0:00 Must be a little weird to get scooped by
0:02 CNN on Joe Biden's dementia. Like you
0:04 had no idea. None of us knew. I you
0:07 know, but no, that now Jake Tapper has
0:09 uncovered the truth. Like it turns out
0:11 Joe Biden was in cognitive decline. Did
0:13 you know that? How did he find out? just
0:15 hardcore shoe leather investigators
0:17 working his sources like calling all the
0:19 people in Washington digging up like
0:21 foyer documents.
0:24 I just find the Epstein file so
0:25 fascinating because the two biggest
0:27 issues are are there people to whom he
0:29 traffked minors but nobody has been
0:31 charged with being the recipient of that
0:34 sex trafficking. But the much more
0:36 interesting question for me is was he
0:39 working with or for any foreign
0:40 intelligence agencies? Israel is the
0:43 number one recipient of NSA technology
0:45 and NSA intelligence. But at the same
0:47 time, the documents that describe who
0:50 are our greatest intelligence threats,
0:52 who are our greatest intelligence
0:54 adversaries, who spies on us the most,
0:56 who is capable of spying out the most,
0:58 number one on the list is Israel as
0:59 well.
1:06 [Applause]
1:10 [Music]
1:15 [Applause]
1:16 [Music]
1:20 All right, Glenn. I think last time
1:22 you're here, I ambushed you just by
1:23 rolling the cameras. Not doing that. We
1:25 are on camera right now. Right. It was
1:27 It was funny because every show you ever
1:29 go on, it always begins in some sort of
1:30 way to indicate that you're actually
1:32 starting like Glen Greenwald, welcome to
1:33 the program. Thank you, Tucker, for
1:34 having me. But the last time I was on,
1:36 we were just sitting here chatting and
1:37 it turned out 10 minutes in, I was like,
1:38 "Oh, well, we're rolling." Yeah, we've
1:40 been rolling since we started. Yeah, but
1:41 you are one of those people and this is
1:43 the highest compliment I can give. Who's
1:44 exactly the same off camera exactly the
1:47 same as you are on camera, right? That's
1:49 why that's why I thought our
1:51 conversation was just the conversation
1:53 that we always have and it turned out it
1:54 was just the show which made no
1:56 difference. I we went they your staff
1:58 courteously let me see this first 10
1:59 minutes. I was like, "Yeah, that's what
2:01 I think. That's how I how I speak and
2:03 that's all fine." Yeah, there is uh if
2:05 you like Glenn Greenwald, you'll like
2:06 him at dinner. Trust me, that that's
2:08 what I can say about you. So, um, you
2:10 are, I think, the dean of alternative
2:12 media. You've been doing this longer
2:13 than anybody, um, that I know
2:15 personally. So, it must be a little
2:18 weird to get scooped by CNN on Joe
2:20 Biden's dementia. Like, you had no idea.
2:23 None of us knew. I, you know, I mean,
2:25 there was that debate and we were all
2:27 shocked, but we were like, but we were
2:28 told he had a cold, so I was like, okay,
2:29 he's on some cold medication. Like, who
2:31 hasn't been there before? Makes you a
2:33 little drag drag, like a little draggy,
2:35 a little groggy, a little just like
2:36 dragged. But no, that now Jake Tapper
2:39 has uncovered the truth. Like it turns
2:41 out Joe Biden was in cognitive decline.
2:43 Did you know that? How did he find out?
2:45 Just hardcore shoe leather investig.
2:53 [Laughter]
2:56 No, it really, you
2:58 know, it's one of those things where you
3:01 kind of can't believe what you're
3:03 witnessing because Jake Tapper is
3:05 pretending to have uncovered a scandal
3:08 that he himself led the way in the media
3:10 or one of the leaders in the media in
3:12 covering up to the point where if
3:14 somebody would go on his show and say,
3:17 "Joe Biden is obviously in cognitive
3:18 decline. He can't get a sentence out."
3:20 He would say, "How dare you bully kids
3:22 who stutter?"
3:24 like what do you are you at all ashamed
3:26 of what you're that's what he told Laura
3:27 Trump when she was like yeah I just I
3:29 feel bad for Joe Biden and I wish he
3:30 could get a sentence out and he's like
3:32 do you ever think about what you're
3:33 doing to kids who stutter and the kind
3:35 of world you're creating for them and
3:37 she's like what and like everyone else I
3:39 never even knew Joe Biden had a stutter
3:41 I've been watching him for decades I
3:42 never saw him stutter before the whole
3:44 stuttering thing was just it did she say
3:47 that yes he told Laura Trump that she
3:50 was like at an event and it was a very
3:52 like you know benign kind remarks. He
3:54 was just saying, "Yeah, you watch Joe
3:56 Biden." Cuz we we've talked about this
3:57 before when I, you know, I was on your
3:59 show. It wasn't even when he was
4:01 president. It was in the run-up to the
4:03 2020 campaign and we were talking about
4:04 this and we always talked about
4:06 everybody I know did. No one takes joy
4:08 in it. Like we've all had that
4:09 experience of watching an older person
4:11 in our family, you know, go through
4:12 cognitive decline. It's actually quite
4:14 sad. So the way she was saying it was
4:17 like, "Yeah, you know, honestly, as a
4:18 human being, I watch Joe Biden and he's
4:21 in the middle of a sentence that he
4:22 can't finish." I'm like, "Come on, Joe.
4:23 get that out. And then when he went on,
4:25 she went on Jake Tapper show, he played
4:27 that tape and she he said, "Do you
4:29 understand the world of bullying that
4:31 you're creating for kids who stutter?"
4:34 And she was like, "What?
4:38 Stuttering kids." Yeah. And she's like,
4:40 "I didn't even know he had a stutter."
4:41 And she he said, "And we all know he has
4:43 a stutter and I know that you are
4:44 mocking his stutter." And so this was
4:48 not just a person who didn't speak about
4:50 Joe Biden's cognitive decline, who's now
4:52 uncovering this shocking truth that 85%
4:55 of the public has known for years
4:57 according to polls. He was he would go
4:59 on I heard him this week saying one of
5:02 the very few people in the because he
5:03 was asked why why didn't people in the
5:04 Democratic party speak up and and say
5:07 this since they all knew it. He said
5:08 well Dean Phillips tried and he got
5:11 mauled and maligned and his character
5:14 was attacked by the Democratic party. I
5:16 was like, by the Democratic party, go
5:18 watch what happened when Dean Phillips
5:19 went on Jake Tapper's show and said that
5:22 one of the reasons he was running for
5:23 president. He was concerned about Joe
5:25 Biden's age and his infirmities and how
5:26 he couldn't win and couldn't govern. And
5:29 Jake Tapper said to him, "Do you know
5:32 that your Democratic colleagues despise
5:34 you and they've been telling me the
5:36 worst possible thing?" That's what he
5:38 did to everybody who went on his
5:40 show in order to say, "Hey, I think Joe
5:43 Biden's in cognitive decline." He was he
5:45 was I mean obviously he wanted Biden to
5:47 win desperately and would not tolerate
5:50 anyone going on the show and saying that
5:52 Biden was in cognitive decline and now
5:53 he's making millions of dollars off a
5:55 book. But the only good thing is that
5:58 his credibility is so in tatters from it
6:00 that he had to hire a PR crisis firm
6:03 like the kind that Anthony Weiner had to
6:04 hire that like Puffy Combmes hired. Like
6:07 imagine being a journalist and being
6:09 exposed as such a fraud that you have to
6:11 hire a PR crisis team of the kind that
6:15 like public figures hire when they're
6:16 involved in some like big, you know, sex
6:18 scandal or like bribery scandal. That's
6:21 who's managing Jake Tapper's behavior
6:24 and his compartment. They've tried to
6:25 place like hit pieces on me and succeed
6:27 in like, you know, shitty places like
6:29 the Delhi Beast. But every and
6:31 everything he says now is scripted, you
6:33 know, like every interview he does now.
6:34 At first it was like I did what are you
6:35 talking about? this is outrageous. And
6:37 now every time he's in an interview, he
6:39 says, "I look back on my coverage with
6:41 humility." You know that phrase they
6:43 feed you to make it seem like you're
6:45 accepting accountability.
6:47 Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What's interesting
6:49 though is to that it wasn't just
6:52 um you know, I disagree with you. I
6:54 Biden seems fine to me. What's
6:57 interesting is that he used the kind of
7:00 most vulgar moral blackmail you can.
7:02 Like you're attacking children who
7:03 stutter. You're attacking disabled kids
7:05 when you criticize the president of the
7:07 United States. Like that is so low. It's
7:10 hard to believe that happened. I haven't
7:11 seen the clip, but Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
7:12 he claims he called Laura Laura Trump to
7:15 apologize. Maybe he should do that on
7:16 his show since that's where he told his
7:18 audience she was attacking kids who
7:21 stutter. Like that's a pretty That's
7:23 like one of the worst things pretty much
7:24 that you could do is like bully kids
7:26 with disabilities, right? Like if my
7:28 kids ever did that, I would punish them
7:30 for 3 months, you know? So like accusing
7:32 her of having done that like probably
7:34 doesn't warrant a private apology or
7:36 maybe it does too but also you know you
7:38 go on air and you were like hey I did
7:39 something really despicable. You know
7:41 what's so amazing too is they're trying
7:43 to rewrite history. Obviously one of the
7:44 ways they're trying to rewrite history
7:46 is to say we were the victims of the
7:48 fraud. We in the media were the victims
7:49 of the fraud and were so angry at this
7:51 inner team of Joe Biden's White House
7:54 advisers who kept this from us, who hid
7:56 this, even though the entire public knew
7:59 forever. But I, you know, I've written
8:02 about this so many times, it drives me
8:03 crazy how easily history is rewritten.
8:06 The first time I ever heard concerns
8:08 about Joe Biden's cognitive decline was
8:11 back in 2018 when the Democratic field
8:14 was coalescing of of you know people who
8:17 was who were going to run against Donald
8:19 Trump and they were really worried Joe
8:21 Biden was going to get the nomination
8:22 solely by virtue of name recognition
8:24 because he was the vice president to to
8:26 to Barack Obama for eight years was
8:27 viewed as loyal has been around forever
8:30 and they all knew there was no way he
8:32 could sustain the rigors of an election
8:33 because he was in cognitive decline And
8:35 so it was like these Democratic
8:37 operatives like Andrea Mitchell talked
8:38 about it. Corey Booker and Julian Castro
8:40 in that 2019 debate. All made fun of
8:43 Biden for not being able to remember
8:45 what he had said three three seconds
8:46 ago. This it was the Democrats who were
8:49 raising it trying to alert everybody
8:52 that you shouldn't vote for Joe Biden
8:53 because he's not the same Joe Biden he
8:55 was. I'm not talking about 2023. I'm
8:56 talking about 2018 and 2019. remember
8:59 the minute it was down to Joe Biden and
9:03 Bernie Sanders in in the 2020 primary,
9:05 that's when all of a sudden the media
9:07 narrative shifted and it became the only
9:11 people who are talking about Biden's
9:12 supposed cognitive decline are Bernie
9:14 Bros and MAGA people and it's absolutely
9:17 immoral and disgusting. And that's when
9:18 I wrote an article saying, "What do you
9:20 mean? You were the ones who first raised
9:22 it. I heard it from you, you know, the
9:24 those DC insiders." So it's not and the
9:28 only reason why you know what saved Joe
9:30 Biden from that was that co happened and
9:33 he got to run the campaign from his
9:34 basement where he only talked to like
9:36 Nicole Wallace who spoke to him like
9:38 some you know alien grandpa you know
9:40 that voice that you use for like your
9:42 alien grandpa like Mr. President Mr.
9:45 fight and hello. Oh, and then you do
9:47 that fake laugh if they get even close
9:48 to a joke cuz those were the kind of
9:50 interviews he was doing. And he was in
9:52 that basement in Delaware. That's the
9:54 only reason why he could sustain that
9:55 campaign. But it was so widely known. I
9:58 mean, his sister Valerie told a good
10:01 friend of mine that she didn't want him
10:03 to run in 2020 because he had dementia.
10:06 Uh my former makeup artist, a makeup
10:08 artist, uh was there in the room when he
10:11 was injected with empetamines before an
10:13 event more than once um during that
10:16 campaign. And like I said all that on TV
10:18 and everyone I knew in DC who knew
10:20 Biden, I knew Biden said, "Yeah, no,
10:22 he's got dementia." Like every everybody
10:25 knew, everybody knew. It wasn't just
10:27 like some right-wing Twitter thing where
10:29 people were being cruel. It was like the
10:30 people who knew Biden knew that. So like
10:32 how could you not know? Well, I think
10:34 the the the reason this media fraud of
10:36 all the other media frauds that have
10:38 been perpetrated is probably the most
10:40 damaging. In 2016, they pushed this
10:43 whole
10:44 deranged, demented conspiracy theory
10:47 that Vladimir Putin had sex tapes on
10:49 Donald Trump where he was being urinated
10:51 on by a prostitute. And of course, if
10:52 you know Donald Trump, that's pretty
10:54 much the last thing that of all the
10:56 people on the planet. There's one sin he
10:57 didn't commit. Yeah. No, for Yeah. But
10:58 but you know it was it was that sort of
11:00 thing like they always accuse people in
11:02 independent media or you know whoever of
11:04 being conspiracy theorists like think
11:06 about that conspiracy like Donald Trump
11:07 was being blackmailed by the Russian
11:09 government into sacrificing the interest
11:11 of the United States to serve the
11:13 interests of the Kremlin. That really
11:14 was the predominant media narrative from
11:16 2016 to 2018. So that's what they did to
11:18 try and stop Trump the first time. In
11:20 2020, you know, weeks before the
11:23 election, the New York Post had very
11:25 serious reporting about the Biden family
11:27 unethically exploiting Joe Biden's
11:29 influence in Ukraine and China to profit
11:31 not for themselves only, but also for
11:32 Joe Biden. And we were told by the media
11:34 over and over the lie that this is
11:36 Russian disinformation, that that this
11:38 laptop should be the contents of it
11:39 should be ignored because it's
11:40 inauthentic. That of course was when I
11:42 left the Intercept because they wouldn't
11:43 let me write about it claiming that
11:44 there were doubts about it authenticity
11:45 when I knew there weren't. But that was
11:47 and then Twitter and Facebook censored
11:49 it. But on those kind of questions like
11:51 rushate the authenticity of these emails
11:54 like for most Americans they don't have
11:55 the competence to judge that because
11:57 they do other things. But when it comes
11:59 to
12:01 seeing older people in cognitive decline
12:03 most of them have had that experience
12:05 with like a grandparent or a parent or a
12:07 sibling or a neighbor or whatever and
12:10 don't need to be told by quote unquote
12:13 experts that is happening because they
12:14 can see it with their own eyes. And for
12:18 the media to have sat there for a year
12:20 and a half and told everybody, as Joe
12:22 Scarbor said, this version of Joe Biden
12:24 is the best Biden we've ever seen. I
12:27 mean, imagine being such a state
12:28 propagandist that you do that and then
12:30 keep your job. I think that's why this
12:32 scandal is so devastating to them and
12:34 why, like when Jake Tapper stands up to
12:36 write a book saying, "I've uncovered the
12:37 truth with investigative reporting." You
12:40 know, everybody is reacting with justifi
12:42 justifiable nausea. You got to admit it
12:44 takes some balls to do that, though. I
12:46 mean, I famously advocated for the Iraq
12:48 war, realized in 20 2003 that it was a
12:52 bad idea, and said I was wrong. What I
12:55 didn't do was write a book saying like
12:58 it was wrong, and I always thought it
12:59 was wrong. Or like, hey, I'm here to
13:01 write a book saying why the Iraq war was
13:03 based on falsehoods. It's like, we we
13:05 already know, Tucker. Thank you. Right.
13:06 Like, you didn't go and write that book
13:08 because you were the one helping to
13:09 perpetuate that. Exactly. I totally
13:11 agree. So I guess without repentance,
13:15 without the acknowledgement of
13:17 wrongdoing, of dishonesty, without
13:18 saying I screwed up, and making that the
13:21 headline, nothing that follows is
13:22 credible at all. It's like all fake
13:24 unless you admit your role in the lie.
13:27 Right. Which which and and and if that
13:29 happened, if you said like, look, I was
13:30 really swept up in the media bubble I
13:32 was in and I want to tell the story of
13:34 why I did this or how I got I convinced
13:36 myself of this lie, then there would be
13:39 some nobility to it. there would be some
13:41 value and worth. But from this is what I
13:43 mean like you know I was there were
13:45 several people but myself was included
13:47 who was I was bashing the table every
13:49 day. You know we were compiling tapes of
13:50 Jake Dapper doing all the things that I
13:52 had just referenced. And I remember at
13:54 the time Jake Tapper always serving the
13:56 Democratic party in these ways. And his
13:59 initial response was to send out like
14:02 publicists to try and you know plant
14:04 stories that I was lying that I was
14:06 manipulating media. There was one in the
14:07 Daily Beast one in the Huffington Post.
14:08 We actually attacking you post. Oh yeah,
14:10 they were pitching stories like Yeah,
14:12 there's, you know, they were in like
14:14 shitty liberal sites that no one like
14:16 Huffington Post and the Daily Beast.
