crashingthunder

The social media app Telegram has over 900 million users around the world. Its founder Pavel Durov sat down with us at his offices in Dubai for his first on-camera interview in almost a decade. READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] Telegram is one of the fastest growing and biggest social messaging apps text apps in the world popular all around the world, including in the United States. But almost nothing or very little seems to be known about the company. It's headquartered in Dubai, where we are now. It is run and owned in. The software is design, written by Pavel Durov, who began it some years ago, who almost never does interviews. It turns out he's in a very interesting person, an extremely interesting person. We learned that the other day we were talking to him, and he has agreed to sit down and tell us about himself and his company, and we thought it'd be definitely worth hearing. And with that, thank you for joining us. Pavel Durov [00:00:40] Well, thank you for having me. Tucker [00:00:42] So, I confess, I used telegram. I didn't know anything about you or the company, and I was just kind of amazed by your story. And if you wouldn't mind just recreating it a little bit, for our audience. Where are you from? How do you start this and why? Pavel Durov [00:00:57] That will be a long story. That's okay. I was born in 1984, in the Soviet Union. So it was a funny year to be born in. And, back then, I could witness, you know, the deficiencies of the centralized system we had in the Soviet Union. When I was four years old, my family moved to Italy, where I could compare what I saw in Turin, Italy, with, what I experienced in the Soviet Union. And I thought the capitalist system, the free market system is definitely better, at least for me. And I went to school in Italy. I, became sort of a part of the, European as a result. But then when the Soviet Union collapsed, we decided to move back to Russia. In Italy, though, we, me and my brother, we had a lot of fun time. He was, shown live on Italian TV as a young prodigy kid who could solve cubic equations in real time, being just, you know, 30 years old. And that was considered to be impossible back then in Italy. Tucker [00:02:09] I don't know what a cubic equation is. So, yeah, it was difficult. Pavel Durov [00:02:13] Definitely. And, you know, when I first went to school in Italy, I didn't know how to speak Italian. I didn't know a single Italian word. And a lot of teachers said this guy, well, this kid will not going to be successful in our school by the end of the first year was second best by the end of this, next year I was the best student in our class. So it also showed me that, well, you could excel, you could compete. I like that competitive environment. And then the when we got back to Russia, it was a little bit chaotic. The only reason we got back is my father got, an offer to run. One of the departments in the Saint Petersburg State University is one of the, famous scholars and writers, dealing with ancient Roman literature. And, that experience was very different. And, I still enjoyed it because in Russia in the 90s, you had this experimental schools where, you were. Taught everything like we had six foreign languages. We had math, like very special. Tucker [00:03:21] Six foreign languages at once. Pavel Durov [00:03:22] Six foreign languages. In parallel. You would have math similar that you would have in specialized math schools. And like chemistry at the same level you would have at schools specialized in chemistry and biology. So that was really intense. My brother, he became world champion in maths in International Olympiads, in maths and programing many times in a row. Absolute best myself. I was just the best student in my school. Also did some victories in, local competitions in several areas, but we both were very passionate about coding and, designing stuff. And because we brought this IBM, PC computer from Italy back in the early 90s, we were one of the few families in Russia who could actually, teach ourselves how to program. And, we started to do that. I was, in the university. I was building websites for my fellow students. And, as a result, you know, I started, a company that became what they called the Facebook of Russia. We don't like to name it that way because, we actually managed to do a lot of things before Facebook. And that defined how the social media, industry developed in the years to come. The company's name was VK. I started it when I was 21 years old. I just graduated university, and, it eventually became the largest social network, the most popular social network in Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, and a bunch of other post-Soviet countries. That was a significant effort on my side because I, at a certain point, was the sole employee of the company. I would write the code myself. I would do the design myself. I would, manage the servers myself. It was quite intense. I even, responded to customer support requests, rarely slept. But that was, a fun time when I was 21, 22 years old. And then the company grew, like I said, to somewhere about 100 million active users, which was a lot back that it's, was, I think 2000, 12 or 2011 when we faced this, the first issues in, Russia. Because, you see, I was still a big believer in this values of free market freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. So when the Russian opposition started to use VK to organize large protests in Russia, where like almost half a million people would go and protest on the main square or some of the main squares of the city, we were requested to ban this communities on VK by the government and I refused. Tucker [00:06:37] So the government asked you to shut down communications between their opponents? Pavel Durov [00:06:43] Well, VK is a social networking platform, so they have this large public communities that anybody can join. Anybody can read what people are discussing or what the administrators are posting. They can comment, they can share. So it was a tool for this protesters to organize themselves. They were led by Navalny. It's quite a famous person now. And back then it wasn't about us, you know, siding with one side with one part of the, political, fight or the other. It was us defending the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly, which we believed was the right thing. But that didn't go too well with with the government. And, they were not too happy about that, I would say. And, in a few years from then, in 2013, we had a similar situation where, you know, you had this protests in Ukraine where people, again, would use VK to organize themselves and go to the main square of the city and, show their disagreement with the government. Tucker [00:07:54] Yes. Pavel Durov [00:07:55] And we received a request demand from the Russian side saying, you have to give us the private data of the organizers of this protest. And our response was, wait, wait a minute. This is a different country. Well, we won't betray you. Corinthian users because you ask us to do that. We decided to refuse. And, that didn't go too well with the Russian government as well. So at the end of that year, I had to make a. Difficult decision because I was offered basically a choice between two suboptimal, options, one of which was, I would start complying to whatever the leaders of the country told me to do. The other one was, I could. So my stake in the company retire, resign as the CEO and leave the country. I chose the latter. Tucker [00:09:00] That's a it's a if I can ask you to pause. It's a little strange because I have heard people say that telegram is a part of the Russian government, and you're describing the opposite. You're saying you had to leave the country because you wouldn't bow to their demands. Pavel Durov [00:09:15] Well, exactly like you say. And people who have very limited knowledge of where telegram came from, they would make these claims. They could be encouraged by our competitors who see it as an easy way to discredit us because, you know, telegram was spreading like forest fire. 2.5 million users sign up every day, and we're sort of a threat. So I'm not surprised there's this perception because our competitors, they spent tens of billions on marketing, and they're known for using PR firms to also engage in campaigns like that. So how would. Tucker [00:09:54] You how much do you spend on marketing? Pavel Durov [00:09:56] Zero. Tucker [00:09:57] $0 in dollars? Pavel Durov [00:09:59] $0. We've never spent anything on acquiring users for marketing purposes. We never promoted telegram. You know, on other social platforms in any way. This is very different from. Other apps. You could see them being promoted here or there. Pilgrim is different. All of our growth is purely organic. And, we got to almost 900 million users, without, having to spend anything on ads to promote Tillable. Tucker [00:10:37] Amazing. I'm sorry to interrupt you. No, no, it's just it's just interesting because I have heard people say that, but it sounds like the opposite of the truth. So you decided to sell the company, resign as CEO and leave your country? Pavel Durov [00:10:50] Yes, that's what I did. It was a bit painful because obviously my first company was my baby. I created myself. There was a lot of creativity, time and effort invested in that platform. But at the same time, you know, I understood that I would rather be free. I would want to take orders from anyone. And, I left behind probably a comfortable life. But for me, it was never about, you know, becoming rich. For me, everything in my life was about becoming free. Yes. And to the extent it is possible, my mission in life was to allow other people to also become free, in a sense, and using the platforms that we created where I created, my hope was that they could express their freedom. This is the mission of telegram. And it was also, in part, the mission of my previous company, VK. Tucker [00:11:53] So you start telegram after you leave Russia. Correct? Pavel Durov [00:11:57] Yeah. So the idea for telegram came when we were still based in Russia, because at some point we had this, very stressful situation where armed policemen would come to my house, try to break in because I refused to take down this, opposition groups that I mentioned earlier. And I realized there is no secure means of communication. I realized through, I want to tell my brother what's going on, to coordinate whatever we want to do. And the every tool to communicate I could use was not really secure or not encrypted. It was not safe to use them. So I thought it could be a good idea to actually come up with, do a decently encrypted messaging app. And my brother, being the genius that he is, he was able to create this encryption standard that we're using up until this day with minor changes. But the idea came. Tucker [00:13:02] Brother wrote the encryption. Pavel Durov [00:13:03] Yes. Well, my brother like two pages and maths. Super smart. He could. You know, he's an expert in cryptography. He designed, the basic principles of the Telegram's encryption. Was more on the user interface side. The way how the app works, the features, etc.. He was responsible for it for the encryption side. Tucker [00:13:30] So where did you go when you left Russia? Pavel Durov [00:13:33] We tried several places. We first went to Berlin. We tried to set up a company in Berlin. We then tried London, Singapore, San Francisco, you name it. We've been everywhere. Tucker [00:13:46] And why didn't you stay in any of those places? Pavel Durov [00:13:50] Oh, because the bureaucratic hurdles were just too difficult to overcome. Now, I was bringing the best in class programmers in the world to this places, and I was trying to hire them. From a local company. And the response I got in places like Germany, for example, is that, no, no, no, you can't hire people from outside of the European Union because you should first run some newspaper ad in a local, magazine or whatever. And then for six months, nobody responds from the engineers that are available inside the European Union and Germany. Then you're allowed to hire outsiders. And I thought it was a crazy idea, because. Tucker [00:14:39] Why didn't you just say they were illiterate refugees? Pavel Durov [00:14:43] Well, because we didn't consider ourselves risky. We were, you know, very successful people. We could have. Gone anywhere. Tucker [00:14:51] Know, but if you told them you were illiterate refugees, they would let you stay. Yeah. So you wait. So you go from Germany to Singapore to London to San Francisco. What happened in San Francisco. Pavel Durov [00:15:05] On San Francisco? We. Really thought that would be the place for us to be in, because all the tech companies are, of course, here or around San Francisco. And, there are two things that happened that, made us, think twice. Well, one thing is pretty obvious. I was in San Francisco. I got attacked on the street after visiting, I think it was Jack Dorsey, in Twitter in the Twitter's office. And, I was walking back at 8 p.m., to my hotel, and I got attacked in the street. This is the only country where I got attacked on the street. What happened is just three big guys tried to grab my phone from my hands. I was tweeting, about the fact that I just met, the founder of Twitter. That seemed right. Like a right idea for me back then, to do. And, I get attacked. I didn't want to let them have my phone. They probably didn't expect, resistance. So I smashed my phone back. There was a short fight with the guys. There was a little bit of blood involved, but I managed to run away, and decided I should probably. Tucker [00:16:25] They probably don't mug a lot of Russians. They might have been surprised. Pavel Durov [00:16:29] Well, there were much taller than me, I must admit. And there are three of them. But, I think I put up a good fight. Tucker [00:16:36] Were you surprised that this happened in San Francisco? Completely. Yeah. Pavel Durov [00:16:40] It was. It was a shock to me because I traveled a lot. There was the first, place I got attacked, and I thought, all right, maybe we shouldn't, look at San Francisco. Maybe there are other places in America where. Tucker [00:16:56] Where you don't get attacked. Pavel Durov [00:16:57] Yeah, exactly. But, you know, there's this second part, which was probably more alarming there in the US. We get too much attention from, you know, the the FBI, the security agencies, wherever we came to the US. So to give you an example, last time I was in the US, I brought, an engineer that is working for telegram, and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind my back by cyber security officers or agents, where they. Tucker [00:17:34] I called the US government to hire your engineer. Pavel Durov [00:17:37] That's my understanding. That's what he told me. Tucker [00:17:39] To write code for them or to break into telegram. Pavel Durov [00:17:43] They were curious to learn which open source libraries are integrated to the telegram app. You know, on the client side. And they were trying to persuade him to use certain open source tools that he would then integrate into the telegram code that, in my understanding, would serve as backdoors. Tucker [00:18:06] Would allow the US government to spy on people who use telegram. Pavel Durov [00:18:10] The US government, or maybe any other government, because a backdoor is a backdoor regardless of who is using it. That's right. Tucker [00:18:18] And you're that's a little surprising to hear. Maybe it's not surprising. It's offensive. You're confident that happened? Pavel Durov [00:18:26] Yes. There is no reason for my engineer to make up the stories. Also, because I personally experienced similar pressure in the U.S whenever I would go to the U.S, I would have, two FBI agents greeting me at the airport asking questions. One time I was having my breakfast at 9 a.m. and the FBI showed up at my house that I was renting. And, that was quite surprising. And I thought, you know, we're getting too much attention here. It's probably not the best environment to run. Tucker [00:19:06] Why would they? Have you committed a crime? Pavel Durov [00:19:08] No. They were interested to learn more about telegram. They knew I, you know, left Russia. They knew what we were doing, but they wanted details. And my understanding is that they wanted to establish a relationship. So could you in a ways, control telegram better? I'm. I understand they were doing their job. It's just that for us, running a privacy focused social media platform, that probably wasn't the best environment to be in. We want to be focused on what we do, not on the government relations of that sort. Tucker [00:19:47] The government relations. So then you came to UAE, to Dubai? Pavel Durov [00:19:53] Yes. Seven years ago we, moved here. We first wanted just to try it, for half a year, see if it works out. And it turned out to be a great place. We never looked. Back, and we never wanted to change the UI for any other place after that. Tucker [00:20:13] Why? Pavel Durov [00:20:15] Well, for a number of reasons. First, the ease of doing business here is, so high. For example, you can hire people from anywhere in the world as long as you're paying them a good salary. The residence permits granted automatically. It's very different if you try to do that in Europe. In some other countries, it's very different from them. Second, it's very tax efficient. Third, the infrastructure is great. You get a lot for, the minimum amount of taxes you're paying. The other the, the roads, the airports, the hotels, everything. I think you witnessed it yourself. Yes. But I think more importantly is that it's a neutral place. It's a neutral country. It's a small country that wants to be friends with friends with everybody. It's not aligned geopolitically with, any of the big, superpowers. And I think it's, the best place for a neutral platform like ours to be in. If we want to make sure we can defend our users privacy and freedom of speech. Tucker [00:21:20] So in the time that you've been here, there have been a number of wars and threats of war. Precursors to war. Have you had any pressure from the government here? Honestly, any pressure from the government here, to reveal a back door into telegram or to ban anyone or to make any changes to your business? Zero. Pavel Durov [00:21:42] That's the best part. For all the seven years we've been here, there's been zero pressure coming from the UAE towards Telenor. They've been very supportive, very helpful and it's a big contrast from whatever we've experienced before. Tucker [00:21:59] What about what you've experienced since you moved here in those seven years? Have you come under pressure from other governments under whose jurisdiction you don't follow but to to accommodate their demands? Pavel Durov [00:22:11] Well. Of course. Well, telegram is a is a large platform. We are popular in many, many countries. And. We've we've, been, receiving a lot of requests. Demands? Some of them were legitimate. Legitimate? It's, there was a group of people was promoting violence. There was some terrorist activity that was, you know, spreading violence in some parts of the world publicly, posting, things that, any decent human being would disallow or wouldn't want to be posted would help them, or in some other cases where we thought who would be crossing the line? It wouldn't be, you know, we'd align with our values of freedom of speech and, protecting people's private correspondence. We would ignore. Tucker [00:23:07] Those. Can you give us an example of a request that you thought crossed into censorship and and spying, violating people's privacy? Well. Pavel Durov [00:23:17] This is a, I would say, very funny story related to your home country. After the events of January the 6th, we received a letter from, I believe, Congressman. Yeah, of the Democratic side. And, they requested that we would share all the data we had in relation to what they called this uprising. And we checked it with our lawyers, and they said, you better ignore it. But the letter seemed very serious. And, the letter said, you know, if you are fail to comply with this request, you will be in violation with, you know, the US Constitution or something. Tucker [00:24:08] So they wanted data on people who voted for the other guy in the election. Pavel Durov [00:24:12] But they wanted the data of people who were demonstrating in Washington or wherever you doing? They're probably right there. I'm not an expert in these politics. Yeah. What, what's funny about that is two years. Exactly two weeks after that, we got another letter, a new letter from the Republican side of, the Congress. And there we read that if we give out any data according to the previous request, we would be in violation of the US Constitution. So we got two letters that said, whatever we do, we be violating the US Constitution in a way. That was my understanding of this letter's. Tucker [00:25:07] From the same legislative body, both from the US Congress. Yes. So how do you respond to that? Pavel Durov [00:25:13] Well. The same way we respond to most such requests, we decided to ignore them because it's such a complicated matter related to internal politics in the US. We don't want to take any. Tucker [00:25:28] If you would. I believe this strongly. If you ignore your problems, most of them do go away. Pavel Durov [00:25:33] That's very true. Tucker [00:25:34] It is. It is very. No, it says it, but it's true. Oh. That's amazing. Have you ever had demands that you can't ignore? Pavel Durov [00:25:43] Well. It depends. Right. Tucker [00:25:45] Unreasonable demands. Pavel Durov [00:25:46] So I would say the largest pressure towards telegram is not coming from governments. It's coming from Apple and Google. So when it comes to freedom of speech, those two platforms, they could basically censor whatever is you can read access on your smartphone. Tucker [00:26:10] So women do run the risk of being thrown out of their stores. Pavel Durov [00:26:14] Exactly. That's what they make very clear that if we fail to comply with their guidelines. So they call it, telegram could be removed from the stores. Tucker [00:26:26] Well, that would be not a small thing for you, right? Pavel Durov [00:26:29] Well, it's not won't be a small thing for us, because obviously, a big chunk of the world's population will lose access to a valuable tool that they're using every day. But, you know, it will not also be a small thing for them. I mean, there should I believe the there must be find some compromise in such cases. But Apple and Google are not very compromising when it comes to that guideline. If they believe some content is against the rules, they will see to it that all the apps that are distributed to their stores comply with this rules. Tucker [00:27:07] Or any of those rules, or do you interpret any of those rules? Do you believe any of them to be political? In nature and. Pavel Durov [00:27:17] Some of them. But it's not the rules. It's the application of the rules. The rules themselves. They're pretty general, right? So. There must be no violence, discrimination, public, publicly available. I don't know, child abuse materials. It's hard to disagree with that. Tucker [00:27:39] Yes. Pavel Durov [00:27:40] But then when they start to apply those rules, sometimes we are not. Agreeing with, with their interpretations. And we try to, you know, get back to Apple or Google wherever it is and say, look, we think you got it wrong. We think, actually, this is a legitimate way of people expressing their opinions. And sometimes they do agree to their credit, sometimes they disagree. And we still have to take some content down, at least in the version of telegram that is distributed through their platforms. Tucker [00:28:18] So there are a bunch of a number of conflicts going on around the world right now, and that may accelerate. Yeah. So would you expect that the number of demands and the intensity of those demands, the persistence of those demands, would increase as the wars become more intense. Pavel Durov [00:28:37] Let's see. I'm really hopeful that the past is is behind us. I want to be optimistic. I think now we reached a point where, politicians and societies know what to expect from social media platforms and where there, you know, the red lines are. Yes. We also learned much more about, the requirements coming from both them and Google. Apple. So and our users get better educated as well as what what is allowed and was not allowed. So I don't necessarily believe that things are going to get worse. Tucker [00:29:21] It does seem like the red line for for governments is allowing organized opposition to the rule. That's what you saw in Russia with Navalny and the Ukraine crisis in 2014. That's what you saw from that Democratic member of Congress after January 6th, 2020. Pavel Durov [00:29:39] There's a pattern here. Telegram has been used by protesters in places like Hong Kong. Yes, Belarus, Kazakhstan, even in near Barcelona. Back in the day. Yes. So it's it's it's been a tool for the opposition to a large extent. But it doesn't really matter whether it's opposition or the ruling party that is using telegram for us. We apply the rules equally to all sides. We don't, become prejudiced in this way. It's not that we are rooting for their position where we're rooting for the ruling party. It's not that we don't care, but we think it's important to, have this platform that is neutral to all voices because we believe that, the competition of different ideas can result in the progress and the better world for everyone. Tucker [00:30:35] That's, in stark contrast to, say, Facebook, which has said in public, you know, we tip the scale in favor of this or that movement in this or that country, or far from the West and far from Western media attention. But they've said that. What do you think of that? Tech companies choosing governments. Pavel Durov [00:30:55] Well, I think that's one of the reasons why we ended up here in the UAE of all places. Right. So you you don't want to be geopolitically aligned. You don't want to select the winners in any of this, political fights. And that's why you have to be in a neutral place. But I think Facebook in particular has, a lot of, reasons apart from being based in the US for doing what they're doing. I think every app and platform plays its own role. You know, we believe that humanity does need a neutral platform like telegram, that will be respectful to people's privacy and freedoms. Tucker [00:31:42] Maybe from a political perspective, it seems like the most provocative thing telegram does is offer something called channels, which seem sort of ready made for organizing groups of people. Can you explain to viewers aren't familiar with, what a telegram channel is? Pavel Durov [00:31:59] Yeah. So telegram channel is a one to many broadcast tool that allows people to, quickly disseminate any message to millions of people. So there's a channel, people subscribe to it. It's a one way communication, meaning a channel can be used by, say, a president or a head of state. And, everybody else will not be able to send a message to the president, but the president will be able to send a message to all of the people who subscribe to his channel. Tucker [00:32:35] Yes. Pavel Durov [00:32:35] Or her channel. So the point here is, channels are so easy to use, and they're so deeply integrated in the messaging user interface that they became extremely popular. Tucker [00:32:49] So you receive it like a text. Pavel Durov [00:32:51] Exactly. So it's it's a very familiar form for a lot of people. And since we launch, watch channels eight years ago, I believe, a few other apps, popular apps fold in our footsteps and copy that feature as well, and not nearly as advanced as it was we have, but it shows that it's, really, high quality and demanded feature that the world needs. Tucker [00:33:20] I think it's and you don't have to answer any these questions if you don't want, if it's too personal, but, you're the owner. You you own it. And it's very unusual. In fact, I've never seen it. To have a large business like this owned by one person. Why didn't you take. And you could have cash in and private equity money along the way, but you didn't. Why didn't you? Pavel Durov [00:33:42] Well, that's true as of now, token was 100% owned by myself. Which is, like I said, quite, unusual. Tucker [00:33:49] I've never heard of that before. Pavel Durov [00:33:51] The the reason I tried to, you know. Yeah. Stay away from venture capital money, too, in the early stages of our development is because we wanted to be independent. We knew that our mission and our goals are not necessarily consistent with the goals of, funds that could be investing into us. And also, for me, it was never about money. Right. So I have a few hundred million dollars in my bank account or in Bitcoin since ten years ago. And, I don't do anything with it. I don't own any, like real estate jets, or yachts. I don't think those, this lifestyle is for me. I like to focus on what we are doing. Tucker [00:34:42] With telegram. You don't own anything. Like big assets. Pavel Durov [00:34:47] You don't know big assets. Tucker [00:34:49] An island in Hawaii or. No, no. Pavel Durov [00:34:51] No. No land, no real estate. Nothing. Why? Because for me, my number one priority in life is my freedom. And once you start buying things first, it will tie you down to a physical location. In my view, it's my personal view. I don't have nothing against people who are buying real estate, but in my personal view, it will be like this for me. And the second reason is I like to stay focused on what we do, I telegram. So I know that if I buy a house and buy a jet, something like that, I would be spending time trying to make it nice. Tucker [00:35:32] And yeah. Pavel Durov [00:35:33] This will require a lot of time and effort. Tucker [00:35:35] Would you go with leather seats or velvet seats? Pavel Durov [00:35:38] Exactly. Tucker [00:35:39] And you're not even gonna choose? Pavel Durov [00:35:41] Yes. For me, I would rather make decisions that would influence how people communicate, rather than choosing the color of seats in the house that only I am. My relatives from, probably a bunch of my friends will see. Tucker [00:35:58] Interesting and you didn't take because I just have to say the third time. Haven't seen this before. You obviously were famous as a young man, as a company builder and entrepreneur, and so you could have really taken a lot of money and you didn't because you didn't want to be controlled. Pavel Durov [00:36:17] I just didn't see any reason to do that. You know, I had enough money to get by. Well, to be completely fair, telegram did takes outside money. We issued bonds three years ago, so we raised debt. And that was. And before that, we had a cryptocurrency project that also raised some funds. So there were instances where we raised outside, funding. But, when it comes to company equity. Tucker [00:36:48] You didn't give up ownership. Pavel Durov [00:36:49] We didn't give anyone ownership or voting control or anything like that, because we also believe in efficiency. I think that having myself as the sole owner, director and product manager for this, extensive period of time in the company, its development allowed us to move faster. Tucker [00:37:09] How could you be the only product manager? Are you still the only product manager in the company? Pavel Durov [00:37:15] Exactly. I still come up with all most of the features. I still work directly with every engineer, every designer who is implementing these features. You know, I'm running this company because I enjoy it. I'm the only product manager because I think this is the way I can contribute. Tucker [00:37:37] How big is your HR department? Pavel Durov [00:37:39] Zero. Well, you could say it's me. And that's because the way we hire. Tucker [00:37:44] Engineer, you need a big HR department. You don't think you don't suffer with that one? Pavel Durov [00:37:50] We in a way decentralize that. We started a platform where we host contests for engineers. It's actually contest.com. We have this separate, platform for that. And we select the best of the best engineers as a result of the competitions that we organize. We hold them every month or two months. So after a series of this competitions, we select the best of the best of the best. And they then maybe could join our team, which is just about 30 engineers. So it's it's really compact. The team super efficient. It's like a Navy Seal team. And this is how we operate. We don't need a HR department to find, super talented engineers. Tucker [00:38:44] Why does everyone do this? I mean, I look at some of these tech companies or Elon Musk famously when he showed up at Twitter. I mean, there are people doing things that he didn't even know they were doing and they didn't know what they were doing. They were like there was a World Peace department and a foosball department. And why doesn't everybody run their business like you? Pavel Durov [00:39:04] Well, it's an interesting question. I think it all boils down to the question of independence, in a way. I asked this question to the predecessor of Elon. Tucker [00:39:15] Jack Dorsey. Pavel Durov [00:39:16] Jack and and his predecessor as well. And, would you say, Dick Costa whatever is his name? And, this Jack, he told me that, if I told him, look, you can run this company with 20 people. You don't need so many people here. And the response was, I agree with you, but if we start firing so many people, it will make the Wall Street scared. They will think something's very wrong with the company. And we don't want to do that. And that's why we got to keep all this, employees. Tucker [00:39:54] So to keep the stock price high, he had to run it inefficiently. I mean, that's what you're saying. Pavel Durov [00:40:02] If I understood him correctly, that's what's. But to his to his credit, Elon has to take Twitter private. Before he could do all there. Well, I mean. Tucker [00:40:15] There's I mean, there's something sort of profound in what you're saying. I mean, the whole point of a publicly traded company or one of the points so the public can participate in the ownership of the company, but also so outsiders can assess the operations of the company. And so there's transparency. So we know how the company is run because it's owned by the public. And so it would be by definition more efficient, you would think. But you're saying that it's wildly less efficient that you wind up with a foosball department when it's publicly traded, but when it's privately held, you don't. I mean, that's kind of the opposite of what you would think, right? Well, I guess. Pavel Durov [00:40:48] Most tech founders would actually agree that running a public company is, less efficient than running a private company, because you have to be accountable to much more people. There is a lot of redundancy bureaucracy involved. So from a purely like efficiency standpoint, I would argue, and I think a lot of people would agree with me, that when a public company is suboptimal, however, there are other advantages of of getting listed. And of course that is relevant when you want to acquire other companies. Well, cash. Yes, you can have access to cheap capital. You know, there is a lot of things you can do. Tucker [00:41:33] But you don't want to do any of those things. Pavel Durov [00:41:36] Well, not. Not presently. Definitely. I am enjoying running my company in the way it is. Well, who knows what the future holds. But, as of now, I think we are doing a great job with, with telegram, 900 million users will probably cross a billion, monthly active users within a year from now. I think we are doing great. Why? Why would we lose this momentum right now? Tucker [00:42:01] Can I go back to something you said at the outset? You don't have an H.R. department. You only have 30 engineers working for you. You run the products, you own the company. Such a tight organization. But how do you get new users if you spend zero money for acquisitions, if you're not advertising, if you're not paying to bring people in, how do you how do you do that? How do you get to a billion for free? Pavel Durov [00:42:26] But because people love our product. What we realized pretty early on is that people are smart. People like to use good things and they don't like to use inferior things. That's why whenever you have a person who is who started to use telegram and they're there for a while and they start to discover all the features out there, you know, the speed, the security, the problems, everything that we have. They don't want to go back, and they start inviting their friends, recommending them. You should really check this app out because it's so much better than everything else. And also because people realize that whatever, messaging apps they're using right now, they're like 5 or 6 years behind. They are copying what we did six years ago. And that's not, you know, very high quality copy that they make about features. So people love quality. That's why they move. They also love the independence. They also love the privacy. They love the freedom. There are a lot of reasons why somebody would switch to telegram from other apps. Tucker [00:43:36] So one of the things we learned when Elon Musk bought Twitter is that the intelligence is not just us, but a bunch of other countries, the usual suspects. We're all over the company. I mean, they were some of them were present working at the company. They had access to the direct messages. You can just imagine, you know, because you run one. But the wealth of data flowing through would be of great interest to to governments. Does that make you paranoid that you'll be penetrated? I mean, I assume governments would like to know what's going on. Privately on telegram. Pavel Durov [00:44:11] Well, there's definitely a lot of responsibility that we have on our shoulders. And we I wouldn't say we are paranoid, but I think it makes sense to stay prudent and, you know, not being, too accessible, not traveling to weird places. Tucker [00:44:31] You don't travel to weird places. Pavel Durov [00:44:32] I hope not, like, I travel to places where I have, confidence that, you know, those places are, consistent with what we do in our values. I don't go to any of the big geopolitical powers to the countries like China or Russia or the US. So. Tucker [00:44:55] You don't go to the US. Pavel Durov [00:44:56] I try not to. I can go, but, you know, it's, too much attention like I described before. Tucker [00:45:02] Yeah. Because at some point, if you run something like this, you're a player in world politics. I mean, whether you want to be or not, don't you think? Pavel Durov [00:45:10] We definitely don't want to be a player. We want to be a neutral platform that is impartial and, you know, doesn't take any side. But you're probably right. There's some role we have to play. Tucker [00:45:24] Well, not taking a side is the one thing you're not allowed to do, right? I mean, aren't you required to take a side in the modern world? Pavel Durov [00:45:32] I think that's a big problem, because I think that kind of, attitude can result in our world becoming a more dangerous place, because at the end of the day, we all have to try to understand each other and try to get closer to each other in terms of getting to know the positions of the other people, even though they're drastically different from our own positions. And that's how we get to some, you know, compromise and move forward. If we're strictly divided and everybody is required to take a side and we can't take a side because we are this platform that people should use to collaborate and to find common ground and hopefully to move forward. If we lose that, we can end up in a much more dangerous place. Tucker [00:46:28] How often do you intersect with the National Security Agency, NSA? And I ask that as someone whose texts were read by them. So I know that they're very active in this world. What's your experience been? Well, I think. Pavel Durov [00:46:43] The NSA is not, an agency that works with you directly, right? Yeah. Come here. Tucker [00:46:50] You're so diplomatic, I love it. You got to say, it's not an agency that works with you directly. No, that is true. It is true. Pavel Durov [00:46:59] So my knowledge of my interactions with the NSA is very limited. Yes, I could read something in the newspapers about, you know, my phone being penetrated with Pegasus or something like that. I have no idea whether it's true or not, but this is the only source of information I can have about me personally being of interest to any of, you know, the secret agencies. Tucker [00:47:27] But you've got to think, even though you haven't done an interview in seven years ish, you know, you're it's widely known by people who are interested, who you are and your role in this. I mean, you've got to think you're under crazy amounts of surveillance, wouldn't you think? Pavel Durov [00:47:42] That's probably true. You know, it would sound funny, but I assume by default that the devices I use like I compromised. Yeah, because you will still use an iPhone or an Android phone. And, now, after experiencing what I experienced in the U.S., I have very limited faith in, platforms developed in the US from a security standpoint. Tucker [00:48:10] Yes. Privacy standpoint. Pavel Durov [00:48:12] Exactly. Tucker [00:48:12] Yeah. Because in a lot of countries of ours, America included, spying is described as, quote, security. You're looking at it from the other perspective. You're assuming that security is privacy and my right not to be spied upon. But I government's described spying upon you as security. Pavel Durov [00:48:31] Thank you for this correction. Tucker [00:48:35] So last question, do you, since you've done this since you were in college and you've been at the center of it, where do you see it going? And by this I mean the free exchange, the private exchange of information between sovereign individuals, human beings, non slaves. When I was a child. That was possible. It's increasingly difficult. Are we moving toward a world where there just is no private communication? Or do you think that privacy will remain despite, say, AI or just massive increases in computing power? Pavel Durov [00:49:11] While this depends on the extent of privacy. When you say privacy will remain. Do you mean that we have absolute privacy now? Tucker [00:49:21] I don't think that we do. And I think the world is becoming less amenable. Government is becoming less tolerant of privacy. And that's clearly the trend because they have more technological power. But will they win, I guess. Will there ever be a way to preserve privacy? You know, can is there a place for it? Pavel Durov [00:49:42] I believe in that. I am an optimist. I think some new secure hardware, you know, communication devices will be created, in a similar way that now we have, hardware wallets to store your cryptocurrency. Yes. Maybe we'll have secure, communication, devices, you know, to send messages or do voice calls. It's possible. I do believe that, you know, the world develops in cycles. And, if things seem to go in one direction today doesn't seem. Doesn't mean that tomorrow they will go the same direction. I also feel that at some point, people will get tired of, what they experienced today and they would decide to, you know, move to some other direction. So it's I seen it after Covid, for example. So during Covid, do you had a lot of restrictions also on social media platforms? You on most social media platforms you were not really allowed. To express doubt in relation to lockdowns, vaccines or masks. And, at some point I could feel that the sentiment changed. People started to feel very, very tired and sometimes angry. But the fact that they were not allowed to express their opinions, particularly after the end of, the pandemic, a lot of people started to be, even more skeptical about the restrictions in their freedoms that they experienced during the pandemic. Tucker [00:51:38] What was your position as a business owner? During Covid, did you must have come under pressure to censor opinions on lockdowns, vaccines, masking. How did you respond? Pavel Durov [00:51:52] So our position is pretty straightforward. We're a neutral platform. We were helping governments to spread their message about the lockdowns and masks and vaccines. We got dozens of governments who we really help. You know, some of their information, but we also didn't want to restrict the voices that were critical of all those measures. We thought it made sense for this opposing views to collide and hopefully, you know, see some truth come out of those debates. And of course, we got criticized for that. But, looking back, I think it was the right strategy. Tucker [00:52:31] So you allowed people to voice doubts about the so-called science throughout the throughout the experience? Pavel Durov [00:52:38] Exactly. During the pandemic, we I think were one of the few or maybe the only major social media platform that didn't, take down accounts or that were skeptical, in relation to some of these measures. Tucker [00:52:57] So why are you not famous and treated as a hero in the United States? Oh. Shouldn't there be a parade in your honor? If you're the only social media platform not to take down what turned out to be true, or to some extent true, more certainly more true than the CDC guidance. I mean, what why why were you times man of the year? Why isn't your face on the nickel? Pavel Durov [00:53:26] I'm not an expert in the US politics. But to be fair, you have, now, Twitter or X. Yeah. That, seemingly becoming more pro freedom of speech. And I think it is, it's, it's, it's it's a great development. And back to our earlier discussion about how all of this is developing in cycles. Things are starting to change, it seems. Tucker [00:53:57] So. I mean, but in in some ways Elon buying Twitter. Sort of end your monopoly. But you still greet it cheerfully. You're still in favor of it. Pavel Durov [00:54:11] Definitely. We will love the fact that Elon bought Twitter. We thought it was a great development for a number of reasons. First reason is just innovation. You could see X doing trying a lot of things. Some of them. Will turn out to be mistakes. Some of them will work, but at least they're trying to innovate. That's something we didn't have outside of telegram. And if you other companies in this industry for the last ten years, what you saw from the big players, they would rather copy the proven models with features that apps like telegram launch and just scale them on a larger audience. These features would be a pale, pale blue pill, reflections of what we built. But this was the way those companies operating still operate. What X is trying to do is, in line what we are building, you know, innovation, trying different things, trying to give power to the creators, trying to get the ecosystem economy going. Those are all exciting things. And, I think we need more companies like that. I was I don't know if it's good for humanity that, like, Elon is spending so much time on Twitter making it better, but it's definitely good for the social media industry. Tucker [00:55:38] When you see the other the guys who run these other companies, like what do you do know them? And do you ever talk about freedom of speech? I mean, if you're running, you're running to not you don't have to answer, of course, if you don't want. But like if you're into Mark Zuckerberg, which I mean. Pavel Durov [00:55:52] Yeah, I, we met with Mark, more than ten years ago. I was still running VK and, I told them I told Mark and his colleagues about our, app platform. We launched an app platform, I think it was 2009 at VK. They were very interested. It was an interesting meeting. They ended up trying to copy. Not what we did, but what I told them we did. That was funny. I remember him asking me whether we were planning to, start something. Okay. On a global basis, on the global level. Level? Like go, for international expansion. I said no, and I asked him whether he was going to try to capture more of. My domestic market where I was working out, and he said no. And we both ended up doing exactly that in like 2 or 3 weeks or whatever. Tucker [00:56:58] So I'm thinking I shouldn't go into business with Mark Zuckerberg. Pavel Durov [00:57:03] Look. No comment. Tucker [00:57:08] Thank you very much. It was a great conversation. I appreciate, and we're rooting for you. Pavel Durov [00:57:13] Thank you for having me. Of course. LTOV here >>> https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-interview-pavel-durov/

