internet all day.

00:56:47.300 --> 00:56:50.485
I don't, I never read anything
about myself. Why would you do that?

00:56:50.568 --> 00:56:54.168
Do you not know who you are? You want
strangers to tell you who you are?

00:56:54.800 --> 00:56:56.883
I asked my wife and kids
or my business partners,

00:56:56.967 --> 00:56:59.907
my college roommate or my staff.
I mean, they know who I am.

00:56:59.990 --> 00:57:02.690
And I know who I am. Tucker Carlson,
it's been a real pleasure.

00:57:02.774 --> 00:57:06.057
Thank you so much for taking my time.
Thank you, Steve. Thank you.

00:57:06.140 --> 00:57:10.812
Just a reminder that new episodes
of Newsmakers drop whenever they're

00:57:10.896 --> 00:57:14.190
available. We share them
on Up First when we can,

00:57:14.273 --> 00:57:19.152
but the best way to stay caught up
is to follow or subscribe to the show

00:57:19.235 --> 00:57:22.805
on Spotify, YouTube,
or wherever you watch or listen.

00:57:22.888 --> 00:57:27.078
You can also find it in the NPR app.
And remember, Newsmakers,

00:57:27.162 --> 00:57:32.523
like Up First, relies on supporters who
value independent journalism and a free

00:57:32.606 --> 00:57:33.440
press.

00:57:36.140 --> 00:57:41.124
Get perks from the podcasts you trust.
Go to plus.npr.org. I'm Steve Inskeep.

00:57:41.207 --> 00:57:44.300
Thanks for listening
to Up First from NPR News.