14:18 There was a couple others. Um, but they
14:21 had pitched them like to the New York
14:22 Post and the Wall Street Journal, I
14:23 think, as well. Like New York Post got
14:25 in contact with me. They didn't they
14:26 didn't run it because it was so easy to
14:28 prove that. What was the allegation that
14:31 all of these incidents that I just
14:33 described and there were others as well
14:35 of things he did on his show were like
14:37 taken out of context or the video was
14:39 manipulated just like they did when
14:41 people saw Joe Biden wandering around on
14:44 that D-Day and had to be, you know,
14:46 redirected by Georgia Maloney or having
14:48 been taken off the stage by this. That's
14:50 the other thing. They didn't just deny
14:52 it. They attacked anyone who said it.
14:55 people in 2024 who were saying, "Oh,
14:57 look, Biden clearly doesn't know where
14:58 he is." Including at that event with
14:59 Obama, that big George Clooney
15:00 fundraiser. The Washington Post wrote an
15:02 article saying they were using it was a
15:05 new phrase, cheap fakes. Like, they
15:07 weren't exactly fake, but the narrative
15:10 was fake. And it was anyone who said Joe
15:13 Biden clearly is in cognitive decline,
15:14 if you look at him at these events, they
15:15 were called right-wing disinformation uh
15:18 agents. And as it turns out, George
15:21 Clooney ended up saying, the reason why
15:24 I wanted Biden not to run was because
15:25 the Joe Biden I saw at that event was
15:27 completely unrecognizable. He was like a
15:29 he was he has
15:31 dementia. And at the time when people
15:34 were saying like clearly he doesn't know
15:35 where he is being let off the stage by
15:38 Barack Obama. None of this was new. We
15:40 we this is what we had been seeing for
15:41 so long. The media affirmatively use
15:45 that disinformation term that has become
15:47 their weapon of deception and and
15:48 propaganda and smearing people who tell
15:51 the truth to
15:53 label all of that
15:55 disinformation. And so they were the
15:58 ones who perpetrated the fraud and now
16:01 they're pretending like they're the ones
16:02 uncovering it. It is so I think the
16:04 reason they don't get it is because of
16:06 that insulated bubble that they exist
16:08 in. They all do believe that they're
16:11 truthful, they're good, they're
16:12 benevolent, they're nonpartisan, and
16:14 that unfortunately there was no way for
16:17 them to have told the story because Mike
16:19 Donan was lying about it or Jill Biden
16:21 was keeping the truth from them. And so
16:23 what can they do? So here's a company
16:26 we're always excited to advertise
16:28 because we actually use their products
16:29 every day. It's Merryweather Farms.
16:31 Remember when everybody knew their
16:32 neighborhood butcher? You look back and
16:34 you feel like, oh, there was something
16:36 really important about that. knowing the
16:38 person who cut your meat. And at some
16:40 point, your grandparents knew the people
16:42 who raised their meat so they could
16:44 trust what they ate. But that time is
16:47 long gone. It's been replaced by an era
16:48 of grocery store mystery meat boxed by
16:51 distant beef
16:53 corporations. None of which raised a
16:55 single cow. Unlike your childhood, they
16:58 don't know you. They're not interested
16:59 in you. The whole thing is creepy. The
17:02 only thing that matters to them is
17:03 money. And God knows what you're eating.
17:05 Merryweather Farms is the answer to
17:06 that. They raise their cattle in the US
17:08 in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. And
17:10 they prepare their meat themselves in
17:13 their facilities in this country. No
17:15 middlemen, no outsourcing, no foreign
17:17 beef sneaking through a back door.
17:20 Nobody wants foreign meat. Sorry. We
17:22 have a great meat, the best meat here in
17:24 the United States. And we buy ours at
17:25 Merryweather Farms. Their cuts are
17:27 pasture-raised, hormone free, antibiotic
17:29 free, and absolutely delicious. I gorged
17:32 on one last night. You got to try this
17:34 for real. Every day we eat it. Go to
17:38 merryweatherfarmms.com/tucker. Use the
17:39 code tucker76 for 15% off your first
17:42 order. That's
17:45 merryweatherfarmms.com/tucker. I think
17:47 that uh kind of selfdeception is a
17:50 byproduct of the tribalism that really
17:52 defines DC. And it's like we can't help
17:55 the other side. Like there we're going
17:56 to start with the other side is evil and
17:58 anything that helps them we can't do.
18:00 Therefore, we're going to have to make
18:01 some accommodations that may include
18:03 lying. But it's not really lying. It's
18:04 in the service of a greater good. Oh
18:06 yeah. Which is what every person who has
18:08 ever done anything evil has said to
18:10 justify
18:11 it. I'm not an evil person. I'm not a
18:13 sociopath. I'm doing something that
18:15 seems evil, but it's for a greater
18:16 cause. The end is justify the means. I
18:18 mean that's the most basic yes basically
18:20 a moral statement you can have. And
18:21 that's since the emergence of Trump that
18:23 is all that journalism has become. Not
18:26 just journalism but so many academia, so
18:29 many different institutions have
18:30 renounced their core function, whatever
18:31 that might be, science. Yeah. in order
18:35 to devote themselves to this
18:37 monomomaniacal mission of stopping
18:39 Donald Trump and his movement. That's
18:41 right. And you know, Sam
18:43 Harris just whether through stupidity or
18:45 just like in like inadvisable cander,
18:49 you know, was the first one who came out
18:51 with the Hunter Biden laptop stuff after
18:52 he realized it was a lie and said like,
18:54 "Yeah, I guess this laptop was true, but
18:57 at the end of the day, I really don't
18:59 care. If they have to lie about it,
19:00 fine. the evil of electing Donald Trump
19:02 is so much greater. And he was the first
19:04 one to really candidly acknowledge what
19:06 they are all thinking, which is we'll
19:08 lie, we'll spread disinformation, we'll,
19:12 you know, hide things because the
19:15 destruction and fear that we have of
19:17 Donald Trump in power is so great that
19:21 anything we do to try and impede it is
19:22 not justifiable, but almost like morally
19:24 imperative. That is how most of these
19:27 institutions ended up reasoning and
19:29 that's why they've lost their credit.
19:30 We're all Dietrich Bonhaofer at this
19:31 point. Yeah. Well, it's very self-
19:33 glorifying too. Like we're on the front
19:34 line of fighting fascism.
19:36 What I mean this is such a tired
19:38 question, but I've never really gotten
19:39 an answer that satisfies me. What is I
19:42 mean I look at Trump and I'm like, you
19:44 know, this is not a radical person in
19:47 most ways. Why? And a lot of the things
19:50 that he says are things that the
19:52 Democratic Party was like officially for
19:54 10 years ago. Um, you know, less wars,
19:58 pay attention to the forgotten man, free
20:00 trade is kind of bad, right? Exactly.
20:02 Right. I mean, this these are not He is
20:04 not a radical right-winger as I would
20:06 have conceived of a radical right-winger
20:07 in 1998 or 2018.
20:11 So why why but the hive like reacted to
20:15 him like the devil does holy water just
20:18 like you I can't be near you. What what
20:20 is that? I still don't fully understand
20:22 it. I think it's two things. Uh one less
20:28 important though still not trivial which
20:30 is comportmentally he's just such a
20:33 radical departure from the way anybody
20:34 who has ever gotten close to the
20:36 presidency has conducted themselves. And
20:38 I remember so well the time I realized
20:40 Yeah, it's true. But like but once you
20:43 understand what that
20:45 is, you can put it in your proper in the
20:48 proper context and not go insane about
20:50 it. I remember the time that I realized
20:52 just how far gone the media was when it
20:54 came to this and like the political
20:56 establishment generally, which was
20:58 during the 2016 campaign when they kept
21:00 asking about like collusion with Russia
21:02 and collusion with Russia and all that.
21:04 And he said, "I don't know anything
21:06 about that. I have nothing to do with
21:07 the Russians." But hey, Russians, if
21:09 you're listening, they were asking him,
21:11 did you participate in the hacking?
21:12 Yeah. And he was like, I didn't have
21:14 anything to do with that, but hey, like
21:15 Russia, if you're listening, maybe you
21:16 could find Hillary Clinton's like 87,000
21:18 deleted emails,
21:21 which was obviously like a joke. Just a
21:24 joke. I have nothing to do with Russia,
21:25 but if they're such great hackers, maybe
21:27 they can f The media took that and they
21:29 for over a year earnestly pretended that
21:33 this was proof that he was in cahoots
21:36 with Russia because he submits hacking
21:38 requests to Russia. Like if you have
21:41 some like back channel secret
21:43 relationship with Russia, the way you're
21:45 going to like submit your request is by
21:46 standing in front of 130 cameras and be
21:49 like, "Hey Putin, this is my latest
21:51 hacking request. Go find those emails."
21:53 instead of like having a, you know, Don
21:55 Jr. meet in a parking lot with some like
21:57 Russian agent or whatever. I mean, but
21:59 the fact that they they they were
22:01 willing to they really thought that that
22:02 was a smoking gun and could not
22:06 understand how Trump jokes, how he uses
22:09 irony, how he like purposely
22:11 trolls was, you know, the time that I
22:14 realized just how far gone they were. I
22:17 think the bigger reason why they were I
22:19 think we've talked about this before
22:21 is I would say since the end of World
22:24 War II, maybe before that, but certainly
22:26 since the end of World War II, what we
22:28 have more or less is a continuity of
22:32 core Washington dogma on foreign and
22:34 economic policy. Correct. You have, you
22:37 know, on the margins things that make it
22:38 appear like the parties are so
22:40 different. They fight about abortion.
22:41 They do discrete abortion or culture war
22:43 issues, all of that. But on the question
22:46 of how power is distributed, on how the
22:48 US maintains global hygieny, on feeding
22:51 the war machine, on how our economic uh
22:55 system functions and who who it serves,
22:58 there is complete continuity between
23:00 Republicans and Democrats. Like those
23:02 permanent power factions in Washington,
23:03 the corporatism, militarism, don't care
23:05 at all who wins because their policies
23:09 prevail no matter what. You can vote for
23:10 whoever you want. You can vote against
23:11 it. You can vote for it. Doesn't matter.
23:13 It continues. Trump by necessity because
23:16 the Republicans had already chosen Jeb
23:18 Bush as their candidate. We all expected
23:20 it was going to be another Bush Clinton
23:22 race. It was going to be Jeb Bush and
23:23 Hillary Clinton. That was the assumption
23:25 that everyone
23:27 had. It Hillary would have lost had the
23:30 DNC not cheated for her. But they did
23:31 cheat for her. So she was the nominee.
23:33 But the only way Trump could break
23:34 through, how do you break through
23:35 against all the Republican money behind
23:37 Jeb Bush? You have to run against the
23:38 Bush family. to run against conservative
23:40 Republican dogma on both fin economics
23:43 and foreign policy. He ran against the
23:45 Iraq war. He ran against permanent war.
23:47 He ran against serving corporatism at
23:49 the expense of the the working people
23:51 against free trade at the expense of you
23:54 know ind like having an industrial base
23:56 and he became a kind of threat and Steve
24:00 Bannon was the architect of the time and
24:01 Steve Bannon's vision very much was that
24:03 like the Republican establishment is at
24:05 least as bad as the democratic
24:06 establishment and he was a threat to
24:09 disrupt this bipartisan continuity on
24:12 which power factions in Washington
24:14 depend and I think that's what made him
24:16 so anathema just so many different uh
24:19 factions. He was a challenge to the
24:22 post-war order basically like
24:25 questioning the viability of NATO. I
24:27 know which it's like walking into a
24:30 church and saying like we sure Jesus is
24:32 divine, you know, like that alone that
24:36 that actually changed my life when he
24:38 said that. I grew up around NATO. Grew
24:40 up supporting NATO unthinkingly. Never
24:42 thought about the good guys. 100% NATO
24:45 keeps the Soviets from rolling into
24:47 Belgium, you know, and like that's good.
24:49 What's why is that bad? Of course, we
24:50 love NATO. And and then he was like,
24:52 hey, but like the Soviet Union doesn't
24:53 exist anymore. That no one had ever in a
24:56 lifetime of in DC, no one had ever
24:58 mentioned NATO in a way that challenged
25:00 me to think about what it was or its
25:02 role until that. And he just said it
25:04 off-handedly. And I was like, NATO?
25:07 Really? He's against NATO? How could you
25:08 be against NATO? And that began a chain
25:11 of thinking that totally changed my view
25:13 of everything. So I think you're right.
25:16 It's dangerous to have people saying
25:17 stuff like that. I mean, you just you
25:20 what you want is per continuity with the
25:22 status quo. And like who was a more
25:26 reliable maven of the status quo than
25:28 Hillary Clinton? Yes. Or Joe Biden. And
25:31 so that's why they were so desperate,
25:34 including all, you know, all the neocons
25:36 and conservatives that you knew. So many
25:39 of them openly supported Clinton and
25:41 Biden. And many of them, like to this
25:43 day, like half the Republican Senate
25:44 caucus at least hates Trump, hates his
25:46 ideology, hates his policy. Oh yeah. You
25:50 really think Mike Browns voted for
25:51 Trump? I don't think so. I don't know.
25:53 But I'm just saying like those types.
25:55 Yeah. So can I just go back? I want to
25:57 ask you more about that in like the
25:59 place of neoconservatives and I guess
26:01 we're not allowed even to use that term
26:02 so think of a new term as I ask. Um but
26:06 before we get to that like you mentioned
26:07 Russia a couple of times and the hacking
26:10 and the subsequent leaking of those
26:11 emails from the DNC. Um who did
26:17 that? It's possible of course that the
26:21 Russians did it. Like sometimes you get
26:23 the official story and it's
26:27 possible, you know, I know Julian
26:29 Assange a long time. I know him very
26:31 well and what a good man. Oh, he's I
26:35 think he's like one of the heroes of our
26:37 lifetime. Totally agree. And not just a
26:39 hero, but like incredibly consequential
26:41 and just a decent person, too. And like
26:43 brilliant and courageous. Not without
26:46 his personality flaws, but often times
26:48 that kind of courage. I whenever people
26:50 used to complain about Julian's
26:51 difficult personality, let's use the
26:52 generous term difficult
26:54 personality, I would always say like who
26:56 do you think is going to go and like
26:58 spill the secrets of the world's most
27:00 powerful government? You think it's
27:01 going to be some like mildmannered like
27:03 gentle congenial person? No. It takes a
27:06 certain personality type. Yes. And uh
27:09 but in any event, he had insinuated
27:13 several times that it came from within
27:14 the DNC. He had raised the possibility
27:16 that Seth Rich was murdered because he
27:18 was the
27:19 leaker and it was Julian. It was
27:22 Wikileaks who ran those docs. It was
27:25 Wikileaks who received them. Yeah. But
27:27 who who shared them with the world? Who
27:29 then published them all. Exactly. So
27:31 it's not a small thing when the guy who
27:32 runs Wikileaks suggests something.
27:34 Correct. That
27:36 said, if you are the recipient of leaks,
27:39 as I've been many times, you don't
27:41 actually know who the kind of you're not
27:43 sure if the person bringing you the
27:45 leaks is the person who actually
27:46 engineered it. That could be a a cut,
27:49 you know,
27:49 gobetween.
27:51 And but at the same time, you know,
27:54 Julian is extremely smart. You know, I
27:56 talked to him this day. He's I think not
27:59 fully recovered. He'll never be. I mean,
28:00 after what he went through, but his
28:02 brain is, you know, just like a font of
28:06 insight
28:08 and I trust his judgment so much. You
28:10 can go back and look at stuff he said
28:12 and it proved to be so preient. I know.
28:15 And so when he says that I do think
28:18 Julian sees himself for good reason as
28:20 an enemy of the intelligence agencies in
28:22 the west. I mean that he is that. So
28:25 undoubtedly he did like seven and a half
28:27 years in confinement because of it.
28:29 Yeah. like n eight years in the
28:30 Ecuadorian embassy and then four and a
28:31 half years in the prison that the BBC
28:33 calls Guantan the the British Guantanamo
28:36 Mike Pompeo the head of CIA plotted his
28:38 assassination. So I think his
28:40 assassination, badgered the Ecuadorians
28:42 into lifting the asylum they had given
28:44 him and promised him and allowed the
28:46 London police to go in and you know
28:48 coerced, threatened, bribed the
28:51 Ecuadorians to lift that asylum, that
28:53 grant of asylum so that they could then
28:55 go in and Mike Pompeo on his like first
28:57 month as CIA director gave a speech
28:59 saying we're going to destroy Wikileaks.
29:01 It's time that they stop hiding behind
29:03 the first amendment. So he was very
29:06 serious about that. He Mike Pompeo
29:08 should be charged with plotting
29:10 someone's assassination. That's a crime.
29:12 You can't do that in the United States.
29:13 I mean, there's so many things Mike
29:15 Pompeo should be charged with, but we
29:16 know for certain that he was wanting I
29:18 mean, he was the CIA director thinking,
29:20 "Oh, now I get to murder people who I
29:22 want." Yeah. Who embarrassed me. Who've
29:24 never been who committed crimes. He'd
29:26 never been charged with a crime in the
29:27 United States when that until like until
29:30 2018 when when when they engineered
29:32 this, you know, obscenely baseless
29:36 indictment that they knew they never
29:38 wanted to bring him to the United States
29:39 to stand trial. He would never have been
29:42 convicted. They wanted to break him
29:45 psychologically and and physically and
29:47 they came very close to doing that. Um,
29:50 but in any event, so when Julian Assange
29:52 says something like that, part of me
29:53 knows that he views himself as an enemy
29:55 of the intelligence agencies and wants
29:57 to use the same methods they use, which
29:58 is sometimes you spread disinformation
30:00 for confusion. But I also believe that
30:04 he believes there's something to it. And
30:06 so we never had a real investigation
30:09 into to anything relating to Russia gate
30:13 at all because in the first term Trump
30:15 was you know that whole administration
30:17 was
30:18 commandeered. It was run by people who
30:20 were opposed to Trump's agenda for the
30:25 most part and part of the this new
30:28 administration is constructed to avoid
30:30 that from happening and I think they are
30:31 now going back and looking at a lot of
30:33 these things. So, we're not positive
30:35 that cryptocurrency is the future of
30:37 finance, but we do know that what we
30:38 have now is broken and dangerous. Debt
30:41 has never been higher in this country.