The Biden administration accused journalist Owen Shroyer of spreading "disinformation" about the 2020 election and sent him to federal prison on a misdemeanor charge. He just got out. Published Dec 12, 2023 LTOV here >>> https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-owen-shroyer/ READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] There is major concern in Washington at this hour that if democracy is allowed to function and the candidate who is leading in all the polls for President of the United States is allowed to win in 2024, we'll get fascism. And he's going to throw his political opponents in prison. And that will change America forever. Democracy will die. We'll become an authoritarian republic, not even a republic. A junta. Well, we don't have to wait, actually, because that's already happening. And it has been happening for at least three years, certainly since January 6th, 2021, a day in which we now know there were approximately 200 undercover federal officers in the crowd. But it wasn't a setup. Don't say false flag. So what happened in the aftermath? Well, over a thousand people were arrested, well over a thousand in the largest manhunt the FBI has ever conducted. Almost every single one of them had behaved peacefully at the demonstration, but many went to prison. Some went to prison without even doing anything wrong. And one of them, at least one of them was an actual journalist, a salary taking journalist, provably a journalist. And no one even accused him of going inside the Capitol that day. He was accused, however, of spreading, quote, disinformation about the election, which is now an imprisonable offense. His name is Owen Shroyer. He spent years as an Infowars host. He just spent 47 days in federal prison for - listen carefully - a misdemeanor. Hass anyone ever gone to federal prison for a misdemeanor? We can't find anyone. By the way, he was kept in solitary confinement for most of that time. He is out of prison, still on probation. He joins us now. Owen Shroyer, thanks so much for joining us. . Owen Shroyer [00:01:47] It's an honor to be here, Tucker. Tucker [00:01:48] Well, it's an honor to have you and welcome back from prison. I adlibbed most of that intro, so I want to make sure I didn't misstate any of the facts of your case. It just almost defies imagination. Tell us, in your words, why you were sent to federal prison. Owen Shroyer [00:02:07] Well, January 6th is obviously the hook that the Department of Justice used to put me in prison, even though my charge still was a misdemeanor charge. I think it's worth laying the breadcrumbs for this, because really the persecution that I've dealt with as a journalist and a talk show host dates back to actually 2019, where you may recall the Democrats were holding their impeachment sham against Donald Trump. And I happened to stand up during Nadler's introduction of the impeachment. And I told them that it was fraudulent, that we, the people, elected Trump and Trump. Was innocent. The whole exchange lasted longer than 60 seconds. Hearing [00:03:03] (Shroyer interrupts impeachment inquiry) [00:03:07] The cops escorted me out of the building. I complied. No problems. And normally that would be that, Tucker. In fact, this is actually pretty commonplace for the Capitol. I'm sure you've seen it many times yourself. One, David Hogg has done this. We've seen people storm into Kevin McCarthy's office. We see the pro-Palestinian protesters storming into the Capitol. We've seen the pro-abortion people. I can go on and on, but for the sake of time, I'll stop with that short list. Very commonplace for people to go into the Capitol. Now, normally what happens is the Capitol Police will detain you, escort you out of the building and usually just shuffle you on their way. Well, in 2019, after I had disrupted the impeachment sham hearing, which I would still argue is a First Amendment right to redress your grievances with the government, somebody got on the walkie talkie of the Capitol police officer just as he was about to release me and said, no, not so fast. We're not going to treat Owen Shroyer like the other 99% of people that go into the Capitol and get escorted out and detained. We're going to go ahead and charge and arrest him. So that was the first time I was politically persecuted. A month later, inside that same Capitol building, there were a group of, say, 40 or 50 anti-Trump protesters having a demonstration in the Capitol. Well, I decided to just show the double standard in this country to go back to the exact same spot that 40 to 50 anti-Trump protesters are in in the Capitol. I went to the exact same spot. I put a tape over my mouth that said "censored" because I had been banned off all mainstream media, social media platforms. And I was arrested for that and spent 36 hours in a D.C. gulag for that. Eventually, when that reached the judge's docket, he just completely tossed it out. But I think it's worth building to this point, Tucker, because people need to know that this discrimination and persecution against myself, but probably more importantly, just against journalists has been going on for a long time. Owen Shroyer [00:05:12] So bring us to January 6th. As you said, I was there covering the event as a journalist. And despite the mainstream media and left wing media reports that are completely wrong, claiming that I was in violation of a probation from 2019 just by being there, that is completely inaccurate. I was not in violation of my probation and I was there that day as a journalist. Well, after everything goes down that day and myself and the team that I was with, which is in their sentencing memo, they admit we tried to stop people from going into the Capitol. We tried to discourage people from being on Capitol grounds. We even tried to work with police to stop the whole event from happening. This is all on record. The government, the Department of Justice, the judge, the prosecuting attorneys are all well aware of this. It all came up in my sentencing memo, and yet they still decided to sentence me to 60 days in jail, which you reported. I did only serve 47. They wanted to hit me with 120 days in jail. And so I'm lucky that I really only got away with 47. Unfortunately, I had to serve, as you said, the majority of that in lockdown. Owen Shroyer [00:06:25] But here's another issue. Aside from the attack on free speech, the incentive right now from the Department of Justice is not justice, Tucker. The incentive from U.S. attorneys is convictions and the incentive from the judge is imprisonment. Justice never seems to enter the equation here at all. And I'm perfectly an example of that. Everybody knows I didn't belong in prison. Even when I was indicted by the FBI, a magistrate Judge, Farooq in D.C. issued a motion to the DOJ saying, hey, wait a second, you violated the law potentially here. And they did when they indicted me as a journalist. Barack Obama signed legislation that you have to go through special protocols and procedures when you're going to charge a journalist. They didn't do any of that. What did they do with the judges memo saying that you violated the law? They said, we don't care. We're charging Shroyer anyway. We don't have to follow the rules. So I can expand in a million different ways from there, Tucker. Tucker [00:07:25] And I appreciate, thank you for that summary. It's hard to believe any of that is real. It is. It's been chronicled in detail. It is shocking, though, to hear it laid out. So a couple of questions. First. You are a journalist and that's not I mean, a lot of people claim to be a. You actually working as one and paying your health insurance. You're a journalist. Okay. So did any other journalist defend you? Did any of them, any journalism watchdog groups Pan-American or whatever they are? Did anybody in the journalism community, White House Correspondents Association, speak up on your behalf? Owen Shroyer [00:07:58] No, not that I'm aware of. In fact, The New York Times had been writing stories about censoring me and shutting me down for a long time now. There were people in, say, the alternative media that supported me and came to my defense. I remember you actually covered my story at the previous network that you worked at as well. But outside of that, it was very few and far between. Tucker [00:08:21] Unbelievable. So you said and we often say as we describe these things, they did this, they did that. But can you attach some names to the horrifying miscarriage of justice that you endured? Like who was behind this? Do you know? Like what judge would sign off on that? Who are the prosecutors like? Who are these people? Owen Shroyer [00:08:42] Well, the judge in my case was Timothy Kelly, and he has had a lot of January 6th cases, and he's been very heavy handed in some of his sentencing. And again, I'm not sure the incentive there, because it doesn't seem to be justice. And the lady that spoke, the US prosecuting attorney that spoke at my sentencing hearing was a Kimberly Pascal. And, you know, they like to come off as friendly people and they like to pretend to you that they're operating in good faith. But I have to say, it doesn't feel that way after the results. In fact, during the sentencing hearing, I thought I was hearing the Twilight Zone music behind me as Kimberly Pascal was arguing that this is not about Shroyer's speech, but here's what he said. And you can see the transcripts from that hearing. And literally, Tucker, she says this is not about Owen Shroyer speech but here's what he said. I'm not sure how many times that was said, but even in the sentencing memo that the prosecuting attorneys released, the 30 page memo, about 27 pages are about my speech, not even on January 6th, my speech from my talk show before and after. Tucker [00:09:50] So I think it's from that memo that you're accused of spreading and I'm quoting disinformation about the election. Disinformation doesn't suggest that what you said was wrong. It's not the same as incorrect or false or a lie. It just means it's inconvenient for the people in power. So how in the world could the government admit in public that they're sending you to prison for questioning an election and still pretend that this is a democracy? Owen Shroyer [00:10:18] Well, it's amazing, isn't it? Because I'm not too old but I do remember that every presidential election that Democrats have lost in the 20th century, they've questioned and they've denied. So it's odd that one side can do that and the other cannot. But, you know, to go back to the not getting a good faith negotiation with the government, I want to be very clear about something here, Tucker. There was a notion that somehow my cooperation with the federal government was me turning on Donald Trump or me turning on Alex Jones, something that was completely inaccurate. The reason why I turned over multiple cell phones and I responded to every electronic data request that the FBI made and sat down for a multiple hour session with them to cross-reference my testimony. And I'm assuming other testimonies that they had gotten as well, as well as what was in my phones and everything else they wanted was to prove my innocence and not just my innocence. Everybody's innocence. Nobody wanted that to go down. Tucker [00:11:21] Innocent of what? I mean, you weren't even accused of going inside the Capitol building on January 6th. You're not accused of setting anything on fire or committing any act of violence. So, I mean, on what grounds could they steal your cell phones and violate your most basic privacies? I don't understand that. Like, what's the crime? Owen Shroyer [00:11:42] Well, the whole notion that the US attorney was arguing is that somehow I was behind the entire event that day. That's what their whole notion is, is that somehow I led the charge for what resulted in January 6th and people going into the Capitol and everything else. And I wanted to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, look, here's all my communications. That was never anybody's plan. I had nothing to do with that. I never went in the building. And they acknowledged that. They acknowledged that. And they still decided to come down heavy handed on me. But it's worth mentioning too, Tucker. Part of the process here with me turning all of this over and cooperating, my attorney and my understanding was that they weren't going to press for jail time. That was the mutual understanding that we had here. And then they tried to hit me with 120 days. And I'm not curious if that didn't come from the minds of the U.S. attorneys, but perhaps someone higher up at the DOJ. I might even believe it's at the very top of the DOJ. Maybe Merrick Garland is the one who's trying to put me behind bars and make an example out of me. Tucker [00:12:46] Yeah, you can trust the Mafia more than you can trust the Justice Department. And I wish that weren't true, but it absolutely is true. So what was prison like? Owen Shroyer [00:12:57] Well, I will tell you, I think and this is kind of not something I would expected to have said in this interview, but it's just true. I think God wanted me to experience this for multiple reasons, Tucker. I'm a big believer in God, and I think everything that happens in our life is for a reason. And I believe God wanted me to go through this experience because not just the obvious example of speech imprisonment that I had to face, or a speech crime that is now potentially a precedent that could be used against any journalist, which puts fear in my heart, not just for me in the present day, but for future Americans, that they have to be afraid to speak and to do work, honest work as a journalist. But, you know, there was an unexpected issue that was clearly shown to me through this process, and that's that the Justice Department and the incentive behind imprisonment is wrong. [00:13:55] I mean, I can tell you the details of my stay, they're pretty much horrific, Tucker. I spent the majority of the time in lockdown. I went right out of solitary confinement into what's called a special housing unit for a phone call I made thanking people for sending me mail. People that were in jail for decades, some of the people that worked inside the prison for decades, when they saw that what's called "a shot" in the prisons, they said, I've never seen anybody get punished for this before. So I got sent to prison as a speech prisoner. And then I got sent to the prison inside the prison for my speech. And, you know, I had a couple off the record conversations with people while I was in there. And basically they were saying the same thing, like, look Owen, we don't like what's been done to you here, but these are orders coming from the very top. Your beef isn't with us here at this prison. Your beef is with the people at the top. They're the ones still coming after you, even when you're in here. And I'll leave it at that. So nobody's ever heard of a misdemeanor in a� federal prison until me. Nobody's ever heard of somebody going to the special housing unit for making a phone call, thanking people for mail until me. And so I don't know why they want to make an example of me so much, except that I just speak the truth and I'll say it right to their face if I'm given the opportunity. But we need prison reform in this country badly, Tucker. Most of the people that are in that prison, not just me, do not belong there. And there are way more political prisoners outside the realm of what you and I might think. You go after corrupt lawyers, judges, insurance companies. You go after the corruption in Medicare and Medicaid. They lock you up and throw away the key. I couldn't believe some of the stories. And while I'm in there, the Bureau of Prisons wants $2 billion. Matt Gaetz brought my name up during that hearing. The Bureau of Prisons doesn't need $2 billion more annually. They need to release $2 billion worth of prisoners because we have a prison industrial complex in this country. And we have a Justice Department that is not incentivized by justice. Tucker [00:15:59] Right. So the violent criminals stay on the street to act as militia for the ruling class and put the fear of God in everybody else, weaken the population. And the thought criminals, or the ones who challenge power, wind up in prison. I've noticed. Owen Shroyer [00:16:18] Well, and I think this is something that I hate to talk about, but it's just true. And people need to know this. Now, I'm a man of convictions and I guess I would think of myself as a brave man. But telling the truth shouldn't really consist of an act of bravery. But I have to be honest with you, Tucker. Just doing this interview. The book that I wrote while I was in there, I'm afraid now. I'm afraid that my speech is going to wind me up in jail again. That's something that sits in the back of my head now. Every day when I go on air and tell the truth, that's something that sits in the back of my head that I might go to jail for what I'm saying. Tucker [00:16:56] What's solitary like? Owen Shroyer [00:17:01] You know, my situation probably wasn't the worst as many people in solitary have where you get no interaction whatsoever. Luckily, some of the inmates that were in general population were able to at least sometimes come up to my window. But for the first 25 days, so almost the first month of my incarceration, I only got movement three days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I got 15 minutes to shower and that was it. I didn't even get access to commissary until day 35, I believe, which means I was forced to eat the prison food, which many prisoners don't eat at all because it's so bad and they just eat the commissary food. You get very little interaction. You get very little access to the outside. I was treated like a high security prisoner for a misdemeanor. And like I said, nobody could even believe that that was the case, whether it was long time prison workers or long time inmates. And so unceremoniously, I kind of got the nickname Misdemeanor because that was the big joke that somehow I'm in federal prison for a misdemeanor and nobody's ever heard of that. But, you know, that's the thing. You don't want to end up in prison. I mean, I don't have to sit here and explain why you lose all your freedoms. You have to eat unhealthy food. You're pretty much sleep deprived and starved the entire time. But now that's something that sits in the back of my head every time I speak. Doing this interview. Doing my show every day. I'm on air for three hours a day telling the truth. And every hour, I have to sit there and wonder, am I going to go to jail for something I said on my show? That's what they've done to me. And I'm afraid for future Americans that might have to face that same fear. Tucker [00:18:50] I mean, at some point, I think some people are going to say, I'm actually just not going to go to prison. Like, make me. I hope it doesn't get to that. But you could see that happening. Maybe putting you in prison, in federal prison on a misdemeanor charge for doing nothing. Maybe the whole point of that exercise, because you're a public figure, was to put the fear of God into everybody else and to get them to pause before they tell the truth. Owen Shroyer [00:19:14] Well, and it's just, the torture is beyond this. I've been under the scrutiny of the federal government since 2019, and all I've ever done is speak. That's all I've ever done. I've never hurt anybody. As far as I'm concerned. I've never broken any law. All I've done is speak. But because I speak against corruption in government and I speak against the corruption in the establishment, I am under the full scrutiny of the federal government. And, you know, people always make the joke, Tucker, but there's a bit of reality to it. I guess I should have just joined one of the leftist mobs and attacked police officers, defaced public property, tried to burn down a building, firebombed a police officer. I guess I probably wouldn't be in this situation right now. Tucker [00:19:57] Of course not. Torch Wendy's. You'd be completely fine. So last question, sort of bigger picture, picture question. I think your case is one of the most shocking, but it's not unique. There are a lot of people who went to prison for no crime after January 6th, which was obviously a setup. But the basis of the demonstration and of the conversation since has been the question of the 2020 election. Was it stolen? And do you think that any of this stuff, putting you in jail, pretending it was insurrection. Any of that. Has that convinced a single person in this country or abroad that the election wasn't stolen? I mean, you think that's actually worked as a propaganda tool? Owen Shroyer [00:20:40] Well, it's funny because in their sentencing memo, they said I wasn't remorseful for questioning it. Like I'm some, I guess I'm supposed to grovel to Joe Biden and the Department of Justice. Yeah, I'm not remorseful. But here's the thing, Tucker. They can put me in jail for a month, two months, a year, 12 years. It's not going to change the facts. It's not going to change the facts that Donald Trump was getting 40, 50,000 people at every rally. He did, sometimes 3 or 4 a day. And Joe Biden couldn't fill a broom closet. It's not going to change the fact that the recent joke Trump made, which I think is funny, Donald Trump sells millions of hats. I've never seen or heard of a Joe Biden hat. It's not going to change the fact that was well documented in the documentary 3000 Mules that these vote-by-mail drop boxes were filled with all kinds of corruption. And it's not going to change the fact that Donald Trump was leading in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, all the way through the night until 3 a.m., Michigan, and then at 3:00 and 3:30 a.m., all the sudden, hundreds of thousands of votes for Joe Biden came in just enough to put him over the edge. So they can throw me in jail forever. It's not going to change that history. And I always like to make this analogy, Tucker, because I think it's a fair analogy. I'm sure you recall the great homerun chase of 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke the home run record. Well, that's an anomaly. So we found out what was behind it. They were both using steroids. Or, as some people said, they were both cheating. Well, here's the thing. We just had a presidential election where both candidates broke the record. Do you really think that's organic? And do you really believe that Joe Biden got more votes than Barack Obama? Anybody who really believes that I think is lying to themselves and lying to anybody else. Tucker [00:22:30] A lot more than Barack Obama. Yeah, Joe Biden beat Black Jesus. Yeah, I agree. I agree with you 100%. Owen Shroyer, it is great to see you. I'm sure you're rattled, but you're obviously not broken. And so we're grateful that you took the time to talk to us. Thank you very much. Owen Shroyer [00:22:47] Absolutely, great to be here. And congratulations on your new network, Tucker. We're all cheering for you. Tucker [00:22:53] Thanks, man.

America is being invaded and destroyed with the help of our leaders. Michael Yon has spent his life covering wars, so he recognized right away what was happening. Yon joined Tucker to unveil the shadowy nonprofits that are fueling the migrant crisis currently unfolding on our southern border. originally Published Apr 23, 2024 https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-michael-yon-border-invasion/ READ THE TRANSCRIPT Bret Weinstein [00:01:21] Well, I, I wound up there because Michael Yon had been sending me materials, thinking that I would be interested in what was taking place in Panama. And, of course, I was utterly fascinated by what I was seeing. Now, some of your viewers may not know Michael. Michael is a former Green Beret who has refashioned himself. Well, the last time I was on your program, I talked about Goliath. And, if there's a Goliath, there's a David. And I would argue that Michael Yon is like David's eyes. He's been traversing the world trying to understand a story that as yet has no name. And that story is partially in the Darien of Panama. And it's all sorts of other places, including, in various UN installations. There's some story that is difficult to piece together. And he's been physically traveling to all of its various epicenters and showing people. Tucker [00:02:22] So a year ago, it would have been pretty hard to find an English speaker who had been to the Darien Gap. Again, it's famous this region, it's famous for being the most lawless and dangerous place on planet Earth. Michael Yon has now spent about six months in the Darien Gap shooting film, interviewing people. We're going to show you a lot of what he's found during the course of the interview you're about to see, but one piece of tape that caught our eye - kind of remarkable. A town of about 300 indigenous people, only about a dozen working toilets deep in the jungle, completely overrun by thousands of migrants from all over the world, including Africa and Asia. Watch: Soundbite [00:03:03] (Darien Gap video) Tucker [00:03:32] All moving to your country. Now it's happening. That's the end of the United States, the country that you grew up in. Irreparable. Forever. People in Washington, the people who control the Congress and the white House, seem to be in favor of this. And now they're just kind of saying it out loud. Chuck Schumer, probably the darkest member of the United States Congress, of course, the head Democrat in the Senate. He's telling us that we can't deal with any of that because Ukraine's border is too important. It's Ukraine. It's only about Ukraine. Here's Chuck Schumer: Tucker [00:04:13] Right. So if you want to know what evil looks like in 2024, you just saw it. It's Chuck Schumer, okay. The embodiment of it right now. But we did want to see more tape and hear more firsthand account from what it looks like at the other side, the Darien Gap, the beginning of the journey to our country where this invasion is beginning. And so we are grateful now to speak to Michael Yon, who spent more time there than maybe any American. Michael Yon, thanks so much for joining us. So could you just start with the with the overview? What role... And maybe I've misstated it, but what role does the Darien Gap play in the invasion underway of the United States? Michael Yon [00:04:56] It's absolutely vital. Tucker. You know, as soon as, Biden was installed, I was actually in DC for the, quote, unquote. You know, whatever it was, where they installed him. And then I flew straight within about 24 hours to El Paso, because I thought that the aliens would start flooding across the border. And they did. And so from there, I flew down to Columbia to the other side of the Darien Gap, because I thought that the Darien Gap would end up being a major pathway to the United States. And so I went into the, Darien Gap on the Colombian side. Just not not very far. Just about an hour inside. It's very dangerous over there. And I was there with Masako Ganaha, the famous Japanese journalist, and Chuck Holton, a war correspondent friend who just got strafed yesterday in Burma. But so we were out there in the Darien Gap on the on the Columbia side. We then flew over to Panama and went down into the Darien Gap on the Panama side. And so I recognized this would likely be the major invasion route of the United States. And so I just started spending a great deal of time down there. I got to know many of the Embraer Indians and Kuna Indians and others down in the jungle, and I started mapping out the pathways that they're coming in, getting to know members of the government and that sort of thing. Now, keep in mind, a lot of people have no idea who I am, but I've spent most of my life downrange overseas. I am an American, born and raised, was in the U.S. Army, that sort of thing. And, but most of my life has been downrange, for, I would say two thirds of my life has been in Middle East Asia. You know, I spent a year in and around China. I've written three books on Chinese information war that are only in Japanese, actually, because I've been working to wake up Japan for years. So, in other words, I'm not coming into this flatfooted. I'm not coming into the into this as somebody who looks at a map and thinks, hey, this might be the route. I'm looking at this as someone who has traveled in about 100 countries or lived in a, you know, in so many countries. And so I realized these would be the routes, likely the routes. So often when you see me leave Panama, I actually go to another, vital terrain, which is Netherlands. Right. And it was there with Eva Vlaardingerbroek and that sort of thing, whom you know, and, and so bottom line is there's a lot more going on here than just, the invasion. Obviously, the invasion is a killshot to the United States. Now, anybody that can get their feet anywhere into South America, which is pretty much most of the world at this point, they can get to the United States very quickly, and they can do this through the Darien Gap. Now, keep in mind, a lot of people ask, why don't they just fly to the United States? Many people do. Actually. Many people come on student visas and that sort of thing. And anybody that can actually land closer, like many of the Chinese, will actually fly to Mexico first. Some will go to Cancun and go on vacation first. And, if they can get a visa to Mexico, they'll go to like Cancun and they'll meet their what they call snakeheads and Mandarin is what we call coyote, coyotes. The Chinese call them snake heads. They'll meet up with their snake heads and in Cancun or Mexico City or Tapachula and, and then they head across up to, you know, Texas and whatnot, Yuma, all these sorts of things. And by the way, I've been across the entire U.S. border from Space X all the way to San Diego, quite a lot. And on the Mexican side also quite a lot. But I've been across the entire U.S. border. So now many of the actually Chinese will come through the northern border, as do others. But back to Darian. So they don't all go through Darien. Many actually use what's called the CBP one app. It's an application, that they can use to fill out this form and get on flights and fly straight from Bogota to the United States, or they fly from Guatemala to the United States. I was just over in Guatemala checking that out, actually. And so many people do fly in. The US is flying them in 24/7. But not everybody can do that. So now we have maybe 3,000 a day coming in. The number is constantly changing, but we know the number quarter over quarter is increasing coming through the Darien Gap because more infrastructure is being put in. So it's facilitating it. And and the main funder, by the way, is the United States. It's the United States. I hear people constantly talking about how we should punish Colombia or punish Panama or stay in Mexico. That's all nonsense. The people that are talking about stay in Mexico policy have zero idea what's going on. It's like teaching calculus to somebody who doesn't actually know how to add yet. The United States is the one that's behind most of this. The main engine is something called IOM, which is the actually, most of the Border Patrol agents I talked with, they've never heard of the Darien Gap and they've never heard of IOM. IOM is the International Organization for migration. That's the main engine that is doing this right. They are part of the United Nations. They have a they have a big office down in Panama, the City of Knowledge. It's right on the Panama Canal, actually. And there's more than more than five dozen NGOs down there, IGOs and non-profits. The main one is IOM. You can see people going through airports every day across the United States and Europe and Asia as well, with IOM tote bags and that sort of thing. But IOM actually has the probably the best office space in all of Panama. It's in building 110 at the City of Knowledge. I was just there about seven days ago and they fly their flag. The City of Knowledge in Panama City used to be Fort Clayton. All veterans of, Panama know what I'm talking about. Fort Clayton was the U.S. Army South headquarters. Right, right. That's one of the most vital pieces of terrain on planet Earth. There's almost no place on planet Earth more important than that little speck of land that overlooks the Miraflores Locks, Panama Canal, the Panama Canal Railway, and the Thatcher Ferry Bridge. The Thatcher Ferry Bridge is the bridge for highway one that goes all the way down from, well, the tip of South America, up to Colombia. And then there's that gap. That's why they call it the Darien Gap, because there's a break in the road, which they are about to hook together. And then that goes all the way that road. And Bret Weinstein talked about it on your show. Bret did excellent down there, by the way. That man loves the jungle, but that that highway goes all the way up to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and so that's a key highway. So you've got, Panama, such a vital piece of terrain. Because first of all, the Panama Canal and secondly, the Panama Canal Railway is important, believe it or not. And that road and Panama, just the location is vital. Now, we need the Panama Canal for trade, for one thing. But we also need it to get our Navy through. Right. And so we're slowly losing Panama. The NGOs that are causing these invasions like IOM, HIAS, Catholic Charities and so many more are also taking over governments. Tucker [00:11:59] Let me ask you to pause for a second. It sounds like from your reporting that the the NGOs and the UN are vital, like this wouldn't be happening without them. So let's just pause, if you don't mind and explain. You just mentioned three. You mentioned the U.N. agency for migration, the one devoted to destroying the United States. What are the second two? One was Catholic Charities. And what was the middle one? Michael Yon [00:12:23] Oh, there's at least 250. But in an city of knowledge, there's at least 62, 63. I've got somebody doing, a study on them now, but the, HIAS is one that's the Hebrew immigrant aid, society. And that's, actually, interestingly, Doug MacGregor, whom you've had on your show, told me, back when he said, you know, Mayorkas, ally Mayorkas, Homeland Security chief, was actually a board member on HIAS. So and then he moved over to the Department of Homeland Security, which, you know, recurse back to what I was just mentioning. These NGOs are working hard to take over various countries. For instance, HIAS, you know, the board member Mayorkas went to take over a Department of Homeland Security. Now, Mayorkas was down there in and I got word that he was going in 2022. So I got in front of him and I waited for him for four days in the Darien because I suspected where he might land, and he did. Four days later, he landed in front of me for Blackhawks. He went right into, San Vicente camp, which I call China Camp. And, he was there with, with the South Com Commander Laura Richardson. He was there with, also the ambassador Aponte and some others. And so basically, he was coming down there with fistfuls of money to increase the size of the camps and increase the flow through the camps. So I'll show you drone footage. Actually, I've already given it to your team. Tucker [00:13:53] Pardon my dumb questions, but why would the head of the Department of Homeland Security want to destroy the United States? Do you have any idea? Michael Yon [00:14:03] I can't read his mind, but I can read his actions. He's clearly doing it. They're clearly doing it. And. And highest is highest has an office 40 yards away from the front gate. You know, again, Brett Weinstein and Doctor Chris Martinson were down there and, and we were down in the dairy, and I said, there's HIAS right there. Of course, they hadn't heard of HIAS. I waited until we were right in front of them to explain what they were, because HIAS is right there at the camp, 40 yards away from the front gate. That's the Hebrew, Immigrant Aid Society. Usually I hit Catholic Charities and whatnot, but when I started hitting high, it highest because, because, we saw the impeachment proceedings with Mayorkas. Right. And so that's why I lifted and shifted from Catholic Charities and others and started focusing on HIAS. Of course, you know, the anti-Semitic remarks come up and whatnot. But the bottom line is he did come from, you know, as you know, Mayorkas is a migrant from, from, Cuba, right. And, and so both of his parents were, Cuban, Jews. And that's why he was a board member on HIAS, right? So this all fits together. So the bottom line is the United. That's why I say the stay in Mexico policy is absolutely irrelevant. It's ridiculous. It's not going to work. We're flying them in every day. They're coming across the Canadian border night and day. And we're the ones doing it. Tucker [00:15:23] I'm sorry to ask you to pass, but I just, this this feels important. I'll confess my ignorance right up front. I never heard of HIAS until right now. But I have heard of Catholic Charities. What's their role in this? Michael Yon [00:15:34] You know, there's many Catholic charities, by the way. They've got it distributed quite a lot. How many are in Florida? It might be. I can get back to you. It might be 18. I'm sorry, I've forgotten, but they have many different, groups even here and and all over the place, all over the United States. But Catholic Charities is, I think, Catholic in name only. Perhaps. But if you go down to the border in Texas or in Mexico, I've been to Catholic Charities in Mexico as well. You'll see them running the camps, running, you know, near McAllen, all over the place. I mean, very serious human trafficking. They bring in at least hundreds of millions of dollars. I can get you specifics as numbers, of course, change year by year. HIAS is the same. I mean, these are big players. But keep in mind, the main engine is IOM. But again- Tucker [00:16:21] These groups are working to I mean, they're working to violate federal law, which in a democracy we send our representatives to D.C. to vote on, right, reflecting our will, supposedly. And so these are obviously criminal organizations. So why is no one do anything about it? Michael Yon [00:16:39] Straight up criminal. I mean, we could go on for hours about that. And the, you know, the headquarters for IOM is actually in Geneva. Right. And, that's where Amy Pope, the American, is in charge of, HIAS, sorry IOM and Amy Pope took that position maybe five months ago or so. And, and she's bragging about it. She's got a little sign on her desk, at Geneva, boss lady, you know, she brags that the United States is the number one funder of IOM. And we are. And the number two funder is Germany. And the number three is Canada. Interestingly, I was just up in El Salvador. I was just up in Honduras and Guatemala and, where else? I mean, basically, I've been in every country in Central America. But the bottom line, is in El Salvador IOM is sharing office space or sharing a building with the, Canadian Embassy. So, in other words, again, Canada is the number three donor to IOM there and up in Honduras. IOM is sharing office space with, with the Canadian consulate there as well. So they're in the same building we physically went there. Right. So I am is literally with the Canadians in both of those countries, right. It's unbelievable the things that we see when we go on the ground. So IOM hands out rape kits. I brought some of these rape kits to some congressmen, you know, up in, Washington. Actually, we brought an Indian up there. Francisco Agapi, he's the mayor of 29 of the Embara Indian villages. He spoke with about 12 congressmen, but IOM actually hands out rape kits because so many of the women and children are raped in the jungle, that they started handing out rape kits with, male condoms, female condoms, those after, you know, rape pills, abortion pills, those sorts of things. And, yeah, I show these things extensively. And interestingly, I just got a message from the jungle. You know, there's a team out there right now. I'm looking at it right now. I'm looking at their location. But Ben Burke is out there right now with Oscar Blue, and, they got, just last night. Actually, I sent it to your team. A bunch of, people came in from different countries Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan. This was late at night, deep, deep in the jungle. They went in by helicopter. They're there right now. And, and so they were out with SENTFRONT. SENAFRONT front is sort of the Panamanian sort of Border Patrol police, slash army. Panama doesn't have an army, but they're sort of like those three things blended in. They're extremely professional. They're very fit. They're very well trained. And they're, so this team right now is out with a special forces team of SENAFRONT in the jungle. And last night they came up on, this group came up on them two groups and the SENAFRONT said another group of terrorists just came in. Right. You know, what's very interesting is Venezuela that main, most of the people coming in at this point are Venezuelan. Right. And there is a large presence of Hezbollah in Venezuela, which is quite interesting because Hezbollah is extremely dangerous. Right. So we've got Hezbollah down there who speak Spanish fluently natively, actually, actually, there's a village in Lebanon where they speak Spanish. There's a lot of bounce back, back and forth. But the but the bottom line is Iranians can fly into Venezuela, get a new passport right when they go there. Venezuela has a close relationship with China and of course, with Russia. And, I mean, Hezbollah is thick in Venezuela. In 1994, there was a Hezbollah bombing in Argentina, at a Jewish center, 385 casualties, 85 were killed, about 300 wounded. And within 24 hours there was a bombing in Panama. An airplane, blew up and killed, I think, 12 Jewish people and about 10 others. Actually, I met recently with one of the family members of three of the Jewish people that were killed. And Hezbollah did that. The mastermind of that Hezbollah bombing is now believed to live in Venezuela and has a bar. You can't make up the stuff on Margarita Island, right? So, I mean, they know who he is, they know where he lives. They know the bar that he runs. Right. And yet HIAS continues to help Hezbollah get into the United States. You can't make up this stuff. Literally, Jewish money is helping Hamas and Hezbollah get into the United States. I mean, this is Stephen King stuff. Tucker [00:21:13] So, I mean, you've just you've just given us a lot here. And I hope you'll come back. But let me ask, so you're a war correspondent? I think you spent more time embedded in Iraq than any other journalist. But you certainly know the business of journalism. How many other journalists from American news organizations are spending time trying to figure out how this invasion is happening? How many New York Times correspondents do you run into in Darien, for example? Michael Yon [00:21:42] Well, that's a funny question. I was just down there with Laura Loomer, and, and I took Epoch Times and, some others, and, and I'm doing what's called force multiplication. And Vandersteel and I have we we started something called Operation Burning Edge. In fact, we saw that you went to Colony Ridge, which. Very good, sir, which was. That's north of Houston. That's that big, you know, 200,000 strong colony that that's being built north of Houston. You are probably there derivative of our actions once we realize that Colony Ridge was that, was what it was. Todd Benjamin dialed me in. Todd Bensman and I, he's an author. He's a former intelligence, guy. He's a friend of mine. But he wrote a book called Overrun. And the last chapter of his book, he talks about Colony Ridge. So, I'm going somewhere. I'm going to answer your question, but I'm going around the block to do it. So Todd and I, we went to Colony Ridge because Todd thought that I could kind of blow that out of the water. And and so we went there with drones, and the drones wouldn't get high enough if you've been to Colony Ridge. So I said, let's go get a helicopter. We went to the airport and we got an airplane. And so we went back over that day and flew over it, and I said, this thing is massive. Let's go get a helicopter and come back with some other guy. So, so. Ann Vandersteel and I started Colony Ridge, started, we started Operation Burning Edge, and then we brought over Daily Wire. We brought over, a couple of congressmen, and we brought over quite a few people, and, and we got them up over Colony Ridge with the express intent on blowing this up so that people like you would pay attention. Now, we then went down to space, and we spent 2 or 3 weeks down there at SpaceX. We never reached out to Elon Musk. We never even emailed or message to SpaceX. We just we went there with the intent of prodding Elon to start paying attention to the border, SpaceX and Boca Chica is right on the border. So you see literally people coming across the border and onto space property. And so we got, you know, videos, photos of that. And the next thing you know, you know, you see Elon Musk, paying close attention to the border. Now, I'm saying all that to set the table for what I'm saying next. So when we go down to the Darien Gap or I go over to the Netherlands, I'm doing what's called force multiplication. Right. Ann Vandersteel and I, we've taken a lot of people down there. We've taken, a lot of journalists, we've taken a lot of Intel people. We've taken two congressmen to the Darien Gap, just a lot. And so how many people spend a lot of time down there? That would be me. And trying to understand this on a global scale. Top businessmen trying. There are a few, but Todd Bensman's not really a journalist. But he's written books about this sort of thing. But there are very few of us. But we would fit in the short bus. Now, people who study this on the larger war level, and, have done this for years all over Asia and that sort of thing. And I studied Chinese information war and that's me. Right. So, when it comes to the top level stuff and the reason I go to places like Netherlands and I'm watching all of these routes, there's more to this than just the invasion. Right? There's energy at stake, for instance. You see the Nord Stream, was destroyed, obviously. Now, long before Nord Stream was destroyed. I was warning that Nord Stream might be destroyed. And I was warning that for very specific reasons. And I went to BASF. I'm going somewhere with this. It all relates to the so-called migration, the invasions. You know, you need that natural gas to do something called the have a Haber-Bosch process. The Haber-Bosch process is one of the most important chemical processes ever invented by man. That's where you take the hydrogen off of natural gas, and you combine it with the nitrogen that we're breathing. And you make, you make, ammonia, you make ammonium nitrate. Ammonium. You make, you make these nitrogenous fertilizers. Right? That that process was first envisioned in 1903 by a German chemist named Fritz Haber. He wrote it in a book on thermodynamics, but it was very difficult to do. And in 1908, he finally made some. And then it was very difficult though. So another German chemist came in, Karl Bosch, and he started he brought it industrial, and he did that first at BASF, at Ludvig Hoff in Germany. That's the biggest chemical company in the world. I'm going somewhere very important with this. Yes, that chemical company, BASF is on the Rhine River, which is like the Mississippi River of Europe, let's say. And that dumps out at Rotterdam. Rotterdam is the biggest harbor in Europe. It's one of the top ten in the world. Just south of Rotterdam is Antwerp, in, Belgium. That's the second biggest in the world, right? And not the second biggest in the world, but second biggest in Europe. Yeah. So these are main artery in Europe, right. And so now Rotterdam is also there is a railway that goes all the way from Shanghai and other feeders in China all the way across Asia. And it dumps out at Rotterdam. Right. That's why I've been to the Shanghai side. I spent about a year running around China, out in Tibet and those sorts of things, and it goes all the way across Asia and it goes to Rotterdam. That's why Netherlands is highly targeted with this destructive migration, quote unquote. It's an invasion, right. And there and the World Economic Forum and the Chinese Communist Party, keep in mind, they are coasting, they're inseparable at this at this time, they're going to end up fighting in the future. I strongly believe the Chinese Communist Party and World Economic Forum, but they're working to make something called tri state city. Tri state city. Three state city will be most of Netherlands, part of Belgium, and part of Germany. This will then include Antwerp and Rotterdam. Right. And replacing with 30 million people they're coming in with. Right. So you see this Dutch farmers that they're knocking out. I'm out with those Dutch farmers a lot. They're doing the same to the fishermen. Anyway, we could go down that rabbit hole. Let's go back to, I'm going somewhere very important with this. Back to BASF. So I did two tours or so in and BASF before the Ukraine war. And because I thought or actually as it started because I thought, Nord Stream might get interrupted and I thought this for various reasons and because of nitrogenous fertilizers. Right. So we're in the plant. It's a huge plant. And I said I was there with Masoko going on how that famous Japanese journalist actually, and I asked the tour guide, I said, what happens if Nord Stream gets interrupted? And he said, well, BASF is dead, right? Yeah. And, then I bought an iPad, which I kept beside me for months. I'm sorry, sir, I need my water. I have a long history with water and, so I asked him, you know, what happens, if that if, if that goes. And he said BsASF is dead. So I kept an iPad right beside me. And, and I just, I bought that iPad only to keep this one website open that monitored the flows through Nord Stream. Right. And at one point it went to zero. And I said, wow, it has gone to zero. So I started calling a few people. I said, hey, yeah, something wrong with that website? Or did they just hit it? And well, it bubbled to the sea. Right. And so and everybody's like, well, we didn't expect that. And I'm like, well then you're not paying attention because that was obviously on the menu. So then, well now you can see BASF is moving to they're moving their main facilities over to China. Right. You see why I got to be ASF and why I'm watching these things now. Last March, I left Panama and I flew back to Netherlands, for the election. For the electron, sir. What, are you going to say something there? Tucker [00:29:27] Well, I again, I hate to reveal my ignorance since I try to pay attention to this, but I didn't realize BASF, obviously, because chemical company in the world, probably most single, most important company in Europe is moving to China. I didn't know that. Michael Yon [00:29:41] Not all of it. They're also opening facilities in other places or increasing presence in the United States as an example. But that hit on Nord Stream was a direct hit. Now, I also moved there, not leaving Germany. But, you know, as BASF goes, you might say Germany goes. Right. So for sure, I told that to Jordan Peterson. I had Jordan Peterson out of those, you know, a farm and, and Netherlands and that sort of thing. And I'm like, Jordan, watch, Nord Stream. I mean, you know, that was before I was gone. And so anyway, it's gone. So last March I went up to. Tucker [00:30:11] But can I ask you what the Biden administration is responsible for the destruction of Nord Stream? Okay. So- Michael Yon [00:30:20] Either that or space aliens, right. Tucker [00:30:22] Yeah. I'm betting Biden I mean they did it okay. And they've said they did it effectively. But why would the Biden administration, why would the Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, want to destroy Europe, which they've they've done? Why would they want that? Michael Yon [00:30:41] Now there's layered reasons for this. And let me let me continue to say something else. And then we'll recurse back to that because it'll help answer that question. So last March, I left the Darien Gap and I went back to Netherlands. They had elections. I was there for the elections. And, and then I went to Groningen Gas field, which is a Netherlands. That's the biggest gas field in Europe. And I was warning that I think they're going to close Groningen next. And people said, you're crazy. And I said, well, I wasn't crazy about Nord Stream, was I? And now they've closed Groningen, right? Groningen is also closed now. Right. And there was it wasn't destroyed or anything. They did it through information war. As you well know, the highest form of warfare is information war. Bottom line. Right. So it's information war that sets the table for these actions. So your your question why would they do this. Multiple questions. If the paradigm that I'm operating under is accurate and it appears to be it's highly predictive. By the way I since I was a young child, I was deeply immersed in physics. I always thought I would grow up to become a physicist, and that's all I cared about. I was basically failing school because I was just Rain Man on physics. So that's how I kind of learned my base thinking process was reading people like Richard Feynman and that sort of thing. Right. And one of the things that those very serious scientists of the day would say is, if you have a theory and it's wrong, then throw it out. You know, you may have to throw the whole thing out. So I call it the paradigm. So I over time, since I was a young teenager, actually, I've always worked on paradigms that do two things. One is they don't leave me surprised because if you feel surprised and I don't mean waking up with a snake on your face in the jungle, that's a different kind of surprise. But if you feel surprised, then your paradigm is wrong, right? So you need to either tweak it or throw it out. Never get emotionally attached to your ideas. They're not that important unless they turn out to be right. And also your your your paradigm should be predictive, right? That's why when Biden was installed, I flew straight to the El Paso border and straight down the Columbia at the Darien Gap and straight to Panama, the Darien Gap. That's why I was at Darien Gap. That's why I was, you know, thinking that they would do what they're doing now, which they're doing, which is increasing it and making it a major invasion route. That's why I've gone to BASF twice. That's why I was warning in writing in on interviews, I think something's going to happen to be at the At or to Nord Stream actually, which would cause BASF to crumble, which is as BASF goes, Germany goes. And I think that they were going to close, for instance, growing in gas fields. Now they have. Right. And it's all just based on listening to people like Feynman and running with it for the rest of my life, developing paradigms that never leave me surprised and that leave. And they're highly predictive, right. Tucker [00:33:26] So now what you're describing is a war against the west. Michael Yon [00:33:30] Under that paradigm that I'm working under, there are clearly people trying to drive us into global famines. I started warning about global famine in January of 2020. Right. It's clear that if you want to set the table for global famine, you want to knock out those nitrogenous fertilizers. That's one thing that you want to do. You want to take those off the table. Because in 1914, when the Panama Canal opened, that's actually when they also started doing then that Trojans fertilizer production at the same year, in 1914 at BASF in Germany. Right. So you see the world population starts to explode. Then it didn't just explode because we had faster ships, bigger ships and faster railways and that sort of thing, but that's part of it. It also exploded for other reasons as well, like refrigeration and electricity, but also nitrogenous fertilizers is a huge part of it. So if you're going to cost famine, what would I do? Let's see, I would and I would cause a war in Ukraine. Right. That's one thing I would do. That's why I was over in Lithuania before the war in Ukraine, warning that something may happen. I was down in Morocco. I was watching Morocco push, weaponized migration into Ceuta and Melilla. And these are two Spanish cities that are in there in Morocco. So you've got EU cities in Africa, right? So if you can get into Ceuta or Melilla, you're actually in the EU. So I was down in Morocco and watching them, you know, basically needle Spain and, and the EU with weaponize migration. By the way, I want to be very clear. I'm not talking bad about Morocco. I love Morocco, and you're the first country who recognized us. I always think Moroccans when I say, you know, Moroccans always say, yeah, no. Americans realized that Morocco was actually one of the first countries to recognize the United States when we declared independence. We have a long relationship. It's quite solid, right? But they definitely use weaponized migration against the EU and Spain. Right. So I was down in Morocco and we watched Frontex. Frontex did a report. Frontex is that is sort of the sort of the EU equivalent of Border patrol for the EU. They're basically useless. But they told us that the that the, Belarus was trying to push migrants into Poland. And Lithuania, right? So I lived in Poland for two years, and also I knew the Lithuanians quite well because I was with them in the war in Afghanistan. So I called up a senior officer in the Lithuanian Army. I said, hey, I'm down in Morocco. Why is Belarus pushing, trying to push people in that Lithuania? He said, fly up here and we'll take you to the camps. So the next day I was Vilnius, sitting in front of top members of the government. I stayed there for five weeks. They gave me complete access to the camps. I was with them in Afghanistan so that that, you know, I was they knew who I was and that sort of thing. So it was quite helpful. So I got to interview many of the aliens coming in and their roots and that sort of thing. And as you see, when I was actually in Lithuania, I started to warn, something's up. This weaponized migration didn't just come out of the blue. Right. I mean, when you're doing information war and you're doing I always watch the information wars first. But weaponized migration is often a precursor for something bigger, right? And that sometimes the weaponized migration is just. That is the main weapon. Like, for instance, when I was in Tibet. Excuse me. Hold on. Let me let me go back to China and I'll talk about weaponized migration. I love water and the, the weaponized migration is is it's an old weapon of war. It's been done in, you know, since space and time and, Tibet, you know, some of the, of the Tibetan, genocide. That's what it was. It was kinetic, of course, but a lot of it's just it's just that Han Chinese coming in and mass and then just moving in, and they're doing the same in Xinjiang right now with the Uyghurs right now. When I was in Hong Kong, I got kicked out of Hong Kong. It was sort of famously kicked out of Hong Kong. I was a bad boy, but they but one of the ways that the Chinese Communist Party took Hong Kong was they weaponized migration. They were just bringing in Han Chinese every day, 100 to 150 or so per day. Not many, just enough to keep it below the threshold of making people go crazy. And they took positions, as teachers, professors, they opened a Confucius Institute, of course. They, politicians, police, that sort of thing. Right. And so they slowly took over the cockpit until they just took Hong Kong. And, and so that's a, low level form. You know, I was just down in Honduras, and, for instance, I had dinner with a, a retired, Army, general there. He was like their chairman of the Joint Chiefs, actually, and I asked to have dinner with him. So we had dinner. It went on. And the reason I wanted to have dinner with him is because he's of Chinese descent. I think it was. His grandfather came to Honduras and in 2000, in 1923 and so he's what the Chinese Communist Party calls an overseas Chinese. Right. And so they, the Chinese Communist Party works very hard in their information game to recruit people like that. So I had specifically asked, to meet with this man because he had been invited to China. Right. And he'd been invited there to the village where they said his family came from. They had a parade for him. They always do that. They had a parade for him. They took him to the graves of his family. They always do that as well. And then they now they've had him in China seven times now, as I talked with him for 3 or 4 hours that night, over dinner in Honduras, a few months ago, he said, China is not coming to take us to to attack the world. They're coming to become the world. And I said, exactly, because, again, I've written three books on Chinese information war. I could go on for days about it. But the bottom line is, I understand how they're doing this. I was just over in San Salvador. I know you've been over there talking with President Buckley. He's done a great job cleaning that place up. There's a big library downtown with a big Chinese communist flag waving out front at seven floors. I was just in that library because I always go to libraries. I always go to museums. I always go to archeological digs because I'm tracking that that the the the trail heads of information war. And by the way, that's why I went to Honduras, because the Chinese Communist Party is doing an archeological dig there. They're trying to persuade all the Mayan Indians and others that you are actually descendants of Chinese, because you came over the land bridge, and then all these bad white Spaniards and everybody else came and took your land. So those are not called overseas Chinese. Those are called our cousins. Right. So you see, for instance, a lot of information war is all about to, go ahead, sir. Tucker [00:40:10] Well, I don't even know if I can digest any, I think we're going to have to break this into multiple parts because, you know, there's so much going on, that it's, I think I'm going to need to pause. And I've got about I've got too many questions. Michael Yon, that was an amazing conversation. Not at all what I expected, much more than I expected. And I hope we see you really soon.

The Joe Rogan Experience #2138 - Tucker Carlson aired 4.19.24

How did a self-described conservative evangelical like Mike Johnson wind up supporting the anti-Christian policies of the Biden administration? He’s not the only one, as Megan Basham explains.

The Tucker Carlson Encounter: Pedro Israel Orta Encounter https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-encounter-pedro-israel-orta/ • Published Apr 13, 2024 READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] If you're a middle aged person in the United States, you probably grew up thinking of American federal Intel agencies and law enforcement agencies like the FBI as basically good institutions and the people who criticize them as fundamentally anti-American. Why would you be criticizing the CIA, for example, when the CIA protects us from foreign enemies and brings vitally needed intelligence to the people who make our policies? Of course. So if you're against CIA and against FBI, you're probably against the United States. And then a lot of things happen that may have started to change your mind, maybe slowly at first. 911 the consolidation, the streamlining and the massive enlargement of these agencies because we needed to do that to protect ourselves. They became a lot more powerful than they had been before. 911 but maybe you weren't paying attention. But by the time we got to 2016, and it was very clear that the CIA, for example, was not just aimed outward at our enemies, but aimed inward at our citizens. That may have changed your mind pretty completely and forever, and for good reason. She is not a force for democracy, at this point at all. In fact, you can't have a democracy in a country where some of the biggest decisions are made by unelected federal employees in an agency whose budget you're not allowed to know in secrecy, no democracy possible in a country like that. So the CIA, well, it clearly performs services that are needed is also a force for evil in this country. There's no other way to say it, but what exactly does that mean? What does the CIA do? What does it look like if you work there, what's the vantage from inside? Well, it might be worth talking to someone who's experienced that for almost 20 years. And today we are. Pedro Israel Auta is a retired CIA officer, done a lot of other things, too. His family came here fleeing tyranny in Cuba. So he went into government service with the highest possible ideals and hopes and exited with something else. He's the author of the book The Broken Whistle A Deep State Run Amuck, and we're happy to have him with us today. Thank you so much for coming, I appreciate it. Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:02] Thank you, Tucker, for this opportunity. Tucker [00:02:04] Oh my gosh, of course. So I thought it might just be interesting to hear your story. Like how did you wind up at CIA? Where are you from? What were your assumptions going in? Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:13] I managed to finish my university studies a little late in life, early 30s, and I study international relations, political science. I've always been interested in all matters related to defense intelligence. Yes, to foreign policy. Growing up in Miami in the 70s, the 80s, you know, the Sandinistas, the contra wars. Tucker [00:02:34] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:34] So, so forth. So when I graduated from FIU, Florida International University, while there, I was recruited by the CIA. Tucker [00:02:43] I'm sure to ask you about what were you doing before then? Why did you take till your 30s to graduate college? Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:48] I had to work my way in Miami. I mean, my family came from Cuba with basically nothing. They started from zero. So my parents didn't have the money means to send me to college. So I ended up going into the workforce, working in the Miami business field. And after so many years of work, and it was hard work being an outdoor salesperson, knocking on doors, doing perishable commodities, grocery products, I worked a lot of hours. It was. Yeah. I managed to get my Associate of Arts degree, by graduated high school 85. Got my Associate of Arts degree, 1989. But from 89 to 96, it was just a lot of hard work. So I finally I was able to do a massive change in my life. I basically said I cannot continue going down this route of outdoor sales. So I went into the indoor sales field with a job that was near the university. So I would go into work early in the morning like 7 a.m. and get out of work like 4 p.m., run to the university, take classes from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. I did that for three years. Finally got my Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude graduate, political science, international relations. And that's how it all started with CIA. Tucker [00:04:01] That's the most virtuous possible path, obviously. How were you recruited by CIA? How does that work? Pedro Israel Orta [00:04:07] They would have events at the universities. Staff officers would come down to the university, make a presentation. In this particular case, I was the director of intelligence. Yes, or intelligence analysis. So basically you hear the presentation, you sign up to be interviewed. And I went to an interview. I impressed the two individuals. And, you know, within two weeks I had basically a conditional offer to be a graduate fellow pending the background investigation. So that process took like seven months. I finally received the offer to yes, we you've been accepted. You can come in as a graduate fellow. So at that point in time, I've moved up to D.C. I'm currently going to George Washington University to study for a master of Arts and Security Policy Studies. And I same scenario. It's basically working almost full time at 1.40 hours a week, then 32 hours a week, and then back to 40 hours a week, and going basically to graduate school on a full time basis to earn my Master of Arts and Security policy studies and converted that graduate fellow into a full time CIA staff officer position. Tucker [00:05:18] So what did you do for CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:05:21] I started working in the analysis field as a certified career analyst, program analyst, where I was trained to do analysis, and I was basically the lead analyst doing counter drug analysis for Central America and the Caribbean. And I did that for almost four years. Tucker [00:05:36] And pardon my ignorance. What does that consist of? What's your day look like? What do you do at work? Pedro Israel Orta [00:05:42] This particular time it was right immediately after post 9/11. Can you imagine Caribbean, Central America was really not a priority? No. So, I mean, our our intelligence sources, information coming in was sparse, so I had to use a lot of my business skills networking, working with DEA, the Department of State, different offices to find additional sources of information, to supplant that with whatever we were getting from traditional sources. Yes. And it was just a lot of kind of research and investigatory type skills, trying to just find pieces of information to find out what exactly is going on with the drug trafficking in Central America and the Caribbean. And we would take all that information and turn it into a finished intelligence product to inform senior executives such as, you know, cabinet secretaries, the president himself, the president's daily brief. And it's just a daily routine of just lots of reading, lots of research, phone calls, having meetings, just constantly. Tucker [00:06:46] So you're trying to figure out how narcotics are coming in the United States, and you know who's doing this? It's how are they doing it? Pedro Israel Orta [00:06:55] Who's doing it, how they're doing it, where they're going. We're looking at, okay, what were the trafficking lines? Yeah. Where are traffickers basically going with their drugs? I mean, back back then during this particular time, from early 2000, the Pacific coast was big. So there were a lot of boats leaving the west coast of, upper South America, kind of the Colombian Pacific coast. Yes. Going up to Central American to Mexico. But at the same time, during that time, we still had some drug trafficking in the Eastern Caribbean, and also the Canada, the Caribbean side of Central America. And we were constantly just monitoring, trying to determine exactly when and where and who, what, when so forth, to be able to inform so that they can take it into, you know, actionable intelligence for, interdiction operations or for that matter, for the president and his cabinet secretaries to use to as leverage with different nations in Central America, Mexico, so forth. Tucker [00:07:55] Wow. So you do that for four years. What do you do next? Pedro Israel Orta [00:07:58] Well, what happened then was I had enough of the analysis branch. Yeah. I mean, I had worked out door sales. You know, I'm kind of I like the business, the network gain, the people contact. Yeah. Being glued on a computer screen for so long. Yes. Just like I had enough. Yeah. Especially after going to school for three years at FIU, two years at George Washington. So I volunteered to go to Iraq. I back then we had the the Iraq War, 2003, 2004. So at that point in time, it's like this is a great opportunity for me to serve my country, you know, do good. I know I can go out there and serve our interest. So I went out, once known as a short term TDY and, managed to turn that into a full time position out there. And I did two years in Iraq for two years. We did take breaks. They gave us typically three week breaks three times a year. So that kind of broke it up. But we would work 2 or 3, four months about a day off constantly 80 hours a week. Plus I was actually on call 24 seven. I went out there and I worked in in the capacity where I work with senior station leadership, working with senior military officials and other government agencies, doing a lot of liaison work, basically representing the CIA to these other entities and these other entities representing them to the CIA. A lot of deconfliction making sure we're not crossing paths, making sure that our operations are not basically overlapping each other, working on life and death issues. You know, if somebody lives is in danger, immediately call the military, get a quick response team out there to rescue people. Many different little things. Tucker [00:09:36] How big was the CIA presence in Iraq when you were there? Pedro Israel Orta [00:09:39] Well, that I can't discuss, but it was a huge footprint, that huge, huge footprint. I mean, it's significant. It was probably the largest station in the world that point. And probably not only that, but yeah, it was the largest at that point. Tucker [00:09:53] And it wasn't just gathering intelligence or conflicting with other federal agencies. It's also. Taking more active role. Correct? Pedro Israel Orta [00:10:01] Well, back back then, during the early 2000 era in Iraq, 2004 2006, you had the Shia uprising and you still had the Sunnis who were rebelling against the US invasion. So we were basically being attacked by two different sides on the West. The Sunnis were trying to destabilize and Anbar and not allow, you know, the coalition forces to establish a fully functioning democracy in Iraq and then Baghdad and other areas. You had the Shias who were trying to finally, for the first time, implant their will in the government because they had been repressed for so many years. And keep in mind you now had also the Kurds on the north. So you had a balancing act of balancing the Kurds, the Shias in the Sunnis. And it was it was a disastrous situation. Yeah. It was essentially a no win situation. And it was obvious to everyone that the Shias will win the presidential elections and even the parliament. But thankfully, the Kurds were strong enough to offer enough of a counterbalance, and all government operations in the country had to deal with all three of those counterinsurgency operations against the Sunnis. You know, counterinsurgency to a degree, against the Shias, all the political, you know, factions and the managing the Kurds, keeping the Kurds happy because the Kurds wanted to pull out and form their own country. Tucker [00:11:27] Of course they did, and they effectively did anyway. Right. But, so you were there for four years. Pedro Israel Orta [00:11:33] I was in Iraq for two years, rather. Yeah. At that point in time, after Iraq, I managed to get another assignment that would give me the Department of Operations, Operations Officer Certification course. So I went back to CIA headquarters to night and day difference between working in Baghdad and going back to CIA headquarters. I mean, it's just a bureaucracy, a monstrous ocracy. And, you know, it was a rough time for me trying to make that transition because unfortunately, I got myself into a situation where I wasn't a chosen officer to fill that position. It was because one of my former supervisors kind of forced that position on some of the decision makers, so they were trying to get me to pull out of that job, but I managed to stay and complete the training. And after that, seven, nine months back at CIA headquarters, deployed back to the field in a country that I cannot name, where in the name I name it fictitious, named Kamino. And I was basically back in the thick of things, doing a lot of the counterterrorism, counterinsurgency operations in this particular case, working with host country entities, basically targeting targeting the bad guys. Tucker [00:12:52] So what went wrong? That sounds like an interesting job. Pedro Israel Orta [00:12:57] Well, CIA is a big bureaucracy, that this started one phase of, blowing the whistle. Eventually, what happened in that station with me, that some of the managers in that station, it in order to be a little bit comical, I named them basically Moe, Larry and Curly. Yeah, because it was just that comical. It's a matter of fact. I named the station Potemkin station because, I mean, in contrast to Baghdad Station, this was an amateur division, and I had a stellar work history. By the time I got to this station, I had I had lost track had been five exceptional performance awards, four of them in Iraq, one in the counter drug work that I, I got promoted while I was I was in this country. They wanted me to extend for a fourth year, and eventually they found somebody else that they wanted to put in my position. So they were trying to get me to cancel my third year extension. And when I refused to cancel that, they started cooking up a plot to basically denigrate my character, my work, and essentially they basically forced me out. But the thing about this is that in this process, you know, I blow the whistle on abuses of authority, girls, mismanagement, significant EEO issues. And sadly, you know, I found out the hard way that the inspector general, the equal Employment opportunity, they really don't care. They're basically don't go in like the cleanup crew to cover it all up, sweep it up. And that's what happened in my case. But, you know, I, I fought in this particular case because I had a pregnant fiancee daughter yet to be born, and I was fighting for the future of my marriage and my, my daughter. So I had no choice to stand up to this tyranny. I mean, these were tyrannical tactics that they used to force me out of a job that, you know, sadly, the reality is it cost. The CIA. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more than a million to train me and deploy me and keep me there. So, I mean, there were defrauding the government of money just by kicking me out. So one man fighting against the system. Forget it. You know, I obviously lost that battle. But I was able to from there, go to Afghanistan. And I went to Afghanistan in January of 2010, which was right after the coast suicide bombing attack. Tucker [00:15:29] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:15:30] And as a counterintelligence referent, it was a critical position I would have in combating additional threats to ensure that our operations would be safe from potential suicide bombers, among other threats. And I managed to do very well in that year in Afghanistan, you know, got great performance appraisals. And, I was a die analyst still on paper, despite having director of operations certifications, having done director of operations work in Iraq and in this other country named Kamino. So by the time I left Afghanistan in early 2011, I was still analyst looking to transition to director of operations. And I managed to land a job with the Information Operations Center doing technical targeting that I began in basically the spring of 2011. And this just takes off and goes at different what. Tucker [00:16:25] Is tactical targeting? Pedro Israel Orta [00:16:27] Technical targeting comprises different facets. We were doing basically looking at digital data to look for terrorist, what they were doing online in order to be able to find them so that we can interdict them. I did that countering terrorism in the Middle East. Basically the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, the Horn of Africa. Tucker [00:16:53] Wow. So how did your opinion of CIA change while you were there? Like, by this point, you realize maybe they're not helping the United States. Pedro Israel Orta [00:17:03] Well. I realized that when I worked in Baghdad in 2004, 2006, I worked for a lot of the older managers that came in and probably the 80s and the 90s. And I noticed that they had a lot of skilled and capable leaders. Some of these were former police officers, former military, former businessmen. They came into the agency with a lot of experience. Post 911. Fast forward into 2010. Now I'm beginning to work with a lot younger officers who had no life experiences. It came fresh out of college and there were remarkable differences between both generations. And it would all come to a crash in the climax further down the road. Post Afghanistan post headquarters. When I went back out to Afghanistan, when I went back out to Afghanistan in 2014, now I find myself as a deputy chief of base. Which I am entrusted with a significant position. Our number one priority is keep our officers safe. And in this particular case, we're there to fight a war. I mean, that's what we're doing in Afghanistan. Now I'm working for a new set of managers who are at the base. The chief of base. And for that matter, even some of the lower level managers at the Kabul station who really were not cut up to the job of being in Afghanistan and these kind of wars. And unfortunately, office politics, vindictiveness, abusing the position for your own gain became a prevalent issue. And in this particular case, I find myself in a very, very hard position. I'm working for a very nice lady who I respected, who had her skills and capabilities, but she was not cut out for this job. Couldn't handle the dirt, the grime, the noise, the isolation, the long hours, the rockets landing on top of you, out of nowhere at no time. And it would be basically awakened. There's a rocket, you know, inbound. Kaboom. You know, jump off your bed and go find out what's going on. She couldn't handle that. And sadly, one of the most distressing things for her is, as a mother of three, she felt, you know, like she was neglecting her sons back home. Tucker [00:19:25] Well, she was. Pedro Israel Orta [00:19:27] As she was. And unfortunately, in this particular case, her motive for being there was to make some extra money to pay for one of her son's colleges and at the same time, to be able to change her retirement plan at the CIA. If you work five years overseas. Tucker [00:19:41] That's what she was doing in a war zone. Pedro Israel Orta [00:19:42] Yeah, sadly, I saw this too often. So that this goes back to your question as far as good and bad people. Yes. It's a bureaucracy first and foremost. Tucker [00:19:53] So it's sort of like the DMV with guns that it's you're making it sound. I mean, if that doesn't, that's not the profile of the CIA operations officer, I imagine. Pedro Israel Orta [00:20:03] Well, you know, have you remember Afghanistan 2010? I, I work for a chief of base, a deputy chief of base. One of these guys was just really gung ho tip of the spear. Let's go fight this war. Let's go win. You know, let's take back the territory. And now I'm working for the Shake and Bake tour. You know, cooking and baking tours, adopting Santa tours. But the worst part about it was we were going out of the base at night for, yoga classes at a time of increased rocket attacks. Tucker [00:20:31] Yoga class? Pedro Israel Orta [00:20:32] Yeah. And on top of that, we were going out of the base during peak times of indirect fire for food without a necessity to do so. And in one of those instances, you know, on the way back, one of the routes we took ten minutes later, a rocket impacted right over the site. We drove over for food. Eventually I had to do something about this. I mean, my training, you know, years of having worked in a war zone, six plus years. By the time I've got to Afghanistan, you know, I knew what to do, what not to do. But even more importantly, from CIA headquarters, when they sent us out to the field in the war zone, they put us through a very sophisticated, detailed vetting process that includes meeting with every senior leader. And they gave us guidance on telling us exactly what to do. So she was doing everything we were told not to do. So. I knew she wouldn't get it. She wouldn't understand it. I raised it with, psychological officer. Regional psychological officer that came to the base, told them, in reality, he should have done something about it, but he didn't. He basically washed his hands up and told me, you go talk to your supervisor above her. So eventually I had to talk to him. This individual did not like at all. Everything I said, nothing was done about it except potentially tell her. So at that point in time, it kind of soured the relationship. But we were still working together. But the situation eventually just blew up, literally. Like if a rocket would have landed with an incident between a younger officer and an older officer. And that's a long story. But the short part of it is the younger officer was treated as an adopted son, spoiled and baby by the chief of base, which created the hostile environment, taking advantage of the older officer, which the chief of base really didn't care for this older officer. I mean, she basically said you'd take care of him. So they had a spat and I spoke up to her. I said, look, you know, this situation has been in the coming for a long time, which I actually warned you about a couple of weeks ago. And instead of trying to resolve things locally, I told her we can fix this here in the base. She chose to escalate and take it to Kabul, lying against this older officer, accusing him of having drawn a weapon. So now you've got this other supervisor in Kabul trying to investigate, you know, something that never happened, and the supervisor in Kabul was trying to basically coerce, manipulate me to take punitive actions against this other officer. I couldn't do that. I had to speak the truth. So I spoke to truth. And the next thing I know is I'm the one who says, this. Tucker [00:23:13] Does not sound like a very impressive organization to me. At least. You imagine in your mind that the CIA, you know, whatever its purposes or goal, it's corrupt. Obviously it's against democracy, but it's least kind of like they're swashbucklers or something. These sound like Department of Transportation lifers to me. Pedro Israel Orta [00:23:32] Well, it gets worse when they basically they at this point in time, you know, we had a three week break. I had to speed up my three week break. On my way out, I have a video teleconference with the chief of station, the deputy chief of station chief of resources, Derek Kabul, and I go over all these issues. I sent him all the materials and I sent all the materials to the Equal Employment Opportunity Officer. The last words from the chief of Station was, just go home, take your break. We'll sort this all out and we'll get back to you. I'm back home within a week. I'm called and I'm told, please come to this headquarters on such and such a date, such a such a time. You know, I never got a call from the EEO officer. Except a few hours before I'm supposed to meet headquarters. I make it to CIA headquarters, I meet with the EEO officer. Doesn't want to hear anything about what was happening in that base. He basically said, what EEO issues? Just just just completely just doesn't want to hear anything. As if he never read my materials or if he basically shredded them. Well, I go to the meeting. In the meeting with the senior officers, I'm told I would not be going back to Afghanistan, that I can apply for any job I want. And, well, I went back to see the EEO officer. The EO officer had the audacity to tell me it was a good thing you got fired. You can reinvent yourself. Yeah. Now I'm left outside. I have access to nothing. I couldn't take all the documentation that prove my claims because they were classified, and it would have had classified markings. We used, you know, fictitious names. We operational things for communications. So I had no proof, but I knew exactly where the proof could be found. So the next thing I find myself is trying to find somebody at CIA who would help. And the reality is that nobody wanted to help. They wanted to just cover it up. You know, the first line was EEO useless. I had to contact the director of National Intelligence and tell them about the situation there, EO office. And they gave me a number of the grievance officer who handles these things for the director of operations. When I finally set up a meeting with him, this guy is like, well, this is a hot potato. Just throw it away. Go talk to the EEO officer. Another EEO officer. By that time, I had reached out to the inspector general, and at that point in time, when I went to the inspector general in early April, that would have been a whistleblower allegation of reprisal by law. They were required to, within 14 days, determine whether there was a potential reprisal or not. And open an investigation that required constant collaboration between both of us where the in 90 days, they would tell me whether or not they had finished their investigation. If not, they will continue for 60 days until no more than 240 days to complete it. None of that was done. I met once with the I.G. They wanted nothing to do with it. They said this is an EEO issue and it continues to go downhill. It continues to go. Tucker [00:26:51] Worse around this time that you're wrangling with the inspector general in the, you know, office at CIA and all that. Do you start to notice a political change at CIA? What were the politics of your fellow officers? Pedro Israel Orta [00:27:06] By that time, Brennan had been the director for some time. And Brennan was John Brennan was a very strong director that brought his people in and posed his will. And it is this was CIA in 2015. I mean, by that time, you got to also understand that we're dealing with, I mean, look at the politics. United States, 93 to 2001. You had Clinton as president. Yes. Where he's putting his people in. Okay. You know, George Bush, president from 2001 to 2009, is just a small fraction of time compared to now having Obama 2009 through 2017. So you're looking at a Democratic president with Democratic operatives, you know, pretty much getting into these high level government positions. And I noticed that the Democratic operatives, in some cases were much stronger. And the Republicans, the Republicans, in my opinion, were very weak leaders. I mean, look at Porter Goss. Porter Goss didn't even last anything. The CIA pretty much kicked him out. You know, post Brennan I mean, Pompeo came in and he basically just continued Brennan's, CIA, of course. And on top of that, he picked Gina Haspel to be his deputy. Well, I. Tucker [00:28:24] Think that probably Mike Pompeo, on a deep level, agrees with John Brennan on most things. Pedro Israel Orta [00:28:32] What what I saw in part of how my story develops eventually, with all this fiasco of the IG's EO, everything failing me, I would end up blowing the whistle on the broken whistle, hence the title The Broken Whistle. Because not not only is the ability for you as an intelligence community official to blow the whistle broken it more so is they know it's broken and they don't care that it's broken and they will use the system to crush you. Yes. So I had to basically run out of CIA from just a bureaucratic beating and bullying that I took from all these different offices, and I took shelter in the office of the Inspector general for the intelligence community, in what is known as a joint duty assignment, a JDA. And I'm there and I get put on a team that does basically inter-agency type evaluations, inspections for the IG. And we start working on an evaluation on whistleblower protections, where we're evaluating the enforcement of Presidential Policy Directive 19, which was put in place by President Obama and Brennan. Clapper and every other agency had had to certify to the president that they had policies and procedures in place that followed the rules, the laws, the standards to investigate whistleblower reprisals. Well, we find out that, yeah, there's pretty ink on paper. That's about it. I mean, unenforceable not only that, the IG's really weren't following the letter of the law in some cases, didn't have any interest to follow the letter of the law. And in one instance, we had somebody basically just plotting to not even enforce these protections. So the protections that I had as a whistleblower didn't exist. And it's just not me alone. I mean, there were others around my same time that had blown the whistle on the broken whistle and on other matters, and they receive reprisals. I write about them in my book. John Reidy, Daniel P Meyer and Robert Cage, Jonathan Kaplan. Some of their stories are in the book. The point is, I had to blow the whistle on the broken whistle. So I escalated after I got sent back to CIA. When I went back to CIA, basically IG kicked me out. They said it was a conflict of interest for me to work for them, working on whistleblower evaluation when I was a whistleblower alleging reprisal when an attorney filed the lawsuit. Mind you, there were other whistleblowers inside the IG at the time. So I go back to CIA, and at that point in time, I literally landed back at CIA two years to the day when I first went back from Afghanistan. It's like if I was going back into the pit of hell, as I call it, for round two with the. Devils, and they will turn into round three with the devils, because I went back and endured the same exact thing, but actually worse at this point in time. I took it to the IG himself, Wayne Stone, the acting IG for the IG. I used the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act procedure to report a lot of these issues. As far as what I went through in Afghanistan about the whistle being broken and other matters, and they did nothing with my disclosures. Now I'm getting nowhere, not finding any jobs. I was basically blackballed. Jobs were being re advertised. I was qualified to do. I was applying for, and they wouldn't even tell me. No, I was basically left to fend for myself. Tucker [00:32:07] But were you still a federal employee at this point? Pedro Israel Orta [00:32:09] I was still a federal employee working for the CIA. You know, I had a temporary job, but I had to find a permanent job, and that required me to apply for these jobs and interview for some of these jobs. And without getting too down in the weeds, basically the process was stacked against me because you have to essentially try to find jobs that are within your career service or that are career enhancing for them to be able to potentially offer you these jobs. And I was applying for jobs I was well qualified to do, had proven I can do. And we're actually within my career field. And they were still telling me no and re advertising them. So getting nowhere I blow the whistle to Mike Pompeo's number three, his handpicked chief operations officer Brian Ballatore. At that point in time, immediately they issue an anti-harassment policy, sent out an email and they tell me, basically, go talk to the IG. The IG is investigating. We want nothing to do with this. Let the IG do their job. So basically, Mike Pompeo and his number three wash their hands of it and let the bureaucracy handle this. Tucker [00:33:19] So you're working at CIA during the Trump election. What was the view of that within the CIA? What do people think of Trump at CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:33:30] Well, at that time, I was actually at the office of Inspector General for the intelligence Community. Tucker [00:33:34] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:33:35] Or what I found interesting was that we were in a satellite building that every government building usually has a picture of the president, the vice president. In this particular case, I don't know how many months it took him to eventually put the picture of the president, the vice president, up on the wall, as if they didn't even want to recognize him as the president or the vice president. It could be that there was no official portrait for the president of vice president. But regardless, they should have immediately tried to put a picture up there. Tucker [00:34:09] Did you ever hear people talk about Trump or the election when you worked at CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:34:16] Some employees liked him, some didn't like him. It was depending on who we're talking about, right? I mean, to a degree, the problem that we have with CIA is the headquarters side CIA has overseas, obviously, as everybody knows. Yeah, but the majority of the officers work in the Washington, DC area and in that Washington, DC area. Going back to the politics of, you know, all the Democratic administration has become predominantly liberal. You can look at, the voting records, for Fairfax County, Arlington County, Loudoun County. And you'll notice that, you know, up until about 2008, those counties were predominantly red, you know, very Republican. Then all of a sudden they turn into, blue, very, Democratic. Same reflection with CIA. A lot of these younger people coming in have been more, more liberal, more democratically inclined. So if a lot of people didn't like Trump, I mean, it got so bad in one of my offices that one of the leaders actually spoke out and said, look, we have to respect the chain of command. If you if you find yourself mentally distressed because Trump won the presidency, go seek some psychological help that actually did happen. Tucker [00:35:37] Why did that supervisor have to say that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:40] Because as federal employees. Tucker [00:35:42] Well, I understand why legally he had to say that we- Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:44] Work for the president. Tucker [00:35:46] Of course you have to. Right. Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:47] And, you know, whether we agree with the president or not, we're there to basically serve the president. Tucker [00:35:53] But we're people at the office. The Intel office getting hysterical about Trump is that. Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:58] I think some of their emotions were flared up. Tucker [00:36:01] And did you see any of that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:36:02] I personally did not witness any of that. Yeah. Yeah. But but apparently some people were really just very, upset about it. Tucker [00:36:10] So looking back, and now that we know that the CIA had a role, a big role in the 2020 election, you know, trying to hide information from voters, etc., does that support. Prize. You. Pedro Israel Orta [00:36:28] Given that the history of the Democratic Party and their operatives like Brennan and so forth. Not at all. That, I mean. Tucker [00:36:38] That's illegal. They're not allowed to do that. Pedro Israel Orta [00:36:41] It's illegal. But but this goes to a core and key critical issue. They just can't handle power. The amount of power that you can have in some of these secretive agencies is so much that some people just can't handle it, and it basically corrupts them. It gets to the point that they almost lose their conscience. I mean, when you've got so much power that you can just upend somebody's life, you have got to find a balance to be able to keep your conscience. And I have found officers or senior leaders who basically have become so desensitized through the years that it's almost as if they lose their conscience and they can no longer see right or wrong. And it's like, it's my way or the highway. Tucker [00:37:25] So you saw that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:37:26] Yeah. Tucker [00:37:28] What kind of power does the CIA have? What power are you talking about? Pedro Israel Orta [00:37:30] Well, I mean, finding war life and death decisions. Yeah. Technical targeting. I had to get it right. Or somebody could have a real bad day. Yeah. Tucker [00:37:41] This is tactical, tactical targeting of people who are going to be killed. Yeah. Pedro Israel Orta [00:37:45] Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. Yeah. No, I mean, we're talking about, you know, we're doing counterterrorism operations and we're doing things that, you know, death and life situations at hand. On top of that, you know, the personnel matters. I mean, they're like any organization metrics becomes a problem when you start getting focused on the wrong metrics. Tucker [00:38:08] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:38:08] You could end up sacrificing your your conscience, your your your your morals, your ethics. You know, it's like, what are we doing here? Why are we doing something? Are we trying just to pad the numbers like we have X amount of intelligence reports? We have X amount of operations. What are we doing? Because if you're just trying to do activities so you can create a metric, you potentially could put lives in danger. I mean, in Afghanistan, there were a lot of operations out there being done, some of it driven by metrics, some of it driven by threats, like, yeah, it's legitimate operation, a legitimate target. There's something that needs to be done where in some cases, you know, somebody just wants to create a metric just to pad the numbers. Yes. I mean, sadly, it does happen everywhere, but but in the case of national security or where lives are at stake, I mean, you got to find the right balance. So it's like, wait a minute, you stop. You know, this is not about metrics. This is about human lives. Tucker [00:39:01] We don't want to kill people just to reach a target. Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:04] Yeah. Or, you know, collateral damage. Personnel resources had to CIA. Tucker [00:39:09] Did you ever to your point, which is such an interesting and wise one, I think. But the power corrupts, of course. But did you ever hear anybody say, you know, maybe we shouldn't be killing this person, or I feel bad about killing that person. Did you ever hear that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:24] I mean, one time I was working in one office, and somebody walked in. Hey, did we kill somebody today? I mean, some people just can handle this kind of stuff. Tucker [00:39:35] How did the person say it? Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:37] Yeah, literally just laughing. Tucker [00:39:38] Laughing? Yeah. You shouldn't laugh about killing people, though, right? Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:43] Absolutely not. I mean, absolutely not. I mean, if we're doing something that means life or death, whether employees. I mean, look, look, let's go back to Khost for a moment. What happened in Khost? They put a woman in Khost who did not have the operational experiences to handle that base or what they were doing. And this is all out in Britain and books and newspaper articles. Her father in law posts are going out there. This is clearly documented. Her motive for being out there was to get her five years overseas so she can change her, basically. Pension plan. Wrong motive again. And in the process of being in charge of that base, some decisions were made there in order to protect her because she can't answer for her actions and she's dead. You know, they basically didn't fault necessarily anybody. And they kind of just passed the blame throughout different actors. But part of it was the actual decision made on that day of allowing an unvetted contact who was not a source, who had never been really met by US intelligence to go into the base to a welcoming committee. Tucker [00:40:58] And that person was a suicide bomber. Pedro Israel Orta [00:40:59] That's a suicide bomber. So I know. Tucker [00:41:01] The woman who made that decision shouldn't have been in a position of authority in the first place. Pedro Israel Orta [00:41:06] Not that specific position. Tucker [00:41:08] Yeah. How many died do you remember in that bombing? Pedro Israel Orta [00:41:12] Seven counting hurt. And some additional people were also injured. But that was a fatal mistake through just we're getting into basically metrics die and you know office politics which sadly happens at CIA like any other organization. Tucker [00:41:31] But when you die at work when you were there. Pedro Israel Orta [00:41:33] Absolutely. I mean, look, look at this woman and the other woman at the chief of base where I was working at. I mean, they're trying to put a woman in a position just to have a woman. I'm not against women having positions. It's matter of fact, I work with a lot of women managers at CIA who were phenomenal, some of them, and actually in operations when I was in Iraq, we had a stellar woman doing some. Based management out in one of the bases. And she was outstanding. And she rose up the ranks and became a leader at the CIA. So, yes, by all means, they are qualified women. But just just to find, someone, whether a woman or a man. Well, in the case of, this other station I call Potemkin station in this country named in the book, I mean, Moe, Larry, curly. The same thing apply with men. We had basically men put in position that were not. The best qualified for those position and actually caused a lot of problems in that station. Tucker [00:42:31] Why were they put there? Pedro Israel Orta [00:42:33] Office politics. You know, basically they know somebody and somebody who knows them, you know, puts them in that position. Tucker [00:42:39] It doesn't sound like a meritocracy at all. Pedro Israel Orta [00:42:41] It it's a lot of nepotism. It's who you know. It happens in every organization. But when we're talking about CIA and death and life matters, you know, employees lives like Khost or, you know, the lives of potentially who, you know, could potentially run into problems with with whatever, you know, is done. You know, you got to make sure you have capable leaders. Tucker [00:43:04] So let me just end with a question that you probably can answer. What do you do about it? How do you CIA has all this power? You've said its budget is secret. Its activities are heavily secret. Not all, but a lot of secret. They're having all this power. It's clearly not helping the United States in the ways that it should be. What do you. How do you fix it? Pedro Israel Orta [00:43:25] Well, go back to the church. Pike committees. Yes. The Rockefeller Commission. The reality is that what we're seeing today is not new. This happened in the 50s and the 60s. 70s. What changed was the oversight mechanisms that were put in place. House permanent select committee of intelligence. Senate. Select committee of intelligence. When these commissions, we're doing oversight the CIA and a lot of abuses were reined in. But what has happened through time is these two committees have failed to do their due diligence and do oversight. It's almost as if they work for the CIA and basically do the CIA's bidding. As I found out as a whistleblower. Don't you dare go to Congress and blow the whistle. Because the reality is they're not there to defend you. They're there to defend the CIA and cover up for the CIA, which is what I have encountered. So how do we fix this? We may need another church committee, and we may need somehow to redo some of our intelligence agencies. Potentially. You know, certainly one thing that needs to be done is top down review what we're doing, what we're not doing, what should be done, what should not be done, where is there redundancy? Where are we failing in personnel matters? Where are we failing in following metrics instead of really activities we should be funneling and funding? Tucker [00:44:52] But I wonder, oh, I agree with all of that. But I wonder if Congress can't even for CIA to release the Kennedy assassination documents 61 years later, which they have not thousands of documents are still holding. Congress has not been able to do anything about that in 60 years. So maybe CIA is so much more powerful than Congress that a congressional hearing or committee won't make a difference. Pedro Israel Orta [00:45:14] Well, the reality is, you're right. CIA and many executive branch governments are actually even stronger than the president himself. Many times these agencies will obstruct presidential policies or for that matter, don't even disclose everything to presidents. So we go back to your point. What do we do here? We are going to have to do a top down review. Another church like committee with power. And we're going to need outsiders like has been done in the past with other committees, potentially get get some high profile lawyers like Alan Dershowitz, Jonathan Turley, you know, interpreters like Elon Musk and so forth. Do a real deep dive. And Congress is going to have to commit to follow those directives that are issued. Tucker [00:45:59] Do you think members of Congress, committee chairmen are being blackmailed by CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:46:04] Well, actually, there's one way that they do blackmail, security clearances who issue security clearances for a lot of these staffers, you know, the congressmen, senators, House of Representatives, they have a clearance. But if you're a staffer, your clearance at times will run through CIA, NSA. So for the CIA, even although Office of Personnel Management does the security clearance, they get input from these other three letter agencies so they can literally stop anyone from having a clearance if they want to. So that's one means and one way that they can actually control Congress. Tucker [00:46:41] So if you're if you're a senator but your staff can't get clearances, then really, you know, you don't have the time to read all the stuff. Pedro Israel Orta [00:46:50] You know, who does the work at Congress? It's the staffers, of course, staffers. I mean, a lot of these senators in this House of representative members do very little work. They're basically dependent upon their staffers to do all the research, and they're bidding for them. All the bills, really, to a degree, are written by all these staffers. So if the security clearance of these staffers is controlled by the CIA, the intelligence community, they certainly can manipulate Congress members to ensure that only select people get those clearances. Tucker [00:47:18] And they do. Pedro Israel Orta [00:47:19] That, and they do. Tucker [00:47:24] I mean, if members of the Intel community are breaking federal law to spy on Americans without a warrant. And, why is no one ever held accountable for that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:47:37] The oversight mechanism is Congress. And if they fail to do something about it, they will get away with it. And then we get into a vicious cycle where, oh, I got away with doing this, doing that, breaking this law. So they continue doing it and it just continues to spiral downward to a point where it can become more graver and the infractions even larger. And what happens? There's another dimension to it is the ability of people to speak up is completely diminished spiral of silence, because the cost of speaking up is too high. Tucker [00:48:12] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:48:12] Where? I mean, look at the case of, Drake and Snowden. Drake blew the whistle using the disclosure mechanisms in place, and they came after him, accused him of leaking national security data, and actually tried to prosecute him. He pled guilty to some minor things, but they basically tore his life apart. Snowden comes in, and he essentially makes similar, like, disclosures publicly. Because he knew the system would crush him. He could not trust this system at all. And the point here is. Tucker [00:48:51] You worked there when Snowden did that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:48:53] Yes. Tucker [00:48:54] What was the reaction? The internal. Pedro Israel Orta [00:48:56] I mean, internally, I mean, there was six significant damage to national security was done from the perspective of some of these collection programs. Some of these collection programs are actually good for our benefit when we use them right to target, you know, terrorists and adversaries. But when people can't handle the power given to them and start abusing these powers to target political adversaries, now you got a problem. But but this gets to another point, too. How do we get here? Well, post 911, we gave these agencies vast powers. And what has happened is they have flipped a switch on these vast powers to use them against political adversaries. Yes, through the predicate of counterintelligence or counterterrorism authorities. If, for example, you or I were seen as a potential, Russian asset of some type, they can turn these authorities against us on the flip of a switch legally to, begin to investigate us and eavesdrop on us. And that's that's no secret that information is out there, and that's how it's done. Tucker [00:50:05] Amazing. Amazing. I appreciate you're spending all this time and telling us what it's like to actually work there. The broken whistle. A deep state run amuck. Pedro Israel Orta. Thank you, thank you. Pedro Israel Orta [00:50:17] Tucker. God bless you. Tucker [00:50:18] God bless.

Pastor Doug Wilson is the Christian nationalist they warned you about. Published Apr 15, 2024 READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] So if you're Joe Biden standing for reelection at the age of 81, the obvious question is what exactly are you going to run on? You're not going to run on the state of the economy. You're not going to run on the state of the world, which is increasingly chaotic. You're not going to run on lengthening life expectancy, because actually life expectancy is declining in the United States under his watch. So what are you going to run on? Well, are you going to run against. And the main thing Biden is going to run against is Christianity running against Christianity. He's already put people in prison for praying. So it's not a stretch. But of course, you're not going to say I'm running against Christianity, the world's largest religion. You're going to say I'm running against something called Christian nationalism, which is a way of making traditional Christianity seem like a threat to the country rather than the principle upon which it was founded. So that is their plan. They can running at something called Christian nationalism, and in this they have the full cooperation of Hollywood and the media outlets, which are whipping up the population to a frenzy over this threat called Christian nationalism. Well, most of us, even those of us who pay some attention, aren't really sure what Christian nationalism is. Is it a product of what it sounds like, which is some branding meeting in the basement of the DNC, designed to make Christians seem really scary if they believe in God? Maybe we decided we would ask the person most closely identified with that phrase Christian nationalism. He's one of the rare American Christian pastors who is willing to engage on questions of culture and politics, and for that, he has taken a lot of grief. But we are honored to have him. His name is Doug Wilson. He's the pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He is the author of several books, including a book called Mere Christendom: The Case for Bringing Christianity Back into Modern Culture. And Pastor Wilson joins us now. Thank you very much. Doug Wilson [00:01:42] Honored to be here. Thank you. Tucker [00:01:44] So I'm since there was not a post, I'm sincerely confused by the phrase Christian nationalism, which seems like an attack on Christianity to me. What is it to the extent you understand it? And are you a Christian nationalist? Doug Wilson [00:01:57] So I'm willing to be a Christian nationalist because. I prefer that phrase to the phrase I usually get called... Tucker [00:02:05] So what do you get? Doug Wilson [00:02:07] White supremacist. Doug Wilson [00:02:09] Slave advocate. Oh, you know, racist, you know, all the neo-fascist, so the the, the left really does hate Christianity. Yes. And, with the phrase Christian nationalism, even the part of it that's coming from the left trying to wrap that around our necks, that's something I think I can explain. I can say, yeah. Yes, but. And then explain it to inside of two minutes. Tucker [00:02:34] I mean, I stand before you and thank you for doing that. And I will listen rapidly because I really want to know. But just to clarify the terms, is that a phrase that you or people with your beliefs came up with, or was that a phrase that was leveled against you? Doug Wilson [00:02:46] Well, both. Cannon, Cannon Press, located in Moscow, Idaho, has a streaming service called Cannon Plus can can press published The case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolf. So that was our embrace of the term. Okay. And Stephen Wolf, he wrote a defense, a scholarly defense of the whole thing, the history of the whole thing. So we embraced it to that extent. But then on MSNBC, just a few weeks ago, there was one of the talking heads there that said, anybody who believes that rights come from God and not from Congress and not from the Supreme Court is a Christian nationalist. Right. So anybody who, you know, making Thomas Jefferson right, right. A Christian nationalist endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. So anybody who believes that on the according to the left, is a Christian nationalist and there is, a developed set of arguments in defense of that phrase that can be, I think, pointed out in short order. You can't there's no you, trying to defend other things they call you. It's like putting lipstick on a pig. It's just you're not. It's not going to be a thing. Tucker [00:03:58] No. Doug Wilson [00:03:59] All right. But this is something that people can say, oh, I love my nation, and I'm a Christian. Why can't these. Tucker [00:04:06] Well, that's how I feel about it, right? I don't know what it is. So how would you define it? Doug Wilson [00:04:10] So, it's, I think very simple. If there is no God above the society, if there's no God above the state, take got away. Yes. The state is God. Doug Wilson [00:04:22] Okay. If there is no God above the state, the state is God. The state becomes God and it assumes the prerogatives of deity. Try, you know, cameras at every, at every intersection, aping omniscience. Yes. Omnipresence. In Big Brothers, watching you. Tucker [00:04:40] Control of your mind. Doug Wilson [00:04:41] Control of your mind. They want to control absolutely everything, every keystroke. They want to control everything because they're aspiring to deity. The reason they're aspiring to deity is because they don't recognize any god above them. Okay, now this is where everybody I think I'd be with, most people would be with me. A. To that point, all conservative, believing Christian. Tucker [00:05:02] For the state is not. Doug Wilson [00:05:03] God. The state is not God. Yes. Okay. And the early Christians were persecuted not because they worship Jesus, but because they would not worship Caesar. All right. The whole issue of Christians being thrown to the lions had to do with who they wouldn't worship, not who they would. Right. Oh, okay. The Romans were more than happy to add Jesus to the pantheon. Yes, exactly. Okay. But the claims of Christ are exclusive. And Christians would not, recognize Caesar as Lord. Jesus is Lord is the fundamental Christian confession. So most Christians are with you right up to that point. But then the immediate comeback question from our antagonists would be, okay, if you want to have a God above the state, smart Alec. Which God? Okay. And that lands you right in the middle of theological debate, which is the last place in the world a lot of people want to be, for sure. Okay. The. Is it Allah? Is it Shiva, the god of destruction? Is it, the Unitarian god? Is it the Christian god? What do you. You know what God is? Tucker [00:06:05] It is that the Satan of the church of Satan? Doug Wilson [00:06:07] Right. And incidentally, if I could put here, our current rulers don't believe in God, but they do believe in the devil, right? All right. And and their belief in the devil is why they want to ascend the size of the North. They want to be be as the Most High. That was the initial temptation. In the garden. You shall be God. Okay. So our current rulers are are very ambitious, and they want to aspire to that height. We don't want to resist them in the name of Christ, because we don't want to launch another series of interminable religious wars, right? Okay. We. Because we don't want the Muslims fighting with the Jews fighting with the Christians fighting with, you know, all of that. All right. So that's that's the most reasonable question when they say which God, the Christian. And here's the answer to your question. The Christian nationalist is the one who's willing to answer that question. And speaking into the microphone, the true God, the living God, the one who exists. Yes. Not not the one, not the God on our money, you know. Now, if there's a corrective, there's God on our money used to be the Christian God, because that was put there when there was a robust Christian consensus in this country. All right. So we had an informal, informal establishment at the founding of the United States, where the religious differences that we were willing to acknowledge and work with were the differences between Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans. It was not the difference between Muslims and Hindus, and it wasn't the whole entire landscape because, all law and this is the next, principle. All law is imposed morality. Tucker [00:07:55] By definition. Doug Wilson [00:07:56] By definition, it's not whether but which it's not. It's not whether you're imposing morality, it's which morality you're imposing. Okay. And if someone says, well, this is going you're going to wind up imposing morality. I say, well, yeah, that's what law is, right? You can't have a structured order in society without the imposition of morality laws. Judgment. Right. But then that leads to the question at which morality, every, every moral system, arises out of the worship of a god. All right. So in Saudi Arabia you're going to get a moral system that is distinctly different than a moral system that arose out of a country with a Christian history. And yes, census. All right. So the the God you worship, this is a principle, you see all through the, through the entire Bible. And that is you become like what you worship. People begin to be conformed to the image of what they consider to be the highest good. You become like what you worship in Psalm 115. It says, they make idols. They that have eyes and see, not ears, but they hear not noses, but they smell not. And then it says, those that make them are like unto them. You become like what you worship. All right. So if you, if you worship a God who is, Allah does not reveal himself. He reveals his will. He's a God of power, coercion, force. All right. That's why Muslim societies are the way they are. Because you become like what you worship. The Christian heritage has, unlike anything else in human history, has a balance of form and freedom, structure and liberty together. Okay. That, I believe, is the unique contribution of Christian theology. We worship. We worship God who is one God. Christians are monotheists. Who is Triune father, son, and Holy Spirit. And so when you're tackling the ancient philosophical problem of the one and the many, what's what is ultimate diversity? Like Heraclitus thought, you can't step into the same river twice. History is just ten tons of confetti dumped into a tornado. Yes. That's chaos, that's Heraclitus. Then there's Parmenides. Everything's frozen. Everything's a big unit, right? Monism or chaos? World is king. If you're Heraclitus. Parmenides. Everything's frozen and stuck. And they wrestled with this for centuries. And then the Christians came along and the history of ideas. And you Christians, what is ultimate, the one or the many? And the Christian said, yes. Yes. And Christians have room, have mental space, have theological space for, ultimate unity and ultimate division. The fellowship between the three persons of the Trinity. And we become like what we worship. And so, consequently, Christians are the ones who can respect order and form and structure. We we like order, and we love liberty. Well, where does that come from? Right. There's there's a certain kind of person who loves liberty, and they just want to do whatever they want to do. And no one can tell me what to do about anything. Tucker [00:11:16] Libertine. Doug Wilson [00:11:17] Libertine. And then there's the person who wants structure. They want to live in a tyrannical North Korea type of thing where every move is dictated. Yes. Right. They want structure, structure, structure. The Christian faith provides the balance between form and freedom. And this is something that has been discussed for decades in the modern setting. Frances Schaefer, the late Frances Schaefer was really good at spelling this out. We we want form and freedom together so that when when we say Christian nationalism, there are only three ways of basic ways of organizing human society. There's tribalism, there's nationalism, and then there's globalism. I don't want globalism. I don't want to eat bugs, okay? I don't want tribalism because nobody wants to live in a failed state. Somalia with warlords? No, but no, nobody wants to live in Thunderdome. Okay. So I don't want tribalism and I don't want globalism. And we have a national structure now. Okay. So as a Christian, I would like that national structure to conform to the things that God wants and not the things that man wants. That's Christian nationalism. Tucker [00:12:29] But may I ask? Of course I yes, I agree vehemently with everything you said. Let me pose the maybe two problems that people might have hearing the phrase Christian nationalism. The first most obvious is, well, what if I'm not Christian, right? How do I fit into that? Doug Wilson [00:12:42] All right. You would probably you would fit in better then you're fitting in now. Well, okay. One of the things that a nonbeliever. Basically, I trust the Christians. This is I'm speaking historically. I trust the Christians to take better care of a secularists liberty than I trust the secularists to take care of money. Speaker 3 [00:13:05] Nicely put. Doug Wilson [00:13:07] Okay, I think we're I think we're. Tucker [00:13:08] You have the last 2000 years to to back you up on that. Doug Wilson [00:13:11] Correct. And that's not to say that there weren't warts and sins and blemishes in Christian history. There really, there really were. But you take the worst, you know, they take the worst of the worst in Christian history. Something like the Spanish Inquisition, right? Okay. Some terrible, terrible thing, which I'm not carrying water for at all. Terrible thing. But the Spanish Inquisition killed a few thousand people over a few centuries. That was Stalin on a slow afternoon. The commies have killed 100 million people in the last century or so. All right. Tens of millions of people, and and yet they go on serenely, as though their copybook is not blotted and ours is all right. How long have they been dining out on the Salem witch trials or on the the Spanish Inquisition, or this the Fourth Crusade or, you know, different things like that? Yeah, those those were horrific, evil, bad things. But the Christian, theologian, the Christian preacher has a book of God's revelation with which to condemn these things. We can say that's inconsistent. That's that's not what God wants. Yeah. And we should conform to what God wants. That's Christian nationalism. All right. So Christian nationalism doesn't mean disobeying God's will in the name of Jesus. Christian nationalism means conforming what we're doing to God's revealed will in the name of Jesus. It means obeying him, not disobeying him. Tucker [00:14:42] So Christian nationalism does not imply forced conversion. Doug Wilson [00:14:46] It does not. Tucker [00:14:46] Or a reduction in the rights of non-Christians? Doug Wilson [00:14:49] No, it's an expansion of the rights of non-Christians. Right? I believe I believe an average my my standard joke, picked up somewhere is if I were if I were president and what a glorious three days that would be, we'd get we would get a lot done in those days. But if I were in control of this, I believe the average nonbeliever would not know what to do with all the additional liberty he would have. I believe. Tucker [00:15:17] Can you give me an example of the liberties non-Christians would gain under such a structure? Doug Wilson [00:15:21] How many of our chains have we gotten used to? Right? Too many. So that one of the common things that the people who are trying to scare people with Christian nationalism, like we're going to go back to The Handmaid's Tale type of thing, are trying to spook us with that sort of thing. And they say we need to keep the government out of our bedrooms, keep the government out of the bedroom. Well, I had the privilege a number of years ago building my own house, and I know exactly how many screws the government required to be in the sheetrock in my bedroom, how big the windows had to be for egress in my bedroom, how thick the sheetrock had to be in my bedroom. The. What do you mean, keep the government out of my bedroom? I can't remove the mattress tag from the, from the mattress because the government is in my bedroom. Literally. Right. So the so one of the things that would happen is that you would have a great deal more practical liberty, as opposed to the kind of liberty that the leftists want you to have. The kind of liberties that you can exercise in a six by a prison cell. You can read porn in a prison cell. Right? You can have dope smuggled into you in a prison cell. You can get high in a prison cell. You can you can be in war. Tucker [00:16:37] But may I ask, though? I mean, there's no question that the right, as a general, broadly speaking, offers a vision of greater personal liberty than the left is totalitarian. I think that's pretty clear. But why? What about Christianity would inspire you to offer more liberty as opposed to, like, your dedication to Hayek? Okay, but why Christianity? Doug Wilson [00:17:00] I'm a biblical absolutist. Some people would call me a fundamentalist. Like, I take everything in the Bible literally, which when Jesus says, I'm the door, you don't look for a doorknob. You don't have to go lie down in green pastures to be a good Christian. So I don't take the Bible literally. I take the Bible naturally. The way it presents itself to be taken. Poetry is poetry. Vision is vision. History is history. And. But I'm a biblical absolutist. So what the Bible says, I just take to the bank and I have a very dim view of human wisdom. All right. We are a piece of work. The human race is messed up. All right. And so consequently, I only want to allow coercion, which is what this the magistrate does. I only want to allow coercion if there is black letter biblical justification for it. Okay. It's sort of like a. I don't have a problem, prosecuting rapists because I can show you in the Bible where that should be done. I don't have a problem prosecuting murderers, because I can show you in the Bible that this is something that God entrusted to the magistrate to do, to enforce, to keep order by punishing rape and and murder and that. Yes. So on. I don't I can't find anything in the Bible that allows the government to dictate the temperature of the water that comes out of showerhead in my bathroom. Consequently, the government has no business doing that. It's none of their business. They have no authorization. Right. So we have gotten, they. William F Buckley once joked that a liberal is someone who reaches into your shower and adjust the temperature for you. They they know better. Of course, Thomas Soul's great book, The Vision of the anointed, is. I think the subtitle, something like self-congratulation as the Basis of Public Policy. And that's the way it goes. They feel serenely above it all, and they want to boss everybody around. I don't want to boss anybody around unless I have authorization in the book from from the Lord. And and and you look at the Ten Commandments. If you could fit the Ten Commandments on a postcard, and then you could fit the Old Testament in one volume on the shelf, go to the local library and ask to look at the the code for your state. Shelf after shelf. Right. The Federal Register of Laws. Shelf after shelf after shelf. All right. That kind of tyranny. All right. Somebody has a website, I think, called three felonies a day. The average American is guilty of trespassing. They can always get use for something. Of course. Right. Because they've got so many rules that you're always transgressing. And then when they decide to pull the switch, they can just come scoop you up and take you off. Right. And make it happen. In a in a biblical law order, you have ten commandments, and then you have the commentary on those ten commandments, which would be the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And if it's not there, right. If, if, if someone says, we need to prosecute this guy for hate crimes, right. As a and I say, oh, as opposed to the normal, ordinary love crimes. What what are you talking about? Why why are you punishing him for an attitude? Right. You have no. You have no authorization. You can. You can, hit it. Get. You can get him for taking the guy's bicycle or smashing in his windows. You can. You've got authorization biblically to punish the wrongdoer. That's Romans 13. The God gives the sword to the magistrate to reward the righteous and punish the wrong to her. But then the Bible defines what is that? Wrongdoing and certain things. People think that if it's in the Bible, it we can enforce it. Well, no. In the Bible, there's a difference between sins and crimes. Right. A crime is something that the Bible identifies as evil. And there's a civil penalty attached. But in the Ten Commandments, the 10th commandment, covetousness, there's there's no penalty attached. I don't want covetousness. Police. I don't want lust. Police. I don't want there's there's no penalty attached. I have no authorization to arrest someone for looking longingly through a catalog too long. That's a that's beyond our capacity. So we we should have nothing to do with that. And and you find that if you were strict with this, you're going to you're going to find, there's a wonderful title of a book, The Emergence of Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World. And it's a history of the Protestant Reformation and how a lot of our, practical, substantive liberties grew out of certain theological assumptions that, that were established and reaffirmed, some inherited from the Middle Ages and some, established a new and some some established at that time. So people think that, Christians are going to bring in this Handmaid's Tale hellhole sort of thing. But there was in 1892, there was a Supreme Court decision. And it was exquisitely named Holy Trinity versus the United States of America. And it was the Holy Trinity was the name of a church. And Congress had passed a law forbidding, merchants, contractors to import a bunch of foreign labor, pay for their passage and then release them into the country. So it was there was a law against paying for the passage of a foreign laborer. And that was meant for these big construction projects. Well, a church, I think, in New York named Holy Trinity, called a British minister to be their new, pastor. And they paid for his passage over. And so, of course, some zealous prosecutor. Charge you know when after them over this affront to to the laws of the United States and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and it was Holy Trinity versus the United States of America. The chief justice was a man named Brewer at the time. This was 1892. And in 1892 they handled the case itself in a commonsense way, deciding for the church. Look, you know, I wasn't talking about that. They did. And then Brewer said, and while we're on the subject, let's take this opportunity to remind everybody that the United States is a Christian country. Okay. And then he went through the history of the United States, the fundamental orders of Connecticut, the founding documents. Just walk through. He was historically literate. And he said definitively in this Supreme Court decision, the United States is a Christian country. Now, the thing I want is to be living in 1893. That's what that's what I want. In terms of the judicial setup, I don't want, to capture this. The the bad guys Orwellian apparatus that they're setting up and then turn it to Christian ends. I don't I don't want to butt into their lives the way they want to, but into everybody's life. Tucker [00:24:16] Well, that's for sure. And, I mean, what you're describing is a country that, as it has become less Christian, has become more authoritarian. Correct, right. And that's obvious and demonstrable. But but for saying what you just said, you will be and have already been by Russell Moore, most recently in Christianity Today, described as a theocratic. And what you just described will be called theocracy. Right. How is what you just described different from theocracy? Doug Wilson [00:24:41] Okay. What what people when people say, Russell Moore said aspiring theocratic. He didn't think I'd made it yet, but he he said that I wanted to a deep in the dark recesses of my heart. I wanted to be a theocratic. The here's the difference between this is what they're thinking of when they think of theocracy. They're thinking of ecclesia ocracy. Right. Tucker [00:25:06] They're thought by priests. Doug Wilson [00:25:07] Rule by clerics, rule by priests. Okay. And they're thinking of something like Iran, right? With a bunch of reformed, weird beards, issuing dicked, they are doing their thing. They they're thinking of a cabal of, clerics and holy men and shamans and whatever, issuing decrees on the basis of a religion that the populace doesn't accept. And, and we just jam it down their throats. Well, we don't jam things down people's throats. That's what they do. That's what they're doing now. Okay? That what they. When when ro was first established, there were most of the states had laws restricting abortion. They jammed their, ungodly dictate down everybody's throat, in the Obergefell decision. What they did is they jammed it down his throat. They said, this is what we must progress waits for. No, man. We're not. We're going to do it. Do it now. Tucker [00:26:04] Sure, California passed a referendum restricting marriage to a man and a woman, and it was overturned. So much for democracy, right? Doug Wilson [00:26:11] So, we are not wanting to, on the basis of some clerical decision, have the clerics rule and decide, like in Iran, only a Christian. We don't want the Christian ayatollahs doing that sort of thing. That's what most people think. What most people call a theocracy is actually an ecclesia ocracy. Okay. Christian. The historic Christian doctrine is when people say, well, Pastor Wilson, you need to affirm that the separation of church and state. This is sort of thing. It makes me want to dance in place because Christians invented the doctrine of separation of church and state. That's our doctrine. That's that is something that came from us. We're the ones who developed it. And separation of church and state is crucial because there are two governing institutions. The church governs men in a certain sphere, and the state governs men in a certain sphere because they're both forms of government. You can keep them separate. You can keep the apples and oranges separate into bowls on the counter because they're both