30:43 Many of our so-called leaders are
30:44 getting rich, serving you. It's a scam.
30:47 So, where does it go? Well, thankfully,
30:49 there are options. Donald Trump has said
30:51 repeatedly he wants the United States to
30:53 be the crypto capital of the world. He's
30:55 already created the Crypto Advisory
30:56 Council and recently signed an executive
30:58 order to establish a Bitcoin strategic
31:00 reserve. This could give normal people
31:03 an alternative to the government's
31:05 failing system and frankly to the US
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31:53 itrustcap.com or click the link
31:55 below. What do you think the chances are
31:58 that those emails came from a DNC
32:02 employee?
32:04 Honestly, I don't know. I just I don't
32:05 like to I'm open to it. I'm I'm
32:08 definitely open to it, but I'm not going
32:10 to affirm it. I think it's very strange.
32:12 I got from an MPD Metropolitan Police
32:14 Department officer who was a friend of
32:16 mine, uh the fact which I've checked,
32:18 which is that the FBI immediately took
32:19 over the murder investigation. No. Why
32:21 would the FBI of a routine supposedly
32:23 routine random attempted robbery type
32:26 attempted robbery? Why would the FBI
32:27 take that over? Like is there a good
32:30 reason for that? That's bizarre. Yeah, I
32:32 know.
32:33 Um that's why I say I'm open to it even
32:36 though you're I you know that's been
32:38 something that is immediately branded
32:40 like such an obvious conspiracy theory
32:42 that the second you suggest that you're
32:43 receptive to it. But that's exactly when
32:46 conspiracy theories are often ones that
32:48 deserve attention. I don't know. an
32:50 American citizen got murdered in my city
32:52 and so I feel like I have an absolute
32:53 right to ask why did the FBI take that
32:55 over and what did they learn and like
32:56 what is that that's a totally fair
32:58 question they don't you know it's so
33:00 funny they set themselves up as the
33:01 arbiters of everything as the moral
33:03 arbittors for sure and you're like not
33:05 allowed to ask that question it's like I
33:07 live I spent my life in DC I know the
33:09 street he was shot on he's an American
33:12 just like me I have absolutely a
33:14 fundamental right to ask like and same
33:16 with Epstein why wasn't there a real
33:18 investigation into And like this seems
33:20 anomalous like what's the answer? Well,
33:22 you know, well, and then then the tactic
33:24 is by like the Ben Shapiers of the
33:26 world, the people who are the same like
33:27 the the people who have anointed
33:29 themselves to be the guardians of
33:30 official versions or you know, no
33:33 challenging any sorts of like why did
33:34 the USS Liberty happen? Those kind of
33:36 things like what what happened with why
33:37 was JF my favorite was why was JFK
33:39 murder? I don't care. It was a long time
33:40 ago. Yeah, it was so long ago. Yeah, it
33:42 was a long time ago.
33:44 Um and
33:46 uh the president got murdered at now is
33:49 just asking questions. They'll be like,
33:51 "Oh," it's like I don't know. I feel
33:53 like my job as like a not just a
33:55 journalist, but a human being and a
33:56 citizen is like I kind of want to be
33:58 asking questions. I don't want to just
34:00 be ingesting what I'm told because what
34:02 we've been told has been proven to be
34:05 deliberatized so often. Also, I like
34:07 people who ask questions. I'm
34:08 uncomfortable with people who make
34:10 declarative statements exclusively
34:13 because you actually don't know the
34:14 answer to most. Like I said, where where
34:16 do you think those emails came from?
34:18 Podesta's emails, DNC emails, and you're
34:20 like, I don't really know, but here are
34:22 the questions that I have. Like, that's
34:23 the honest answer. Well, also, you know
34:25 how many times, not just in politics,
34:27 where deliberalize happen, but in every
34:29 field of discipline, like physics and
34:32 chemistry and biology, everything,
34:33 linguistics, where a certain time
34:37 arrives and people believe they've
34:39 discovered an absolute proven truth and
34:41 by the next generation, it's completely
34:43 debunked. Yeah. Like if you don't have
34:45 and that's why I believe in the absolute
34:48 necessity of preserving the right to
34:50 question everything. That's the
34:51 scientific method. Yeah. And it's just
34:53 basic humility. It's like to think that
34:55 human beings have discovered
34:56 unchallenged truths that can never be
34:58 disproven and and that from here hence
35:00 forth you're not allowed to question.
35:02 No, I'm not accepting that from
35:05 anybody. H I want to print that and put
35:07 it on my fridge. I'll give you I'll sign
35:10 it for you. Good. Thank you.
35:12 Um, yeah. Okay. So, let me let me do the
35:16 eps. Do you want to do talk about the
35:17 epson files in relation to that as well?
35:18 Yeah, sure. I mean just because I just
35:21 wanted I just find the Epstein file so
35:23 fascinating
35:25 because all the people who are now in
35:27 charge of the government under Donald
35:29 Trump particularly Cash Patel and Dan
35:31 Bino at the FBI but others as well
35:34 throughout the government were over the
35:37 last four years everywhere in the media
35:39 on their shows on every other show
35:41 banging on the table demanding the
35:43 immediate release of all the Epstein
35:45 files. We're now five months into the
35:49 Trump administration. We haven't gotten
35:50 a single document that wasn't previously
35:54 published of the Epstein
35:56 files. The they made a humiliating
35:59 showing of pretending to release it when
36:01 they called those conservative influence
36:02 and they all waved around the binder.
36:03 Epstein files, oh my god, what was in
36:05 them? And then it turns out like
36:06 nothing. You know, just every document
36:08 that was in this binder was already
36:10 previous released as part of the
36:11 litigation or journalism that was done.
36:14 and the Pam Bondi's new excuse because I
36:16 mean I'm glad that there are a lot of
36:18 people in the Trump movement and the mug
36:20 movement who are not contrary to the how
36:23 they're depicted in some sort of cult
36:25 like they they hold these people
36:27 accountable like they want to understand
36:29 like we were promised these things like
36:31 why isn't this happening and so Pam
36:33 Bondi's excuse now is we have thousands
36:36 and thousands of sex videos of Jeffrey
36:39 Epstein having sex with minors implying
36:42 that it's obviously going to take a lot
36:44 of time to go through these videos and
36:46 therefore we have to be patient before
36:49 we get them. And it's like I don't care
36:52 about sex videos of Jeffrey Epste having
36:55 sex with children because we already
36:57 know that Jeffrey Epstein had sex with
36:58 children. That's kind of the reason we
37:00 know who he is. He's been twice charged
37:03 with that. Once convicted and then was
37:05 ready to be charged again. For me, the
37:07 two biggest issues are are there people
37:09 to whom he sex traffked minors um
37:12 because he was charged with sex
37:13 trafficking, but nobody has been charged
37:15 with being the recipient of that sex
37:17 trafficking. But the much more
37:19 interesting question for me is, and
37:22 there's a lot of reason to believe it's
37:23 true, is was he working with or for any
37:27 foreign intelligence agencies? There is
37:29 no way. They don't already have that
37:31 answer. Maybe the answer is no. Maybe he
37:34 wasn't working with any. You know, it
37:36 would be it would shock me, but maybe
37:38 that's their answer. Maybe their answer
37:39 is he was. Why don't we have those
37:41 answers? Like have FBI agents for
37:43 whatever reason go through those sex
37:44 tapes for the next 3 years. That's fine.
37:46 What stops them from releasing that
37:48 question that
37:50 for people who may not be as familiar
37:52 with the details? What leads you to
37:54 raise that question? Is there evidence
37:56 that suggests he might have been working
37:58 with a foreign intel agency? Well, first
38:00 of all, the source of his wealth has
38:03 always been mysterious. I mean, he
38:05 wasn't just very rich. He was living the
38:08 life of a multi multi-billionaire. He
38:10 had, you know, $50 million properties in
38:12 Manhattan and what, West Palm Beach and
38:15 New York. Bought that island, New
38:16 Mexico, flying around on a 747. This is
38:19 not just like somebody who's very
38:20 wealthy. This is somebody with
38:22 essentially unlimited resources, right?
38:24 Like Bill Gates type wealth. And one of
38:28 the ways one of the his primary
38:30 benefactors is less Wexner who is a
38:33 multi-billionaire somebody with whom he
38:35 worked closely. And I guess the argument
38:37 or the the the claim is he was a
38:40 brilliant strategist for how to save
38:43 taxes, how to save money on taxes. He
38:46 was like a highly competent accountant
38:47 basically. Yeah. Like a tax accountant.
38:49 That's tax account. They tell you how
38:50 like what strategies to use to save
38:52 money. So maybe Les Wexner valued him so
38:55 much that he gave him, I don't know, $3
38:57 billion. In general, billionaires don't
38:59 like to give money away that they don't
39:00 have to. Maybe Les Wexner is like super
39:03 generous. Like, oh, so gratefully to
39:04 Jeffrey Epste. Here's like $2 billion.
39:07 But Les Waxner has all sorts of ties to
39:10 like his main
39:12 non-money-making endeavor in life is
39:15 supporting Israel and donating to is to
39:17 pro-Israel uh groups and working closely
39:20 with the Israeli government. Jazane
39:22 Maxwell, who's now in prison as having
39:24 been essentially his right-hand man. Her
39:27 father, Robert Maxwell, who died in a
39:29 very mysterious way. He slipped off his
39:31 yacht.
39:33 Um, was a known MSAD agent. He worked
39:35 with the MSAD. He had very close ties to
39:38 Israel. We all know given a state
39:41 funeral. Yes. In Israel. Yes. And you
39:44 know when I did the Snowden reporting um
39:46 people there's a lot of documents that
39:47 we released that in just because there
39:49 were so many there not not not all of
39:51 them got the attention they deserved.
39:53 One of the set of files we released
39:56 described the intelligence relationship
39:59 that we have with Israel that the NSA
40:01 has with Israel. Israel is the number
40:03 one recipient of NSA technology and NSA
40:06 intelligence. We share more with Israel
40:08 even more with than we do with the five
40:10 eyes partners who develop this
40:12 technology. we give more to Israel, more
40:14 intelligence, raw intelligence about
40:16 Americans as well and more intelligence
40:20 knowhow, but at the same time the
40:23 documents that describe who are our
40:25 greatest intelligence threats, who are
40:27 our greatest intelligence adversaries,
40:29 who spies on us the most, who is capable
40:31 of spying out the most. Number one on
40:33 the list is Israel as well. Obviously,
40:35 the Israelis use, you know, some I mean
40:38 the the most dangerous spying programs
40:39 like Pegasus and others come from
40:42 Israel, are developed by Israel, are
40:44 controlled by the Israelis, by which I
40:46 simply mean to say that Israel uses
40:49 every weapon at his disposal, including
40:51 gathering incriminating information
40:52 about his enemies.
40:54 Some people have suggested that, oh no,
40:56 it's not Israel. It's probably the
40:58 Qatari intelligence agencies with whom
41:00 he worked. Maybe I maybe it was like
41:03 maybe it was Peru. Maybe it was like
41:05 Indonesia. People have said that Epstein
41:07 was working with the guitarist. Yeah.
41:08 That like what h like there's I want to
41:11 keep a list of people who make that
41:12 claim. Do you know anyone? Yeah. You I
41:15 mean it's kind of you know how like
41:18 Israel like supporters of like loyalists
41:20 of Israel and the United States are now
41:23 constantly trying to convince people
41:24 that the real foreign government that is
41:27 exerting extreme amounts of influence
41:29 over our politicians and our
41:31 institutions is Cotter. I find it
41:33 hilarious. always like, "You know what?
41:35 Let me know when Congress starts passing
41:37 on a weekly basis pro- Cotter
41:39 resolutions or when like students are
41:41 being uh expelled and deported because
41:44 they've criticized Carter. Let me know
41:46 when like uh we start sending billions
41:49 of dollars a year to to Carter. Let me
41:51 know when all that starts to happen.
41:52 I'll be receptive to the fact that maybe
41:54 Qatar." But anyway, all I'm saying I'm
41:56 not saying it's Israel. I'm just saying
41:58 the the the the the nature of what
42:01 Jeffrey Epstein was doing, the amount of
42:03 wealth that it that that it required,
42:06 the number of the most powerful elites
42:08 on the planet who were with him, who
42:10 were involved with him, who were at his
42:11 island who despite knowing that he had
42:13 been convicted in
42:15 2010 of uh having sex with minors,
42:19 hiring prostitutes who were underage who
42:22 continued to consort with him in the
42:23 most, you know, proximate ways.
42:28 something was going on there. It would
42:29 be incredibly valuable. He kept, you
42:31 know, he had he had cameras in every
42:33 part of his house. He had tapes of
42:35 everything. Obviously, that would be of
42:38 immense value to any foreign
42:39 intelligence agent and American. I mean,
42:41 he was he was close friends with Bill
42:43 Burns.
42:44 maybe domestic intelligence agencies as
42:46 well, but how like it really is starting
42:49 to inflame my suspicions a great deal
42:52 every day that goes by when we're not
42:54 getting that information. Particularly
42:56 because the people who have it are the
42:58 people who spent years demanding its
42:59 release and promising to facilitate it
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44:10 Tucker25 for 25% off. Two facts, data
44:15 points as they're now called that um
44:17 suggest to me that something's up. One
44:20 is the fact that Epstein was represented
44:23 um in his first tangle with the
44:25 authorities in Florida u by Bill
44:27 Crystal's lawyer uh Jay Lewitz and who I
44:31 know. Uh and the second is the statement
44:34 by Alex Aosta which I think maybe is at
44:36 the top of your memory about why Epstein
44:38 got off so easily. How is this not
44:40 talked about every day? Okay. So, in
44:43 Florida, in the United States generally,
44:46 having sex with minors, hiring, you
44:48 know, using minors as as prostitutes is
44:51 considered like a pretty terrible crime.
44:54 Yeah. Yeah. You know, most people agree
44:56 on that. Yeah. You don't really have to
44:57 debate that. That's considered like
44:58 something that deserves huge amounts of
45:00 jail time and typically results in huge
45:02 amounts of jail time. Jeffrey Epstein
45:05 barely went to jail for that as part of
45:08 a plea bargain. They had enormous
45:10 amounts of evidence. It wasn't a
45:12 question of could they prove his guilt.
45:14 They gave him a plea deal. A plea deal
45:17 where he spent like six seconds in jail
45:19 and then like most of the time at home
45:21 doing community service. And Alex Aosta,
45:24 who was the US attorney for for the
45:27 Southern District of Florida at the
45:28 time, which was was in charge of the
45:30 case. That's where Epstein was,
45:33 ultimately ended up in the Justice
45:34 Department and other roles inside the
45:35 government. And so he was constantly
45:37 asked, "Why would you give Jeffrey
45:39 Epstein such a like generous plea deal
45:42 that nobody would ever get for those
45:44 crimes?" And he ended up saying, "I was
45:47 told that he's intelligence and
45:48 therefore leave him alone." That's what
45:51 Alex Aosta, the prosecutor, says that he
45:53 was told about what he should do with
45:55 the Jeffrey. Like, leave him alone
45:57 because he's intelligence. Well, there
45:58 were we're just kind of the conversation
46:00 just like ended like we know now. If the
46:04 prosecutor says the federal prosecutor
46:06 in Florida says that, then I think we
46:07 can assume that that's true, right? So
46:10 why don't we know what that means?
46:12 That's what, you know, like what would
46:14 be the reason that people inside the
46:17 Trump administration who have long
46:19 expressed vehemently, vocally at the top
46:22 of their agenda demands that the Epstein
46:25 files be released, why are they not
46:28 telling us that information?
46:31 I I think the net effect of this is to
46:33 drive everyone insane and to make
46:35 everyone like angry and suspicious and
46:37 paranoid and conspiracy-minded. I do
46:40 think that it's like you expect that
46:42 we're going to hear the truth and then
46:44 it's like, oh, by the way,
46:46 no. Everyone assumes the worst. I mean,
46:48 why wouldn't you assume the worst? That
46:51 improves American society. The thing is
46:52 like you know I whenever I talk about
46:55 independent media including from people
46:56 who are supporters of it believe it's a
46:59 positive development they all say oh but
47:00 you know there's so many conspiracy
47:02 theories that end up being cultivated
47:04 and spread that people embrace and
47:08 that's true. Yeah of course it is.
47:09 There's been a lot of conspiracy
47:10 theories embraced by the credible legacy
47:13 media as well. I mean it wasn't like
47:14 Reddit that convinced Americans Saddam
47:16 Hussein had an active nuclear weapons
47:18 program or that Joe Biden was the best
47:19 version ever, right? or that like the
47:22 North Vietnamese were the aggressors in
47:24 the Gulf of Punkin, right? That came
47:26 from like CBS and Walter Kankhite and
47:28 the New York Times. But in any event, of
47:31 course, there's going to be Americans
47:33 who are now amendable to every
47:35 conspiracy theory because what have we
47:37 lived through? The Iraq war, the 2008
47:39 financial crisis, all of the lies from
47:43 911 itself. And then if you go back
47:45 further like the Vietnam War, but then
47:48 also COVID and like one after the next
47:52 at best massive fundamental systemic
47:56 failure on the part of all the
47:57 institutions we were taught to trust and
47:59 probably at worst and probably more
48:01 accurately overwhelming deceit and lies
48:04 and falsehoods and propaganda
48:07 continuously disseminated by them in
48:09 order to facilitate what they wanted.