fruit. Right. But what when when people say separation of church and state and they mean separation of God and state, separation of morality and state, separation of ultimate truth, claims and state? I would say stop, wait, wait just a minute. Are you really telling me that you want to live in a state that is utterly disconnected from morality? Is that what you want? Is where the you protest and your protest is a moral one. And they say, well, we we believe in the separation of morality and state. Tucker [00:27:54] But as you noted at the outset, that's that's a nonsensical proposition that has never existed and can't exist. Doug Wilson [00:27:58] I know, because all moralities arise out of a moral consensus, of course. Okay. Which is, overwhelmingly religious. So consequently, you can separate church and state, but you can't separate ultimate truth claims and state. It cannot be done. Every people needs to know who they are. They need to know what they are. They need to know where they came from. They need to know how we're supposed to behave on the way. Those are basic theological. Tucker [00:28:25] I don't think any honest, rational person would disagree with what you just said. That all laws are judgments about how people should live in their moral judgments, and that there's going to be a system for deciding what's right and wrong, because there always is. And it's going to be if it's Marxism or Christianity, one scholar, a superior. I guess the question, though, is how do you affect or bring back such a system in a country that has no working majority of anything? Doug Wilson [00:28:54] Yeah. So when you have a cacophony of, laws, it reflects the cacophony of opinions among the people. And, and this is where unbridled immigration comes into the picture. You can't just import floods and floods of people with different assumptions about everything into one spot and say, play nice children. Societies have to function on the basis of a shared moral consensus. Exactly. Okay. If there isn't a shared moral consensus, then you're what you're going to get is anarchy and disruption. . Tucker [00:29:35] Wait a second. I have read, many Episcopal bishops and Russell Moore, not to be the pun poor Russell Moore, who's living in agony already, but, say, make the claim that it is anti-Christian. If you don't let anyone who wants to move your society move here. Doug Wilson [00:29:51] Right? That's like saying to a godly, sweet Christian couple who has three foster children and they're taking good care for kids of their own. They've taken in three foster children, and they're taking good care of them. And then you show up one day with a short bus with 28 new foster children, and you say, we're depositing them here, and we wait, wait, the couple says we didn't sign up for that many. What kind of non-Christian attitude is that refusing to take these 28 new foster children? The dad who was taking care of good care of three foster children is should be able to say, look, I'm taking care three and I think I'm doing a good job taking care three but if you drop off 28 more, I'm not going to be taking good care of anybody. It's going to swamp the system, right? You can't say, we need to kick the doors open wide in the name of hospitality without the capacity to process them. You have to assimilate them, right? And it's got to be orderly. So if people say, do I object to immigration? Of course not. I object to anarchy. I object to chaos. So I object to the lawlessness that's operating on the southern border. Orderly immigration. I'm all about, all about that. And that would be wonderful. Tucker [00:31:11] I'm sorry I've sidetracked you. I had to ask you, but. But you were in the process before I interrupted you of answering the question. How do you go back to a system based on Christian assumptions in a country that's no longer Christian? Doug Wilson [00:31:24] What you do, and this is this is you invite a preacher under your show, you're going to get get some preaching. Tucker [00:31:31] Hope so. Doug Wilson [00:31:32] All right. So there's no way there's no way to do it outside of God raising up preachers who preach a hot gospel and church planting. There's there's no way to do this politically. Tucker [00:31:44] And you got to make the country Christian again. Doug Wilson [00:31:46] That's right. Basically, we're in such a mess that there is no political solution. All right. We're we're beyond hope. There is no political solution. The next election, however happy it might make us for ten minutes, is not going to fix everything. Tucker [00:32:01] That's right. Doug Wilson [00:32:01] Okay. Our disease is radical, and it's spiritual. We've got a we've got a radical leprosy. And, the United States needs to repent, of its sin, to use an old fashioned term. We need to repent of our sins, our arrogance, and turn back to God. That's what. That's what is necessary. And we need preachers who are willing to tell them to do that, to proclaim that this is what you must do and they must not do it in terms of law, like thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt. The law condemns, but the gospel liberates. So the law brings in judgment the law. Well, the law makes us aware of the rich young ruler. Is made aware of his lack, is made aware of his sinfulness by the law. And then you turn to Christ. And what Christ offers is full, free forgiveness. But forgiveness. With him now in charge. So forgiveness. It's not what Bonhoeffer would call cheap grace. It is a radical death, burial and resurrection. All right, so this is what the Easter season is all about. Death, burial and resurrection. And the Bible tells us that when we look to Christ, we are crucified with in in faith, we're crucified with him, we're buried with him, and we rise again from the dead with him, and we ascend into the heavenly places with him that we are. We are made participants of the virtue of Christ by by virtue of his death, burial, and resurrection. So America needs Jesus. America doesn't need to turn over a new leaf. America needs a new life. And and new life is only given on God's terms as the sheer grace of God. It's got. That's how it's got to be. And so what we need is preachers. Christian preachers who will stop being ashamed of the name of Jesus and preach the gospel and preach the gospel as though it's supposed to spread out, into the streets after the service. So too many churches are Jesus boxes where where you go in and you have your meeting with the with Jesus in your box, and then you go out and live pretty much like everybody else. You try to keep your nose a little bit cleaner than the average guy, but you still fit right in out there. But the claims of Christ are total, and the things that the thing that we try to emphasize in our, our ministry is all of Christ for all of life. I'm fond of saying theology needs to come out at your fingertips. Whatever it is you take in theologically needs to be enacted and done. And if theology comes at your fingertips, and if preachers are preaching the gospel and there's a great religious reformation and revival, then and I'm seeing some stirrings of. Tucker [00:34:49] This, I am too- Doug Wilson [00:34:50] Okay. So I'm not beyond hope, but I'm beyond political hope. There is no political solution, no political hope. But that doesn't mean that there's no hope. So in the. I can point to two. Great. The Reformation and the great Protestant Reformation would be one. And then the Evangelical awakening in the 18th century in England was another one. Yes. According to, I think prudent observers, England was headed for their own version of the French Revolution. Things were awful in the the spiritual condition of the country was, in tatters and in ruins. We sometimes think of the Victorians, 19th century Englishmen, as the, as the buttoned up tight, but the previous century that were anything but buttoned up tight. They were lewd, lascivious, immoral, oppressive. And the, they were they were headed for revolution. The the working man there was downtrodden and oppressed, and it was really, really bad. And the Wesley's and George Whitefield revival preachers, I think, were the gods instrument for saving England from their French Revolution. That's the kind of thing we need. We need God. Tucker [00:36:05] I think we're headed towards something. I would say a French Revolution. But do you think we're headed towards some sort of catastrophe? Doug Wilson [00:36:13] Yes, I believe yes. I believe that, apart from repentance, deep repentance, I believe that we're headed for real, real chaos. I think that the future is not going to be evenly catastrophic all over. Right. But I believe it's going to be bumpy, bumpy and chaotic. Chaotic and places and violent and bloody in places. I and I believe that the only thing that's going to head that off is preachers who stop being ashamed of their religion. Tucker [00:36:43] But there are only like three of them in the whole country. Like, how can that happen? Doug Wilson [00:36:46] Yeah, there are maybe maybe five. Tucker [00:36:50] Why are there so few? Doug Wilson [00:36:51] Well, there there are so few. There's two things, Elijah and a moment of despondency said I'm the only one left, and. And they're trying to kill me. And God says, well, now I've reserved 7000 who've not bowed the knee to bail. So I believe that there are thousands of faithful preachers. One of the things that happens is that, the media, which is in the tank for the devil, doesn't cover that sort of thing. There could be lots of faithful ministries. I believe there are thousands of them. But they don't get coverage and they don't get highlighted. They don't get reported. You remember the Tiananmen Square, protests? Tucker [00:37:35] Tank Man. Doug Wilson [00:37:36] Tank man. Right? But you remember all the reporting on how many thousands of baptisms happened in the square? Tucker [00:37:42] No. Doug Wilson [00:37:43] Thousands of Baptist, Christian baptisms. Christian baptisms in the square. Tiananmen square. And. And our media turned it into a great high five moment for Jeffersonian democracy. And that element was there. Okay. But there was a hard Christian element right at the center of that. Tucker [00:38:03] I've never heard that in my life. Doug Wilson [00:38:04] Okay. Thousands of baptisms in the square in Tiananmen Square. Now, the thing that, and it's that sort of thing that you could have something similar happened here. And is MSM going to report on CBS going to report on it? No, they are they are combatants. They are referees in the basketball game who are dribbling and shooting with the other team. Tucker [00:38:26] Me, I have so many questions. A couple quick ones in, in throughout the Old Testament, maybe even in the new nations are punished for their sins. Not just individuals, but nations. Corporate right? The nation. Does that still happen? Do you believe? And second, you've made reference a couple of times to America's America, not just Americans, but America as a nation. Its need to repent of it since what sins? Doug Wilson [00:38:53] Okay, so yes, God still judges nations. Nations. God still judges God test. God is the sovereign of all the earth. He still does, right? Wickedness still offends him. And, of. Tucker [00:39:06] But maybe a lot of Protestants, or maybe just me, think of that as taking place just on an individual level. Doug Wilson [00:39:13] I think that, there's a there's a good book called The Civil Wars Theological Crisis by Mark Nowell, who said that the idea that God judges corporately is an idea that for Americans died with the American Civil War because both sides were Christian, professed faith in the Christian God. Both sides were praying for victory, and both sides concluded after the war. Well, that did a lot of good. What what was the what was the meaning of that? Right? Yes. So we became, after in the aftermath of the war between the States, we became sort of agnostic on whether God ever take sides or intervenes on behalf of, righteousness or unrighteousness in a particular nation. But I believe he does. So I believe that if our nation were destroyed for our arrogance and conceit by fireballs from heaven, you know, if if God were to do that, it would be not unjust. It would be a just judgment. We we have been arrogant in the extreme, and I would say the central arrogance there's there's fruits of this arrogance downstream, the 60 million children who are aborted, the the various things that we do, the going around the world preaching at people, how to get their life together. Tucker [00:40:32] Threatening them, killing them when. Doug Wilson [00:40:33] We don't know how to live our lives. All of that. That's the fruit of the central sin. The central sin is secularism. The the secularism is that we can we can live decent, orderly lives without Christ. We don't need God in order. We don't need God in order to live. Placidly, the way we did in the Eisenhower years with black and white sitcoms where father knows best. And, you know, we can we can do that. And I'd say, yeah. Okay. How's it going? We. The grand secular experiment is now at a point where they don't know what a girl is. That's because secularism is not a biologist, right? They they can't tell you what a girl is. They can't tell you what a human being is. And if you if they can't tell you what a human being is, how can they tell you what human rights are? Well, they they can't and they and more more than that, they don't want to because because they want to move us around as though we are just, pieces on the board that they, you know, to, to, to gratify their whims and their theories. So secularism is the idea that we can establish agnosticism or atheism as the official faith of the country and govern ourselves decently without reference to God. That is radically false. We can't do. Tucker [00:41:55] It has ever been achieved anywhere in. Doug Wilson [00:41:57] History that you're aware. No. And and here's the another mistake that and you alluded to this the crossover between individuals and countries. So we all know atheist. You know, there's an atheist friend or an atheist neighbor who's a sweet guy, and you wouldn't mind him taking in your mail when you go on vacation and and you don't think his atheism is going to make him run over and burn down your house as soon as you're around the corner? Right. He. Because he's he's a nice guy. There are nice guy atheists here and there throughout, believing countries, but there has never been an atheist country that wasn't a hell. Okay. That's because man is collectively consistent. Individually, we have the capacity to be inconsistent. Tucker [00:42:47] Yes. Doug Wilson [00:42:47] Okay. Individually, someone might have been brought up and gone to Sunday school, been taught not to steal and not to attend. But then he loses his faith in college. But he keeps all the apparatus of his upbringing, right? He still wants to be a good citizen. He drives on the right side of the road. He he, you know, he does all he he does all those things because individuals have the ability to be inconsistent. But when godless types are running the show and they are making all the decisions and they don't answer to God at all, the countries that they rule are always hell holes. Always. Tucker [00:43:27] So secularism is the sin and that gives rise. You've used the word arrogance 2 or 3 times, right? We describe with that. What do you think that arrogance is? Doug Wilson [00:43:37] Yeah. The arrogance is things that like, we can come in and take your children away, but you didn't use the right pronoun. Tucker [00:43:44] But, but but but I mean, be more precise. Why does secular secular ism, do you believe, lead to arrogance? Doug Wilson [00:43:51] Yeah. Because I if I'm in charge of everybody and I believe I answer to no one, there is no judgment there. You know, just imagine there's no heaven. Yeah. No hell below us. Above us. Only sky. Just imagine that. And above Buchenwald. Only sky. Above Auschwitz only sky. The universe doesn't care. Okay. The universe doesn't care if I'm in charge, if I have political power, if I'm Mao. And I know that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And there, there's no one above me that I'm ever going to answer to. If that's my framework, I have absolutely no reason not to do whatever I please. That's right. There's no accountability. And that's what secularism leads to. That's at least of necessity. And this is why, in the old order, in the, in the Christian order, it used to be laws against taking testimony in court from people who wouldn't take an oath in the name of God. You couldn't you couldn't testify in court if you didn't believe in a final judgment. Tucker [00:44:58] Because there will be no constraint on your lying. Doug Wilson [00:45:01] No reason to not lie. Tucker [00:45:02] So what? You know, it's possible that you've got very far out threatening views, but, that you haven't expressed yet. But. And I'll ask you if you did. Yeah, but. Doug Wilson [00:45:12] Oh, no. Everything's. I'm. I'm in the middle of the road. Extremists are to my right and left. Tucker [00:45:17] You are kind of in the middle of the road, at least in what you've said so far. From a Christian perspective, you're not. You don't convert anyone by force. You want people to have more freedom to make their own decisions about what they believe, right, and how they want to live. You're against arrogance and hurting people. I mean, these are not crazy views. So why are you so hated by so. Well, obviously by the left, but also by a lot of Christian leaders don't like you and are always attacking you. What is that? Doug Wilson [00:45:44] Well, some, the left hates what I'm talking about. I think because I'm about to touch the thing with a needle. I'm about to. I'm going for the sore spot. The sore spot is the secular. This radical disease of secularism. They want to continue to govern their affairs without any kind of accountability. Yes. Oh, yeah. They want they want to be left alone as they are running the show, and they will give the treatment to anybody who crosses them. All right. Right. You've gotten the treatment before I get the treatment. Yeah. They they know how to rough somebody up. Okay. And there are Christians who distance themselves from me because I see that. Right. Tucker [00:46:25] But. Right. But if they're if they're self-described Christians, again, I don't want to use his name once again, but the guy who edits Christianity Today is fixated on you. David French is a New York Times columnist who calls himself a Christian. And they really go out of their way to attack you. What? Why? Doug Wilson [00:46:43] Well. Tucker [00:46:44] Basically, your theology doesn't sound so different from, like, kind of conventional Christian theology, as I understand it. Right. Doug Wilson [00:46:50] Here's the this is the I think the distinction. I mean, it. Tucker [00:46:56] Okay. You know, that there's that. Doug Wilson [00:46:58] Okay. What? We ought to acknowledge God, and I mean that we really should. Right. So there's a difference between that and wanting a place at the table. Yeah. So, David, David, David French and Russell Moore and people like that, what they want to do is they want they want to operate to operate in the secular republic. And they want a place at the table. Okay? They want a place at the table. They want to be treated with respect. And in return, they say, we will treat all opposing views with respect. And what we ask is you treat us with respect and we would like a place at the table, please. Now, I, I don't I don't have any illusions about this. When we're all rounded up and taken off in cattle cars to the camps, David French and Russell Moore are going to be in the next car over there. Right. They the. Tucker [00:47:46] I think they'll be guarding you. Doug Wilson [00:47:48] Well, I think the left hates its tools. Tucker [00:47:52] Yes, well, that is true. Doug Wilson [00:47:53] Okay. And I believe that let's let's say David French and Russell Moore are to take the most charitable take on it. They would be tools. Tucker [00:48:04] Oh, they're definitely tools. Doug Wilson [00:48:05] Yeah. Okay. And and the tools, the left breaks them and throws them away when they're done with them. And right now. But the what is the use of the tool? The tool is to say, hey, we will give you we will give you respect. You're the kind of Christian who could write, get an article accepted by The Atlantic. You're the kind of Christian who could write for the New York Times. You're the kind of Christian who who does that as opposed to these extreme guys out here. But the extreme guys are saying things like, well, let's love God and love our neighbor and build a Christian community and worship God faithfully. And with that, what's what's radical about this? Well, we actually believe all of it. We believe that Christ really is Lord of everything, and we should live and pray and love as though we believe. We actually believe that and that. That takes us back to the earlier point. To confess that Jesus is Lord is to confess that Caesar isn't. Right. That's the issue. Going back to the early, Christians would not worship Caesar, and I'm not going to worship the state. Right. If the if there is no God over the state, the state becomes God and they proclaim themselves God. I'm going to be like Nebuchadnezzar. Like Daniel's three friends who refused to be Shadrach. And I've got a grandson named Shadrach. That's. So. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, we want to pass that legacy on that, refusing to bow down. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said to the king, Our God is able to deliver us. But whether he does or not, we fear him and not you. And that's the thing. That's the challenge that the secular state cannot abide. Another great Thomas Soul quote. I'll paraphrase it. He said. It's amazing how much panic can be thrown among, people by the behavior. One honest man. It's true, right? One honest man can throw people into a state of consternation and panic. Because you're willing to say, look, this is the way it is. We need to love. God hates in. Tucker [00:50:11] That's that's. Boy, that is the truest thing. So let me give you this the the the sincerity test or the ultimate test. Okay. And I'm asking this on the basis of the following assumption that people, particularly preachers, ought to have lives that reflect what they what they preach. You know, that you can judge the tree by their fruits. So how many children do you have? Doug Wilson [00:50:32] I've got three children. Tucker [00:50:33] How many grandchildren do you have? Doug Wilson [00:50:35] 18 grandchildren and two great grandchildren just lately arrived. Tucker [00:50:40] So 23 descendants, plus your wife, right? How many of those 23 are Christians? Doug Wilson [00:50:45] All of them. Tucker [00:50:46] All of them? Doug Wilson [00:50:47] All of them. Tucker [00:50:48] How often do you see them? Doug Wilson [00:50:50] On average weekly, if not more. We they all live in Moscow. Some of my grandkids are studying, right out of. Tucker [00:50:59] But they all live near you. Doug Wilson [00:51:00] They all live live in Moscow. They're all centered out of Moscow. And the ones who are studying, away are likely to wind up back in Moscow. We have a Sabbath dinner every Saturday night to kick off the Lord's Day, to prepare for worship in the morning. Family does. Our family does. The extended family. So all, all of us gather for a Sabbath dinner and then extended family, some Shirttail relatives and any company that is in town. So on a weekly basis, there's like 50 or 50. Tucker [00:51:32] Or at dinner. Doug Wilson [00:51:33] A dinner. And so we have this Sabbath dinner and we begin with prayer. I ask some catechism questions of the grandkids. We sing and then we have a meal together. So. Tucker [00:51:48] How did you do? How did you pull that off? Doug Wilson [00:51:50] Well, we didn't, the Lord has been very, very kind to us, but the in first Timothy three and in Titus one, Paul says if a man doesn't manage his family. Yes. Well, how can he manage the household of God? How can how can he, work in the household of God if his own family's not in order? Tucker [00:52:10] So that is the I mean, you just cited the verses. It's obviously part of Christian teaching theology, right? Teaching, but it also comports with common sense. It's obvious. Why do but that is not the rule in Christian churches, right? Preacher's kid is an epithet for a reason. Doug Wilson [00:52:28] Right? Picks for a reason and makes missionary kids the same. Tucker [00:52:34] SR. But why isn't that? I don't know if enforced is the word, but even acknowledged as a really important principle. If I'm going to follow you, I have to see as the leader of my congregation or my spiritual guide, then I have to see that the people in your care, your family, have respect for you and love for you and are listening to you like that seems so obvious to me. Doug Wilson [00:52:54] Do your children love God like you do? Yeah, right. And one of the reasons why. Tucker [00:52:59] Do we give up on that standard? Tucker [00:53:18] Your kids are screwed up, too. Yeah. Doug Wilson [00:53:20] Yeah. Our Johnny is not not the top of the line, but at least he's better than the preacher's kid. Or he's in the same league as the preacher's kid. So, there's a difference between Christian forgiveness and cutting slack, right? Right. So we have confused the one with the other and began cutting slack where we ought to have been forgiving. So we have, we're Presbyterian. We're, our churches, Presbyterian. We're not not lesbian. We're Presbyterian. We're the kind of Presbyterians who believe the Bible- Tucker [00:53:55] Branches. Doug Wilson [00:53:56] Are correct. So, yeah. So they're, and we're in another denomination. Crack. And we are. That means the Greek word for elder is presbyter. Us. That's where Presbyterian comes from. And we have a body of elders that govern our local church. And we have the standard, family in order for the elders of the church. And, and one of the things we ask an elder who's coming on to serve is if, one of your kids, if there's a wobble develops, will you bring it up to us so that we don't have to chase you? We have given leaves of absence, to an elder. Why don't you take a leave of absence from elder duties for six months so you can pay attention to your kids. So you can. Yes. So you can shepherd your family first? Yes. All right. So shepherd your family first. And by God's grace. That's a standard that we have been, pursuing for years now. Tucker [00:54:53] Does it work? Doug Wilson [00:54:55] Yes. We have a body of elders whose kids walk with God, whose kids love God. And if. And if, you know, a child rebelled, and walked away, that elder would resign from the elder board because we hold. That's the teaching. Tucker [00:55:14] Yeah. If your own kids don't believe you, why should I? Doug Wilson [00:55:17] Now, at the same time, I don't want to water this down. I want to say we believe that we're evaluating character, not counting rocks. Right. So let's say let's say you had an elder who had four kids of his own, and they're all walking with God. And and then his brother, who was an atheist, got killed in a car wreck, and they adopted a 12 year old girl. Tucker [00:55:38] I get it. Doug Wilson [00:55:38] Right. You say? Okay, I'm trying. Tucker [00:55:40] To assess it on the merits. Doug Wilson [00:55:41] You assess it on a case by case basis, but as a general pattern and a general rule. The, I wrote a book on this called The Neglected Qualification. Tucker [00:55:53] I didn't even know that when I asked you. Doug Wilson [00:55:55] So, yes, I think that this matters. And I believe that it's, Christianity I when I said theology flows at your fingertips, it's supposed to flow out first to the people who know you best. People in your household, the people in your family. Tucker [00:56:14] I just can't tell you how much I agree with that more than anything. Thank you for saying it. So I just want to end with your vision of where we're going, and I think you have probably disarmed your critics by saying, as you did, very clearly, I'm not calling for a political solution to this. The country itself has to change and be right. Worthy of of living the way that you hope that it does. What are the but and then you said, well, but I see signs of that happening. What are they? Doug Wilson [00:56:43] Right. So I've been talking about these things in varying to varying degrees, for 30 to 40 years, and I can see the difference between how this message resonates now versus how it resonated with Christians 30 years ago. Okay. So there are a lot of hungry Christians who were awakened, not woke, but awakened. Yes, by the Covid fiasco. And their their pastors flaked their. Tucker [00:57:20] Such a disgraceful way. Doug Wilson [00:57:22] And they the state said your services are not, essential, but shops are and abortion clinics are and pornography shops are. But church is not a- Tucker [00:57:32] Christian leaders who are afraid to die themselves. Doug Wilson [00:57:35] Yeah. It was not. Tucker [00:57:36] What was that? If you're a Christian leader and you're afraid to die, maybe you're not telling the truth about what you believe, right? There's not a whole religion about this, right? Doug Wilson [00:57:42] It was a God says. It says in Hebrews that God shakes down that God sends an earthquake. He shakes things so that that which cannot be shaken may remain. So there's a pressure test or a there was a crisis. Yes. It happened a couple of years ago and 2 to 3 years ago now. And in that crisis, it revealed the instability and the frailty of a lot of evangelical Christian leadership. Yes. And it awakened in a bunch of Christians a hunger for the kind of leadership that was now apparent. They didn't have. Right. And so we we have seen our influence, grow and explode. There's been a refugee column of sorts, a massive influx of people moving to Moscow, Idaho, for the last couple of years. And we, we've it's hard to keep up with it. There was a long stretch where every week at church, I'd meet somebody new and they say, well, we're here now. And, that people are hungry, hungry, hungry for someone to speak the word of God. This is this is what God would have us do. So the people are hungry for it in a way that I've never seen before. And I hear from friends around the country similar, similar sorts of stories. And there were a number of, men who didn't fold John MacArthur in California being the most notable, of them. And those pastors who didn't capitulate, who didn't bend, have seen explosive growth. And, and growth is not its own justification. Right? Cancer grows. Morning glory grows. But in this setting, people who love Jesus, being attracted to people who are willing to proclaim the name of Jesus, whatever the state says about it is, I think, nothing but a good sign. Tucker [00:59:39] So it sounds like you feel hopeful or, I don't. Doug Wilson [00:59:43] Know, very. I'm very hopeful. Tucker [00:59:47] I mean, what do you think? And this is my last question. Like what is going on in the world? It, it. And I know that everybody famously feels like they're in the middle of some historical reset, and it's the fall of Rome or the end of times or whatever, but this doesn't feel like a normal moment. Doug Wilson [01:00:04] No, it's not a normal moment. The one of the reasons this is a sort of a practical, pragmatic, almost carnal observation. But I'm hopeful because in the long run, stupidity never works. Tucker [01:00:16] Yeah. Doug Wilson [01:00:16] It, you can you can proclaim all you want, but you can't make the world be a you have to live in the world God actually made. You don't. You don't get to live in the world of your own imagining. You have to live in the world that God made, not the world that you want to make. And consequently, you have to obey its rules. Tucker [01:00:36] Yes. You call it natural law. Doug Wilson [01:00:38] Yeah. I saw a great T-shirt once. Gravity. It's not just a good idea. It's. It's the law. Tucker [01:00:45] I swear. Doug Wilson [01:00:46] So, so with all this, I'm hopeful because I believed the promises of Psalms, the promises of Isaiah, the promises of, given to Abraham through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I believe that God's plans for this world are for good, not evil. I believe that God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, not to not to attempt to save the world. Jesus didn't come to give saving the world the old college try. The, the most famous verse in the Bible, John 316, is followed by God did not. 317 For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. So Jesus is not only the offer to answer that will be rejected. Jesus is the answer that will be accepted. So consequently, we this is, another, rabbit rabbit trail. But, our eschatology, our view of the wild things is what's called post millennial, which is we have a very optimistic view of the future. We believe that the gospel is going to continue to grow and expand. The church is going to be victorious. The Great Commission is going to be fulfilled, and we win. We win. And then the Lord comes back. So, and that doesn't mean, we win the game, and it's got four quarters, and we're ten minutes into the first quarter. Right? And the first quarter can go badly. Well, while we're learning, learning how to play the game, learning what to do and not to. But you know, it's you can't take the microcosm and expand out from that. You might have a soldier pinned down by enemy fire on Normandy Beach, and he he knows his missions to get to the top of the next ridge, and he can't even get out from behind the sand dune. He could be mightily discouraged because of his position, while at the same moment General Eisenhower is looking at the map with satisfaction. Right. Tucker [01:02:54] Yes. All right, so we're- Doug Wilson [01:02:55] Zoom out. Zoom out. Take the long view. What's what's human history like? How how long do we have left? I don't believe the world is going to end in the next generation. I believe that, the Christian church is going to. The prophet Habakkuk says the earth will be full of the glory, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So we have we have great hope that the gospel in its potency is going to be proclaimed and is going to take root and flourish. So, we might lose our lives. You know, you can lose your life in a winning battle, right? A soldier on the winning side can, lose in his little segment. But that's all right, because Christ is Lord. Tucker [01:03:46] Are you afraid of anything? Ha, ha. That is the best place to start. We sit on my way. The one person I really don't trust is me. Doug Wilson [01:03:57] Yeah. Yeah, so, basically, I'm one of the one of my prayers. Don't screw up. No, don't screw up. Right. Yeah. Because basically, that's. There's a great story where, Chesterton was asked, along with a bunch of other men, to submit an essay on what's wrong with the world. You know, they were running a series in the newspaper. What's wrong with the world? And Chesterton wrote a two word essay. It was I am. Tucker [01:04:28] That is wisdom. How do you how does one get an invite to your 50 man Sabbath dinner? Doug Wilson [01:04:33] One chats with me after the show. You'd be most you'd be most welcome anytime. Tucker [01:04:39] I'm definitely going to do that. Pastor Wilson, thank you so much for spending all this time. Doug Wilson [01:04:43] Oh, happy to do it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Tucker [01:04:45] Thank you.

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The Forever Chemical Scandal _ Bloomberg Investigates - PFAS chemicals are used in thousands of products aimed at making life easier. But the chemicals are now almost everywhere, including in human blood, and are being linked to severe health problems. Correction Note: At 37:45, this video incorrectly identifies the year Minnesota's ban on PFAS in food packaging will begin. The ban takes effect in 2024. originally published 11.8.2023

Published Jan 22, 2024 READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] If you don't pay close attention to Joe Biden, you're probably content to dismiss him as just a senile old fool who's exiting the stage at high speed. But if you actually listen to him, if you watch what Joe Biden says, it dawns on you actually, this man is evil, actually evil. Listen to what he says. It's dishonest. It's vicious. It's cruel to his fellow Americans. He's a bad person and he's the president of the United States. And yet no one seems to say that out loud or even notice. Instead, our moral superiors, our overlords, are very exercised about, well some people, you've probably not even heard of, people on the internet who are saying true things, and one of the people makes the maddest is a guy with an account called Catturd. Yes, that's the name. One word on X, formerly Twitter. Catturd has millions of followers and is remarkably, controversial for a person whose name has never been spoken in public. He actually got into a fight with Adam Kinzinger no less than Adam Kinzinger. Speaking of evil, here's in case you forgotten it. Here's what it looked like: Tucker Soundbite [00:01:09] Kinzinger made that clear the other day when he responded personally to a Twitter account called Catturd. Because when you're one of Washington's leading authorities on foreign policy, you spend a lot of time on Twitter reading accounts with names like Catturd. So the other day, Catturd made the mistake of posting a meme that seemed to mock the colors of the Ukrainian flag, colors that are sacred to Adam Kinzinger and every other empathetic soccer mom in her mid-forties. You can imagine how offensive that was. It was like telling an off color joke about Meghan Markle. It could not stand. And so alone and battling debilitating hot flashes in this kitchen, fighting the urge to open yet another bag of Chips Ahoy! Adam Kinzinger fought back literally evil, he wrote in a late night response to Catturd. If I met you in person, it would not end well for you. Sicko. Whoa! Hear that catturd? It will not end well for you. That's not a pillow fight. Adam Kinzinger is talking about. That's a full on slap fight with hair pulling. This is real. You'd better apologize. Our heart goes out to catturd tonight who's probably cowering in a litter box somewhere waiting for Adam Kinzinger to show up with sharpened nails. Tucker [00:02:20] So catturd enraged Adam Kinzinger. And it's also been noticed on late night comedy shows. Watch. James Cordon Soundbite [00:02:27] And things seem to hit a new low last night as he retweeted three times and accounts called Catturd. Now, to be fair, the cat is wearing glasses, so it must be smart. The actual Twitter handle for the account is cattturd 2, and I, for one, cannot wait to see what's in store from catturd three. Catturd sounds like someone Joe Biden would have brought up in a speech during the primaries. When I was growing up in Scranton, that was a real mean son of a gun. We used to call him catturd. He could do up and be bop like nobody's business. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Climate change. Tucker [00:03:14] Well, there's a reason nobody watches late night comedy shows anymore. But still, catturd seems to offend people. Why is that? Who is this man who's catturd one? Well, we found him. He's a man. He's from the South. That's all we know. He wants to keep his name private because he doesn't want his life any more disrupted than it already has been. But he is joining us anyway in physical form. Catturd, It's great to see you. Catturd [00:03:35] How are you doing? So you've made it Tucker. Tucker [00:03:39] So many questions. So, I actually don't know your real name, just for the record. Okay, what year did you graduate from Yale? Catturd [00:03:49] Yeah, I graduated Yale, I think 1984. Tucker [00:03:54] No seriously. No, I'm guessing you didn't go to Yale. I mean that- Catturd [00:03:56] Went to Harvard after Yale. Tucker [00:03:59] You went to Harvard. I remember you so well there. Where are you? Like, what? What was your preparation for being catturd? Like, tell us your life trajectory. Who are you without revealing your name? Catturd [00:04:08] Well, I'm from northwest Florida, I mean, Georgia. Yeah, well, I live in northwest Florida now, but. So I graduated high school kind of early at 17. Joined the Army. I was telling you earlier, I spent my 18th birthday in a foxhole, in Fort Dix, New Jersey, in basic training back when it really was basic training. And then, I got injured when I was over in Bad Kissingen in Germany, and we were on alert, and I hurt my back real bad and had surgery. And that was pretty much the end of my Army career. I was, back to Fort Morgan, Georgia. Had back surgery. I actually tried to stay in, but, they wouldn't let me. Tucker [00:04:51] Yeah. Catturd [00:04:51] I mean, it's been something I've had to deal with my whole life. Tucker [00:04:53] So they wrecked your body and then kicked you out? Yeah. Pretty good. Okay. Catturd [00:04:57] You know, that's honorable medical discharge, but. Yeah. And so, after that, I hitchhiked to Panama City, and I've pretty much been in the Panhandle ever since. You know, I'm 59 years old. I spent, you know, just like most people, I was, I'm different than most of the influencers that, do all the right things. Have the kids or the suit and ties. I pretty much was, screwed up until I was about 40, 45 years old. Tucker [00:05:28] You were really-. Catturd [00:05:29] Where I had a couple of failed marriages, followed by, I was just I was a professional musician for years. I was a hippie. I had long hair and a beard and smoked weed and had a VW van and- Tucker [00:05:40] Really? Catturd [00:05:41] Dyed shirts. I did, I was a real hippie. I went from job to job. Tucker [00:05:47] Partied a lot. Catturd [00:05:48] You're there. Yeah. Partied a lot. I had my stint with drugs and alcohol and, you know, I don't know why everybody scared. You know, everybody. Big famous picture. You know, this big picture of how, you know, in the world that we live in today is just like, just I've always been honest with my followers and on my podcast. Tucker [00:06:07] I don't trust people who don't know how weak they are. Catturd [00:06:10] I know, yeah. And so I, kind of aimlessly went through my life and, then I finally ended up, you know, working a good fiber optics job for years. At 54 years old, which was five years ago. I'd never been on social media. I didn't know anything about social media. I don't even know how it worked. I had no friends on social media, and I just decided to have, I got arthritis in my fingers. I couldn't play guitar anymore. And I was just like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to get on Twitter. And I just, you know, saw the cat just said cat turd. I never thought I'd have 100 followers, you know, who think that? It's just like it's like Homer Simpson. Now, cancer is it's way beyond me. You know, they're doing. Tucker [00:06:55] Wait, if I have to ask you, pause. What was the moment when you decided to make that your nom de guerre? Catturd [00:07:02] I just was like, surfing through the web, and I saw that cat picture, and it just cat turd. He was that simple. I mean, you know, I don't think anybody's ever going to follow me. I remember asking people for weeks, how do I post a picture on it here? And so I don't even know how it took off. It just got legs somehow and it just took off. Tucker [00:07:21] So. But why did you do it? Catturd [00:07:23] What did I do? Tucker [00:07:24] Why did you go online and start giving your opinions? Catturd [00:07:26] I don't know. Well, I've always been, as a professional musician, in the 90s, you, you know, you have to be good at construction. Tucker [00:07:38] Yeah. Catturd [00:07:39] If you. Yeah. Because you got to make money. Tucker [00:07:40] Sorry. I'm a little slow. I never. Catturd [00:07:44] So you better learn to build stuff. So, you know, me and my band guys, we were. We were builders. Now we build decks, roofs, build up, build a house, whatever. And so in the 90s, you're bored, and, you know, we play music at night. We don't even listen to music. So I started listening to Rush Limbaugh. Really? So every day we listen to Rush Limbaugh, well, we're building houses, whatever. Tucker [00:08:05] You and every construction crew in America. Catturd [00:08:07] Yeah. And it just it just like this was I didn't even know I was a hippie. I thought I was a liberal, I didn't know what I was still and I was like, this guy say and everything, I believe. And, it was, it was, you know, I listened to him till the day died. Really? Yeah. I'm total rush, baby. And it was just like, this guy's talking exactly what I think. And I never even knew what I was until, you know, I started listening to him, but that's how I got in. And I was just a political junkie from the first time I heard him. And it's just been like that ever since. So I got on, you know, Twitter now X and just started posting and, man. What a five years. Tucker [00:08:51] It's unbelievable. I mean. But why did you do that? I mean, a lot of people have political opinions, but they don't imagine that other people want to read them, or they don't feel compelled to share them with the world on a social media app. Catturd [00:09:04] I don't know why it caught fire. Tucker [00:09:06] But why did you want to do it? Because you were frustrated? Catturd [00:09:08] Yeah, I guess, I just, you know, I think as artistic, although I didn't play on stage a lot in last years, I would always go to my room and I wrote a lot of music. I actually wrote my best stuff then, and it was just. I need that artistic outlet. Tucker [00:09:22] Yes. Catturd [00:09:23] And, when I lost that, I was really kind of depressed because I'd lost my fingers. Just like overnight. They started swelling up. I got arthritis from playing guitar and using power tools my whole life. And, I was just like, I just need to do something. And so I just got on social media. Just it's just a spur of the moment was my birthday. It's like two days after my birthday, so I'm gonna join Twitter. And I was asking people. I was calling people, how do you join Twitter or how do you do a picture? Tucker [00:09:51] How there your membership committee? Catturd [00:09:52] What's the rules? Tucker [00:09:56] So when at what point did it I can't remember the first time I saw it, but, at what point did you realize it was working? Catturd [00:10:04] I don't know. I remember after 2 or 3 months I was I was working on a job in Miami, and I told one of my friends that I was that was rooming with me at the time. We were working there as a menace. Things really taken off and he thought I was crazy. So what? I said this cat turd thing and he's just, he he thought I was nuts. Just, you know, everybody. And I was trying to tell everybody these things really taken off and everybody just like, whatever, you know, here's the shovel start. Get the rocks over there. And oh, and it just it just caught fire. I don't know how I don't know how it did. And it just keeps going. Tucker [00:10:39] Wow. I mean, so you're in Miami rooming with another guy that you're working with. Yeah. On some kind of job? Catturd [00:10:47] Yeah. Fiber optics job. I did fiber optic construction for years after I got finished. You know, with my music career. Tucker [00:10:55] And, like, at the point that Adam Kinzinger starts replying to you and threatening your life. Oh, yeah. By the way, that would be quite a slap fight. Do you feel confident? Catturd [00:11:05] I don't know. You know, it's, he's scary. Catturd [00:11:09] You know. I want to see eye to eye with him. So I'm gonna go get a Home Depot five gallon bucket and stand on it. Tucker [00:11:17] But when Adam Kinzinger himself. Oh, yeah, he's got a, you know, he's got Ukraine to defend. Oh, yeah. He's super busy. Like there's a transitioning or whatever he's doing. When he takes time to attack you and threaten to beat you up or scratch you. Catturd [00:11:33] Yeah, like, that wasn't my meme. I just said, I think I said I shouldn't be laughing at this, but it's funny. Yeah. And then, and then it made it worse. You know, once he does that, that he he don't understand how the internet works. Now, they got his face on it. Yeah. You know, I know now all the time. You see that meme? It's his face on it now. Tucker [00:11:49] Well, how do you understand how the internet works? Catturd [00:11:51] I don't know, I just somehow do. Tucker [00:11:55] Interesting. Yeah. So what is it done to your life? Catturd [00:11:59] Well, it's totally changed my life. You know, financially, I started selling merch, and then, I got a podcast. You know, we got, Jules and I have a co-host, Jules Jones. Our podcast is called In the Litter Box. And, you know, we got a deal with Rumble, which we love. We love Rumble. And, and then, you know, fast forward to these ad shares, which are crazy, you know, with Elon Musk. I mean, it's big money. And, I bought a new truck a couple of weeks ago and never had a new vehicle in my life. Tucker [00:12:35] Yeah. Tucker [00:13:18] It's the most American story ever. Catturd [00:13:20] It really is. Tucker [00:13:21] It really is nuts. Catturd [00:13:23] There's, I don't think there's a lot of people like my situation because like I said, most of the influencers are I mean, they just they've, they've and and they did the right thing, not me. I did the wrong thing. They did the right thing. They've got great wives and kids and, you know, they've made a lot of money. They've got, you know, parents that are successful. And they went to college for sure. And I'm just a working class stiff. Tucker [00:13:47] That well, that's the ruling class of the country. Yeah. And I'm from it. So I know, yeah, so it's pretty amazing to see this happen to you. Catturd [00:13:56] It is. Tucker [00:13:56] And so how much of your day is spent on it? Catturd [00:14:00] Pretty much seven days a week. I'm an insomniac. I always have been. So I get up at 4 or 5 and I basically. Do it seven days a week. You know, 15 hours a day. Tucker [00:14:12] What? So, but you're. You spent your life moving physically, moving outside. Obviously, it's been hard on your body, as you said. Catturd [00:14:21] Oh, it has. Tucker [00:14:21] But it's also there's something good about moving and, I mean, what's it like the change at 55 to go from, you know, being on the road, installing fiber cable to sitting behind the screen all day. Catturd [00:14:33] Oh. It's fantastic. Screw moving. No, but, well, I'm. Tucker [00:14:42] Sorry. That's so awesome. Tucker [00:15:00] 13 rescues? Catturd [00:15:02] Yeah. 13. Now. Tucker [00:15:03] What's that like? Catturd [00:15:05] It's, well, I post all the pictures online, and it's all these beautiful pictures, but they don't see all the fights and the growling, and, you know, they're. He's swallowing a bone and he's swallowed a rope, and they're all chasing a squirrel and they're fighting and, you know, they don't see all that, but it's it. I don't know what happened. But they just started coming to me. I've never been to a rescue shelter. They. I've found all my pets, starving and beaten and abandoned and just on the side of the road, all the dogs. I got two puppies. One of the dogs I got, came in, and she was young. I didn't think anything about it. And she got pregnant. And before I knew it, it was just like I had ten puppies too. Catturd [00:15:51] Two on top of this. And it's funny because I gave them away, and they got Twitter accounts like, I use Twitter accounts, and people follow the puppies like I'm puppy dirty. Tucker [00:16:02] Why do you adopt so many animals? Catturd [00:16:04] I just, I mean, when you see a dog starving, what are you going to do? And then I try to tell myself, I'm going to rehome some of these. And then you spend so much time with them trying to just, like, get them fed. Yeah. They're so the ones I find they're so almost dead, starving to death. So. And then I fall in love with them, and I can't let them go. And it's that simple. Tucker [00:16:29] Wow. That's, I mean, that's pretty. That's pretty amazing. Catturd [00:16:32] But I got to stop. Tucker [00:16:36] Well, now you can afford the dog food. Tucker [00:16:37] Yeah. So, I can and, you know, it's just kind of turn turning thing where people say, hey, cat turd, I got a rescue, and we found on the side of the road, so I'll post it or I'll repost it, and, it's just turned into something I do. I've had kennels built, and you got to keep them separated. Some of them, you know, some of them are fine. They're ten years old, some I found their puppies and some of them just don't like each other. Tucker [00:18:05] Well, tell us what that's like. Catturd [00:18:06] Well, it always usually happens during my podcast, but. So, the last time they, they call and pretend to be me and they said that, that I caught my wife in bed with somebody and I'm not married, so. And, shot on both. And then when the police get there, I'm going to kill them. So they'll try to come up and get you. They try to get you murdered. That's what it is. It's attempted murder. If you ask me. During your podcast. During the, it's always during the podcast. It's happened to me three times. It's happened to a lot of us. You know, it's happened to Marjorie Taylor Greene temple. But once you know, everybody's once you get to a certain level, they're, they're going to come after you. I have they've lately they've been cutting heads off rabbits and throwing them off the body over my gate. That's happened three times now too. Catturd [00:18:57] So we live in a country where the citizenry is surveilled much more thoroughly than North Korea's surveillance its own citizens. Like everything you do is monitored right through your phone. Facial recognition, satellites, everything is monitored. But they can't find the people who are doing this. Yeah. And are they even interested in finding if it happens to us? You know, I mean, who do we call? Who do you call? Tucker [00:19:22] Who do you call? Catturd [00:19:23] Because there is no. By now the local police where I live are awesome. And I support the blue I always have. I just don't support the feds at all. I mean, look what they've turned into. Tucker. It's. It's awful. Tucker [00:19:35] So you call the local cops when this happens. And what do they say? Catturd [00:19:38] Well, the first time I did it, they were like, you're cat turd. And so. Yeah. So I left him after the first time. I gave him a bunch of gear. You know, here, it's got dirt stuff. But they actually come and they patrol my property a lot. Mainly because it's a one horse town. There's nothing else to do. Tucker [00:19:57] Yeah. Catturd [00:19:59] But, they're great, and they watch it like a hawk. You know, they're very protective of it, but. It's like if somebody on the left annoys me, which they do a lot, I'll mute them. Right? If I annoy people, which I understand, I do, they try to have me killed. I mean. Tucker [00:20:17] That's a. Catturd [00:20:17] Big gap. Tucker [00:20:18] Right? It's a big. Tucker [00:20:19] Looting. Attemped Murder. Tucker [00:20:25] So you spend your life watching what's happening. Catturd [00:20:28] Oh, yeah. Tucker [00:20:29] What conclusions have you drawn? Where do you think we're going this year? Catturd [00:20:32] Well, we're in trouble. I mean, it's just. I always try to be positive, but sometimes I can't see a way out of it anymore, can you? I mean, I just don't see a way out of it. And I'm a Trump supporter. I'm a Trump guy. Yeah, if you know, I go back to the it cracks me. The funniest thing to me on X is all the people that do whatever the government says that put resist in their bodies. That's the funniest thing, you know. Black lives matter. Tucker [00:20:59] Obedient little bitches. Catturd [00:21:01] Yeah, whatever. And, they can tell them anything and they'll do it. What if you can convince your voters that men can have babies? Yeah. Think about that. You've got em. Yeah. Know you can tell them. Tell them the word dirty diaper on their head. They're going to do it. They will. Well, they did this. If you don't have a dirty diaper on your head. But once, once they can convince you of that. I mean, you got to know these people are laughing when they're at the bar. The Democrats and the. We've convinced them that men can have babies, and they believe it. And they're calling everybody names. That doesn't believe it. Tuciker [00:21:37] So do you see that changing at all? Catturd [00:21:40] I believe the woke, is the woke part of it is coming to a head. I really do, I think its people are tired of I am and we don't care what names you call us. And I'm a person who believes I don't. You know, I was a hippie. I was a real hippie. Not all these fake hippies online. I was an actual hippie. I mean, I live, I was homeless at one time. I lived up in a tent in a lake for months. Tucker [00:22:02] How was it? Catturd [00:22:04] It was good. I could call it crappy. And I eat them. Every night. You. Tucker [00:22:10] You had crappy every night. Catturd [00:22:12] Oh, well, yeah. You gotta eat somehow. Yeah, so it's a rough spot to be in, but, what are you down that. Tucker [00:22:22] You're saying that people are getting sick of the anti-white stuff, the trans stuff, all that. Catturd [00:22:28] But the kids have a chance. I mean, think about this. I'm 59, and I think you're in your 50s, and we went to school. There was, you know, we actually learned mathematics, social studies, history. But they think about a kid these days. He goes to school, so they start when they're 3 or 4 in kindergarten and they don't have a chance. They look what they do to them now. They're like critical race theory. You get over there. Are you a racist? And you're okay, you're racist. And then they put a mask on you and they teach you that the air you breathe is poison. And then they tell you you're all going to die and burn in hell fire from global warming in 12 years. Think about these little kids, how scared they are. They scare the hell out of them. And then it's, trans this. And they're showing BJs to seven years old in books. And then they go through the whole school and it's like that, and then they step into college. And what's college? This turbo now, you know, and they're brainwashed through. And I honestly think the longer you stay in college, the dumber you get now. Tucker [00:23:36] There isn't any question about it. It makes a lot of sense. Catturd [00:23:39] And so you have these teachers so they go they go through that and then they go and they stay in college as long as they can, or they're 30 years old, and then they go right from there to a teaching job. So they stay on campus until they're 50. So they don't have any life experience. They've never they don't know what it's like to to work for a living or run a business. And they're the ones teaching, you know, and it's just it's horrible. So they don't have a chance. Tucker [00:24:05] So all of this or some of it is going to come to a head this calendar year because of the presidential election. Oh yeah. Where do you see that going? Catturd [00:24:15] Well, man, Trump's going to win the primary. I hope everybody knows that we got him all round and, fight each other and the DeSantis people. We're all I'm in there. We're all fighting each other. But Trump is going to win the primary and he should win it. But what they're doing to him, and they're not, they're not doing it to Trump to do it to Trump. They hate him. But, I always say on the podcast that Washington's okay, as long as they have George Bush versus Obama every year, that's what they want. They want George Bush versus Obama every four years. They split up the $4 trillion where their friends, some of them get it. Sometimes some of them get, but that's what they want. They want Bush versus Obama. They're okay with that. Yeah, they love Nikki Haley. Of course. You know, can. Tucker [00:25:08] Can I ask you to pause? Yeah. And since you're online all day, do you think there's organic support for Nikki Haley? Catturd [00:25:14] There's none. Tucker [00:25:15] Okay. Because she's. I'm not even sure she's an actual human being. Catturd [00:25:18] Yeah, she's the most dangerous. Republican primary candidate. We've had probably one of them in my lifetime. Tucker [00:25:26] Why do you say that? Catturd [00:25:27] She's just I mean, some of the things she said, like she's a neocon number one. Yeah. I mean, my God, how how many times are you going to be fooled America? I mean, from the Vietnam War. Vietnam, North Vietnam beat South Vietnam. It's the it's over for our country. Yeah. So let's send 60,000 people to Korea was, all the Middle Eastern wars. And, she's right in there. Ukraine. Tucker [00:25:53] But unlike you, she served our country in uniform. Oh wait. Catturd [00:25:56] Oh, yeah. Tucker [00:25:58] Yeah. Catturd [00:25:58] Yeah. But she's dangerous. And remember when she said a week ago, if you're anonymous on Twitter or whatever, I want your name. That's what she said. Tucker [00:26:08] You got to register with the government to give your- Catturd [00:26:10] I want your name. Not the government wants it. I do. She's dangerous. I just I get a feel for people. I've always had a knack to kind of feel people out, and I just. It's just. She's like Mike Pence. Nothing they say is authentic. Everything sounds like it's program cliches. Tucker [00:26:30] Yes. Catturd [00:26:31] I've had a lot of bosses in my life and some nasty ones, you know, that's the way bosses are. Yeah. And every person I've ever talked to in my life and ever boss I ever have, they talk exactly like Trump. All of them. I don't have anybody in my life that sits up there like Mike Pence. And, you know, a bird in the hands or two in the bush. You know, just every cliche you can imagine. Tucker [00:26:52] Do you get a creepy vibe off Pence. Catturd [00:26:54] Total. I say on the podcast sometimes. I don't know what skeletons, I'd hate to see what goes on there when the lights go out. Tucker [00:27:04] So, I'm not. Catturd [00:27:05] Just nobody's that perfect, you know? Quit acting perfect. I remember that time. He was like, I can't even have lunch with another woman because I'm married. Even if we're friends. Remember he said. Tucker [00:27:14] Yeah, that's what I was like. Yeah, I had a lot of thoughts about that. I mean, by the way, I think you should. If you're married, you should really actively try not to commit adultery. I think that's attitude. I totally agree with that 100%. But him specifically saying that I reached exactly the opposite conclusion, I'm just going to say that. Catturd [00:27:31] Yeah. I don't trust, when they're that perfect in the it's all, it's just like it's planned. Everything they say is planned and I just that that's why I like Trump. You know, to make some bad, everybody, I don't believe everything you say. You don't believe everything I say. I don't believe Trump doesn't believe everything I say. But I mean what they're doing now. He's already an iconic figure, and they're going to turn him into a martyr. And they're making him more powerful and more powerful and more powerful. And I could see him if the election was fair, I could see him just totally steamrolling. If it was fair, I know it would be. Tucker [00:28:09] You think it will be? Catturd [00:28:12] Well, who do we have, to fight. Who do we have to fight? Ronna McDaniel. Give me a break. I mean, we got Scott Pressler out there beating the streets. He's beating a street like, you know, like a bicycle clown out there. He is going around everywhere. He's registering voters, here on the ground in the Republican Party won't give him the time of day. He knows every rule to every county in this country. And that's, if you can have a thousand of him out there and they train another thousand, you could sweep this thing. Tucker [00:28:43] Why do you think they're not doing that? Catturd [00:28:45] Well. Tucker [00:28:46] I mean, why would you have someone as mediocre and incapable as Ronna McDaniel, who has no track record of success in any area. Why would she run the Republican Party? That's pretty weird. Catturd [00:28:55] I have no idea. Remember when, you know, 90% of the people were complaining about her, you know, getting the job again? I remember one of the donors. So, yeah, this has nothing to do with, the donors pick this. I remember reading a story like that. Tucker [00:29:10] That sounds true. Tucker [00:29:32] Why do you think they hate him so much? Catturd [00:29:35] Because he's not a part of their club. This is not about Trump to me. It's just like, this is an outsider. And we're going to destroy his life, and we're going to show everybody out there. That if you pick an outsider, somebody that we hadn't picked, going back to a Bush versus, you know, Obama situation, if it's not the people we pick that are we are okay with, we're going to destroy their lives. We're going to can't even get a lawyer. They're arrest your lawyer for defending you. And we're going to make up stuff. We're going to sell your property that's worth $1 billion, is worth $13.74. We're going to do whatever we can. And this is to show not just Trump, but to anybody. In the next 50 years, we will see the FBI, the CIA, we will destroy you if you're not our chosen people. And that's what I think's going on. Tucker [00:30:27] If Trump is prevented from appearing on the ballot in November, if he's arrested, you know something even worse happens, which is entirely possible. Catturd [00:30:38] The next step. Tucker [00:30:39] Of course, its the next step. I don't want to say it out loud, everyone. Catturd [00:30:41] I hate saying it Tucker [00:30:43] Of course I'm not going to, but everyone knows I'm talking about. But if he is prevented, if democracy is prevented from proceeding, what do you think the response from his voters is going to be? Since you follow this carefully? Catturd [00:30:56] Well, why do you think they do the January 6th things? They want you scared that if you do anything, you could be, you know, 80 foot away, you know, outside the tape of the Capitol, you could be half a mile away and they're going to come after you. Tucker [00:31:09] Because there haven't been any. I mean, this used to be a country where people felt free to assemble, as is guaranteed them in the Constitution, to make their views known. The demonstrations and rallies you haven't seen, January 6th was the last one on the right that I'm aware of. Catturd [00:31:25] They that's what they're trying to do, scare you. Tucker [00:31:27] So but do you think that there will be demonstrations if something. Catturd [00:31:32] Oh yeah. But like I say, they're just making him more powerful. Tucker [00:31:38] Making Trump more powerful. Tucker [00:31:50] I agree with that. Catturd [00:31:50] He's going to be one of the biggest figures in the history of our country, not because of what he did, but because of how they're treating him. And they're making him more powerful. And if he gets arrested, he gets put in a jail. Can you imagine if it could happen? People say, could happen. Oh, it could happen. Tucker [00:32:08] It could happen very easily. Who should he pick as his running mate? Catturd [00:32:12] Oh, man. I go back and forth from this. I would like to say this, that I don't think the VP pick really matters that much. I mean, we got Harris as V.P.. Tucker [00:32:23] That's right. Catturd [00:32:24] Yeah, but. I'll tell you, it takes a long time for me to trust you. But I'm starting to like Vivek, and I'm not sure if he's fake. And I'm not sure if it's just a show, but, man, he's pissing them off. Oh, that is me and you. Tucker [00:32:40] Yeah, they hate him. Catturd [00:32:41] They do. And he's saying, I mean, boy, he the damn debate. My God, he got Rona McDanield. He got all of mad, but he in in it. Funny, he's running the campaign exactly what DeSantis should have been running. He's running the campaign that DeSantis. But Desantis is running a Nikki Haley campaign. Tucker [00:33:01] Does it seem that way? Catturd [00:33:02] It does to me. I think you said something about his own team is just so cringe. And I- Tucker [00:33:08] I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have gotten involved in that. I've been trying to stay out of it. I just and I know someone- Catturd [00:33:15] But they are. I don't understand it. I mean, people like, you know, people build trust with you. It's consistency over time. And when you're a Trump supporter, well, some of them hated Trump. Then you loved Trump and you loved him, and now you loved Desantis. And then if he's gone you're going to love Nikki Haley. People don't trust that. And I don't have anything against any of them. I mute a lot of them. You'd a lot of them. I don't carry grudges with people. And I welcome anybody in when it's over. You know, I don't have any. Tucker [00:33:46] Do you think? But it does. I mean, I don't follow it very closely. I'll admit. I don't want to follow it closely, but it does seem like there's an enormous bitterness between the DeSantis people and the Trump people. Catturd [00:33:57] Oh there is. It's crazy. And I try not to get into the personal attacks. I'm kind of like Trump even on X. I I'll if you want to, you know, I'm a shitpost or if you want, if you want to come out the ship poster with 2 million followers. Come on. And an army of, you know, foaming at the mouth is waiting for me, say some, you know, to get on somebody. But I'm very seldom I don't just attack first. But, you know, if you keep attacking me. Yeah, and but it doesn't bother me. I don't take any of this stuff personally. I mean, I don't either, you know, they call me every name in the book, you know, what I'll be called, you know, they'll, you know, you're old, you're fat, you're ugly. I mean, that's how they fight, you know, which all three are kind of true. But people get so mad at this, and you have to, like, if you have to step back from it. And I think it's funny, I've lived in the real world where, you know, I've been in bar fight, you know, I mean, I, I'm real, you know, stuff. So you know, somebody's calling me ugly and old and Boomer, I don't care. Catturd [00:35:12] Yeah. Do you, I don't care. Tucker [00:35:19] I dont even know what people say. I care what the people I love say. That's it. And like you I have a lot of dogs which really helps. Do you think the breach between those two camps, Trump Desantis, can be fixed? Catturd [00:35:20] Thats me. Yeah. I think, you know, some of it, some people can't, but most people can. But this is my first primary. I mean, it's been I don't know if it's ever been this vicious, but, so I supported DeSantis, some Florida guy, and I was glad he was either good or not. I don't get paid by any campaign. And I pushed hard, and I was so glad when he won by 20 points and I was so happy. And I think he's a good governor. And, so and I try to tell people you got, I don't want him so beaten down and hammered that we end up getting a blue governor next, you know, a Gavin Newsom to destroy our state. I mean you're here now. But someone from his team. Not crazy, but they asked me my honest opinion about it. When he said he was going to run, and I was like, don't do it. Whatever you do, don't run. Think about. And this is what I told him. I said, okay, he's 44. Yeah. And he just won reelection by the biggest landslide. I was like govern your state. Perfecty. How perfect is the timing when you're with the end of your eight years is up? It's right. Would be right. Getting in the meat of the 2028. That's right. So I this is what I term support Trump because he helped you and you don't you don't want the Trump supporters. They can destroy you. I mean you don't want them. You know you don't want to turn on them I swear I said look, just please, this is my advice. Just have him govern governor, support Trump all he can. And in 28, you got Biden with only four years left for Trump with only four years left. And now you're more popular. And now you have all the Trump people, you have all the DeSantis people, and you can moonwalk into the white House in 2028. Moonwalk. That's my exact words I used. Tucker [00:37:23] What was the response you got? Catturd [00:37:25] You know, okay, nice. Tucker [00:37:26] Yeah. Catturd [00:37:29] A lot of people don't take me too seriously, but it and I hate it. I hate it's going like this, but. Tucker [00:37:35] A lot of people do take you seriously, which is interesting. It is. And I can see why I think you're insightful. Catturd [00:37:40] You know, think. Tucker [00:37:40] How many politicians have you met personally? Catturd [00:37:43] Well, when they when, personally, you know, I kind of keep to myself, but dumb wise and messaged me. They all love me when it comes to election time. Hey, will you retweet this and retweet this? And, I can't name five people in either party, I trust. I just don't trust anybody anymore. And they don't. They don't deserve our trust. The Republican Party, I mean, come on, they don't know how to fight. Tucker [00:38:07] You know? Catturd [00:38:08] I know they're over there talking about their principles and their rest in their political opponent. So you better get in the game and we get the power of the gavel. And what do they do with it? Seriously? Nothing. I mean, this is how you fight when you get to gavel, you do your own January 6th committee. Tucker [00:38:25] But do you think it's because they don't understand how to fight or they're throwing the match? Catturd [00:38:29] I don't know if they just don't care. Yeah. Ah, they don't know how. Ah, they're just cowards. But the truth is, see, this is how you fight. You get a January 6th committee and you don't allow any Democrats on it, and you put everybody on it. They hate just like they did, she put Marjorie Taylor Greene. Boebert. Matt Gaetz. That's the January 6th committee. You don't allow them to have any witnesses and you start subpoena and let's see what Nancy Pelosi was talking to the Capitol Police. She starts attacking and everybody. And you have it on C-Span every day for years. And if they if you don't start fighting like that, it's over for this country. Tucker [00:39:02] Well, but and also you have an obligation to that because it's in pursuit of the truth, I know. What do you make of the fact that the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has not released the videotape, which he controls? Catturd [00:39:14] Well, I told everybody, you know, that he was he was going to be awful. I warned everybody there had that little Kumbaya moment. He did what did he do? Exactly what Kevin McCarthy did. He said he's going to release it. So they get the big headlines, gets everybody excited. They release 1% of 1%, and then they just don't do it anymore. And look what when you release that the shaman, he got out of prison because of that one little five minutes. Think of what if they would just release it. Just release it. But they can't do it. It's just push the button, just push the button and release it. I know when he was talking about Ukraine fund and he's like, well, we have to at some point do the Ukraine funding because we don't want Russia steamrolling over Europe. That was his exact words. Or I'm paraphrasing. Tucker [00:40:02] Do you think I mean, obviously you'd have to be really stupid to believe that. I'm assuming he's not stupid. I mean, why would he say something. Catturd [00:40:09] Is that it's the same thing they always do to get us ginned up about a war. Tucker [00:40:13] Also, by the way, if Russia invaded Western Europe, could it be in worse shape than it is now? I mean, it was the US government that blew up the German economy. It wasn't the Russians. It was the Biden administration that blew up Nord Stream. Oh yeah. And ended their main source of cheap energy. So it could the Russians be worse than that? Maybe, I guess, but, like, I don't get it. Catturd [00:40:33] Well, you know, they've used Ukraine as kind of their 51st state and they were no rules. Yeah. The bio labs, which they lied about and told the truth. Everybody in Washington, their kids over there making $4 million a year, you know, at some kind of company. But so I don't I don't let them gin me up, and and they try to gin you up more and get you mad. And I can't get emotional when we have 100,000 people. Donna. Fentanyl poisoning in our own country. I'm not going to get emotional. I hate war, I'm anti war. I'm the one that wants a peace deal. You're the one who wants to keep. And here's the problem with Ukraine. I think we're going to end up in the same spot a year or so from now. I think there going to be a peace agreement at some point, and there's going to be a million dead people, and Russia's going to take a little bit of the country, and we're going to be in the same place we would have been. Tucker [00:41:22] And no one will ever apologize for all those dead. Catturd [00:41:24] And they're just going to call us Putin puppets because we want peace. And that's it. Tucker [00:41:28] I couldn't agree more. So let first of all, thank you for doing this. Catturd [00:41:31] I appreciate no problem. Tucker [00:41:33] Last question. You, so you've you went from installing fiber line to becoming legitimately famous. Only because of your voice you were allowed to talk in public. It was purely democratic, like people liked what you said. They supported you. All of that is contingent on having a voice. Do you think a year from now you will have the same voice? You'll be allowed to say the things that you are saying now? Catturd [00:41:57] Well, I hope so. But, you see what they're doing to come after me? I you know, I hate to say this, but I tell my family all the time, hey, they had big frame me. Who know? I mean, I don't trust him. No. And I hate saying that I want an FBI. I don't feel that way about. But, hey, you know, they can do anything they can. If they want to get me, they're going to get me. But I'm not going to. Shut up. So that's it. I'm not shutting up. Tucker [00:42:24] So do you feel that you will be able to reach the same audience a year from now? Tucker [00:42:47] And where did you do it? Catturd [00:42:48] Yeah, that's a redneck Riviera. Up at his place in November. That's what my big coming out where I got to see me. And I had some great musicians. We're actually, one of the, musicians, Angie Shapiro, who is a. It's got a you'd love this story. Tucker, it's the great American comeback story. He wrote, a cry for, Faith Hill. And she won a Grammy. And he was this, like, unbelievable musician with his voice. And, he was on his way up, sign with, you know, a record label. And then he had a stroke and completely lost his voice and couldn't talk. And so he spent, I think 2016, 2017 learn how to talk again. And so now he's on his way back up and we he was he was there and, we're doing an event for him on the 24th. So I'm going to just keep kind of staying in my lane and, just do what I do. You know, I probably won't go into the red carpet events to meet everybody and get pictures. Tucker [00:43:59] So we're going to miss you at Davos next week. Catturd [00:44:02] Yeah. I'm not going to be there. Tucker [00:44:03] You're not going to be there. Catturd [00:44:04] Yeah I don't know. I just don't seem like a fit in there to me. I'm more of the hanging out with the people kind of person. No, but it was nice to meet you. And I really appreciate you inviting me. Tucker [00:44:16] We're grateful to have you. Catturd, Thank you.

READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] So the current debate over AI artificial intelligence is about whether the technology will become sentient and autonomous and enslave us all. And of course, that will probably happen. But in the meantime, we thought it'd be interesting revisiting the original debate about AI, which is about how it affects work. What are the rest of us going to do for a living when machines can do it for us? And there's nobody who's thought more deeply about this in about work in general, and its centrally to human dignity, then Mike Rowe. And we are, as always, honored to have him in studio. Mike, thank you for coming on. Mike Rowe [00:00:34] First of all, you win the desk. Tucker [00:00:37] It's wood. Mike Rowe [00:00:37] Are you kidding? I mean, how old is this? Mike Rowe [00:01:00] What happened after the hurricane down here? Because I know, I know, that was a big deal. And I know you love trees. And I know that couldn't have been great. Tucker [00:01:08] Yes, but most of the trees in Florida are fake trees. Actually, they're not real. That I don't think a palm tree is actually a tree. I mean, the tree is a white pine, a tree is a sequoia, a tree is, you know, all the various hardwoods, oak, beech, locust, Locust. Exactly. Cut some locust of summer. Anyways, sorry. Mike Rowe [00:01:29] Chop your own wood. It'll warm you one. Tucker [00:01:31] Yes. That's exactly three times. Good to stack it and then split it. Yeah. So what the. I saw, like, seven years ago, I remember talking to you, I think was about seven years ago, about what I was going to do to working class America, to truck drivers. The most common job for high school educated men. And, you know, a lot of thoughts about that. But the conversation has progressed so dramatically since then. And so is the technology. Right. So where are you on thinking about that? Mike Rowe [00:01:58] So there was a time when the big conversation. At least in my lane anyway, was really more about robotics and tech, right? The robots are going to come and they're going to displace a lot of blue collar jobs. And how do we stop that? How do we think about that? And I remember you and I talked about the Luddite rebellion. Mike Rowe [00:02:15] Yes. Tucker [00:02:17] We talked about endorsing it actually. Mike Rowe [00:02:18] Yes. Right. And it's like and the disruption theories and this idea that real replacement is, is going to happen, it almost never happens as I understand it. You know, I've seen it in our industry too. You know, there's a lot of talk about you know, what was going to happen when newspapers when film came along, what was going to happen to film when came along? Yeah. What was going to happen to music and DVDs? And I mean, none of it really goes away. But it all shifts. It's all impacted. Tucker [00:02:50] Yes. Mike Rowe [00:02:50] So I was struck by the fact that all of a sudden we weren't talking about the impact of robots on blue collar jobs, but the impact of AI on white collar jobs. Right? That's what interested me. Tucker [00:03:05] And which I enjoyed. Mike Rowe [00:03:07] Well, I mean. Tucker [00:03:08] Sorry, I'm a bad person, but- Mike Rowe [00:03:10] Look, it is super creepy. I mean, I got a link from a buddy who said, hey, man, not for nothing. But I went on to one of these sites, and I said narrate for me in the style of Mike Rowe. These two paragraphs. And he sent me a link to this. And basically it was two paragraphs from an old episode of Deadliest Catch. And I hit play and I listen to me now. Had I not known it was not me. I would have thought, well that's something I narrated you know, for fun. Tucker [00:03:44] I couldn't tell the difference. Mike Rowe [00:03:45] Couldn't tell when I listened for it. I heard some things that made me go maybe. Maybe not quite, but that was two months ago. Which might as well be two years ago or 20 years ago. So the speed with which artificial intelligence. Something about Moore's Law. Something faster. Tucker [00:04:00] Faster, and that's running faster. Mike Rowe [00:04:02] So I, I part of me wants to say, don't forget the lesson from the Luddites. Don't it's not going to completely upend everything. Unless it does. And I don't know because this does feel different. Tucker [00:04:18] I don't know, I had a motorcycle once with a crack in the intake manifold that I didn't see, and it made it obviously run lean. And I ran so great, faster and faster and faster and faster until literally the spark plug burned a hole through the piston. I uses it, yeah, as a pen holder in my desk today. But there's something about speed and acceleration that has a natural limit, doesn't it? Tucker [00:04:57] Or at least I have a sexual encounter with the person. Mike Rowe [00:04:59] Look, here's how jacked up it is for me, my entire career is actually based on I, early on in Dirty Jobs there was this big conversation at the network when they were like, look, this show, it was it was a nightmare for them because it was rating really, really well. But it was off brand like Dirty Jobs was not supposed to be. The show that people went to discover to love. Now it was that those were still the days of Attenborough and Shark Cousteau and Jane Goodall. This was, to those of me, a smart alec looking under rocks, making poop jokes that that's not supposed to be, that. So they're like, can you smarten it up a little bit? And I said, well, I've been looking at some science type jobs and they're like. Like what? I'm like, well, I'd like to take a deep dive and I and they're like, that's great. That's great. If you can find Dirty Jobs and I, we're golden now. Did they think I was talking about artificial insemination? Probably not. Probably not. Tucker [00:06:02] Did you do that episode? Mike Rowe [00:06:05] Four days later. I was at the circle X ranch somewhere outside of Houston with my arm up to my shoulder, inside a couple of dozen cows, taking instructions from a cowboy named Steve, who was walking me through the process of artificially inseminating the cows. I also had a remarkable encounter with a bull called Hudsucker Commando. And the process whereby the sperm is extracted from this minotaur, right? And then put back into these unsuspecting. Bovines, giving us. It's basically a Brahman bull. And an Angus cow could shoot brangus meat. Tucker [00:06:39] With you, without getting specific, did you go through that entire process? Extraction? Mike Rowe [00:06:44] Oh, extraction. Oh, yeah. No, I gathered I had a Styrofoam cup. There were probes. There was insertion into the bull light current stimulated the prostate. The white gold flew through the air. I captured as much of it as I could, and I put the whole thing on air a week later, and I got called to the principal's to do. The question was, you promised us a show on, artificial intelligence. And I said, did I? And then we had this big conversation about science. And the moral of the story is there's more science and artificial insemination. Then there is an I, or at least as much, and in a much deeper, much more meaningful way. We are so disconnected from our food. We're disconnected from our energy. And dirty jobs. On the surface was just a ramp. It was exploding toilets. And misadventures in artificial or animal husbandry or whatever it was. But in reality, it was a pretty thoughtful look at what keeps us connected. And what we've become disconnected from, so ultimately, the show stayed on the air, and that episode aired to ridiculous ratings, by the way, which is why I violated every other barnyard creature known to man. Ratings gold. But the thing is, there's no McDonald's. There's no Carl's Jr, there's no fast food, there's no slow food. There's no meat industry, as we understand it without the other eye. So that's kind of a long way of saying I'm most interested to see how artificial intelligence. And artificial insemination are going to somehow hopefully come together. Tucker [00:08:22] But so how does know that's such a such a smart point? How does it how does this quantum increase in computing power, which is really what artificial intelligence just master computation. How does that affect the real economy, like the actual physical stuff that keeps us alive? Mike Rowe [00:08:37] Well, I don't know. But I do think that what's going on in the real economy and what's going on in the, in, in the real country is this. This unraveling of connectivity people. And I put myself in this in this group. We've become really disconnected from some very primary things. Yes, I commented on your desk right away. It's primal. It's fun. It's I love it. It looks like what it is. Yes. You know. Yeah. And I don't know, it's to to reconnect with basic things is to be around fundamental things. I like what you've done with the place. Tucker [00:09:16] Oh, I like to sniff it. You know I do. Mike Rowe [00:09:19] If you're going to sell shirts, do me a favor and put that on it. Tucker [00:09:22] The thing I don't like about the digital experience is it doesn't smell like anything. Because it's not real. Mike Rowe [00:09:26] Smells like on wheat. Tucker [00:09:28] Yeah. Smells like God. We had self-hatred. Yeah. You're right. Mike Rowe [00:09:33] But anyway. So helping. To be reconnected to where our food comes from. It's where our energy comes from, what our what our history is. And to do with humor. That was the goal of that show, today. Not to sell too high minded, but it's one of the goals of my foundation. You know, I don't really have permission to talk about I that's not really my lane. I don't really quite know what I'm doing. But on a personal level, when somebody sends you a link that sounds so much like you, you can't tell the difference. Then then you, you start to connect to it because it gets personal. So I think what I think what's going to happen is this stuff is going to stop being. Ephemeral, theoretical, and people are going to find real, real, real personal stuff. With regard to I think look, when you go on Twitter and there's a video of you praising Hitler, it's not really you, deep fakes. Tucker [00:10:41] Come on. That's going to happen. Right? Mike Rowe [00:10:43] That's going to happen. And porn. You know, porn is on the leading edge of every new tech all the time. And what does that what does that mean for the next generation? Tucker [00:10:57] Well, I notice it with its rise. I never talk about it, really. Hinton. Just, you know, was it was. Thank you. Fewer people have sex with human beings. And no one ever says that. And I don't even like doing topical stories on because it's too embarrassing. But it's true. Mike Rowe [00:11:13] But here we are. Here we go. Oh, my God, are you. You make me very calm. I just look, I just confessed an encounter with a bull. Tucker [00:11:20] You have your hand up a cow. But it does seem like the cow. Mike Rowe [00:11:24] Still calls me, by the way. Tucker [00:11:25] Oh, definitely. Mike Rowe [00:11:28] When are you coming back? Fancy man with your opposable. Thumbs and whatnot. Tucker [00:11:32] 2 a.m. booty calls. Hey, what are you doing? So. Excuse me. Miss you so much. What are you wearing? So, it does seem like the net effect of almost all digital or even maybe technological advance is to separate us from each other to a greater degree. Mike Rowe [00:11:50] So remember Faith popcorn? Tucker [00:11:53] Yes. Very well. Mike Rowe [00:11:53] So the popcorn report was this thing is published every couple of years. It was, it's a futurist, right? Tucker [00:12:00] A trend spotter, correct. And a relentless self-promoter. Relent. I think I had her on about 15 times. And then you really. Of course. Come on. I worked at cable news. Mike Rowe [00:12:08] All right. You know, short term recall. Oh, she talked about burrowing? Yes. Right. This idea that as technology advances, we're going to have an easier time making our world smaller. And we're and we're going to burrow into our homes, and eventually we're going to be able to see movies on very intelligent TVs and so forth. She kind of predicted all that. Of course, it all came true. And then she wrote about something called, cocooning. So after you burrow, you just cocoon. So it's deeper and deeper and our homes become smarter. And the tech becomes more, the present. And anything we want can be brought to us. By a giant company that owns all of the vans and every, every. So in a way, we're more connected vis-a-vis fiber optics and relationships and so forth than we've ever been. But on the other hand, I think she was right. We are. We are so deeply burrowed into our space that, yeah, AI is going to take us to whatever that next level is. And, and sex is going to be a topic we're probably going to have to talk about because I mean, I've read the I've read these studies that say young men in particular are not. It's not having sex. The way they are. Tucker [00:13:31] What that means is they're not having like, deeper levels of human connection. Mike Rowe [00:13:39] I can't. I don't have any great insight to it. My. My personal. My personal belief is people are having as much sex as they've as they've ever had. Maybe more. They're just alone. Tucker [00:13:50] Yeah, well, that's the new one. I don't know why that's not, like, described as a tragedy. That seems like a tragedy to me. It's the whole point of life as you arrive alone and depart alone. In the interim, you try to connect with other people. Yes. Mike Rowe [00:14:04] It's this, and we are slowly arbitrage ING the wood out of the desk. We are slowly getting rid of all the human, yes. It's just you can feel it happening. My favorite author, actually, you probably know. I mean, it's very, very famous. In South Florida. Jordy Ardell? Yes. Wrote the Travis McGee mysteries. Best pulp fiction ever written. And that stuff today reads like a prophecy. McGee talked all of the time about this slow unraveling, and he was so wary of of so much of what he predicted was coming. And of course, it did. He lived off the grid on a houseboat called the Busted Flush. That he won in a poker. Game. He solve crimes. Essentially, he helped people recover that much. Tucker [00:15:03] So he's not the only one. And I'm not even there are some very controversial, very bad people, actually. But if you lived very isolated lives. Who were able maybe, therefore, to see the future more clearly. Why is it that solitude, silence, removal from the bustle of human society allows some people this extraordinary vision into the future? You wouldn't think that. Mike Rowe [00:15:28] Yeah, but it's sort. Of