48:11 What is going to happen to a society
48:13 where people lose faith and trust in
48:16 institutions? Not because, you know,
48:18 charlatans are on the sidelines
48:20 encouraging them to make that happen,
48:21 but because
48:23 rationally those institutions no longer
48:26 merit trust or faith. If you lie too
48:27 much, I don't believe you. Kind of
48:30 basic. So, the only antidote to that is
48:32 is transparency. Is revealing the truth.
48:35 And I I really worry right now
48:37 especially that this is hardening
48:40 people's cynicism and rage and uh and
48:44 really at some point nihilism like
48:46 nothing is true. That is the conclusion
48:49 a lot of people are going to nothing is
48:50 true. I don't believe anything like it's
48:51 all fake. Well and also you know Cash
48:54 Patel and Nan
48:55 Majino are people who were among the
48:59 most popular among the MAGA base. I
49:02 mean, these were the people like among
49:03 the most respected. I mean, Dan Bino's
49:05 show on Rumble, a platform that still
49:09 maybe like 30 40 maybe even 50% of the
49:11 people in the United States have never
49:13 even heard of, was getting bigger
49:15 audiences than almost every daytime
49:18 cable show.
49:20 Cash Patel, you know, the surge of
49:23 support for him when he was nominated to
49:24 lead the FBI was massive because people
49:26 thought, "No, that's who we need to like
49:29 get in and root this out and clean it
49:31 out." And I believe that they there I
49:34 believe there is something to that. I I
49:36 think they are authentic and genuine in
49:38 that way. But at the same time,
49:41 something is constraining them. And so I
49:43 asked myself, what kinds of
49:46 truths would people be determined to
49:50 hide who are more powerful than they
49:52 are? And when it comes to the Epstein
49:55 files, I continuously zero in on that
49:57 question
49:58 of who was he working with or for whom.
50:02 And I can see people in government not
50:06 wanting that answer to be disclosed just
50:07 like the same reason we didn't have the
50:08 JFK files and still don't. We still
50:11 don't for 65 years. I know Bonino well.
50:15 I think of him as a friend. I think he
50:17 is a man of integrity and and I think
50:20 his integrity remains pure because of
50:22 his rage. Like Dan's mad at lying. And
50:26 so I do I don't know what's going on um
50:29 at all. He and to be clear, he said I
50:32 know that Epstein killed himself cuz
50:33 I've seen the evidence. So I'm pretty
50:35 confident in the in the case of Dan
50:37 Bonino. I don't even mind that. But then
50:38 the question still becomes like they
50:40 said they know how their their
50:42 supporters are going to react to that,
50:44 right? And they were among the people
50:46 raising doubts about whether Epstein
50:48 killed himself. I'm not that I'm not I
50:51 it wouldn't shock me if Epstein killed
50:52 himself. Like you live a life of great
50:54 wealth and then suddenly you know you're
50:55 going to spend the prison spend your the
50:56 rest of your life in prison. It seems
50:58 odd to me that you can go to a federal
51:00 prison and kill yourself. Like there's
51:01 not safeguards against that. But
51:03 whatever. Think things that are run by
51:05 the government failed. I'm not
51:07 suggesting that they're lying about
51:09 that, but even there they're saying
51:10 like, look, I promise you we read the
51:12 files. He killed himself. So then my
51:14 question is, well, why can't we read
51:15 those files? Well, that is my that is my
51:17 question too. And um I would just say in
51:20 the case of Bino, I know Cash Patel, but
51:22 I'm not like a friend of Cash Patel. I a
51:23 friend of Bonos and I do think that will
51:26 come out. But I think big
51:28 picture DOJ is making a huge mistake,
51:31 huge mistake in promising to reveal
51:34 things and then not revealing them. And
51:37 that gives the whole country a kind of
51:38 moral blue balls at that point. And it's
51:41 bad. It's really bad. Like it's going to
51:43 that's going to cause a lot of hate. And
51:45 second, I think that we underestimate
51:48 the physical threat that people in
51:49 Washington face. It's always like
51:51 blackmail or ideological affinity that
51:53 gets No, people are afraid of getting
51:55 hurt. I do think that's a comp I mean I
51:57 know that's a component here. I mean
51:59 political assassination, political
52:01 murder has been going on for as long as
52:03 politics have. And the JFK case is an
52:06 example of the president of the United
52:07 States having his head blown off.
52:09 Exactly. Exactly. And you think that
52:11 that's not ever present or constantly
52:13 present in the minds of people in
52:14 Washington. They killed the president,
52:16 got away with it for over 60 years. So
52:19 like clearly there are forces that are
52:21 above justice. Oh no, don't worry. Lee
52:23 Harvey Oswald was killed and Jack Ruby
52:25 went to prison.
52:27 Jack Ruby. The whole story is Jack Ruby,
52:30 by the way. The whole story is Jack
52:31 Ruby. I mean, he just walked up to the
52:33 person they hadundred and just shot him
52:36 in in the stomach. And there's no
52:37 evidence he even liked the Kennedys.
52:39 There's zero evidence. He never
52:41 campaigned for them, never gave them
52:43 money. There's not one person who's ever
52:45 come forward to say, you know, Jack Ruby
52:47 was passionately attached to JFK. Not
52:49 one person. Right. So, like, what was
52:50 the motive there? He was clearly sent
52:53 there to silence Lee Harvey Oswald. So,
52:56 by whom is the obvious question. There
52:58 are very serious indications by whom,
53:00 but whatever. I don't know. But I don't
53:03 know why everyone spends all this time
53:04 on Lee Harvey Oswald when the key to the
53:07 story is so clearly Jack Ruby. Yeah. I
53:10 mean, and this is I think we are so
53:14 indoctrinated to believe that this sort
53:15 of thing happens in other countries. is
53:17 like how much think about how much we've
53:18 heard for example about Putin and Nvani
53:21 right and we're all supposed to like
53:23 obsess on the idea that in Russia you
53:26 know if you get too much influence or
53:28 you become too much of a threat to
53:29 somebody you get killed or imprisoned
53:31 the funny thing is Putin didn't even
53:32 kill Nalli I think everybody the CIA
53:36 says that so like no exactly there's no
53:38 yeah exactly after months of course
53:40 making it obvious I got blamed for his
53:41 murder I was in Russia when he
53:44 died remember that timing you were going
53:46 to go you had big Putin interview and
53:47 then like two days earlier Putin killed
53:49 Nani and you were like uh there with
53:52 Putin. No, but that's a big part of how
53:55 that propaganda works. I you know I grew
53:56 up thinking that like these kind of bad
53:58 things happen. They just don't happen in
54:00 our country. It must be cool to live you
54:03 live outside the country famously
54:06 where you know you're a foreigner living
54:08 in a country you've been a long time.
54:09 You speak the language you're engaged in
54:11 the politics so you're like part of it
54:13 but you're also from the United States.
54:14 So you're not coming at it with that
54:16 baggage. You can see you're just like
54:18 you don't lie to yourself about what it
54:20 is. Yeah. I do think
54:23 I think one of the great one of the
54:24 things which for which I'm most grateful
54:26 is that I was never embedded in the DC
54:30 political and media scene and obviously
54:32 you removed yourself from it which is
54:34 why we're here and not in Georgetown. It
54:36 didn't help me being a part of that at
54:38 all.
54:39 I'll tell you there's
54:43 a I've had a friendly relationship with
54:45 Alex Thompson for a while. I've been,
54:47 you know, Joe Jake Topper's co-author in
54:49 that book. Former political reporter.
54:51 Yes. Who now works at Axios. Y and I've
54:54 been very aggressive about praising him
54:55 like going back two years when he was
54:57 one of the only ones working for these
54:59 news outlets who was on the story of
55:01 Biden's cognitive decline and getting
55:03 mauled and attacked by the entire
55:05 Democratic party. I was often praising
55:06 him and defending him. You know, I mean,
55:09 I wouldn't say we're great friends, but
55:11 you know, he like sent me a copy of the
55:12 book with very nice words. And so, when
55:15 I go to attack Jake Tapper, which is
55:17 essentially attacking that book, of
55:19 course, there's a part of my brain that
55:20 like, you know, thinks about like, wait,
55:23 what is that going to do to my
55:24 relationship with Alex Thompson? And
55:26 then you have to be like, I don't care.
55:28 But
55:29 if you that is your life you know
55:31 because I mean Alex Thompson is not like
55:33 an important close friend of mine but
55:35 like if you live in Washington and every
55:37 your whole social scene is integrated
55:40 into that is why there's no adversarial
55:42 relationship between the media you know
55:44 funny so funny
55:46 Jake Tapper and Alice Thompson were on
55:49 that shitty PBS show that is now hosted
55:51 by Jeffrey Goldberg. So can you imagine
55:53 Jeffrey Goldberg as a PBS show? Yeah
55:55 it's like the week in Washington. I I
55:56 didn't Jeffrey Goldberg host a TV show.
55:58 Yeah. Um on PBS like the week in
56:01 Washington I know I know you can't find
56:03 anyone less telegenic but anyway he is
56:06 the the person sits there like uh
56:09 anyway Jeffrey Goldberg was defending
56:11 the media saying like I think it's
56:13 outrageous that we're being blamed for
56:14 this whole thing with Biden and
56:16 cognitive decline when there was nothing
56:17 we could do. And so at the end he said
56:19 to Jake Tapper like what is the lesson
56:21 that we have to take from all this? And
56:22 Jake Tapper was got very serious. He
56:24 like furred his brow, but he only like
56:26 looked down at the table cuz he just it
56:28 was a very weird thing like he's just
56:29 kind of, you know, he's on television
56:30 every day. You know, you'd look up, you
56:32 talk to people, you
56:37 engage firm and he said,
56:43 uh, what I have realized is that you
56:47 cannot trust what people in power tell
56:50 you. People in power lie. And when they
56:53 tell you things, you have to take it
56:56 with skepticism. You cannot take it on
56:57 face value. So Jake Tapper at 56 years
57:00 old after 30 years of jour working in
57:03 journalism has discovered what if I were
57:06 to teach college freshman a class on
57:08 journalism would be the thing that I
57:10 would say on the first day about what
57:12 the job is, right? Like why it's
57:14 important to have journalism because
57:16 people in power lie to keep their power.
57:19 And this is something that now that
57:21 Trump's in office, they've suddenly
57:24 discovered is an important thing to do
57:25 to be adversarial to people in power.
57:28 And I think that is in their mind like
57:30 there is an element of truth to their
57:32 revisionist history that makes them the
57:33 victim. Like they are friends with Mike
57:34 Donan and like Anita Dunn. Their kids go
57:37 to school their same schools. They live
57:39 in the same neighborhoods. They intermar
57:42 you know like half these couples are
57:43 like one in the media, one in politics
57:45 and then the ring door. They constantly
57:46 switch and they're at lobbyist firms
57:48 together. Washington is like, you know,
57:50 Versailles.
57:52 And so it's impossible to be
57:55 adversarial. Man, we had dinner without
57:57 naming names, but with a journalist last
57:59 night. You and I did here, who I don't
58:02 I'd never met before. Nice guy actually,
58:05 but from DC, grew up two blocks from me.
58:08 Mother went to the same school that I
58:09 did. He went to the same schools as
58:11 everyone I know. I mean it's like if
58:13 you're from there you are connected to
58:16 every other person who's from there. Of
58:19 course it's but like to a much greater
58:21 extent than people understand just
58:23 physically. Yeah. It's like the British
58:24 court like totally incestuous. It's
58:26 unbelievable. Well, you know, this is
58:27 what I think I think a lot of times, you
58:31 know, because I've been a very harsh
58:32 critic of media corporations and the
58:34 like. People, you know, ask me like when
58:35 did this change or whatever. And I like
58:38 there's always been a lot of closeness
58:40 between the the the media and its
58:42 supposed heyday in the 50s with like J
58:45 with Muro and Kankite and all that. But,
58:47 you know, they were you look at Time
58:49 magazine and the New York Times, they
58:50 were outpost for US propaganda on
58:52 foreign policy during the cold war. But
58:54 I think you know there was a long time
58:57 when journalism was considered this
59:00 like workingass you know outsider
59:03 profession and the people who went into
59:04 it didn't want to be like wearing Armani
59:06 suits and you know going to dinner at
59:08 the White House and with like beless
59:11 celebrities. They were just like you
59:12 know workingass guys who just wanted to
59:15 like throw rocks at power. That's was
59:16 their personality. That's why they went
59:18 into journalism. And of course going
59:19 back even further like the first
59:21 amendment says you know all Americans
59:23 enjoy freedom of the press. It's there
59:25 was no such thing as like this secret
59:27 priesthood of called journalists like
59:29 professional. The press was literally
59:31 the printing press that everybody could
59:32 use and everybody did use. You'd have to
59:34 be a journalist to use it. It was just a
59:35 means of expressing and disrupting and
59:38 and informing and organizing and that's
59:40 what they protected.
59:41 And as huge corporations started buying
59:46 media outlets, you know, like
59:47 Westinghouse buys uh CBS and it's owned
59:49 by Biacom or Disney now owns ABC, you
59:51 know, that sort of thing, the
59:52 corporatization of of mainstream
59:55 media. If you think about the kind of
59:57 attributes that are required to succeed
60:00 in large
60:01 corporations, it's never being
60:05 disruptive to anybody who has authority.
60:07 It's conformity. It's um you know just
60:12 sort of being a good soldier for people
60:16 in power which is the exact opposite
60:19 attributes that make a good journalist
60:22 and the incentive schemes that
60:24 journalists are now encouraged to follow
60:27 to rise within media are the kind of
60:31 people who worship power who are who are
60:33 obedient to it. Exactly. And that to me
60:35 has become the most fundamentally rotted
60:37 apart. And that's why you know what
60:39 inspired me to get in journalism like
60:40 the the blogersphere of like the early
60:42 2000s which are like just all these
60:43 angry people on the right and left like
60:44 hating the media no credentials but like
60:47 seeing things that they weren't seeing
60:48 you know hating the Bush administration
60:50 but either from the right or from the
60:51 left hating the mainstream media same
60:53 thing. And it like you start realizing
60:55 like wow like this mainstream media and
60:58 politics is like a tiny little like
60:59 Obama once described it as you know like
61:02 well like John Boehner is supposed to
61:04 call me a communist but you know
61:05 everyone knows the reality is we just
61:07 fight within the 40 yard lines like
61:08 we're basically on the same team we just
61:10 the 40 yard line and you realize there's
61:11 this whole other space and way of
61:13 looking at things and it was really the
61:16 internet that gave rise to it which is
61:18 why the internet is and controlling it
61:20 and censoring it is the thing that is on
61:22 the top of their agenda because It's the
61:23 biggest threat to them. So, the people
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62:45 We strongly recommend it. Why do you see
62:48 things? Well, I should just say I think
62:50 your mom worked at McDonald's, actually.
62:53 Yeah. I mean, I think which is like I
62:55 think which wouldn't be shocking if you
62:56 were in any other business, but I don't
62:58 think I know a single other person I
63:00 don't think I know a single other person
63:03 in our generation in media who can say
63:05 that. Yeah, I think like I do I mean
63:08 Richard Nixon had this as well. this
63:10 like you know I think Trump has it to an
63:11 extent too even though like Trump grew
63:13 up very wealthy but it was like outer
63:15 burrow wealth which is not looked upon
63:17 kindly by like old money in Manhattan
63:19 and then he comes into Manhattan and
63:20 started building gigantic buildings and
63:22 being all like flashy about it you know
63:24 and so he understood that he was looked
63:26 down upon by those people same with
63:28 Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon always knew
63:30 that like the intelligencia on the east
63:32 coast hated him, thought he was
63:34 disgusting. And I think if you grow up
63:38 feeling excluded from certain kind of
63:40 power centers, there's always going to
63:42 be a kind of resentment that you have
63:43 toward it. And I suppose in some way
63:45 that could lead to like a desperation to
63:47 be integrated into it. But I think more
63:49 often than not, and certainly my case,
63:51 it made me want to like deconstruct it
63:55 and show like the facade that they use
63:58 to glorify themselves, but the dirt and
64:00 filth that really lay underneath. And I
64:03 think that kind of distance really helps
64:05 with clarity of vision. I totally agree.
64:08 And traveling, you were saying last
64:10 night that you think that traveling is
64:12 one of the most expanding things you can
64:14 do. I had this uh I did that interview
64:17 with uh Alexander Dugan and I know
64:19 you've interviewed him too and I know
64:21 we're all supposed to hate him and he's
64:22 a fascist whatever. Uh but one of the
64:26 reasons I really loved him is you know
64:27 he's a philosopher and when I say I
64:29 loved him I mean I love talking to him.
64:31 He's a philosopher and I like that was I
64:33 know I sometimes I studied philosophy in
64:35 college. It was my obsession. I wanted
64:37 to teach philosophy. ended up being more
64:38 practical in law school. But thinking
64:41 about, you know, things in like terms of
64:43 their first principles and like always
64:45 needing a like rationale or a logical
64:48 train that gets you from the start of
64:49 your question to the end of whatever
64:50 answer you think you've embraced is very
64:53 important to me and just thinking about,
64:55 you know, like not being reflexive. So,
64:57 one of the things he said to me was he
65:00 said, "You know, I'm always accused of
65:02 being like a racist or a white
65:04 supremacist because I'm so devoted to
65:07 preserving Russian culture and Russian
65:10 civilization." And he said, "Actually,
65:12 the biggest racist by far are Western
65:15 liberals because they believe that their
65:16 way of being is so superior that every
65:19 single other culture should give way to
65:23 adapting itself to their way of life.
65:25 like the whole world should be
65:26 homogenized in their vision because
65:27 they're inherently superior. Like they
65:29 find a tribe, some ancient tribe, and
65:31 they want to immediately like mold it
65:33 into like Washington neoliberals.
65:36 And what he was saying was like what
65:39 makes the world valuable and interesting
65:41 and ultimately like the way you advance
65:43 and think about things is that you have
65:44 all these different traditions all these
65:46 different civilizations like Russian
65:48 civilization and Chinese civilization
65:49 and Muslim civilization and um you know
65:52 western civilization and preserving
65:55 those is what ensures that we have this
65:57 diversity of thought and it's like yeah
66:00 everything contributes something exactly
66:02 and so you are constantly told and maybe
66:06 this is universal when you grow up in a
66:08 society that your way of life is, you
66:09 know, we're always told like the United
66:10 States is the greatest country ever to
66:12 exist in the whole history of the world.
66:14 Like what a great coincidence for me
66:16 that I was born in like the objectively
66:18 greatest country to ever be on the
66:20 planet. Not just now, but all of human
66:21 history. And there are some parts of the
66:23 United States that I know I love and I
66:25 think are very uniquely valuable for
66:27 sure. But the more you get to know other
66:31 types of ways of thinking and you you
66:34 have this experience like some neighbor
66:35 has a politics different than yours and
66:36 you think they're crazy and then you go
66:37 and talk to them and you understand them
66:39 better. Yes. And then that makes you be
66:41 more open to ways of looking at things
66:43 that that to me is what you know like
66:46 intellectual vibrancy is is going to
66:50 places that you don't understand.
66:51 Hearing ideas that you were taught to
66:53 believe are crazy or evil or wrong. And
66:57 then you know when you talk to the human
66:58 beings who believe them you understand
67:00 that they actually have as much
67:01 conviction about it or as much rationale
67:03 for it as you do for yours. I just think
67:06 that's a beautiful sentiment and thank
67:07 you for saying it. So what you're really
67:08 arguing for is diversity.
67:11 Yeah. Like diversity like not the kind
67:13 that you know we've been told is
67:15 diversity where everyone thinks the same
67:17 thing but like they have surface level
67:18 diversity. The the Indian guy, the black
67:20 guy and the white lady all went to
67:22 Princeton and they're diverse. Yeah.
67:24 Like I remember this initiative where we
67:25 wanted to diversify our newsroom at the
67:27 Intercept and so we hired like a black
67:29 Harvard student whose parents were
67:31 partners at Goldman Sachs and then like
67:33 a Latino person who went to Yale and
67:35 their partners were at JP Morgan and
67:36 then like you know and that was like
67:38 diversity like everything but like
67:40 workingclass diversity or experiential
67:43 diversity you know the most like
67:45 superficial kind the most easily
67:47 accommodated kind. Yeah I do know very
67:50 much. So what did you think? So you
67:51 interviewed Duggan in Russia in Moscow.
67:54 What did you think of it? When was the
67:56 last time you were there? I had been
67:58 several times because I visited Snowden
68:00 and you know we in Citizen 4, the one of
68:03 the last scene of Citizen 4, the film
68:05 that was made about the Snowden uh our
68:08 our work with Snowden that won the Oscar
68:10 that Laura Po just directed was her and
68:12 myself going to to Russia to interview
68:16 Snowden about like a next sort of story.
68:18 Imagine, sorry Pardon interrupt. Imagine
68:20 a Snowden film winning an Oscar. Now, I
68:24 mean, at the time it was
68:28 uh we were we when we started winning
68:30 the all the awards and we did the whole
68:32 like award circuit and we started
68:33 winning, we were very shocked. Um
68:36 and at the time I remember after they
68:40 announced Citizen 4 as the winner of the
68:42 Oscars, it was Neil Patrick Harris who
68:44 was the host of the Oscars. we had gone
68:46 on stage and gotten the award and he
68:49 then
68:50 said Edward Snowden wanted to be here
68:52 but he was unable to for some sort of
68:54 treason you know like playing doing a
68:56 word play on reason but like with the
68:58 word treason and it's
69:00 like you [ __ ] idiots like you're
69:03 Hollywood you went through like the
69:04 McCarthy era you went through all these
69:06 things that you claim well he was told
69:08 to say that was yeah of course it was
69:09 part of the script um but it was a very
69:13 you know war is a brilliant filmmaker
69:14 and I think the it won because of the
69:16 quality of the film like and the drama
69:18 inherent in the story not be because the
69:20 politics of it were that we were
69:21 exposing spying programs developed under
69:24 President Obama largely almost entirely
69:28 but as you're so right this was before
69:29 Russia gate this was before you know
69:31 where anything connected to Russia was
69:33 considered no chance you wouldn't even
69:35 get it here I don't think it would even
69:37 yeah they wouldn't even consider it
69:38 right at this point so you'd been to
69:40 Moscow before but you were just there
69:41 this winter this spring just yeah a few
69:44 months ago two three months ago What do
69:45 you think? Well, I mean, you know, we
69:48 talked about this before, but like I
69:49 remember the first time I ever went to
69:50 Russia, I was so shocked by the immense
69:55 disparity between what I had been taught
69:57 to think what what Russia was like and
69:59 what I was seeing in front of my own
70:00 eyes. And you know, you can go anywhere
70:03 and like, you know, people come to
70:04 Brazil to Rio Janeiro and they only go
70:06 to the richest neighborhoods and they're
70:07 like, oh, it's but you know, there's a
70:08 whole undergirling of misery and
70:10 suffering that you don't see because you
70:12 don't go there. So, I'm very cognizant
70:14 of that, right? You can't go to a
70:15 country and spend like two days there
70:17 and be shown the best parts and think
70:18 like, "Oh, wow." Nonetheless,
70:22 it's not only beautiful, it's extremely
70:25 wellrun, it's clean. But the thing that
70:28 um you know that I felt like uh was most
70:31 present was the the richness of Russian
70:35 history and culture and tradition. I
70:37 mean, this is a civilization that has
70:40 been around for, you know, thousands of
70:42 years and that has produced the highest
70:44 in like literature and music and dance
70:47 and architecture and I mean it and has
70:50 been through like wars of of like and
70:54 like the most difficult kind and and you
70:56 just feel the heaviness of all of that
70:58 like the the the the greatness of it and
71:03 obviously I understand that there's
71:04 political repression there. I understand
71:06 that there's a huge all kinds of social
71:08 problems. I'm not denying any of that.
71:10 That's true everywhere, right? Uh pretty
71:12 much. But you understand why Russians
71:16 have this immense pride in their country
71:19 and in their
71:21 civilization. And so it didn't feel like
71:24 a gas station with nuclear weapons as
71:26 McCain said. Exactly. Right. I mean, has
71:29 there ever been an uglier thing that any
71:32 politician just a dumber I mean, and
71:34 McCain was dumb. I knew him very well.
71:36 Very low IQ. Totally Wasp. Hate to say
71:39 that, but it's true. Um, with good
71:42 qualities. He had good qualities, but he
71:44 was an idiot. But to say something like
71:46 that out loud is like there's just I
71:49 don't know. Like if you're an idiot,
71:52 keep it to yourself. A gas station with
71:53 nuclear weapons. I just Yeah. I mean,
71:55 what? Yeah. I mean, that's what I mean.
71:57 like you you know you're taught in
72:00 college even like the greatest
72:01 literature is like Toltoy and Dsttovski
72:03 who are the greatest novelists ever and
72:05 you know which is true. Oh I mean
72:07 undoubtedly and
72:10 also just the history like the role they
72:12 played in World War II and like the
72:15 Bolevik Revolution and the you know the
72:18 wars of the the 17th and 18th centuries
72:21 and then you know the like Moscow itself
72:23 and St. Petersburg even more so are so
72:26 you know beautiful and striking
72:28 overwhelming like in a way that like the
72:30 best Western European cities are you
72:33 know like the history of it the the
72:35 grandness of it
72:38 and so yeah I mean that you have to go
72:40 see things for yourself and you start
72:42 realizing how much you're con how much
72:44 you know that this this like when I
72:45 started writing about politics I'll just
72:46 tell you this quick story um I never
72:49 intended to be a journalist I didn't go
72:50 to school for journalism that was not
72:51 part of my my life plan in any way. It
72:55 was just after 9/11, you know, as I saw
72:58 these radical changes like to our civil
73:01 liberties in the name of fighting
73:03 terrorism, but also just the climate
73:04 became so repressive in terms of what
73:06 you could question, what you could say.
73:08 That's when I started feeling a need to
73:10 want to say things that I felt like
73:12 weren't being said. And when I started
73:14 doing that more or less full-time, it
73:17 gave me the luxury of going and looking
73:21 at things so that I wasn't being told by
73:23 the New York Times what a document said.
73:25 I was able to go spend the 3 hours to
73:26 read the document. And when you go and
73:29 do that, you have the like luxury of
73:30 that time, which most people don't have.
73:31 They're taking care of their kids,
73:32 they're working, etc. You you can't
73:34 fight propaganda if you don't, you know,
73:36 have the resources to do it, especially
73:38 time.
73:40 I started realizing how many things I
73:43 had believed and I had like a you know
73:46 high opinion of my intellect. I thought
73:47 I was like a high-end political consumer
73:49 you know I like lived in New York. I
73:51 like went to good schools. In many ways
73:53 that makes it worse not better. I have
73:55 learned that. Yes. Yeah. And so you know
73:58 just going back and I basically decided
74:01 I had to dismantle almost everything
74:03 because so much of it was just ingested
74:06 through no critical faculties. Why would
74:09 you want to dismantle your assumptions?
74:10 I mean, that's such a painful process.
74:12 It it it sucks, but why would you want
74:14 that? Why wouldn't you just say, you
74:16 know, I believe what I believe and
74:17 that's it? Like, I decided in college.
74:19 This is right. Right. This is like right
74:21 after 9/11 and the war on ter like the
74:23 Iraq war, which everybody was kind of
74:26 like, wait, what just happened? We just
74:28 went and did this massive land war, this
74:30 invasion on the other side of the
74:32 country, a country that had nothing to
74:33 do with 911 because we were told they
74:35 were somehow responsible based on
74:36 nuclear weapons and chemical weapons
74:38 they actually didn't have. Like
74:40 everybody at that point more or less was
74:44 starting to question and you know you
74:47 feel angry and betrayed when inside your
74:49 brain you're led to believe things that
74:51 are just false. Yes. And you want to
74:55 expunge it from yourself. if you want to
74:57 cleanse yourself of that. I I I think
75:00 that's a virtuous uh response. Well, I
75:03 think you've done that. That has been I
75:05 have. It took it took a little longer,
75:06 but yeah. And it was because you were so
75:08 much more immersive. A little more
75:09 painful. Yeah. I was right in the middle
75:11 of it. But um but a lot of people, you
75:13 know, didn't do I just want to call to
75:15 the attention of listeners how rare what
75:17 you did was. And that process of
75:20 self-examination, which is the root of
75:21 wisdom, um is is unusual. People just
75:24 don't want to deal with it. Like Jake
75:26 Tapper saying, I look upon my some of my
75:28 coverage with humility. Like that fake
75:31 kind of like Well, there's really
75:33 nothing more gling than fake humility. I
75:34 mean, that's the that's like metaphor
75:36 scripted scripted fake humility. It's
75:39 like because like the one thing you hope
75:41 is real is humility, but um it's not.
75:44 So, I got to ask you about something.
75:45 So, because of AI, I'm a little
75:48 suspicious of things I see on the
75:50 internet because is that could that
75:51 really be real? So, someone sent this to
75:52 me the other day. This is a person who I
75:55 I confirmed is a real person. I didn't
75:57 believe it at first. Congressman Randy
76:00 Fine of uh of Florida, and he said this
76:03 the other day on Fox News last week.
76:05 Quote, "In World War II, we did not
76:08 negotiate a surrender with the Nazis. We
76:10 did not negotiate a surrender with the
76:11 Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in
76:15 order to get unconditional surrender.
76:17 That needs to be the same here in Gaza.
76:19 There is something deeply wrong with
76:21 this culture and it needs to be
76:23 defeated. So, we're going to nuke Gaza
76:26 because of its culture. We're going to
76:28 kill everybody because we don't like the
76:29 culture. Which, by the way, lots of
76:31 Christians in Gaza, Muslims in Gaza,
76:33 just innocent people in Gaza of all
76:35 kinds, of course. But like to say
76:37 there's some like Gazin culture that's
76:39 cohesive, it's like what? But we're
76:41 going to kill them all because we don't
76:44 like their culture. And so, I didn't
76:46 believe that was real. I didn't really
76:47 think he was a member of Congress. I
76:49 texted a friend. He's newly elected like
76:51 in the last he filled Matt I think Mike
76:53 it was Mike Walter or Matt Gates's seat.
76:55 One or the other. It was Waltz. I think
76:57 Walts. Yeah. So I texted a friend of
76:59 mine in Congress. Is this really a
77:00 member of Congress? Yes. It's like I
77:02 don't even know what to say to that. But
77:03 that first of all it's it's evil. But
77:05 how can you say something like that and
77:07 not get expelled from Congress or the
77:08 Republic how can that person be a member
77:09 of the Republican party? I don't
77:12 understand. So let me let me say two
77:13 things about that. Uh and yes, Randy
77:15 Fine is very real. I've been watching
77:17 him for a while now, ever since Trump
77:18 endorsed him as this America First
77:20 candidate. He had served in the Florida
77:24 Senate, in the Florida legislature,
77:26 maybe the Florida House, but one of
77:27 those two bodies. He was he was a member
77:29 of the Florida uh hates Dantis hates
77:32 him. He hates Dantis. He like has a feud
77:35 with Dantis and his
77:40 entire political existence is centered
77:42 around a foreign country, which is
77:44 Israel, not the United States. He barely
77:46 ever talks about the United States. So
77:47 that's America first, right? America
77:49 first. So let me just say two things.
77:51 One is this broader point and then I
77:52 want to get the more point more
77:53 important one. I started noticing this
77:55 in like 2006 2007 and I know you hear
77:58 this all the
78:00 time. World War
78:02 II was one of the worst things that has
78:04 ever happened to humanity. And the
78:07 reason it happened was because you had
78:10 these massive military powers with these
78:13 new technologies that had never
78:15 previously been used in war engaged in
78:17 mass destruction. And a madman who
78:21 was leading and had started the war for
78:24 all kinds of reasons. And you had the
78:26 world's most powerful factions
78:28 throughout the world destroying each
78:29 other in the most inhumane way to the
78:32 point where we not only used nuclear
78:33 weapons, but after the war was over, we
78:36 decided we never wanted to have a war
78:38 like that again. We we imposed by
78:40 convention. We agreed to all sorts of
78:42 limits through the Geneva Convention and
78:44 all these other treaties and
78:46 conventions, ways to make sure that what
78:48 happened in World War II never happens
78:50 again. the the people who got blamed for
78:53 it, it was a form of victor's justice at
78:54 Nerburgg were put to death. But at the
78:56 same time, the Nermberg trial, the the
78:59 judges and prosecutors said the only way
79:02 the principles that we're pronouncing
79:03 here at the Nerburgg trials will have
79:05 any value as anything other than
79:07 victor's justice is if the principles
79:09 were annunciating apply to all countries
79:12 in the future, including the part the
79:14 countries presiding over the tribunal.
79:16 It was meant to inunciate universal
79:20 principles that all countries agreed to
79:21 on earth because it was so inhumane like
79:25 it just stripped everybody of their
79:27 humanity. And yet so every time we have
79:29 a new war or someone wants to sell a new
79:32 war in the United States, the only
79:35 historical framework that they'll use as
79:37 if they only studied one thing in in
79:39 high school and college, like the only
79:41 thing they know is World War II. And
79:43 either you're on the same nothing about
79:44 World War II, by the way. No, but they
79:46 know all they know is that the Wikipedia
79:47 version Church Hill is good because he
79:50 went and fought and Chamberlain is bad
79:52 because he tried to use diplomacy. I
79:55 wrote an article about this when like 6
79:56 months after I started writing about
79:57 politics in 2006, how everything was had
80:01 like superimposed on it was the the
80:04 framework of World War II and you are
80:05 either Churchill or Chamberlain and you
80:07 choose one or the other. are neocons to
80:09 this very day. By which I mean people
80:11 who always want the United States to go
80:12 to war in the Middle East and elsewhere.
80:14 The minute you say you're not interested
80:16 in war, you're Chamberlain. And the
80:18 minute that you want to go to war,
80:20 you're heroic Churchill. And so the idea
80:22 that because we use nuclear weapons
80:26 against Japan, Imperial Japan, filled
80:29 with enormous amounts of skill and money
80:32 and knowhow and a massive military force
80:35 allied with Nazi Germany, one of the
80:36 most industrialized military forces
80:39 ever, that because we ended the war with
80:42 nuclear weapons, then we're supposed to
80:44 now use it on a completely defenseless
80:47 population of 2 million people, half of
80:49 whom are children who have no army of
80:51 any can't even break out of Gaza, let
80:53 alone threaten any other country in the
80:54 world, is absolutely demented. But that
80:57 is one of the clear war propaganda
80:59 themes that are always used is
81:00 everything is World War II and that's
81:02 the only word that we can reference.