the virtue of boredom. Michael Easter writes about this book called The Comfort Crisis that I like the lot where. We've identified boredom as a great enemy, and we're surrounded by things to make sure we're never bored. It's why we can do this is why we do this. And that's why our attention spans get smaller and smaller and smaller, because we've waged a war against boredom. But it's the process of not doing anything. Putting all the devices down. Being alone with. Yourself that let your brain wander. And pretty soon you'll just Forrest. Gump your way through a bunch of things you didn't even know you were going to think about. And then you arrive at conclusions you didn't know you wanted to arrive at. But you're glad you did. All our ideas come from, you're never bored, if you're always stimulated, then. Then you've made a trade. You've made a bargain. And it's probably a bad one. Fraught with unintended consequences. Tucker [00:16:34] And for a guy who does artificial insemination shows, it's pretty deep and spot on. I would say. Mike Rowe [00:16:40] I did it very well. Tucker [00:16:41] So let me, the other day, I want to put up a clip from former President Barack Obama talking about the other eye, the digital eye, him and his idea for how this can bring us together or solve our economic crises, etc.. Here he is: Obama Soundbite [00:16:57] If you are interested in helping to shape all these amazing questions that are going to be coming up, go to ai.gov and see if there are opportunities for you fresh out of school. Or you might be an experienced, you know, tech coder who's you know, done fine, you know, bought the house, got everything set up and says, you know what, I want to, do something for the common good. Sign up. Tucker [00:17:26] So here we have a former president saying the government is going to harness AI for, quote, the common good. Okay. And, you know, I don't want to be skeptical or cynical at all, but that does sort of make me wonder what's going on here. Any idea? Mike Rowe [00:17:41] Again, it's a bit outside me. Lane, I think. I'm sure there's some. Some validity in the, in the message and there's probably real. Opportunity in the, in the vertical. As they say. But we have 11. Million open jobs right now that we're struggling to fill. None of them of require an understanding of. Tucker [00:18:03] I had 11 million. Mike Rowe [00:18:05] Well, 10.8 was the. Last number I saw quarter. Tucker [00:18:08] And you know, what are they exactly? Mike Rowe [00:18:10] Speaking broadly. Yeah, most of them don't. Require for your degree. They require training. Yeah. Most of them require a willingness to roll up your sleeves and sometimes get your hands dirty. Welders, plumbers, steam fitters, pipefitters, electricians, heating, air conditioning, so forth. For the last. 20 years or so, for every five who retire over the course of the year to replace them. It's troubling math. Terrible arithmetic is Lincoln. Yeah. Would have said. And so the skills gap. Is a real thing. And that part of our workforce has been. Well, woefully. Neglected. Beginning really around the time we took shop class out of high school. And we've had our thumb on the scale of education in a very specific way for a long time. We have, we've made a very. Persuasive case for higher ed. And the former presidents making a pretty persuasive case for careers in artificial intelligence. And. Fine, we. Can all do two things at the same time, this thing's right in front of us. Tucker [00:19:21] But if we changed the emphasis in higher education, I mean, it's entirely possible we could run our sociologists, point. Mike Rowe [00:19:28] And then there's something about this. Tucker [00:19:31] So, I mean, you've been saying this for a long time. Pretty much a lone voice, but I've never heard anybody disagree with you. Because, like, on what grounds could someone disagree with you on your list? No, but I mean, in a substantive way. Mike Rowe [00:19:45] Well, what people disagree with is the idea that you can promote one thing without tearing down another. That's the trap that we're in. That's what happened to us. We at higher ed, needed better PR. And in the 70s and 80s we got it. And thank God we needed more engineers. We needed more scientists. Don't know about sociologists. But the higher education. Needed a shot in the arm. Unfortunately, we weren't content to simply make the case for higher ed. We had to do it at the expense of everything else. And so trade schools took it. In the NEC, community colleges were relegated to something your kid did if they couldn't write about it here. Yeah, but of course, those forms of education are also attached to a big chunk of our workforce. And so we kind of waged a war on. Alternative education or call it. Lower education if you want. Because if it's higher over here, it by definition has to be lower over here. So we drew a real clear line. And we told people that if you don't get the most expensive degree that you can, if you don't take the most expensive path there is, you're going to. Wind up doing something subordinate. The result is this idea. That all these great jobs are essentially vocational. Consolation prizes. Meanwhile the opportunities that exist. Tucker. I mean, look, I appreciate the kind words. I have been. Beating the drum for 15 years. Foundation turn 15 on Labor Day. We felt about 2000 people get trained in these areas. And I'm telling you it. Most of my. Soapbox stuff in the early days was anecdotal. It was what I thought. And it was what I saw in Dirty Jobs, and it was. This feeling. That we were affirmatively neglecting a whole lot of opportunity. Now the stats have bolstered that. The headlines have caught up. To my own smack. But most importantly. The people we've helped five, six years. Ago are sitting down with. Me today. And answering questions like. Well, how's it going? I'll say. And I'll say. I'll tell you how it's going. You help me. Got a welding. Mike Rowe [00:21:58] Degree? Six years ago today, I owned three vans, a mechanical contracting company. I've got a plumber. And I've got an electrician to work with me every day. We're all making six figures a year. We work when we want. And I hear these stories that after day after day after day. And I look around and I. I'm not asking the feds to do anything. I did. I went to Congress three times. Over the years, and I said. Guys, we need a better PR campaign for this chunk of the workforce. The math is awful, and we're not going to be having a conversation about, oh my gosh, you mean a plumber can really make that much? We're going to be having a conversation about what do you mean? I have to wait four days for a plumber. And that's what's happening now. So with great respect to Obama. Make the case. For opportunities and I, but who the hell is. Making the case for the opportunity to make this. Table totally right? Who's where is the passion for the prosperity that will surely follow? If you take the time learn a skill that's in demand and work your ass off, that's still for sale, it's still real, and I can't find anybody. I and I've looked I've been doing this for 15 years also. Tucker [00:23:19] I mean, you make such a rational, logical fact base case that, as you suggested, has become indisputable with time, arguing it's this point. But there's also something that I'm having trouble describing. But there is something morally or spiritually different and elevated about making things over, rearranging things, or being a parasite in the real economy. In other words, it's it's better for you as a person to run a sawmill than it is to be, say, a high speed trader. Mike Rowe [00:23:48] You know. Tucker [00:23:49] It it I just think that, I mean, am I being crazy? And I don't think I'm just being, like, stupid populist. Oh, the working man is always better than the working man. Sometimes drunk. Okay, in the morning, I get it. Yep. But I just think the nature of the work matters. If I'm a pornographer, it's probably not good for me. But if I'm, you know, really skilled drywall hanger, maybe it is. Mike Rowe [00:24:09] Of course. Yes, but I would only say that it's the. It's the trap of the binary. Again. Yeah, that's the trap. Remember? I guess it was 2016 Republican debates. All 17 are up there, right? Mike Rowe [00:24:27] Something like amazing. I forget the exact question. But Marco Rubio's answer was, let me tell you what we need in this country are fewer philosophers and more welders. So a crowd claps. Big applause line. There was a lot of true love. Your comment about sociologist earlier. It's fine, I get it. But what was interesting was like my social. Channels blew up with people going, hey this guy's this guy's really saying it for so long. I said, actually, no, no, that's not my point. My point would be what our country needs are more. Welders who can talk intelligently about Nietzsche or Right or Kierkegaard. And we need more philosophers who can run an even beat. Okay, yes. It's this idea that a welder is somehow unsigned. Look, I don't know where my cell phone is. Now. There's yours. You and I, with this internet connection, we've got access to something we didn't when we were in school, which is 98% of the known information. On some land. So in my foundation, I try and make the point. To the people who apply for our for our work ethic scholarships. I say, look, this is learn the skill. Be great at it. But for God's sakes, go get your liberal arts education. Not at Brown. You don't have to borrow all that money to do that. Just. Be interested, be curious. I watched a lecture nights ago from MIT on my phone. For free. For free. Now, I'm not saying it's the same experience, but it's the same information. It's all available. And if that doesn't, like fire you up as a curious person, to not be completely engaged by the undeniable fact that most of the known information on that planet is in your pocket and accessible. Right? That's a very liberal arts kind of thing to say. But I'm not saying it to your basic liberal arts student. I'm saying it to the welders and the steam fitters and the pipefitters and the mechanics. That have come through our foundation, because the most interesting people on the planet. And I know I'm preaching to the choir. You know. Do you know the person who made this desk? Tucker [00:26:54] I don't. I wish I did. Mike Rowe [00:26:56] I do too, because I guarantee you, they got a story. Tucker [00:26:58] My best friends runs the sawmill. You know. No, I'm all about. I'm all about sawmill. It's the. Mike Rowe [00:27:03] It's the. I'm all about sawmills, too. But I'm all about the a well-rounded proprietor. I really think that the thing that's most missing. Mike Rowe [00:27:15] Today. Mike Rowe [00:27:16] Is that balance. Tucker [00:27:18] You ever read Wendell Berry? Yeah. Offer? Yeah. From North Carolina. Mike Rowe [00:27:22] Well, there's a. Truth bomb. Yeah. One after the next. It's our next. Sure. Tucker [00:27:28] So, do you see any evidence that. I know people are listening to you, and I, again, would argue I haven't seen anyone kind of refute what you're saying. But do you have any sense that it's there's changing, that it's moving. Mike Rowe [00:28:00] So there's this guy runs a think tank oculus name is Todd Rose. He's become a friend of mine. In fact, I had him on my podcast not long ago. Really, really important research that has to do primarily. With collective illusions. In fact, he has a book called Collective Illusions and one of the things that personally really struck me was that 80% of the information on Twitter is created by and percent. The people on Twitter. And so it's really easy to look at that platform and many others too, and assume a consensus. And so once we as humans realize that there is a consensus or a majority who believe a certain thing. Then will by and large fall in line many times. Supporting things that we personally don't really support. Like for instance, right now there is- Tucker [00:28:51] I've seen this way like, well. Mike Rowe [00:28:54] And if you look for it, you'll see it everywhere. It's mind boggling. So and this was kind of a wake up call for me because for 15 years I've been talking about this this deeply held belief. The parents and guidance counselors are truly believe that the best path for their kids. Is this most expensive path. But the latest research. When you really sit people down and take a deep, deep dive on Gen Z right now. Is ranking the importance of a college education. Out of 50 different things. At 47. Tucker [00:29:32] That seems high. Mike Rowe [00:29:34] Well, it used to be three, right? But in the course of the last 5 or 6 years, like a lot of people, it made me wonder, has something shifted? It in that generation that I just haven't seen, and I'm hopeful that it has. People are starting to get the message that just because. You've got $200,000 in debt and a nice diploma. Doesn't mean the world. Is going to beat a pathway to your door. It doesn't mean you're going to get hired in your chosen field. Tucker [00:30:05] Doesn't mean you're well educated. Mike Rowe [00:30:07] Doesn't mean anything at all. Except for the fact that you owe $200,000, right? That's what it means. That diploma is a receipt as surely as it is anything else. Right? The information you got in exchange for it. Well, that that's a tool. And how you use it is none of my business. And people are starting I think I think to realize at least this research indicates that our fascination with the golden ticket. That's always been a college diploma is starting to wane and honestly, I think that's a good thing. Yeah. Tucker [00:30:47] One of our many postwar assumptions that probably should be updated after 80 years. What's the state of our vocational education in the United States like is. I think our engineering programs are still really good. Yeah. But like welding, plumbing, electrical. And then some of the higher, you know, electrical engineering, etc. Are we still leading the world in that stuff? Mike Rowe [00:31:09] I don't know of any company. In this country who doesn't have some sort of internal training program to try and get those skills taught. Certainly nobody's coming out of high school with those skills. People are coming out of trade schools. With the basics, but the actual finishing almost always happens within the company. So a lot of that work is being done privately. It’s back to shop class. You know, it starts with interest. It starts like, if you're a if you're a 14 year old kid with no real clear idea of. What you want to do, and you're walking down the corridor of your high school, and you stick your head in the woodshop. And you stick your head in the metal shop, and you stick your head in. Any number of vocational. Shops you can at least. Optically see what the work looks like. Or might look like. And for a lot of people who got. Into the trades. That's where it began. They saw something that resonated with them. In a in a switch flipped. Today. You don't see it. I mean, what more. Persuasive thing could you say to a kid regarding the skill trades? Then don't even look at. We're just going to remove all proof of their existence from sight. That's what we did when we. Took shop class out of high school. And it's not a coincidence that. I mean, I think I can draw a pretty straight line. That event. At $1.7 trillion of outstanding student loans, 10.8 million open jobs, and maybe even 7.2 million. Able bodied men in the prime of their life, according to Nicholas Eberstadt, and a book called Men Without. Tucker [00:33:01] Work. Great book. Mike Rowe [00:33:02] We're sitting on not only not working, but affirmatively not looking for work, spending in excess of 2000 hours a year. Wiping and looking at screens. That's never happened before. Not in peacetime anyway. In fact, we are in peacetime. All of that stuff together. I can walk back and albeit a fairly circuitous route. But we took shop class out of high schools and we didn't think. Anything was going to happen as a result. Everything happened. Tucker [00:33:35] Everything, right? People lost their dignity. So you. I got to ask you. You were an opera singer. Mike Rowe [00:33:42] Well, I sang in the opera. I've also ski down mountains, but very few people say, oh, it's Mike Rowe, the skier. Tucker [00:33:51] I've ski down many mountains. I've never seen opera. But, I mean, is there ever a time when you do it still? Mike Rowe [00:33:57] Oh, yeah. Weddings. Tucker [00:33:58] Funerals for real? Mike Rowe [00:34:00] I sing all the on my podcast. I write unauthorized jingles for all the sponsors. And segment for part harmony as it amuses me. Tucker [00:34:09] Do you ever sing in Italian store? Mike Rowe [00:34:11] So the first thing I learned. I got to the opera. When I was 22 because I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get an agent because I couldn't get my SAG card. So I couldn't audition for commercials and roles in TV, which is what I wanted to do. And so it's this weird circle. You can't get your SAG card. Unless you've done union work, can't get an agent unless you have a SAG card and you can't get a book. Anyhow, if you got in the opera. That you become a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, and as such, you can buy a SAG card, you pay your dues because they're all sister union. So of course, DuPont. So anyway, I'm 22 years old and I, I can't get in the Screen Actors Guild, but I had a buddy. I'll be about this loophole. Sang in the opera. And the opera had these open auditions every Thursday, last Thursday of the month. So I went to the library and I asked a librarian for the shortest Italian aria ever written. She knows such a thing. And she said, oh, you want the code aria from who? Chinese. All right. So I took it home as a record. And I recorded it on a tape, and I walked around with these things called, Walkman. It is. It's 1982, I guess. And so I listened to Sam Raimi. Sing the code aria for, like, a month in Baltimore. Didn't know what the words man, wanted to get the sounds in my head and memorize the tune. And I did. And so I went to the Lyric Opera House on a on a Thursday, and I sang it for the chorus master. And a couple of you still remember it. Thank you. Tucker [00:36:16] As everybody did at one point. Mike Rowe [00:36:19] As they do. And, he gives her his coat. So she can live a little longer, I think. And he loved his coat because it kept him warm. And the pockets held his poetry. And he was a true bohemian. So he sings a, a love song to his coat and then gives it to the girl with tuberculosis. Tucker [00:36:38] It's an opera. And what, did she die? Sure. Mike Rowe [00:36:40] Yeah, they all die. But here's a crazy. Here's a moral of the story. Not that there has to be one, but I stayed in for eight years. Right. I got my union card let me in. And the music. The music was amazing. Like world. I'd never heard a world class orchestra play and I. I couldn't believe I was given access just to be around this level of. This is level of talent. Mind boggling. And the girls? Tucker [00:37:16] Yeah. What are the ladies of Upper Lake? Mike Rowe [00:37:18] Well, I'll tell you something. Tucker [00:37:18] They're probably a little high strung, I would think. Mike Rowe [00:37:22] I'm 22. I'm dressed as a Viking. Pirate. I'm singing real loud. In languages I don't really understand. There are 80 people in the rep company. 45 of them are women. Yeah. 35 are men. 30 of the men have zero interest in 100% of the women. Tucker [00:37:42] We're sure. Mike Rowe [00:37:44] The remaining five guys, three of them are married. The only other single. Tucker [00:37:47] Basically you're this. You're the straight hairdresser. Mike Rowe [00:37:49] It was. Tucker [00:37:51] It's just unfair. Mike Rowe [00:37:51] It was me of one of the guy, and he had a mole. On his eyelid. I saw my thumb with thick black hair. I'm 22 dressed as a pirate, and the girls are all dressed up like French courtesans. Plunging necklines. Oh, it's hit for eight years. Tucker [00:38:11] It's unbelievable. You know, is anyone who is in that company still there? Mike Rowe [00:38:16] No. The opera company folded. The Baltimore Opera folded about six years ago. I was invited back. No, because Dirty Jobs had been a thing in the list of people who sang opera and crawled through a sewer. Apparently, I'm pretty sure. Tucker [00:38:31] The union said pretty small. Mike Rowe [00:38:33] Yeah. So I went back for a fundraiser or two. Couldn't save it. You know, there's a lot in Baltimore that's tough to save right now, but I, I did go back, and I did a one man show in Baltimore. All the dirty truth. And, sold tickets and sold out the opera house and stood on stage. For about two hours. In my home town, telling stories about dirty jobs and answering questions and telling the story I just told you. And it was one of those moments where I was like, you know what? I don't know if it's full circle. But man, it was super strange and fun and gratifying to go back and do that. Because for me. You know, and this. Is just the cognitive dissonance. And one of the things that people always ask. They're always surprised by the opera because they saw 20 years of. Dirty jobs and violating barnyard animals and crawling through sewers, and that. Those two things aren't supposed to exist in the same. Tucker [00:39:36] No they're not. Mike Rowe [00:41:42] Artificial. Audience, I really do. Tucker [00:41:46] I and with that, I got it. I got to ask about the sheep castration story because it. Now that we've- Mike Rowe [00:41:53] You've done a deep dive, haven't you? Tucker [00:41:55] We've done a very deep dive. We do. Mike Rowe [00:41:58] So cheap castration. Yeah. That that was a biggie. Tucker [00:42:01] That if set the table for us the like what role does sheep castration play in agriculture. Like why would one be castrating sheep, you know. Tucker [00:47:17] I mean, one just bit his balls up. Mike Rowe [00:47:32] Yeah, and he's like, he's just getting all this life now. Now that ball's gone. But, you know it's okay. It's no blood. He's just off pursuing a life of, you know, whatever religious fulfillment Alam would do without his testicles. At that point, this poor thing is curled up in the corner. We kept filming and I castrated probably 30 lambs that day. Tucker [00:47:41] Didn't feel any guilt at all? Mike Rowe [00:47:43] No, no, it was actually very quick. it's a way more efficient way to do it. Tucker [00:47:48] We. You castrated them orally? Oh, sure. Mike Rowe [00:47:52] Google it. Lamb castration. Micro heck of a thing. Tucker [00:47:54] With your teeth. Well, yeah. What else are you. You're going to bite them with? It feels like you're crossing some important barrier into a whole new world. Oh, Lord, you bite an animal's balls off. Mike Rowe [00:48:06] There are moments in Dirty Job like. Tucker [00:48:08] Inside you. I mean, you can't be the same man you were that morning. Mike Rowe [00:48:11] It's like a German porno, right? You just see it once. You see it. Like. Good grief. Yes. I felt very strongly that we. That something extraordinary had happened on the show. But I also felt very strongly that something more important had happened prior to the show. I'd been given bad information by experts. I had called the expert authority. I had called Peta. I called the Humane Society as well. The best minds in the business, the people who live to write disappointing emails to my boss, instructed me on the proper way to remove the testicles from a creature. And they were wrong. Now, optically, it might have looked a little better in their minds. I think they liked the idea of a rubber band. Instead of a knife and teeth. But they were wrong. That lamb castrated proper way. Was the very embodiment of abject misery. And I saw 30 or 40 more that day. Tucker [00:49:21] Last question though, like, I just I'm obviously feel sorry for the lambs, but it does sound more humane just to bite them off much more. But for you as a man, like, how hard was it? I mean, the first oral castration is probably the hardest. I think people say. Mike Rowe [00:49:35] That again, if you're going to make T-shirts, put that on too. Tucker [00:49:38] What do you mean? Was it like skydiving? Like, I'm not going to think about it. I'm out the door. Tucker [00:50:22] No, of course not. Mike Rowe [00:50:23] I'm judged by my willingness to try your willingness. And of course. You're going to bite your try, you know? But really, how hard can it be? I mean, I got the guy right there. Albert was his name. I can still see his mustache. Little traces of vast, difference day. So, yeah, I mean, it's a heck of a thing. So I know, I know, I'm making an extraordinary moment in television. I know at a glance it looks salacious and probably unjustifiable. But I also know, because of you, the trembling creature in the corner. Of the pen. I also know that there's some weird greater truth. Like throbbing under all. Tucker [00:51:00] That's right. That's exactly right. Mike Rowe [00:51:02] And so I put them off and I spit them in the bucket. And then I. Took the knife. And I removed the tail from the next one, and then the tip of the scrotum. And I got in a pretty good rhythm and felt pretty good. About my, my castration abilities. When the sun finally set in Craig, Colorado. Over the, Rocky Mountains and the last lamb had been taken care of. Yes, there were Rocky Mountain oysters. We fried them up and yeah, we ate them. That was Dirty Jobs 2008. Nominated for an Emmy. Tucker [00:51:31] Thank you. Great, Mike Rowe. Thank you. Mike Rowe [00:51:35] Yeah don't mention it.

Steve Nikoui is a carpenter from California whose son was killed during Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan. Joe Biden won’t say his name, so at the State of the Union speech, Steve Nikoui did. He was immediately arrested for it. READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] By August of 2021, Kabul, Afghanistan. Looks a lot like well, Saigon, Vietnam looked in April of 1975 chaotic, dangerous and humiliating to the United States after 20 years in Afghanistan. The Biden administration had just pulled American troops out. The city immediately fell to the Taliban. The president got on a private plane with millions of American dollars and ran away like the coward he is. And thousands of Afghan civilians were rushing to Hamid Karzai airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country. Sort of like those helicopters taking off in the roof of the embassy in 1975. So U.S. service members were deployed to the scene to help keep the peace. But it was an impossible task. Mobs of Afghans running on the runway trying to board flight, some clinging to the landing gear. You remember the pictures. And in the middle of that scene, that total chaos created by the Biden administration, a suicide bomber arrived carrying 20 pounds of explosives and made his way to a place called the Abbey gate, the entrance to the airport, and then detonated the device and in so doing murdered 13 American service members, along with 170 Afghans, men, women and children. One of the Americans murdered that day was a marine lance corporal called Kareem Nikoui. He was just 2020 years old. He is now credited with saving the lives of at least three Afghan families, and help getting them out of that country. Fast forward to 2024, and Joe Biden is hoping, as he stands for reelection at the advanced age of 81, you've completely forgotten what he did. An Afghan instant and the humiliating and deadly way he withdrew American forces from that country. But not everyone has forgotten. In fact, those touched by the tragedy of that day in the preceding 20 years will never forget. Now, if you watched Biden's State of the Union address earlier this month, you heard a man in the audience yell out to Biden, reminding him of the killings that took place at the Abbey gate at the airport in Kabul. Here's that scene. Biden Soundbite [00:02:40] All Americans deserve the freedom to be safe. And America is safer today than when I took office. A year before I took office, murder rates went up 30%- Nikoui Soundbite [00:02:45]: Remember Abbey Gate! United States Marine Kareem Nikoui! 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. Biden Soundbite [00:02:52]: 30%. They went up every year. The biggest increase in history. Tucker [00:03:01] But the soulless monster keeps talking. That would be Joe Biden, the soulless monster. The man you heard screaming has a soul and has a reason for sadness and outrage. He is called Steve Nikoui. He is the father of that murdered Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, killed in the bombing at Abbey gate. So for saying that out loud, for trying to remind Joe Biden of what he did. Steve Nikoui was arrested at the Capitol earlier this month. He now joins us in studio. Thank you very much for coming on. Steve Nikoui [00:03:31] Thank you, Tucker. Tucker [00:03:32] So, let's just let's just start with a clip we just played. Why did you yell out Abbey gate in your son's name at the President? Steve Nikoui [00:03:39] Okay, so, yeah, we had an opportunity to. Go to this state of the Union this time. Two families were invited by Mike Johnson. Tucker [00:03:50] Yeah. Steve Nikoui [00:03:51] And so those families were picked by a hat. So there's a coalition of families, which is six of us, and we can get in later. Why? We had to start a coalition. So we all signed a contract. And, you know, our fighting for it to get the information of the withdrawal out. But there were two tickets and we, we drew hat we drew names for those and they these are the ones that are going. And so there was a chance that. They might address, he might address and finally say the kids names. Because the thing is, he's never he's never recognized the kids as names. He's never accepted any kind of responsibility for the withdrawal. Tucker [00:04:42] Biden has never said your son's name? Steve Nikoui [00:04:44] Never, never. Not once. None of the kids. And so we were hoping that. All right, well, these two family members, you know, they're going to be able to go and he might, you know, bring up Afghanistan and, say their names. Now for me, I had never done any interviews. The only interview that I really did was an interview I'd done with you at the very beginning and after his first state of the Union, for whatever reason, I, I was at work and I got a call from some, some young man. Hey, look, we're trying to fill in, a spot in our in our news thing at 2:00 or whatever time was. Would you come on? I'm like, well, I don't do interviews. Oh, well, look, I need to have someone. Please. And he kept begging and was persistent, and he was all we know. We want to ask you about Joe Biden. State of the Union. Now, this is the first one that he had done after the withdrawal. And I was like, well, I don't even watch it, you know, I mean, I don't do interviews and somehow I agree. Tucker [00:05:46] Sorry, I just want to be totally clear. So a year at or the next year after your son was right. Steve Nikoui [00:05:51] Yeah. So this is in January, probably of 2022. Tucker [00:05:55] But you'd never met President Biden or been to the White House? Steve Nikoui [00:05:58] No. So we met him at Dover when we did the dignified transfer. But that was anything but dignified. I mean, you know, he. It's kind of the same. Like if you have kids. Tucker [00:06:12] Yeah. Steve Nikoui [00:06:14] Like if I was drunk and then I killed your kid in a drunk driving accident, and then I went to you and said, well, you know what? I know how you feel. I lost my son, and this is how he was at Dover. Tucker [00:06:27] So he talked about himself. Steve Nikoui [00:06:28] He talked about his son. So even in Dover, when we at first, you know, when we had met him in the dignified transfer, he said, hey, look, you know, I, I understand what you're going through. We lost our son Beau as well. Now in there, I wasn't I. So people had a chance to whether or not they wanted to meet with the president. And if some people didn't want to meet with them, they could go to another room. I wasn't going to be bullied and go to another room. But, you know, I turned my back to him. So when he walked in, I turned my back to him. My. Sorry. Tucker [00:07:03] It's all right. Steve Nikoui [00:07:04] My daughter came and stood next to me. So we just turned our back to her, and then, Kareem’s mom was talking to him, so I was listening to what she was saying. And, you know, that's what he had said. Like, you know, I understand your loss. You know, we lost this son and that just, you know, infuriated her even more. But he was like this with everyone and then everything up and since we're on that point, I mean, we were we were used. That whole thing was us being used. I mean, we were, you know, I wanted to wear a suit when I went to this dignified transfer for my son. And I don't know if you remember, in, like, the 70s, those yellow school busses that had the like to you want to tuck and roll, you know, you're you're going up and down. There's no socks. You can't put down the windows. Yeah. It's in Dover, which is like the most humid place you've ever been in your life. They transferred us in these, like, busses, like all the families. They put us up in a motel six. Had fecal matter on the walls, had cockroaches everywhere. All right. Now, we all got into these busses and we're all sweating. They drove us to Dover, the place that they do this at Dover. Tucker [00:08:21] So the message is really clear. Like they don't care at all. Steve Nikoui [00:08:23] Yeah, but at the time, we didn't I didn't realize that, you know, at the time I think, well, you know, I'm doing this for my country, you know, I mean, I felt like almost obligated that I had to do this. Yes. You know, and like, here this is, but like, oh, they're honoring us like a state side honoring when in retrospect, you know, it was just trying to show like, oh, we're honoring these parents and that's the end of it. You kind of understand what I'm saying. It's like the optics like, here, look what we're doing. And, it was it was very this is the first time I'd seen all the other parents and remind you this is two days after it happened. So the next day, after this all happens, you don't have time to grieve. You have the military telling you you have to sign these papers. We got to go over here to Dover, Delaware. And I'm like, What's in Dover, Delaware? I have no idea what they're talking in any of this. I have to Google everything. I have to research what a dignified transfer is. You know, I'm I have no idea. And they're telling you, you know, you just lost your kid. Now they're saying you have to go to Delaware and, and, etc., etc.. So when we go over there, it's already. And what I notice, the first thing that I noticed when I went there. From being like a boss or a business owner, I was able to see a different perspective is that they had no. They didn't really know what they were doing. They were reacting to how we were to react. And I found that to be shocking. You know, it's like, whoa, what is going on here? Like there's no protocol. They're seeing how we would react if we'd get physical, if we'd get violent, if we'd yell. You understand what I'm saying? It could. There was that, you know, there was a lot of people yelling, I was yelling, I was yelling at the the general, you know, and and, I was upset. Tucker [00:10:14] What did you say to the general? Steve Nikoui [00:10:17] So I he was pretty much the only one that I, that I yelled at and I just said, you know, you should have been planning this evacuation. You know, you should have taken time. You know, at the time, I just remember him promoting his book and then some of this stuff that had happened with the his counterpart was, you know, at the beginning of the. Tucker [00:10:36] Remember the name of the general? Steve Nikoui [00:10:38] Yeah. General Milley. And I just met him last week, and he remembered that he remembered that altercation that we had and, you know, I spotted him, in one of the other room, and that. Dover, Delaware. Let me- Tucker [00:10:54] So you said to, to clear up exactly what happened to you similarly at Dover and use and two days before your son was killed and you say to him, you know. Steve Nikoui [00:11:04] After two days after. So this all happened after. Tucker [00:11:07] Right. But two days before, when you first met him, your son had just been killed. Steve Nikoui [00:11:11] Yeah. That's right, that's right. Tucker [00:11:12] So you say to him, effectively, this is your fault. Like you're in charge of this, right? You didn't do a good job. What did he say? Steve Nikoui [00:11:18] He said I had been planning for this. You know, we did plan for it. You know, it was a mistake. I don't even I don't know if he said a mistake, but he had said that. And I kept telling him, well, you know, you don't care. I mean, you know, I mean, you weren't looking like you were planning for it. From what I seen from January until now, it looked like you're doing everything else, you know, look like you're on a book tour, and it looked like you were cursing with, you know, the Chinese government. Yeah. And, you know, he said, I think he said, I've lost 47 men or 67 men, one of the two. And then I said, I lost my son. And. Tucker [00:12:05] So you confront him, and he made it about himself, just like Joe Biden. I've suffered too. This is what he said. Steve Nikoui [00:12:10] You know what I now that I've know more about, like, the military and people you know, I wouldn't say so with him. I would say, you know, what I've noticed with people in the military and I've just realized this in the last month, is that they look at us like. Sorry. So people that have served. It appears that they treat us like they would want their folks treated if they had lost their lives. Good. You understand what I'm saying? Should I do? And now, in retrospect, you know, his anger, I think, was more along the lines of his guilt. Steve Nikoui [00:12:51] I feel he really felt guilty. You know, and he didn't. And he's just mad, you know, he's a he's. And what I told him a couple weeks ago is because I had an immense respect for him. To me, he was the guy. You know, he was the face of our military. Yes. And, more so than pretty much anywhere else. I mean, you know, you know, who Mark Milley is? I mean, he's a dominating force at the you know, prior to that, even the Donald Trump had had him. So, and I think, you know, that rage was that was that here he found himself in the position that, you know, this stuff happened and I feel like he felt some guilt, to be honest with you at that time. Tucker [00:13:40] Seems like an appropriate emotion. Steve Nikoui [00:13:41] Yeah. But at the time, I didn't I didn't I didn't think that it it's taken several years and me to understand the military and that's, that's I believe what, what he was feeling is that he was he was upset with how everything happened and he wanted to convey that. Look, you know, I love you and I've lost people, too. And I know what you're going through and, you know, and so that was that was that. Tucker [00:14:12] Between, the time you spent in Dover receiving your son's remains, staying in the motel six with human feces on the wall? Between that and this state of the Union earlier this month, had you had any contact with Biden or the white House? Steve Nikoui [00:14:29] Never. We've never had any contact with the white House or Biden. And we have reached out or, McCall and several people, several families have reached out to, you know, maybe have a roundtable with them, see what their what their thinking was, anything, you know, onerous or, you know, onerous on our children and. Yes, something and they just refused. I don't know why they hate us so much, to be honest with you. I have no idea. I mean. Tucker [00:14:59] Because you're a living reminder of their failure. Steve Nikoui [00:15:02] But. But in America, we're supposed to, you know, address those failures. I mean, he had an opportunity that he could have really rallied the country behind him. Tucker [00:15:12] Yes. Steve Nikoui [00:15:13] Very easily, you know, by by assuming any kind of responsibility, Hill, you know, I know people that business owners that assume more responsibility for someone that gets hurt on their job than than what he's done for for these people, people that are held more accountable in drunk driving cases. Yes. After three years. This guy, he just doesn't want to say anything about any of these kids. Tucker [00:15:39] So how much contact have you had with the families of the other servicemen killed? Third, the 12 other families. Steve Nikoui [00:15:46] So, yeah, there's. Well, since we've started, trying to lobby to get answers, which was started last June. Yeah. The six families, we talked, every week and, in the capacity that we do for getting these answers. Tucker [00:16:03] Do you think they have the same feelings that you do? Steve Nikoui [00:16:06] Well I can't, I would say on some things. Yeah. As regards to Milley, I couldn't. Tucker [00:16:12] What about the Biden administration? Steve Nikoui [00:16:14] Oh yeah, 100%. We're united on that. Tucker [00:16:18] And so you said at the outset that you wanted more information about what happened. Right. The events that led up to your son's death. Right. What do you wish you knew, but don't. Steve Nikoui [00:16:28] Okay, so we've made a lot of progress. So what happened was, when this all happened, we, you know, we didn't have the house. So any of the hearings, if you look at any of the the Senate hearings that were there, they were all kind of biased. Like they all said, although this was great, you know, we did a good job. Of course we're going to. It wasn't until, McCarthy became speaker that we actually had an opportunity to to get the answers that we needed. So last June. We got an opportunity from Darrell Issa to do like a public. We went, you know. We went to Washington and the premise was like, look, we don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to introduce you to McCarthy. We're going to introduce you to Scalise. McCall. And we're going to get you to know, because knew but nobody knew our story. Nobody, you know, wasn't, really out there. Maybe it was in to some degree in, like, maybe social media or something. Because that's probably the only outlet that the parents had, like their Facebook or whatever. But there's a good portion of Americans that don't even pay attention to that. So, and I being one of them, I'm not on any of those that I could channel any, anything. And, so when this opportunity came, you know, they're like, look, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if there's anything, but we're going to go down there and, you know, and every family of the 13 was, was, was invited to this, like, here's what we're doing. It said it was set up, Sean Reyes from Utah and, kind of connected us with these people. And then it kind of, from there it went for Darrell Issa. He was the one that, you know, had been championing everything at that point. And, so, you know, they they even had funding for it, like, we're going to take the mom and the dad of each. Each child, each service member, whoever wants to come. And, we're going to go down to Washington and see if there's any, any anybody that's interested in anything. So we went down there, we met, these different offices. We told them our stories because nobody knew really our stories. You know, what had happened to us and Dover and then really like the stuff that we were being told. So they had given us a whole bunch of lies. You know, we're people are talking to the kids. People are talking to everyone that's coming back. And what the government is telling us is different from what these people that were actually there are saying. And so we're like, well, they're like, oh, there was no gunfire. Well, one of the Marines actually killed one of his aggressors. You know, he like, shot him and killed him or I don't know if he killed him. So to say that there was no gunfire is absurd. Now, my son, before I sent him. Or before he went to Afghanistan. I bought him a, when I was a kid. When we were kids, there was that buck 110 knife that the Duke, the Duke boys had. They had that with the, with the bolster on it. So I bought my son one of those, but a switchblade. And I said, you know, this is good for fast. You know, if you need a knife, you know, you can. It's a switchblade. And I bought him this, and he carried it on him. I have pictures of him in Afghanistan with it. Well, when the, when the Keiko, which is the casualty assisted coordinating officer. So every time that something happens in the military to your loved ones, you get assigned to Keiko. And he's basically the liaison between the military and your family. I mean, everything from A to Z. You know, he's like your best friend. And so when he had come that night to my house, I had said to him, hey, look, you know nothing else. I know nothing else I wanted. Except for that knife. You know, I told him, hey, I gave my kid this knife, and. I want that. I want that back. And you know he can't. He didn't. I just met him. Like, two minutes ago. And, you know, he. Listen to me. Well, on September 17th is when they brought my son his body back. And, so, you know, it was a very nice, another kind of dignified transfer from Ontario Airport to where we live in Norco. He's buried, like, literally less than a mile from my house. And that whole way, you know, the streets are lined American flags and people and everything. And then when we get to the cemetery, he pulls me in the back room and he. And he pulls out that knife. You know, in, in the case. And I'm like, just happy for me. It was like, I put so much value in that knife, you know? Like, for some reason I felt like if I had that knife, it would it would eliminate some of my pain that it had. You know, that that's something that we that we shared. And I give it to him. And, when I, when he handed me the knife, I looked at it and there was a hole right in the front in the same, the same case that we had when we were kids. You know, it's a leather case with a little button. Tucker [00:21:52] Says Buck on it. Yeah. Steve Nikoui [00:21:54] And there's a hole in it. I'm looking at it and I'm excited. And I told my mom, hey, Charlie, there's a wow, there's a hole from one of the babies. You know, because I had little babies and I'm looking at it, and I pull the knife out and the knife was like, had imploded inside the she. So it was hard to get it out of the sheath, you know, it was hard. The, and when I pulled it out, my gun was like, he's a gunny. I think he got promoted, so don't don't be upset with me. But when I pulled it out, he's like, that's not a baby hole. That's a bullet hole. And so when I, when I took it home, I got one of my five, 5 or 6 bullets and I got my dial calipers, and I started measuring the depth of the hole and then put that depth in relation to the boat tail of the bullet, and then measured the diameter at. I got real scientific, and you could just pull the bullet