81:06 Even though at the time the idea was we
81:07 have to prevent all this from ever
81:09 happening again. They want to replicate
81:10 it eternally. But I don't know that I
81:12 can support a party with someone like
81:14 Randy Fine. I I don't understand like
81:16 how could someone Randy Fine I mean
81:18 that's so disgusting. It's demented.
81:20 It's it's that is that is that is
81:23 psychotic to say that. Does anyone say
81:25 that but about Randy Fine? Well, here's
81:29 I think I think Randy Fine is such an
81:31 important uh despite his how repulsive
81:34 he is uh ethically, morally and
81:37 physically. Despite that, I think he's a
81:39 very important instrument for looking at
81:42 this radical contradiction within the
81:44 Republican party and especially the the
81:46 America First movement. So Donald Trump
81:50 in obviously there were a lot of
81:51 Republicans who wanted to run for that
81:52 Mike Walt seat for the M Gates seat and
81:54 whoever Trump endorses is get
81:56 essentially guaranteed to be the winner
81:58 and he endorsed Randy Fine and said
82:00 Randy Fine is all America first and I
82:03 remember the day that that happened
82:05 thinking Randy Fine actually is not even
82:09 concerned about America let alone
82:11 placing it first. His entire political
82:13 existence is driven by loyalty to a
82:16 foreign country. Everything for him is
82:18 Israel.
82:20 Everything. And to to like even to an
82:23 extent that is very severe for a
82:25 Congress that in general prioritizes
82:29 Israel to a shocking amount. I can't
82:30 think of a foreign country that is as
82:33 important to as Israel is to the United
82:36 States that has any other kind of
82:37 foreign country placing its interest on
82:39 par with if not above it. And so here
82:42 you have a member of the Republican
82:44 party who identifies as America first,
82:47 who Donald Trump endorsed as a member of
82:49 America first, and whose loyalty is to a
82:51 foreign country, who wants to have the
82:53 American worker fund that foreign
82:55 country, wants the American worker to
82:57 pay for their military, give $4 billion
82:59 automatically every year in a deal
83:01 negotiated by Obama and Netanyahu when
83:03 Obama was on his way out. And every time
83:06 Israel wants to have a new war, we send
83:07 them whatever they want, billions more.
83:09 We feed them all these weapons paid for
83:11 by the American taxpayer. We isolate
83:13 ourselves from the rest of the world. We
83:15 block every UN resolution that the
83:17 entire world supports in order to tie
83:20 ourselves to Israel. We lose our own
83:21 standing, our own soft power, our own
83:23 imagery in the world. We lose massive
83:26 amounts of money. All sorts of people
83:29 have said that the reason we have
83:31 there's so much anti-American hatred in
83:32 the Middle East. reason
83:34 why people want to attack our country,
83:37 the reason why we can't get things done
83:38 in the Middle East, a a region where we
83:40 have a lot of interest, is because of
83:41 the hatred for the United States driven
83:43 primarily by our standing behind and
83:46 doing everything for Laden said that in
83:48 his manifesto. He's spelled it out. I I
83:51 just can we just talk one second about
83:54 the fact
83:55 that Bin Laden wrote a note to the
83:58 American people explaining why al-Qaeda
84:03 was driven to attack the United
84:05 States and there were some religious
84:07 references obviously because al-Qaeda is
84:10 a nominally religious organization but
84:13 overwhelmingly he listed very specific
84:16 grievances with American foreign policy
84:17 all having to do with the fact that we
84:19 constantly interfere in that region. We
84:21 place military bases on sacred Saudi
84:25 soil. We imposed a sanctions regime on
84:28 Iraq for years that killed 500,000 Iraqi
84:31 children that Mad and Alite Albreight
84:33 said was worth it. We overthrow their
84:37 leaders and impose the ones that we want
84:39 that then serve the interests of the
84:40 United States and Israel. And we fund
84:44 and arm Israel to repress and kill
84:46 Palestinians. And he said that it's not
84:48 that you're some country that's just
84:49 sitting there peacefully and that never
84:52 bothers us and we decided, hey, look
84:53 over there. They let their women wear
84:55 bikinis so we better go and attack them,
84:57 right? Like we were attacked for our
84:58 freedom. So he writes this letter. I
85:00 remember the letter at the time. He was
85:03 interviewed by uh Al Jazzer and
85:06 previously by
85:08 uh by the New Yorker. Uh so we got to
85:12 hear from Osama bin Laden. Although
85:14 right after 9/11, the US government told
85:18 media outlets, "Do not broadcast any
85:21 speeches or interviews with Osama bin
85:23 Laden." And their reasoning was, "We're
85:25 concerned that he may have embedded
85:28 within his speech some sort of secret
85:30 code that will activate sleeper cells
85:32 inside the United States." Like he was
85:34 going to blank Morse code or like have
85:37 secret phrases and then people inside
85:39 the United States would hear it. They
85:40 told ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, do not air
85:43 any interviews with Bin Laden. When of
85:45 course it was because they didn't want
85:46 Americans to hear from Bin Laden why
85:49 there was so much anti-American
85:51 sentiment. It was because of our
85:52 interference in the Middle East in
85:53 general and our support for Israel in
85:54 particular. They were selling this lie
85:56 that it was because we're free and they
85:58 hate our freedom. There are a lot of
85:59 countries that are free. Like Brazil,
86:01 women walk around in bikinis. They have
86:03 elections. Al-Qaeda has never attacked
86:05 Brazil or Japan or South Korea or
86:09 Norway. And Bin Laden was explaining why
86:12 there's so many Muslims in that region
86:14 who hate the United States. But the
86:15 United States government didn't want
86:16 anyone to hear it.
86:19 20 years later while October 7th
86:22 happened and we're supporting this uh
86:25 ethnic cleansing and I would call it now
86:27 a genocide as well in Gaza. That's what
86:29 most uh genocidal experts including
86:32 Israelis and Jewish ones call it and
86:34 it's hard to say anything else but
86:36 whatever.
86:37 In the middle of all that, a bunch of
86:40 young people who were told the history
86:42 of 911 that the US government wanted
86:44 everyone to believe discovered the Bin
86:47 Laden letter because it was on the
86:48 Guardians website because Guardian is a
86:50 British newspaper. It was not no no
86:52 American news outlet despite its
86:54 historical importance. And they started
86:56 passing it around on
86:57 TikTok and saying, "Oh, wow. I I never
87:00 knew any of this. I never understood
87:02 that one of the reasons why these people
87:04 attacked us was because we are so
87:08 monommonically devoted to Israel and why
87:12 that we're constantly interfering in
87:13 that region, bombing them, sanctions,
87:14 overthrowing their government,
87:16 overthrowing their leaders. What of
87:17 course people are going to get angry at
87:19 us and want to attack back. And the
87:21 minute that letter started to become
87:23 well read by the American people who
87:26 were, you know, primarily younger, the
87:28 US government went ballistic and
87:30 demanded that Tik Tok ban it. The
87:33 Guardian, a news outlet, immediately
87:36 took the letter off their website so
87:38 nobody could read it any longer. All
87:39 those links that people were posting on
87:41 Tik Tok to go read that letter would no
87:42 longer work. And then Tik Tok
87:44 immediately under pressure from the US
87:46 government which was obviously already
87:47 threatened to close Tik Tok and ban it
87:49 from the United States anyway started
87:50 banning all the hashtags. Bin Laden
87:52 letter you could not anymore read or f I
87:55 mean this is like the stuff we're taught
87:57 that the Soviets did right like hiding
88:00 letters hiding documents erasing
88:03 history. And I continued to be shocked
88:05 by that by that event that everybody
88:08 thought that that was fine to take a
88:11 letter that is of great historical
88:13 importance. Yes. Ex from the person that
88:17 is alleged to have been responsible for
88:20 the single worst attack on American
88:21 soil. Maybe on par with Pearl Harbor,
88:23 but in terms of like a single day
88:24 casualty
88:26 count, explaining from his perspective
88:28 why he did it. Like you want to hear
88:29 from your enemy, right? Like you want to
88:31 understand like what they're I want all
88:32 relevant information and I'll decide
88:34 Yeah. Yeah. You don't want people
88:35 deciding for you what you can and can't
88:37 read. Yeah. They were
88:39 petrified that young Americans were
88:42 going to hear the reasons profered and
88:44 they made that letter disappear. Why
88:47 would The Guardian, which is supposedly
88:49 like this left-wing British publication,
88:51 like why would they go along with that?
88:54 The Guardian is very, you know,
88:56 supportive of the Western establishment.
89:00 The UK is aggressively supportive of
89:02 Israel, always has been, finds it with
89:05 arms, does a lot of reconnaissance
89:06 fights over Gaza to feed the Israelis
89:09 intelligence. And when that kind of
89:11 pressure comes to bear, Tik Tok, a
89:13 gigantic multi multi-billion dollar
89:17 corporation, The Guardian, one of the
89:18 oldest newspapers in the West, they fold
89:21 in a second. Like, they're no match for
89:23 that kind of pressure. A pressure that
89:26 said, "We want that letter censored so
89:27 Americans don't know about it." that
89:29 have never read it, don't hear from it,
89:31 so they only hear from us. But so, okay,
89:34 so that was just a I I'm I'm still
89:36 amazed every time every like I didn't
89:37 mean to go into that because So, why do
89:39 you love Osama bin Laden so much? I
89:41 mean, of course, that's and then that I
89:43 I remember being shocked by it and
89:45 saying like, how can how can it possibly
89:47 be the case that we're watching this?
89:50 And it it wasn't there was no pretext to
89:52 it. It was explicit. Like, we can't have
89:54 people reading this. This is terrorist
89:57 propaganda. And then exactly if you
89:59 stand up and say, "No, I actually think
90:00 people should be able to read that." And
90:03 then they'll say like, "Oh, you're pro-
90:05 al-Qaeda. You want terrorist propaganda
90:08 to be to spread." I'm like, "No, I just
90:10 think adults should have all information
90:11 that they want to have available to
90:14 them, and I don't think the government
90:15 should be prohibiting certain
90:17 information from from being accessible."
90:19 Also, 3,000 Americans were murdered that
90:22 day, and I'm an American. I have an
90:24 absolute right to know every all
90:26 available information about that. I
90:28 don't understand by what what's the
90:30 justification for keeping that
90:31 information from me an American citizen
90:32 who faithfully pays his taxes and obeys
90:34 the laws that was born here. Well, you
90:35 know, but this is you can't do that. You
90:37 know, after the 2022 invasion by the
90:40 Russians into Ukraine, one of the first
90:42 things the EU parliament did is made it
90:45 a crime to platform Russian state media.
90:49 So, if you wanted to say, you know what,
90:51 I want to hear from Russia. I want to
90:52 understand like what Russia's argument
90:54 is for doing this, you you couldn't get
90:56 I mean, you could, if you looked hard
90:58 enough, you could. If you went to
90:59 Rumble, you could. That That's why
91:00 they're banned in France because they
91:02 refused to to remove RT and Sputnik.
91:05 Think about what that says. Like, we
91:07 want to make sure that we monopolize the
91:09 flow of information that our citizenry
91:11 gets. And nothing that disputes what we
91:14 want them to believe can even be heard
91:16 or available. I went to Russia because
91:17 it drove me I had no interest really in
91:19 going to Russia, but it it I'm so
91:20 grateful that I did, but it it drove me
91:22 so crazy that I wasn't allowed and that
91:25 Americans were not allowed relevant
91:27 information about what their government
91:28 was doing. Yeah. Like I want to hear
91:30 from them what their perspective is.
91:32 Like maybe I'll walk away and think
91:33 like, oh, they're they're they're
91:35 murderous, you know, imperialists who
91:37 just want to consume their neighbor or
91:40 or maybe there's some other way of
91:42 looking at things that I'm not permitted
91:43 in the West. I don't know what the truth
91:45 is. And that's the whole point of living
91:46 here is I get to know what the truth is.
91:48 I get to decide for myself what's true.
91:50 And if you take that away, then why?
91:52 Well, speaking of that, let me just
91:54 finish this thing about Randy Fine if I
91:55 could. Okay. So, yeah.
91:59 So, I like in 2022 and 2023. There were
92:02 a bunch of MAGA people who were opposed
92:04 to the funding of the war in Ukraine.
92:08 Uh, and some non-MAGA people too, like
92:10 RFK Jr. And I was obviously very opposed
92:13 to it from the start. You were too. I
92:14 went on your show many times to talk
92:16 about that and I had a bunch of them on
92:18 like Matt Gates and Marjgery Taylor
92:20 Green and RFK Jr. a lot of them and I
92:25 always had this same plan. I would ask
92:27 them like why are you opposed to having
92:28 the US fund the war in Ukraine? Like
92:30 don't you want the US to stand up for
92:32 Ukraine against Russia? And they would
92:34 all say this isn't our business. This is
92:37 on the other side of the world. It
92:38 doesn't affect my constituents. Our
92:41 communities are falling apart. We have
92:42 fentanyl addictions sweeping our
92:44 communities. Nobody has jobs. Nobody has
92:46 healthcare. Our country is falling
92:47 apart. We don't have the money to keep
92:48 sending to foreign countries. And it's
92:50 outrageous that we keep doing it. And
92:52 they would be very passionate and very
92:54 adamant. I would encourage them to keep
92:55 developing that idea. And they would and
92:57 they would say all those things with
92:58 which I completely agreed. And then my
93:00 next question was always, do you apply
93:02 the same rationale to the United States
93:04 funding the Israeli military and Israeli
93:07 society and Israeli wars?
93:10 and they would all stutter to try and
93:12 distinguish why it was that they had one
93:16 view for Ukraine and a very compelling
93:18 rationale but then had to say oh no
93:21 Israel is different to the point that
93:22 RFK Jr. And I actually really
93:24 appreciated this about him when I kept
93:26 pressing him about it. I said, "You're
93:27 saying we don't have money to put to
93:28 fund foreign wars that our country is
93:30 falling apart. Why are we sending
93:32 billions of dollars to Israel when
93:35 Israelis have a higher standard of
93:36 living than millions of American workers
93:39 than millions of American citizens? Why
93:40 is the American worker forced to
93:41 subsidize Israel? You said we can't be
93:44 doing that. We can't afford it when you
93:45 came to Ukraine. Why doesn't it come why
93:47 isn't the same applicable to Israel?"
93:49 And he then finally said, "You know
93:50 what? I'm going to think about that.
93:51 Maybe it is time for Israel to stand on
93:53 its own. I was like, "Oh, you think?"
93:55 So, this is the utterly irreconcilable
93:58 contradiction at the heart of the
94:00 America First movement, which is America
94:02 first means we use our resources for
94:04 oursel. We build our military to defend
94:07 our borders, to defend the American
94:10 people. We use our resources to improve
94:12 their lives materially, to build better
94:13 roads and better schools and better
94:15 communities, to offer them addiction
94:17 services and whatever else they need,
94:19 healthcare access. And we do not anymore
94:22 use it for this globalist agenda of
94:24 going around the world giving it to
94:25 other countries and funding other
94:27 countries. That is the America first
94:29 philosophy as Trump has articulated it
94:31 and many people have articulated it for
94:33 years and the foreign policy of America
94:35 first as well. Excellent. And then on
94:37 the one the other hand those same people
94:41 many are adamant that we have to
94:45 fund Israel. We have to fund its
94:47 military. We have to fund its wars. We
94:50 have to subsidize society. We have to
94:52 sacrifice our own interest to protect
94:54 theirs. We have to put the lives of our
94:56 service members in risk. Have American
94:58 citizens die in order to protect Israel
95:02 and the wars that it starts with its
95:04 neighbors. And there is no reconciling
95:07 this. There is no way to take an America
95:10 first
95:11 ideology and make it consistent with
95:14 this
95:16 constant prioritization of Israeli
95:18 interests. let alone what is now
95:22 happening which is the aggressive
95:24 erosion of our free speech rights and
95:26 core civil liberties guaranteed to us by
95:27 the constitution not to protect our own
95:30 government from criticism but to protect
95:32 this foreign country from criticism and
95:34 I do think there are people now starting
95:37 finally to understand that these two
95:40 things cannot be maintained
95:41 simultaneously well it'll it's going to
95:43 blow up the Trump movement I think I
95:45 don't think it needs to I I think
95:46 there's
95:47 a you know you could you could pivot,
95:50 but I agree just conceptually that those
95:53 are irreconcilable goals. They're so
95:55 blatantly irreconcilable. And of course,
95:58 the the the proof in the pudding is
95:59 going to be what happens with Iran. You
96:01 know, I woke up today, I'm here, and I
96:04 saw the New York Times, and the lead
96:05 story on the front page of the New York
96:06 Times is Israel may attack
96:10 Iran despite Trump's desire to reach a
96:13 deal. And it's like, how can that even
96:16 be possible? What do you mean Israel
96:17 might attack Iran despite Trump's desire
96:19 to reach a deal? Their weapons came from
96:22 the United States. We pay for the
96:24 operation of those weapons. They can't
96:26 attack Iran without some kind of
96:29 military and logistical support from the
96:31 United States. And who is Israel that
96:35 depends on the United States, that is a
96:37 vassal state of the United States
96:39 supposedly to say, "We don't care what
96:41 the president of the United States wants
96:42 in his foreign policy. we're going to
96:43 subvert it and undermine and blow it up
96:45 and destroy it if we want to. That's not
96:47 the behavior of an ally. And I think
96:49 that um you know, someone who's really
96:52 tried to avoid this topic and bears no
96:54 animist toward Israel actually like a
96:56 lot of Israelis talked to him the other
96:58 day. Uh but I think the idea that we're
97:03 getting a lot out of this, our interests
97:05 are being served is is not is clearly
97:07 not true. It's the opposite. Well, you
97:10 know, there's the Israeli government has
97:12 had a relationship, a close relationship
97:14 with the Chinese Communist government
97:16 for over 40 years, and there have been a
97:18 lot of transfers of military technology
97:20 from Israel to China, including
97:23 transfers of American military
97:24 technology to China. That's a fact.
97:27 People lie about it and it's not true.
97:29 Well, it is true, actually. And I don't
97:33 think that's widely known. I mean, the
97:34 Chinese help operate the port of Hifa,
97:36 one of the most beautiful ports in the
97:37 world.
97:38 wonderful place but yeah they're they're
97:40 in the port of FIFA. So how is it that
97:42 the main recipient of American support
97:45 both financial and moral and legal and
97:47 you know all the things that we have
97:49 done for our closest ally how is it that
97:51 that country is materially supporting
97:55 our main global
97:57 adversary a country really described by
97:59 the Trump administration as an enemy
98:01 okay that's their posture toward you
98:02 know China is an enemy and our military
98:06 technology is going to Israel and then
98:08 winding it China that's a fact like how
98:10 I don't think again I don't think most
98:12 people know that and I don't I don't
98:14 know even if people in the
98:15 administration know that I mean some do
98:18 how can that what is what's the answer
98:21 to that Mark Le well but well also you
98:23 know there's this fascinating history
98:25 but because it's 30 years ago a lot of
98:27 people didn't live through it people did
98:29 forgot about it it's been whitewashed
98:31 but the last two presidents that tried
98:34 to exert independence with respect to
98:36 Israel and that told Israel you cannot
98:39 do this if you want They continue to
98:40 receive our large ass were Ronald Reagan
98:42 and George uh HW Bush. Ronald Reagan
98:46 called the Israeli bombing of Lebanon a
98:50 holocaust. I know. And picked up the
98:52 phone and ordered them to stop and they
98:54 did and then withdrew the military
98:56 barracks after 1972. Exactly. George HW
98:59 Bush this and then and then our marine
99:00 barracks were bombed a year later in but
99:03 then he didn't go to war as they were
99:04 demanding he did with Iran Iran whoever
99:07 they he he said why are we even there
99:09 but but how did our American mil I mean
99:11 whatever without getting into this but
99:12 like did anyone know that the bombing
99:14 was coming? Is it possible that
99:16 information intel about that bombing was
99:18 withheld from the United States? I mean
99:20 the Israelis do have a lot of their
99:22 neighbors uh under extremely heavy
99:25 surveillance as you imagine they would
99:27 but the other interesting thing was in
99:30 the George HW Bush administration which
99:32 was run by these kind of realists like
99:34 that of the kind you know that they
99:36 didn't call it America first but the
99:37 idea was you know we do foreign policy
99:41 not for benevolence to other countries
99:43 we don't rebuild other countries we
99:45 prioritize American interests people
99:47 like James Baker and Brent Skraftoft
99:49 who were the key foreign policy figures
99:51 in the the Bush 41 administration. He
99:53 was in the CIA, had a very similar
99:54 foreign policy. And their argument was
99:57 what American presidents have always
99:58 said, which is that one of the worst
100:00 threats to American national interests
100:02 in the Middle East is the ongoing
100:04 Palestinian Israeli conflict. And the
100:07 expansion of Israeli settlements in the
100:09 West Bank was a direct threat to
100:11 American interests. And James Baker said
100:14 as part of the State Department policy,
100:16 if you continue to expand West Bank
100:18 settlements, which prevent an Israeli
100:19 Palestinian two-state solution that harm
100:21 our interests, we're going to cease
100:23 giving you the loan guarantees that you
100:25 desperately need. Why are we going to
100:27 give you loan guarantees if you're
100:28 directly harming what we keep telling
100:30 you are our interests? And and what
100:33 happened was there was this massive
100:35 smear campaign. You can go read it in
100:36 any newspaper. It was led by Bill
100:38 Clinton who was preparing to run against
100:40 George HW Bush calling the Bush
100:43 administration anti-semites calling
100:45 suggesting that they were inflaming
100:47 anti-semitism by disagreeing with Israel
100:50 in public. And since then there has been
100:53 president James Baker I mean this is
100:56 like one of the most respected you know
100:58 foreign policy operatives in the world.
101:02 And I hated James Baker for a lot of
101:03 what he believed at the time. I would
101:05 have to probably go back and and revise
101:07 some of that and think about why. I
101:09 mean, if only we had that now. But there
101:11 was like zero zero zero zero evidence
101:14 that he harbored any animosity. Well,
101:17 there's also evidence that there are
101:18 plans to commit violence against George
101:20 HW Bush, the president. Actually, that's
101:22 been incredibly alleged. So, whatever.
101:25 Um, no, of course you're absolutely what
101:27 you're saying is absolutely right. And
101:29 no one wants to deal with with being
101:30 slandered and and it is slander. It's
101:33 not true. It's unfair. But it's it's
101:34 like actually pretty over the top. Um
101:38 well the irony of it Tucker is they're
101:40 transferring American military
101:41 technology in China. If they're
101:43 operating at least in part the port of
101:45 Hifa, we're supporting you. You have to
101:48 explain that right away or else we're
101:50 going to stop all aid because why would
101:51 we want to be supporting why would we
101:53 want to be helping the transfer of
101:55 American military technology to China?
101:57 What the hell is going on? So what's the
101:59 what is the answer to why the Trump
102:02 administration given their views of
102:03 China doesn't I think that um the first
102:08 step well I'll just say my position is
102:10 probably different from yours but like
102:11 I'm not against Israel I like Israel
102:13 like going there like the Israelis nice
102:15 people I'm not you know don't seek any
102:17 kind of argument I'm not
102:19 anti-Israel but I think what America
102:22 lacks desperately lacks and it's gotten
102:24 to a point where it's dangerous for the
102:26 country is like an honest conversation
102:27 about any of this stuff. And that's
102:29 because certain ruthless actors and it's
102:33 coordinated online like attack everyone
102:35 is like a you know call them really
102:39 hurtful names um that affect your
102:41 personal relationships when you raise
102:42 these questions but like someone needs
102:44 to be brave enough to just say let's
102:45 have a rational conversation about our
102:46 national interest. I don't think it's
102:48 harder than that. But you know what the
102:49 irony of it, the core irony of it is?
102:51 The
102:52 conservative critique or grievance about
102:55 the American left over the past 20 years
102:59 has been the minute you try and have an
103:00 honest conversation about any kind of
103:02 policy, you instantly get smeared as a
103:04 racist, a misogynist because of identity
103:07 politics. Because of identity politics.
103:09 I don't know. And you may be suggesting
103:11 that something like that's going on
103:12 here. It might be a little bit similar
103:14 that the minute you like suggest a
103:17 question, let alone or even a peep of
103:19 criticism at Israel, you instantly are
103:20 branded an anti-semit. It seems pretty
103:22 similar to me to the tactics long used
103:25 by the American left that the
103:26 conservatives have been vocally
103:28 complaining about for a long time.
103:29 That's uh you know, Glenn, I would love
103:31 to shout you down and say that's unfair,
103:33 but it's not. That is fair. It's true.
103:35 What you're saying is true and it's I
103:37 agree and it's you know, shameful. So um
103:40 but you know the choice is not
103:43 between like being a Nazi or being Randy
103:47 Fine. The cho there is like a reasonable
103:51 sensible rational course forward where
103:55 our country like every other country
103:58 makes its foreign policy decisions on
103:59 the basis of what's best for its own
104:01 citizens. That's like like you can say I
104:03 don't think it serves our interest to
104:05 keep the war in Ukraine going and paying
104:06 for it without being a Kremlin agent.
104:08 Exactly. Or saying, I don't know, you
104:11 know, how is it good that American
104:13 military technology winds up in China or
104:16 Pakistani fighters that they receive
104:17 from China
104:19 um through Israel? Like, if that's true,
104:22 and I think I think there's a lot of
104:24 evidence that it is true, like, how is
104:27 that a good arrangement? And why is our
104:29 greatest ally doing that to us? I don't
104:31 understand. I'm like really confused.
104:32 Like, why don't you answer the question?
104:33 And it's not enough to call me names.
104:35 you should have to have an honest
104:37 conversation about this. And I do think
104:39 when that begins like healing begins.
104:41 Things get better when people can be
104:43 honest. I think I mean but there's so
104:46 many mechanisms like we just I I I just
104:48 I'm still every I know I've talked about
104:50 it so many times but my mind always gets
104:51 so blown when we talk about it again
104:53 talking about honesty and discourse.
104:56 They ban the Bin Laden letter. There's
104:58 so many mechanisms designed to prevent
105:00 of course any honest conversation from
105:02 being held about all sorts of policies
105:04 that people in power want to keep immune
105:07 from questioning or challenge um like
105:10 hey why are we still in NATO that's to
105:12 me the thing that turned that turn
105:14 people against Trump turn people in the
105:16 establishment against Trump more than
105:17 anything we already talked about that
105:18 but like that's not supposed to be a
105:21 questionable topic like why are we still
105:24 in NATO and like oh it's a defensive
105:26 alliance except like we bombed
105:29 uh Serbia and like Yugoslavia with it
105:34 even though they weren't actually posing
105:35 a threat to Western Europe and had
105:38 nothing to do with the Soviet Union or
105:39 like it went to war in Libya to remove
105:41 Mar Gaddafi because he wanted to start
105:44 using Libyan oil more for like the
105:46 benefit of people. Okay, Glenn, if I
105:48 could say it's a defensive alliance.
105:49 Okay, it was those were preemptive. It's
105:51 a defensive alliance.
105:54 It's a defensive alliance. Not to be
105:55 defensive. No, it's Yeah. No, I look, so
105:58 there all those mechanisms, including
106:00 like calling people racist for a long
106:01 time who wanted to raise issues about
106:03 whatever.
106:05 Well, sure. I mean, I remember this in
106:07 1991 when I got into this business doing
106:09 a story on Head Start. I've never been
106:11 against Head Start as an idea. The
106:13 original idea was like, we're going to
106:14 literally raise children's
106:17 IQ's through better nutrition and early
106:20 early childhood education. That is not a
106:22 crazy idea. It didn't strike me as crazy
106:23 at the time. And you start asking
106:25 questions. Well, does it work? I don't
106:27 know. It's supposed to help these kids.
106:28 Is it helping them? Shut up, racist.
106:30 It's like, how was that? I was so
106:31 confused and I realized no one even
106:34 remembers what Head Start is. But it was
106:35 a it was a very promising program in the
106:37 minds of many that didn't work. But the
106:40 point of calling you names was to
106:42 continue doing things the way they'd
106:44 always been done because some people are
106:45 benefiting from that. Exactly. It had
106:47 nothing to do with race. just as I don't
106:49 think this argument has anything to
106:52 necessarily to do with ethnicity or
106:54 religion. It's just like what's best for
106:56 Americans. The protest movements on
106:57 college campuses were I don't want to
107:00 say led by because that's maybe an
107:01 exaggeration but in many cases is accur
107:03 definitely true but in driven in large
107:06 part by Jewish students vehemently
107:09 opposed to the destruction of Gaza by
107:11 Israel. So the idea that somehow it's
107:14 anti-semitic to question either the
107:17 Israeli destruction of Gaza or the US
107:19 financing of it when you have huge
107:21 numbers of Jews on the streets every day
107:23 marching in protest against it by itself
107:25 should reveal how corrupted that that
107:28 tactic is. And yet it's it's just it
107:30 it's so effective because it's
107:32 instantaneous, right? No one wants to be
107:34 called a racist. No one wants to be
107:35 called an anti-semite. No. And it is an
107:39 effective tactic at least like it it
107:41 makes it so that you think like maybe
107:42 it's just easier for me to keep my mouth
107:43 shut about this and talk about something
107:44 else. I've always felt that way. It's
107:46 way easier. I don't want to get involved
107:47 in it. It's not worth it. Um I've got
107:50 all kinds of concerns about my country
107:52 which really is kind of falling apart in
107:54 key and measurable ways. Like people are
107:56 dying younger. I feel like that's
107:58 something we should think a lot about
107:59 and try and fix and everything. It's
108:00 like I don't want to get involved. And I
108:03 do grieve when I see our public
108:04 conversation hijacked by what I consider
108:07 foreign concerns. Like both sides, like
108:10 you know, you shut down Midtown
108:11 Manhattan because of some conflict
108:13 thousands of miles away. It's like we
108:16 Except it's an American war, though.
108:17 Well, that is that is it. But but it's
108:20 not just Israel. I mean, you you see it
108:21 all the time. You see people getting
108:23 murdered in like the upper Midwest
108:25 because of like there's a sick Hindu,
108:29 you know, whatever. All that stuff. I
108:30 just feel I do feel like this country
108:33 needs a lot of care and attention and
108:35 it's been neglected and that's how I
108:36 feel. So I or maybe that's how I justify
108:38 staying out of it. I don't want to be
108:40 involved in it. But you have kind of
108:41 been a little bit more involved than he
108:42 used to be and I think but also because
108:44 well it's going to destroy the MAGA
108:46 movement which I think is really
108:48 important. It's an a sense not just
108:49 about Trump. Of course I love Trump.
108:51 I've said that many times. I have
108:53 displayed it. I campaigned for Trump and
108:55 I'm glad that I did. But I feel like if
108:58 there's one thing that could destroy
109:00 this essential reform movement, it's
109:03 like kind of our last chance to make
109:05 government responsive to the people who
109:07 own the government, which is the
109:09 citizenry. This will destroy it because
109:11 it's a massive contradiction sitting at
109:12 the heart of it. Not not just that like
109:14 it's not all the stuff we talked about,
109:16 but also free speech, free expression,
109:19 not being punished for your views was
109:21 also a vital part of this movement. I
109:23 know that's what why I found so much
109:24 common ground with the American right
109:26 and with the MAGA movement over the last
109:27 10 years because of my vehement
109:29 opposition to attempts to censor the
109:31 internet or introduce laws to
109:33 characterize certain views as hate
109:35 speech and therefore punishable and
109:36 that's exactly what has been done and is
109:38 still being even believe it like when I
109:40 always like to Santis I spent a lot of
109:43 time in Florida I was there for part of
109:45 the pandemic and um and I like Dantis
109:48 he's smart you know he's not a warm guy
109:50 or anything but I don't you I'm not
109:52 looking for new friends. I like respect
109:53 his antis and he's very on it on the
109:55 details. Then he signs a hate speech
109:58 law. Travels to a foreign country to
110:00 sign a hate speech law in Florida. And I
110:03 was so confused. I didn't even think
110:05 this was real. And I said to somebody,
110:07 well that was a hate speech. It's not a
110:08 hate speech law. Looks like a hate
110:10 speech law. It looks like Sharia law.
110:12 Kind of a version of Sharia law in
110:14 Florida. Shut up. And no one said
110:16 anything about it. And then like all the
110:19 Dantis people start attacking me for
110:20 noting. I've never talked to Dantis
110:22 again on the basis of that. Like I don't
110:25 what is that? How can you do that in the
110:26 United States? I mean there there's
110:28 there's this attempt now to impose on
110:30 colleges, require colleges to adopt, but
110:32 also enact into American law this
110:35 radical expansion of what anti-semitism
110:36 means. Like there's laws that say here's
110:38 what racism is, here's what you know
110:40 xenophobia is, here's what Islamophobia
110:42 is, misogyny, whatever. to expand the
110:44 definition of anti-semitism to include
110:48 statements not only about Jewish people
110:50 who should be subjected to critique like
110:52 you should be able to say huh that Ben
110:54 Shiro seems to care quite a lot about
110:56 Israel maybe even to the point that he
110:58 cares about it more than the United
110:59 States like you should be able to
111:00 express that critique so this expanded
111:04 definition prohibits not only statements
111:06 like that accusing any Jewish person of
111:08 having greater oil you can have you I
111:09 can say oh that person's Irish he seems
111:12 to really care a lot about Ireland
111:14 more than United States or that person
111:16 is Indian. He really seems to care a lot
111:19 about India, maybe even more. So, you're
111:21 allowed to say all that or or in my
111:22 case, Swedish. I've been accused of dual
111:24 loyalty many times. Oh, you're you're
111:26 Sweden is so annoying and like very
111:28 disturbing. But the other thing is you
111:31 cannot say for this is just one example.
111:33 You cannot say Israel is a racist
111:36 endeavor. You can say Iran is a racist
111:39 endeavor. You can say Hamas is a racist
111:41 endeavor.
111:42 the United States is a racist endeavor.
111:44 You can say anything you you can be a
111:47 student at a at a school a month away
111:49 from completing your PhD with a
111:51 completely clean record and you can
111:53 write an op-ed saying, "I think America
111:55 is a country of violence and imperialism
111:58 and evil and was founded on racism and
112:01 you'll be totally fine." You write an
112:03 op-ed onetenth of those criticisms but
112:06 about Israel and ICE is coming to get
112:08 you and to deport you. Why is that? Why
112:11 is not just our free speech being
112:13 limited but being limited not even to
112:15 protect our own society and our own
112:17 government but to protect a foreign
112:18 government from
112:20 critique? I so this is the kind of thing
112:22 that cannot be sustained by a movement
112:24 that has certain values that it
112:26 professes that are being radically
112:28 assaulted by this one single policy and
112:31 loyalty toward this other country. I
112:32 could not agree more. I mean, it's and
112:34 no matter and I and I do think and I
112:36 know people who, you know, love Israel
112:38 and um believe in the project and it's
112:41 fine. Um I have a million friends who
112:43 who believe that and that I'm not mad at
112:45 them about it. But you could believe
112:47 that and say America's founding
112:50 documents, its bill of rights is
112:53 sacrosanked and under no circumstances
112:55 should American citizens be stripped of
112:57 their rights. Any circumstances, period.
113:00 doesn't matter whether it's in the
113:01 service of a foreign nation or or any in
113:03 service of anything. Like that's the
113:05 whole point of America. Like you could
113:07 have that position, couldn't you? I mean
113:09 there's the the whole MAGA movement is
113:11 about preserving American identity and
113:14 American values. So what does that mean?
113:16 It certainly has to include America's
113:19 founding documents. I don't know what
113:20 else it would include. I don't know what
113:22 else there is. Right? So if you cannot
113:24 simultaneously say that you want to be a
113:26 movement that is devoted to preserving
113:28 American identity and American values
113:31 while at the same time permitting
113:33 attacks on the core rights and the core
113:36 founding ideals on which the entire
113:38 country was founded. Right. Right. No, I
113:40 couldn't agree more. I'm for all my
113:44 really sustained efforts to just stay
113:46 away from the stuff. I don't want to
113:47 deal with it. It upsets people. It's
113:49 like not my greatest interest in life.
113:50 It's not even in the top 10. Um, and I
113:53 shouldn't have to care this much about a
113:55 foreign country. That's kind of like my
113:56 internal monologue on this question. I
113:59 feel like it's being pushed to the point
114:00 where it's an this whole species of new
114:05 stories, ideas,
114:07 uh, developments is a threat to to our
114:11 Bill of Rights. Like you and that has to
114:13 be the point where you're like, "No,
114:14 stop." Right. I mean, you know, I
114:19 I was said before that you go to other
114:21 countries and you see all these values
114:23 of other countries that you're told have
114:24 none. But I also said like there are
114:26 certain things about the United States
114:28 that I consider uniquely valuable. And
114:29 one of them is, you know, the stuff that
114:31 I went and studied in law school, which
114:33 I became incredibly enamored of and
114:34 still am, which are like the federalist
114:36 papers and the debates over like how to
114:38 form this new government to prevent it
114:40 from replicating the tyrannies of other
114:42 governments, including the empire, that
114:44 they had just risked all of their lives
114:45 to wage war from and gain independence
114:47 from and created these documents that to
114:50 this very day continue to be our guiding
114:52 principles. And the idea that we're
114:55 going to permit the erosion of those for
114:58 any reason is offensive to me. But to do
115:00 so in defense of a foreign country on
115:03 the other side of the world because they
115:05 have so much influence in our politics,
115:07 that is I mean that is just so offensive
115:10 to me. I don't care what impact it has
115:11 on my career. I don't care what people
115:12 say about me. Like that is something I
115:14 will never stop talking about. I agree.
115:16 And I think it's not it's not
115:17 sustainable cuz as you said it's the
115:19 contradiction is just too it's just too
115:20 obvious.
115:22 And and last thing I'll say is not that
115:24 it's like a top concern of mine or
115:25 whatever, but I don't think it's great
115:27 for Israel actually at all. Like
115:29 longterm, this is not the way to play.
115:30 Well, an Israeli politician, actually a
115:32 general just said Israel's on the way to
115:34 becoming a pariah state. Yeah, that's
115:36 not I don't know how that helps. And you
115:38 can't transfer American military
115:40 technology to China. I just want to say
115:42 that for the fifth time because I don't
115:44 think most people know that that's
115:45 happening, but it is. I want to ask you
115:47 one last question. Um, we had this like
115:50 long and deep conversation off camerara
115:53 about what makes people happy and there
115:57 does seem to be quite apart from you
115:59 know politics or global affairs like an
116:03 epidemic of unhappiness at least in the
116:06 world that I live in in the west in the
116:08 west not thank god in my family but
116:11 everywhere else people are really unh
116:12 it's measurable suicide rates all stuff
116:15 where do you think what is that what
116:17 well first of Well, there's a
116:19 documentary that is on Netflix that I
116:22 watched many years ago um called
116:25 Happiness, and it measures the rate of
116:28 happiness in various places around the
116:29 world. And it turns out that in some of
116:31 the poorest countries in the world, the
116:33 levels of happiness are at its highest.
116:34 In some of the richest countries of the
116:35 world, the rate of happiness is at its
116:37 lowest. And in many of those poorest
116:41 countries, they live in villages where
116:45 they have their children around them all
116:46 the time. Yes. They have extreme
116:50 connectivity and connection to other
116:52 human beings who live in their
116:53 community. They live in a communitarian
116:55 way. So they are constantly receiving
116:59 one of the things I might even say the
117:01 the the greatest thing that constitutes
117:04 human happiness which is connection to
117:06 other human beings. We are political and
117:08 social animals. We can't survive
117:10 isolated. You look at any people who
117:13 have been put in sustained isolation and
117:14 they will say that there's nothing worse
117:17 than that. John McCain talked about that
117:18 all the time that he was physically
117:20 savage, but that that was nowhere near
117:22 as, you know, as horrifying and
117:24 terrorizing as the sustained isolation
117:26 that he was kept in where you have no
117:28 human beings around to connect to or
117:29 talk to or interact with. We need that
117:32 so fundamentally. And you look at how
117:34 the west is now constructed where people
117:37 leave their house early in the morning,
117:40 both couples, you know, both parts of a
117:42 couple the children don't go run off to.
117:44 So everybody's running off in different
117:46 directions. Uh when our parents get
117:50 sick, we put them at homes. We don't,
117:52 you know, when they get old that we put
117:53 them in homes. We don't stay together as
117:55 families anymore. And then when we work,
117:57 we all go scatter far away and we spend
118:00 all day in cubicles. And then the worst
118:02 part is the internet encourages us to
118:04 stay at home. People got trained during
118:06 co especially how to live completely
118:08 isolated from the rest of the world and
118:10 from everybody else. They were forced
118:11 into it. And if you deprive human beings
118:14 of connection, then there you can have
118:17 all the money in the world, all the fame
118:19 in the world, all whatever you think is
118:20 is the thing that will make you happy
118:22 and you will never find happiness. And I
118:24 think we know we both know Yanahari uh
118:27 who's a friend of ours who wrote this
118:28 incredibly like I think revolutionary
118:31 book about how to understand addiction.
118:33 Yes. And and depression and sadness in
118:35 general, emptiness. Right. He then wrote
118:36 another book about just like the the
118:38 depression epidemic um in in especially
118:41 among younger people in the west. That
118:43 first book about addiction.
118:45 Uh the thesis of it was that people
118:48 think the opposite of addiction is
118:51 sobbriety when in reality the opposite
118:53 of addiction is connection. And by that
118:57 what he means is that all of these
118:59 things are spiritual diseases.
119:00 Depression and addiction and anxiety and
119:04 all these disorders that people suffer
119:06 from that are new. Like you you talk to
119:08 anyone in Gen Z. I have colleagues in
119:10 Gen Z. My kids are getting to that age.
119:12 You know they're 16 and 17. I see their
119:14 their their age group. There's so much
119:16 like mental disorder. It's because
119:19 society is not giving human beings what
119:20 they want, which is connection. And
119:23 that's why like the only you can go talk
119:25 to medical doctors about addiction and
119:28 they will all tell you the same thing
119:30 which is like there is no cure for
119:32 addiction chemically medically. The only
119:34 cure for addiction is going to places
119:37 like an A or A or whatever because there
119:39 you find this instant and immediate
119:41 connection based on with any kind of
119:43 human being based on shared experiences
119:46 and that's the only thing that cures
119:48 that disease because it's a disease of
119:50 the spirit like of the soul. It's not a
119:53 biological disease where chemical
119:55 medications will cure it. And I think
119:58 that the ability to be open to human
120:01 connection to have it readily available
120:04 is probably the foundation of human
120:06 happiness and the deprivation of it is
120:08 what will eliminate human happiness and
120:10 all of modern society is about keeping
120:12 people stratified and isolated and away
120:14 from each other. And you know, I think
120:17 there's like surveys that say, you know,
120:19 people who are in their 20s will say on
120:21 average they have like one friend at
120:23 most or like two friends at most that
120:26 they rarely see. People live away from
120:28 their family. Everything is about
120:30 depriving people of connection. Not
120:32 saying that was the intent or the plan,
120:34 but that's the outcome. And there's no
120:36 way to have human happiness without
120:39 connection.
120:41 I know that in my life the place where
120:42 I've seen it most clearly is in AA. I
120:45 haven't so over many years haven't been
120:48 AA ton but the first time I ever went I
120:51 was so struck by how what I was seeing
120:54 was kind of what people have talked
120:57 about but sort of presented an anat
120:59 replica of like true connection between
121:03 people from totally different
121:06 backgrounds, cultures, races. It was the
121:09 diversity we're always promised, but
121:11 like we're so cynical about I am so
121:12 cynical about it's all [ __ ] You go
121:14 to an AA meeting and because it begins
121:17 with stripping away with basically
121:20 ritual humiliation. Oh, I'm talking I'm
121:22 an alcoholic. It's like say that out
121:24 loud it hurts even if it's true which my
121:26 case is. And like the first admission is
121:28 like I am powerless. That's exactly
121:30 right. like you're to confess your
121:32 impotence, but you have to confess it.
121:35 And once that that strips away all the
121:38 pretense and then you like you
121:41 experience people on a level that church
121:43 promises, but I I personally have never
121:45 experienced in church. I want to, but
121:48 where it's just like you are dealing
121:52 with people on the most human level,
121:55 like all that matters is the other
121:57 person's soul or something. I don't
121:59 know. I you know it's like the the new
122:02 the new pope and like this is the part
122:04 of Catholicism that I really admire so
122:06 much like the ethos of the gospels you
122:08 know Jesus always wanted to minister to
122:11 the like the lepers and the prostitutes
122:13 and the outcasts even though there was
122:15 no necessary like common bond between
122:18 them other than their humanity which is
122:20 what the gospels teach you to to uh
122:24 basically think about the world as as
122:26 being about is human connection as as as
122:29 as the ability to look at the lowest
122:32 people and see their soul, see that
122:35 they're all equal before God, all of
122:36 this. Exactly. And one of the things
122:39 diversity does like diversity in this
122:40 like modern corporatized HR sense is it
122:44 pretends to do that, but it actually is
122:45 constantly reminding you of these
122:47 differences and forcing you to think
122:48 about them like, oh, I have three black
122:51 co-workers that I'm supposed to get
122:52 along with and I have like two gay ones
122:53 over here. And like you're it it is
122:55 constantly stratifying people across the
122:58 lines like categorizing them and
122:59 counting them based on their
123:01 differences. And so there's any kind of
123:03 like similarity or connection is forced.
123:05 It's it's like very self-conscious.
123:07 Nothing causes more division than that,
123:10 right? But you strip everybody down to
123:12 like no ego and have everybody converge
123:18 based on their greatest weakness and
123:20 suffering and difficulty. And you don't
123:24 even have to give the slightest thought
123:25 to, oh, this person is different and yet
123:28 I'm able to have communion with them
123:29 that's so genuine. It just happens
123:31 automatically. Like it it all those
123:33 things fade away. Like people can walk
123:35 into an NA meeting and just feel like
123:37 they're living in a different world and
123:39 thinking about other people and feeling
123:40 other people in a way and then they walk
123:42 out and the whole world then reappears.
123:44 That con constantly teaches us to, you
123:46 know, keep everybody at arms length. But
123:48 you walk into those kind of meetings,
123:50 the idea of it is like you strip down to
123:52 your the deepest core like foundation of
123:55 your humanity and then on that level
123:58 everyone is the same. And it's the
124:00 connection that emerges from that is why
124:03 it works, why people go their whole
124:04 lives to it, you know, even if they
124:06 haven't had a drink or a drug for 25
124:08 years, they still need it. Well, that's
124:11 why I went. I I have no interest in
124:12 drinking. I went cuz a loved one, you
124:15 know, someone I I love needed to go. So
124:17 I brought that person in. I was like, I
124:19 want to go every
124:21 day. I've never seen anything like that.
124:23 It makes you It makes you see the
124:24 potential for what the world could be.
124:26 Like that's what everyone wants is the
124:27 connection because other people are all
124:29 that matters. Just Teresa. Other people
124:30 are all that matters. And you gosh,
124:33 that's so easy to lose that thread.
124:35 Yeah. That's like our humanity. That's
124:37 like the soul. That's like the spirit.
124:40 It's everything. And that is what
124:41 Western society is assaulting and and
124:45 depriving people of. And so it's no
124:47 wonder we have epidemics of addiction
124:49 and suicide, anxiety disorders and
124:52 depression and distraction. It's so easy
124:54 to see why
124:57 you should write. You should write on
124:58 this. Yeah. I mean, I've thought a lot
125:00 about it. I think a lot about it. I try
125:01 and like incorporate it and and at some
125:04 point maybe I will. I hope you will. You
125:06 can you describe it much better than I
125:07 do. I'm still trying to sort it out in
125:09 my head. I've really It was less than a
125:10 year ago I saw this. I was like I've not
125:12 stopped thinking about it. Yeah, we
125:13 talked about it last night and so then I
125:15 thought about it last night, this
125:16 morning, so it's fresh in my mind as
125:18 well, like in terms of what it means and
125:19 how to think about it. But yeah, it's
125:21 something that is I think it's kind of
125:23 like sitting there right in plain sight.
125:25 It's a solution to a lot of things, but
125:28 for a lot of reasons, you need a lot of
125:31 vulnerability and humility to strip
125:32 yourself down that way to admit your
125:34 powerlessness. We're constantly taught
125:35 to affirm our invulnerability like I'm
125:39 strong, I'm powerful, I can deal with
125:41 anything. But human beings are by
125:44 themselves not all that powerful.
125:48 There's a lot of things we can do.
125:49 There's a lot of things we can't. And
125:52 the whole point of these kind of
125:53 addiction groups or whatever. There's a
125:54 lot of these different kind of groups. I
125:56 think all communities are like them is
125:58 like together like human beings
126:00 connecting to each other creates a much
126:02 bigger power than every human being
126:04 sitting kind of isolated and alone. Yes.
126:06 I mean I I believe in a religion that
126:09 extols humility that in which humility
126:12 is like the the cover charge like you
126:14 don't get anywhere without humility that
126:17 teaches that God like submitted to being
126:19 tortured to death. So like and you get
126:20 on your knees in a church, you like
126:22 Islam, you like bow on the ground. Like
126:24 that's exactly right. It's all an
126:26 expression of that same. I remember
126:28 after 9/11 when I was like, you know,
126:29 all about attacking Islam. I knew
126:31 nothing about Islam. I'm not Muslim by
126:33 the way. I don't work for contrary to
126:35 what a lot of people think despite the
126:36 paychecks from Qatar. Not a secret [ __ ]
126:39 But I remember um hearing someone on I
126:42 worked at CNN at the time and like we
126:44 had all these endless experts, most of
126:45 whom kind of worked for the CIA, but
126:47 whatever. I realized that later. But uh
126:49 I remember who it was. Come on. And be
126:50 like, you know, Islam is bad. And I was
126:52 like, "Sounds bad." You know, whatever.
126:53 I don't know if I ever met a Muslim. But
126:55 he's like, "You know what Islam means?
126:59 Submission." And like let it hang in the
127:01 air. Like that was self-evidently
127:02 disgusting. And I was like, I kind of
127:04 think submission to God is like the
127:05 whole point of life. But I didn't say
127:07 anything. I was like, I'm I'm I don't
127:09 think I'm against that
127:11 actually. Anyone who submits to God,
127:14 like I'm just for that. Well, and the
127:17 the the found I mean I think a lot of
127:19 religions seek the same things just find
127:21 different ways to think about how to to
127:23 to find them. But the whole point of AA
127:28 and NA like the foundation of it is that
127:30 you submit to a higher power. Yes. It
127:32 can be you know understanding that
127:33 there's a lot of people who are now
127:34 atheists or secular. It doesn't
127:36 necessarily have to be some like
127:37 religious conception of a god. And so
127:39 many people go into these groups and
127:41 they're adamantly contemptuous of this
127:44 idea like this is so irrational. I'm not
127:46 going to pretend that there's some magic
127:48 thing and you know I used to think that
127:51 way too and then I got to the point
127:52 where I was like no you know what
127:53 actually is irrational thinking that
127:55 there's no higher power than you like I
127:58 am the highest power like that's the the
128:00 absurd thing but it's all about you know
128:03 losing that sense that you're
128:06 invulnerable and understanding that you
128:09 know you can find something higher than
128:11 yourself and it could just be the
128:13 connection of the human group whatever
128:14 you want it to be like Whatever you
128:16 recognize as being able to something
128:18 being able to do things that you can't
128:20 do is already an acknowledgement that
128:21 there's a higher power than you. But if
128:23 you're if you think you're God, you're
128:25 not allowed in. I mean, if you think
128:27 you're God, you're going to have a lot
128:28 of difficulties in life. Well, you're
128:30 going to be Tori Nulan. Uh, so it's not
128:32 good. Glen Greenwell, thank you. Really
128:35 always my favorite person to talk to, so
128:37 I appreciate your Thank you, Tucker. I
128:38 always enjoy it as well. Thank you.
128:40 [Music]
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