right out of the five, five, six casing and put it fits perfect in there. It was a five. It's a five, five, six. And You know, that's proof. And if it's on the front of his thing, it came from across. It didn't come from behind. It's not friendly fire because he didn't bring this back. It was right on his front. They also they gave you pictures of, like where your kid is. No. Every, you know, maps. So when they gave you the, the, the briefing, when they first briefed the families, they had maps and said, okay, your kid is here. X marks the spot. And then you'd ask him, well, who's this guy? And they. Oh, well, we can't tell you. But then after that, they told the public, then these then now all of a sudden everybody's out there. But the maps that they gave us were all different. Like, there's three of them. There's three. There's three different ones. But one thing I can say and the other families, kids are in different locations in those three different maps. But my son's always on that wall, like my son's always in every map right across from the bomber. Like right across. There's three kids on that wall, and he was one of them. So there's no he wasn't turned around. There's no way it could have been friendly fire. You understand what I'm saying? And that was like one of the things I was like, well, here, I've got proof. You know, I've got proof that my kid was. You're going to tell us that, you know, they weren't shot at you. Everybody can hear it on the videos. But and here's physical proof that I have. And it's not an AK round, you know, it's not a it's not an AK sized hole. It's a perfect like literally that bullet was probably stuck in there and someone had to like pull it out, like that's how it was. And so fast forward to when we met, Darryl Lyson and them in June. I brought that up and showed them that. And these were some of the things that that they used to get the ball rolling to get interest in it. So, you know, we've since June, we've been going to Congress for no other reason but to lobby for our kids to give information that these congressmen don't have so they can bring in different people and do hearings and get the information that we need. And we've made, like, enormous traction. I mean, just the answers that we've gotten, with the hearings that they've had have been good that we have them, that we didn't, you know, we didn't have them before, but is a testament to what a failure this was. And we've pretty much gone in all avenues. We've exhausted the military. I believe at this point that you know the well, you know, they're the part that they were in charge of was a retrograde. So there's two parts to it. There was a retrograde and then the evacuation and the retrograde went off. Unhitched, you know, no problem. The problem was, was that when you hear people say, well, you should have taken the people out before you take out the military, they should have done the neo before they did the retrograde. And that's where the point comes, is that the State Department and the administration was in charge of the Neo and the retrograde, and the only reason why they did the neo, no, they did the neo. The neo was implemented by, Ross Wilson, who's a that's another guy. He's he's the guy, you know, after all these nine months of going back and forth. It's not you know, I don't see it's the generals I don't see. It's the military. It's this guy. He's the guy that initiated the neo, and he did it. And on August 14th. Tucker [00:26:32] Now, who is Ross Wilson? And if you could just explain what a neo- Tucker [00:27:22] Pictures very well. Steve Nikoui [00:27:24] Where they over there. And that was all because the day before and even the generals were kind of like, well, we and I said, no, you, you, you guys did the neo because you saw the Taliban right there. It wasn't, you know, for any other reason that they were he was scared and that's why he did it. And if it had been done months earlier, I mean, actually the whole thing should have been done at the beginning, per the Doha Agreement. I mean, all the liberals say, oh, well, don't forget the Doha Agreement. It's so frustrating. And I'm glad this last time we went to, and we heard the Senate hearings with, the two generals, you know. Mackenzie and Milley finally mix because every time that guy is like, oh, don't forget, you know? Yeah, we appreciate the service and the sacrifice and we're not pointing them. But don't forget who initiated the Doha Agreement. They always have to do that little jab. And I'm here to tell you, I don't think anyone knows anything about Afghanistan better than any of these parents. You're right. He should have followed the Doha Agreement. That would have been dead. We wouldn't have had this catastrophe. Tucker [00:28:32] So you show up at the state of the Union a couple of weeks ago. Do you plan to yell out your son's name? Steve Nikoui [00:28:42] I wouldn't say really planned. I, you know, we got the opportunity that there were other tickets. Other, other members had given it to us, and, I wouldn't, you know, I'm sure I had said this of people. Yeah, but, other to say something, if this guy doesn't say anything. But when you're there in the greatest country of the world with the most powerful people, I was scared. Like I was scared, you know? Am I going to get killed if I get to commit suicide tomorrow because of this? You know who knows, right? And. So, no, at that time, I was just in serious prayer. And, you know, I was like, praying to the Lord, you know, humble me, soften my heart. You know, let your will be done. You know, and to be honest with you, when I stood up, when I just heard him say something about kids, at some point he was talking about kids. And then he said something about being safe. And I just stood up and I didn't even I didn't even like the Holy Spirit, like God in me and stood up. And I don't know if you ever had anything like that happen, but like the effects of that had had affected me for weeks afterwards, you know, like what? What really happened there. And when I stood up and I said the first thing I said, I kind of realized that I had said it, and I paused. I was like, oh, what did I do? You know? And then I said, you know, night States Marines. And I said his name. And I said, you know, second Battalion, first Marines. But I don't even remember saying any of that. Like, I don't even remember saying any of that. You know, it just kind of came out. And if I could back up to why I had went earlier, I was talking about that first state of the Union, and I got these reporter, you know, and I felt bad for him and I wanted to help. And I said, all right, well, look, what I'll do is my lunch break. I got an hour lunch break. On my lunch break, I'm going to watch a state of the Union so that I'll be able to answer. Appropriately for your interview that you want me to do is all right. So I watched his interview, or I watched his state of the Union, the first one and that like 56 minutes, he brings up Afghanistan and he did the exact same thing that he always does. He says, okay, you know, we're never going to, you know, the heroes that we didn't even say 13 and then one lady in the audience, she's like 13 of them. I think it was Bob it or Bob it or. Yes. And she said something out and I was I got goosebumps. But he then did the same thing. He went right in the bow. He went right into his son. And he said the existential threat to the military is the burning of diesel fuel in pits, because that's, I think, how Beau got his cancer. And I was just like crying. I was so devastated. Like once I who I was for more than the fact that like when this happens, like, like I said, like all these cockroaches come out of the woodworks, like every media, you know, they want, you know, people, I'm selling this are we love you in this. I didn't get involved in any of it, but I had seen that this was happening all over. Yeah, with a lot of people. And, so, so a part of me was upset that I had watched this. All right, so I'm devastated. I'm devastated. Like this. The what this president had just done and how he had turned it again. Let me can't even say the kids his name. If he would have said 13 names at that state of the Union, we wouldn't even be here right now. All right. But he didn't. And so I call this, I call this. I call this reporter guy back to tell him, you know, I'm like, I watch and I'm devastated. Well, when I call him back, he's like, oh, hey mister, you're cool. Yeah. We're not going to do the interview because we got Mark Schmitz to do it. And I was just like, wow. Like in my heart, you know, here, I watch this. I didn't want to do it. I did it because I wanted to help him, because he said, we have to fill in the slot. And none of the other parents can do it. Then I agree to it. I watch this, I get affected by it. The only the only saving grace I have is like, all right, I'll be able to vent something in this interview. Yes. And then the guy's like, no, we're going to do it because we have one of the other parents. And I was like, crying even harder. And so I've had to deal with that for three years with, you know, my God. With my lord. Praying, you know, like, hey, Lord, you know. Humble me from this. Soften my heart from it, you know, like whatever. So when the opportunity came to go to the state of the Union, I'll be honest with you. There is no way I was going to leave that state of the Union without my kid's name being said, you know, and I feel like, but at first I thought that they would say something, so I felt like it was. The Lord telling me, like, here, you know, your. Reward for being patient and faithful for three years, I'm going to I'm going to bless you with this. You understand what I'm saying? Tucker [00:33:42] Yes. Steve Nikoui [00:33:43] And then it didn't happen. You know, it's like it didn't happen. And I was I was able to see my other the other parents, I was I found them in the crowds, you know, where they were at. And just the way that they were looking, the despair and the sadness that they had at that state of the Union, everyone was slumped over, just kind of devastated, you know? And. Another thing I was like, concerned, like. Like the state, you would think that the speaker of the House would have the best seats, right? Like, all right, well, these two families are getting the speaker of the House, and I was I remember praying the Lord like, Lord, you know, why don't I have those seats? You know, I don't. I have the best seats. I'm thinking, I don't know that they are. And then McCall gives up one of his seats, you know, and he's the head of the chairman. Right. So, whoever got that CMA. Lord, why didn't I get that seat, you know, and that's all right. Thank you for the seats that you give. I don't even know where my seats are, but I'm just assuming, you know, that's how people they do. You know, we do this. We do our own assumptions. As it turns out, the seats I got were like, right directly. Like I was watching the president, like, you know, right in front of him, like, right where he comes out of that tunnel. I was sitting right above there. So the Lord had given me, like, the best seats in the whole world. And like for the last two weeks, I'm like, oh, Lord, he didn't give me, you know, I don't even know what the seats are, but I'm assuming that the worst and a lot of this has happened me in, in the course of, of this, you know, by being patient, I feel like the Lord has blessed me in these. These are the little blessings that I need. I don't need any praise. I don't I don't want to put anything on Facebook and then read those comment, oh God bless you. You're so awesome. And none of that. Tucker [00:35:32] So what happened after? So you called out your son's name and said Abbey gate, and then what happened? Steve Nikoui [00:35:38] Yeah. So then. Those. There is these two young men, and they came and kind of grabbed me and, escorted me up. Tucker [00:35:49] Who were they? Steve Nikoui [00:35:50] So I guess they were the Capitol Police, but they were in, like, suits, so they weren't they weren't dressed in police uniforms or anything like that. And, you know, they escorted me into the hallway. And then at that time, the guy that was telling you, that's been with us from the beginning, Marlin, he came, he ran, he was sitting at the other side and he ran to me. And I wasn't scared until I seen his face. Then I was like, when I seen him turn the corner, like, around Gallery six. And I saw his expression. Then I was nervous, you know, I was like, oh, you know, I would trouble. And, yeah. So they frisked me. He tried to say, help release him to me, you know, release the they like. No, you know, you're getting them and I have my Bible with me. But it was locked in one of the things and I had they give you a ticket. And I kept telling him, hey, Marlon, get my Bible, get my Bible. I want him to grab my ticket out of my pocket to go and get my Bible. But he does. He doesn't want to touch me because I'm detained. Tucker [00:36:56] Right. Are you being held by them? Steve Nikoui [00:36:57] Oh, yeah. They had me back here and. And they. Tucker [00:37:00] Cuff you. Steve Nikoui [00:37:01] Not yet. They, you know. Yeah, they cuffed me. They cuffed me right there in the hallway. And they knew I was a gold star dad, too, because he had told them he's like, hey, he's a gold star, dad, you know. And there was a reporter who after she said that, after he said that, she said, sir, why did you do what you did? And Marlon was all, please, please, ma'am, you know, he's a gold star. Dad can and told her whatever. So they had known. At first I thought they didn't know. I thought that they. I was just, you know, a guy that talks out, but they knew. And so then they took me down to the basement, and they did. How did they treat you? I got the pretty good. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Tucker [00:37:40] Were you handcuffed as they led you to the basement? Steve Nikoui [00:37:42] Yeah, yeah, they handcuffed me. So I knew I was going to go to jail because they handcuffed me. And then. Then they took me downstairs. They did an extensive, search, and then they had their, some new kids that had never done searches. So they used me to, to practice their searches. So I got searched by like three different people. Tucker [00:38:04] Did anyone explain why you were being handcuffed and arrested and searched for saying your son's name? Steve Nikoui [00:38:09] No, no, no, that wasn't until I got back to the capital police. But. At the Capitol Police. They asked, you know, they turned in all my stuff. They take it. And, the, the one of the boys that was just in his suit was asking me questions like, you know, my, my name and everything. And then afterwards, Secret Service and another guy from Capitol Police come in, and then they read me my Miranda rights and asked me if I wanted to talk to them and let me know that look, you know, you'll probably be out of here in an hour. It's $50. And, you know, do you want to talk to us? And I said, yeah, I'll talk to you. Tucker [00:38:55] What do they ask you? Steve Nikoui [00:38:56] So he asked me. So the one gentleman that wasn't that worked for Capitol Police asked me why I had done what I did. And so I'm crying, you know, I'm telling them. And both of these kids, were service members. Ex service members. I think he was a soldier and the Secret Service guy. I think he was in the Air Force. And, so I was telling him, you know, my story, you know, like, hey, this guy's never said my kid's name. I lost my kid in Afghanistan. You know, I'm really emotional, you know? But that capital policeman he kept every five minutes he would say cream. He would just look at me and say my kid's name, and he would tell me, I'm never forget, you know, like every five minutes he would just say this to me and, to comfort you. Yeah. Good man. Yeah. It was a great man then. You know, ask me. Hey, have you gotten any help? Oh, like. No, I don't need any help. I'm just right now, you know, I'm feeling this way. And then. He had told me that, he had told me that. Well, we, you know, if you say something and then we tell you to be quiet and then you don't, then we arrest you again, then we arrest you. And I said, well, nobody ever told me to be quiet. You know, I never I never was afforded that opportunity. And then he left. And then they asked me more questions. The other kid in the suit. You know, just basic questions, sex, weight and stuff like this. And then he came back and he said that again, and then he said, well, there's two ways, like we can ask you. And then ask you again in a rescue, or we can just arrest you. And he's all. And you don't want to be that because that's a felony. So I felt like he was kind of throwing me a bone, you know, like. And I kind of picked up on that. And I was like, all right, you know, I appreciate that. Yeah. I guess, they did tell. Tucker [00:41:00] Me, when did they let you go? Steve Nikoui [00:41:02] So what happened was, was that, you know, as we're talking and he's telling me this stuff, he says the congressman is outside. So we I was invited by Congressman Brian Mast, and biomass bailed me out of jail. Look, was there and he's all the congressman is right outside the door. And I felt like. Like $1 million because I knew, like, all right, I'm all right now, you know, I mean, I've got the Congress video to help me. And so, yeah, he got me out and walked me and hadn't met, you know, hadn't met him. We've met him several times. He's there's only, you know, there's four congressmen that I call the Four horsemen and they're military men. So they understand it's Isiah Mills, Mast and Watts, and then they're all led by, the the chairman, Michael McCall. So he he's the chair of the House of Foreign Affairs, and he's the one that's able to bring these hearings. And then these guys are just, you know, they're the ones that we're telling our stories to, and they're helping do whatever they do in Washington to get the message out. So the fact that he was there meant a lot to me. Like, like, all right. You know, I'm nuts because to be honest with you, from what I see on TV, yeah, see we love you. But the next day, I'll be on my own. This is my. I'm thinking, you know, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be all by myself. You know, this is great for tonight. But come the 28th, when I've got to go to court, I'm going to be by myself. But the fact that he was there and, you know, he's a man of God. And we prayed before. I don't know if we prayed before, but we talked about like what we're talking about in our in our, the spiritual. You know. Road that that I've taken with my son and. It was. I was just really blessed that he was there and he got me out. And then when I got out, you know, Waltz, all of them were not going to let anything happen. You, you know, we're going to stand by. And even they telling me this, I still felt like, a week from now, what have you. But myself, you know, I never really had any. You know, true belief like, hey, these guys are going to be here till the end. But they were. I mean, every couple of days, they would they would do what they have to do. And and from what I understand, they found out that because the gavel wasn't hit, that I didn't I didn't obstruct Congress. So the fact that and Mike Johnson helped that. So Ken Calvert, Mike Johnson, Walt's and they're all ice, and to some extent Mast and Mills, they, you know, helped to get this out. Like, hey, he didn't he didn't obstruct anything because the gavel wasn't hit. Tucker [00:44:00] What's your life been like at home since he died? Steve Nikoui [00:44:04] Yeah. So, yeah, the my personal life has been very bad. It's better now. But, you know, at the beginning, when this first happened, was just devastating. I didn't really have a home where I could recuperate from this. You know, my son and I, you know, Kareem’s real best friend was his little brother Steven. And he was like 15 when this happened. And, so I just said focus. I'm focusing on him, like, you know, he's and he's so strong and so brave. You know, he's. Tucker [00:44:41] He was 15 when his brother was killed. Steve Nikoui [00:44:43] He was 15. And they were best friends. And. Man. He's a rock, you know. You know, Kareem was a Brazilian jiu jitsu champion. Steven is one. They, wanted to be in MMA and fighting. So they're not they're not, they're not weak in that aspect. But, you know, they're very compassionate to the underdog. They're very quiet. You know, Kareem was a little guy growing up. So he sometimes would be bullied. And that was one of my concern when he started to learn how to fight. You know, I was like, yeah, you know, I don't ever want to hear that you're bullying anyone or you're doing any of this. And luckily, that never happened. You know, he was always compassionate to the underdog and, and the people that couldn't speak for themselves. So, you know, our home life was just it was just chaotic for the first year and but I think maybe the Lord had that happen to keep me from. Ruining myself. And I see what I'm saying, like, all that probably happened just so I wouldn't ruin whatever. You know, I just I just went in my room and just focused on the little things, you know, my son and whatever I could. And because there's a, there's a lot of, oh, we want to do this for your kid, and we want this interview and this and that. And for me to mitigate, like, how could you how could these parents not, like, feel some sort of like, pride or something after all this? Right. And I remember telling my kids, look, you know, be careful how you deal with this because it won't always be there. And then you're going to resent the fact that it's not there. That's right. And don't forget, there's tens of thousands of service members who died that don't have, you know, shooter boards at their front doorstep with a knock. I mean, it was just insane stuff at your front door cards. We love you. Money. Check. You understand? And every check, every cash I ever got, I still have it. So I never spent any of that. And I. And every card that we got, I not probably every one of them because it was just too much. But I wrote you know, back to them. I remember telling my kids, hey, you know, watch out how you, how you process this and what you do with it because, it's going to ruin you in your faith. Another thing, that the two other things today is our anniversary were my sons and I got, baptized. We got baptized on. March 26th, 2017. And we got baptized together in the same pool. And, in the year. So the other thing is, is that like when you lose someone, like when I lost my mom, I lost my dad within a week. Like, if they died on a Thursday, next Thursday, you'd bury him. And that was it. You know, I mean, you start trying to put your life together, and this situation didn't really happen. I mean, it was like five weeks. They brought back his body and. You know, things come up, certain little things would come up. Like, I know that they had the. And when these things come up, you kind of focus towards that. So you repress your feelings and everything for this one event, right? And you're like, okay, well, this events coming up and I'm going to I'm focusing on that. And one of the events we had in November was the, the memorial at Camp Pendleton. Now, since he was he live we live like 45 minutes from Camp Pendleton. He came home every weekend. So the only time I never seen him was when he actually deployed, you know, and he'd bring his marine friends home with them. And I felt bad because some of them lived in Iowa. There was no way they could see their family. So if we could give them a weekend where they felt at home, then I was all for that. You know, it was kind of like around Covid. So we were cooking breakfast and couldn't really go to church. And I had the, sometimes I'd have the TV on, but. Our preacher, our pastor, and they play games and they do whatever, you know. And my son would take them on hikes and they would drink on Fridays, you know, whatever they however, they had to unwind, you know, they were able to do it at our house. And I was I was blessed that that we could provide that for them. And so we had this memorial for the Marines. Right. And, you know, I never did any interviews or anything. I didn't want to be, I didn't that wasn't right for me. And, so I focused on my heart towards this memorial, which was in November and surpassed all my feelings and everything and well, I'm just going to focus on, on that part. And we went to the memorial and it was beautiful. And they had the missing man formation with the helicopters that went over the mountain where he would hike over there in Camp Pendleton. And I think that was either on a Thursday or Friday and then that Sunday. I just felt like a lot of remorse. I felt like grief, you know, and for me. But my religion, which is Christian, isn't, you know, for me to. I felt like for me to display. Grief is me saying, I don't believe in the Lord, you know? Is that weird? I don't know. And so I'd never really had any grief. I never had any sorrow, except for that day. I remember I was in my master bedroom. It was the Sunday and there was nothing else to look look forward to. There was no other event. That was the last event. And I remember just like feeling, you know, immense grief, sorrow. And I was like, Lord, why I'm looking out of the mountains. That he would put weights in his rucksack and hike. You know, I was like, Lord, you know, why do I have this feeling, you know, why do I have this? Why am I feeling this way? And then he said, hey, the Holy Spirit or the Lord told me, hey, look at the day that you went to Harvest Festival. So harvest festival. So we gave our lives in Jesus Christ together. Steve Nikoui [00:51:38] All right. In this place and in an angel stadium, by a fellow named, Greg Laurie, who does the same thing that. I forgot his name, but a evangelical in the 70s. Tucker [00:51:55] Billy Graham. Steve Nikoui [00:51:55] Billy Graham would do the same thing. So they'd go to the stadiums, they'd preach the gospel, and you had an opportunity to give your life to Jesus Christ there. And a lot of people did this. And in Billy Graham's, things, he's doing the same thing. He's been doing it for like 20 years. So if I could just go back in like 2015, I realized that my kids didn't have the same faith. Like I did, you know, like, yeah, he said, you need to be Christian. And once in a while I would say, but I didn't lead and they didn't tell them about. So my kids were already older, you know, so I didn't have a I didn't have an opportunity to indoctrinate them when they were younger. These are teenage boys. And I was praying, you know, Lord, please, you know, I failed, you know, give me an opportunity. And he did, you know, Kareem started asking about a church and like, in 2015, we started going and I knew that I could tell them, hey, you got to do this. But they. I had to change, you know, I had to make a concerted effort to make a change and be sincere with the faith so that they would follow, because I can't just tell them something. You know, I have to lead by example. And so that transformation happened. It took a year or something minute. The pastor was like, hey, you know, there, you know, Greg is having this thing down there. And we, we encourage everyone to go. So I'm thinking, Lord, this is our opportunity. Thank you. You know, and there we're going to church every weekend, me and my sons every Sunday. And we're working through I'm working through the different things and being real with them. You know, ties, you know, how do you deal with ties, right. Like at first I was like, I'm not giving them any money, you know, and, and, my pastor had said something at the time, he's all like, well, do you guys like in this? Weeks later, he said, well, do you guys like air conditioning? And that just I realized, like, my ties are for the air conditioning and it made me. So I made a point to. Yeah, I talked bad about the ties before. I'm going to make a point to show my kids that. Look, I've changed, I realize, and we're going to start giving ties. So the boys, I would give them their money so that they would know to give ties. So every Sunday we would be given our ties. And that's just an example of how we work through some of the obstacles in our faith, you know, and, and we're real about, you know, we weren't just saying it, we were acting upon it. And, so we went to great glories and we all gave our lives to Jesus Christ, you know, Steven Schiller. Kareem, me, Gianna. We all gave our lives to Jesus. And, and I felt blessed. You know, I was like, wow. Like, this doesn't happen, you know? I mean, who gets this opportunity? I failed and then. But I prayed for a solid year, you know? Please, Lord, please. And just such a blessing. And then from that blessing, you know, we were we always went to church, you know, it was it was became part of our background and me telling and preaching to the boys, you know, you know, about the gospel as well as our, our pastor. And then fast forward to that time when I was right after the, right after the Camp Pendleton memorial, the Lord and I'm looking out in the backyard and I'm feeling grief and I'm just feeling horrible, you know, the first time in like eight months or whatever. And I'm like, why do I feel this way? You know, I, you know. And the Lord said, hey, Steve, look at when you went to Harvest Festival. Because, Sunday would be people wouldn't go to church, so they'd go Saturday, same thing, but Friday would be after work. So I just knew like, hey, we, we went to the first time we went was on Friday and then every other time we went on Fridays. So I knew that was on a Friday. And I googled, you know, when was. When was the Harvest Festival? And it was August 26th of 2017, which is five years to the day. And like I got goosebumps and like, all my grief went away and just let me know that the Lord had planned this for me and that was verification. You know that on August 26th, 2016. We gave our lives to Jesus Christ. And on August 26th, 2021, he took my son. And that was, that's pretty powerful, you know, to let me know, you know. And that was just for me, like we had done some events where, you know, they had honored. And Greg Laurie had done. That year had done his harvest festival and honored my son, and they only had one. That year was October 3rd or fifth because of Covid. And they had done a big page thing, and they honored my son. And, and he didn't know this. Otherwise he would have been all over it. You know, everybody would have been all over that. I would assume. But that was just for me. That was just for me. You know that the Lord told me that, like, to let me know that you just got to show up. You just got to show up, and I'll take care of everything else. Tucker [00:57:25] I appreciate you taking all this time. Thank you. I know it's hard. Steve Nikoui [00:57:29] I appreciate it. Thank you.

The Tucker Carlson Encounter: Roseanne Bar Roseanne Barr turns out to be a very deep person. EPISODE DETAILS Roseanne Barr turns out to be a very deep person. READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] This has probably happened to you every couple months or so. You look up from what you're doing, otherwise occupied feeding the dog or paying your power bill, and you look up and they'll be trying once again to make Roseanne Barr be quiet. Shut up, Roseanne Barr, you're a Nazi. You're crazy. It's not working. Roseanne Barr has been in the public eye for almost 40 years, and amazingly, she's more influential than ever. So we thought we would check in with her and see how she's doing. Roseanne Barr, how are you? Roseanne Barr [00:00:29] I'm great, Tucker. How are you? Tucker [00:00:31] Well, you're obviously unbowed. I can't remember where I was the other day and someone was like, Roseanne Barr is a Nazi. She's an anti-Semite. I'm thinking you probably criticize her. Probably not a Nazi or an anti-Semite. Roseanne Barr [00:00:43] Probably not. Roseanne Barr [00:00:54] Just like you, when it was number one. Hey, don't their shareholders wonder why they would do that? Tucker [00:01:01] I don't know how that spooky finance stuff works. Roseanne Barr [00:01:03] I don't either. Tucker [00:01:05] I've still got some questions. I will say that. Roseanne Barr [00:01:07] But did you figure out, like I did, that it's really personal. Tucker [00:01:12] Or it's always personal. Yeah. Thing about television is everything's personal. Yeah. It's about you. Roseanne Barr [00:01:17] Yeah. Tucker [00:01:18] So when it's great, everyone's like, oh, you're Jesus, but when it's not so good when they're like, you're fired. Yeah, I don't take any of it personally. Thank heaven. But you get fired in this very, very public way become the center of the national debate over Trump. But you don't go away. And then all of a sudden I look up and you're everywhere. How did that happen? Roseanne Barr [00:01:39] I don't know how it happened. I really don't. Tucker [00:01:43] Did you expect to be doing this at this stage of your life? Roseanne Barr [00:01:46] No. Well, I guess when I was really little, I saw myself doing something that was going to have good consequences to it. And, so anyways, this week I was like, hey, this is like when you were little and now you're doing it. It was one of those minutes where you go thank you God, because I do feel like God puts me where he wants. I mean, I'll tell you all that later, but no, I go like, hey, I'm a lady citizen journalist for my old age. Hell that's great. It's great because, you know, I love that - oh now I can't remember her name, but that one that used to interview everybody in the 50s. She had her own show, and she did the greatest interviews. I'm so stupid, I can't remember her name. Jake, check that lady out. My son. Tucker [00:02:41] Lady in the 50s who used to interview people. Tucker [00:03:24] Of course. Roseanne Barr [00:03:26] And a racist. And a transphobe and whatever. A Zionist baby killer. They call me everything. And before that, when I was on the left, the right used say, but they're the same. I guess it's all the same. People play in different parts. They call me a cow. You know destroying the American dream. Man hater. You know, they've always throwing stuff at me, and none of it was ever true. But I had to live through all that gantlet of hate since I first showed up. Tucker [00:03:56] So we have an answer your question. Is it Arlene Francis? Roseanne Barr [00:03:58] No, not Arlene. He was good though. No, not Barbara Walters. I knew her, she was good, though. With and more support, wasn't she? No, no, she was, kind of an ugly little woman with brown hair. Tucker [00:04:12] Okay, so an ugly little brown hair. Roseanne Barr [00:04:15] No. Tucker [00:04:16] Wendy. Barry. Google. Roseanne Barr [00:04:22] The greatest interviewer, Mae Brussels. Thank you God. Tucker [00:04:29] Mae Brussels was this, Salt Lake city stations. Roseanne Barr [00:04:30] Yeah. My dad used to watch it. Tucker [00:04:32] Okay. Roseanne Barr [00:04:32] And and he'd say, this this woman has integrity. You know, my dad used to decode media for me. Yeah, because he wanted to be a comedian. So he always showed me how comedy works, and, you know, anyway. Oh, my God, I can't even focus my mind. Tucker [00:04:48] Anyway, so you said you're a deeply religious Jew? Roseanne Barr [00:04:52] Yeah, since I was three years old. I wrote it in my third book called Rose-anarchy. I had a conversation going with God. I wrote it in my book. You know, have little kids, have an imaginary friend? Yes. Well, mine was God. It's kind of- Tucker [00:05:10] Choose wisely. Roseanne Barr [00:05:11] Yeah, because that's all we studied. It was an Orthodox Jewish family. And, so that was my friend. And I talked to him when I would read and study. I wanted to know everything about it, you know, and I would talk to him and he'd always answer this in my book. I said, how come you you could solve every problem on earth? All you got to do is just wiggle your little finger and you can stop all these problems. Why can't you do that? All you have to do is wiggle your finger. Because I was suffering. Tucker [00:05:41] Yes. Roseanne Barr [00:05:43] And he said to me, because I don't have fingers, Roseanne. Oh, but you do. And he said, and you should be very proud of that opposable thumb that I put on that hand of yours, because now you can really get busy helping a lot of people and trying to make things right. And he always gave me the answer that I knew God would give me. He didn't ever go. Go get them. They're wrong in their religion. He didn't never say none of that. So I knew it was Ham, you know. So he told me all the time. Go over here and do this and go over there and do that. Just trust me on this. And I did that my whole life, with the exception of the few marriages that really left me up. But then I got rid of those guys and continued on the path I supposed to go on. Tucker [00:06:35] Did you not ask for guidance on the marriages? Roseanne Barr [00:06:40] You know, I didn't listen. Yeah. It wasn't God's fault. Yeah, he told me, but I go. I'm putting you on hold. Yeah. I got some physical business that you don't want to know about. Tucker [00:06:53] Do you think you knew? Roseanne Barr [00:06:54] Well, yeah. Tucker [00:06:56] Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:06:57] Yeah, but it wasn't anything. I was married, so it wasn't anything bad. Tucker [00:07:03] Right. Roseanne Barr [00:07:03] I mean, except for that, it was horrible sex. What? You know, people should not have sex. That's one way that we can fix the world right now. Tucker [00:07:11] Lets people stop having sex. Yes, absolutely. That's a tough one. It's hard, you know, like quitting smoking or something. Roseanne Barr [00:07:16] I know, unless you're married and you can take care of the kids that are going to be a result of this, right? Isn't that common sense? Tucker [00:07:24] I strongly agree. Roseanne Barr [00:07:25] That's what I tell these young women, you know. Don't worry about them overthrowing Roe v Wade. For one, I tell to my nieces that are all Lib liberals. You don't have to worry about that. You rushed out to get the vaccine. You're never going to get pregnant. You ain't gonna have no baby. Don't even worry about it. Right. Tucker [00:07:45] Whoa! What? You must be their favorite. On what? Well. You're sterile. You don't worry. Yeah. How do you respond? Roseanne Barr [00:07:56] I get really mad. Tucker [00:07:59] They never laugh. Roseanne Barr [00:08:00] That's the thing about fascists that I found in my life. They don't like laughter and they don't like discussion. Tucker [00:08:08] Yes. Roseanne Barr [00:08:08] Them are the two things they hate the most. And they might be on the right and they might be on the left. But if they can't laugh their self or aren't or anything. And they can't discuss civilly with someone that they disagree with. They gotta go. They gotta move aside because it's a whole new world now, you know, because we got citizen journalists. Tucker [00:08:32] Yes. Roseanne Barr [00:08:33] And we have journalists such as yourself with a conscience, who care about this country and what it means and how. We have to do everything we can to save it at this late, late date. Tucker [00:08:53] Late date. Roseanne Barr [00:08:53] For all of us. Hello? Yes. And stop buying in the bullshit. You know, I said that to introduce the polis, the deep state bullshit. Tucker [00:09:03] Well, actually, it's funny you mention that we have that clip. Really? Yes. Roseanne Barr, this is your life. Here you are: Unidentified [00:09:10] Are we all fed up with the deep state bullshit? And the bullshit. We want Trump the MAGA door to kill that goddamn boy. And the bullshit cow that god damn boy. Tucker [00:09:53] Now, I just put the political analysis on hold for two seconds. You're obviously enjoying that immensely. Roseanne Barr [00:10:00] Oh. So fun. It was so awesome. You know, it's always fun to make people laugh and, you know, come alive. Tucker [00:10:09] So I think even if like you didn't like Trump and you weren't going to vote for Trump, you look at that and be like, that looks like a pretty good time. Roseanne Barr [00:10:15] Oh no, I would not- Tucker [00:10:17] Of course I don't mean you. But like- Roseanne Barr [00:10:19] Did not want to be doing that. Tucker [00:10:20] Watch that. You're wearing a cowboy hat. Roseanne Barr [00:10:21] Yeah I mean for God you did. And they didn't have the mic, so I had to stand on my tiptoes, which, you know, I can barely reach the mic, but, yeah, I swiped this hat off a guy, and, you know, I didn't like how my hair looked. Don't even like how well, my hair. You know, I cut my own hair with toenail clippers. It took me four days, but I cut a hair by hair because I was so sick of it. But yeah, yeah, of course, in the mirror. I'm not crazy. Tucker [00:10:51] Did anyone see you do it? Oh, God. Roseanne Barr [00:10:54] I was in a room by myself, but. No, but I loved it. And I had spent a lovely week down there at Mar a Lago. It was so awesome, and I just loved it. Tucker [00:11:06] What do you think of Trump? The guy? You know him. Obviously. What do you think about him? Roseanne Barr [00:11:10] Well, as I always say, he's the only guy in my Hollywood career that ever returned a favor. He's the only one who ever returned the favor and gave me back more than I had given him up. I think he has such integrity. I think he's like me a lot. He said he tried to be funny, and he is really funny. Yeah, the guys are really funny. He's got great timing and- Tucker [00:11:38] I see. Roseanne Barr [00:11:39] You know, we all laugh. I mean, we all think he's funny. Tucker [00:11:43] What favor, he returned? Roseanne Barr [00:11:44] Well, you know, I did. I was doing my, I think it was my second or third HBO special. Stand up special. And, you know, I always wait until the last minute. You know. So, anyway- Tucker [00:11:59] To write it? Roseanne Barr [00:12:00] Yeah. Tucker [00:12:01] Oh. Roseanne Barr [00:12:01] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's bad because I can't unless I'm in a panic, I can't write. I know it's you know what I mean? Tucker [00:12:08] Oh, I- Roseanne Barr [00:12:11] Unless all that chemical panic. Tucker [00:12:14] Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:12:15] It kicks in. My brain doesn't function well. Yeah. When- Tucker [00:12:19] Unless you're running from a bear, you don't run fast. Roseanne Barr [00:12:21] Yeah. That's exactly. Hello. Oh, that reminds her of bass joke. My dad told me. But I'll say that. But I'll tell you after about the running from the bear. What are we talking about? Tucker [00:12:34] Tell me about when you first met Trump. You're doing your HBO special. Roseanne Barr [00:12:36] Oh, no, that isn't when I first met him, but he let me film it at Trump. New Jersey, what's that called? Atlantic. Tucker [00:12:42] Atlantic city. Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:12:43] And not only that, but he drove me out in his Packard on stage. He drove me out in his Packard, got out and escorted me to the microphone, which was so lovely because my second special. I did it as a has been. Who's coming back? Yes. And the. Oh, my God, did they hate that? I got sued by every single casino in the world and had to give them back all the money, because it was when I got really famous after my first HBO special. And so my second one, I thought it would be really funny to come back and be a failed diva. Kind of like really prophetic like it is now and go, when I went to rehab, you know, my, I say I was injured, I was thrown off a horse while making National Velvet and my doctor prescribed crack, and I had all this time. But then I went to rehab. I didn't really want to go, but my publicist said it would help my comeback, and it was that kind of thing. And then, like, I watched Barbra Streisand one voice. She did this concert in her backyard where she charged all of Hollywood, something like $10,000 to come in her backyard, watch her. And I did her act word for word because it was the greatest thing any entertainers ever done. I never thought I'd. Ever sing in public again. But then again. Now she goes like this. I could never imagine myself singing in public again. But then again, I could never imagine the possibility of nuclear winter. Tucker [00:14:19] She- Roseanne Barr [00:14:20] Actually said that. And so I did it, you know. Tucker [00:14:23] But she wasn't kidding. Roseanne Barr [00:14:24] No, she wasn't kidding. Do you not kidding a little bit. She's deeply serious about what she says. You know, she's she just, you know, just been in a bubble for far too long. Tucker [00:14:36] Yes. Roseanne Barr [00:14:37] She she needs to go. She. You know, I never was in a bubble. Like I say, even though I was. Very much in a bubble in my own family. I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah. We were Jews in Salt Lake. So with my joke, we stuck out like a sore thumb in that town because we only had the one mother so that- Tucker [00:15:01] I remember you were Jews in Salt Lake City. Jews in a mormon state selling Catholic religious icons. Yeah, something like that. Roseanne Barr [00:15:10] Yeah, yeah. My dad and grandpa, they sold pictures. 3D pictures of Jesus, to the, our Mexican neighbors. And they'd get $2 on welfare pay day. I'd go knock on the door and get the $2 on welfare payday. We were on welfare, too, but, you know, so it was handy that lived in the neighborhood where you're selling the the, pictures. But they were, like, the size of a little girl. And it was just like this with his arms out, so nice and blond and everything. And then when you took two steps, he's crucified. And I used to go through that room like, added to my PTSD. Tucker [00:15:47] Oh, did they keep the. Yeah. They in the house. Roseanne Barr [00:15:50] Yeah. Because, well, I like two rooms. So they stacked around the, you know, walls there. Tucker [00:15:58] It's not your average childhood. Roseanne Barr [00:16:00] It's not your average childhood. I was always a stranger in a strange land, but it gave me a unique perspective. And God gave me a unique perspective. Like he was talking to me today. He's like, Roseanne, have you noticed what a gift I've given you by putting you in your lifetime to be alive? In a world where the jokes just write themselves and I go, I'm grateful. Thank you. Because I do. Tucker [00:16:28] Oh, yeah. It's never been perfect. Yes. Perfect. And you're enjoying, like things. You're collapsing, but you're enjoying it. Roseanne Barr [00:16:36] But like you like Virginia Woolf said, the job of the writer is to put the severed parts together, you know, create the clear picture for the viewer or the reader. That's what you do, too. So you know exactly what I'm talking about. How fun is it to put those parts together? And, you know, those two wires have never gone together, never been allowed to go together, and they just start a friggin huge one. Spark sets the whole woods on fire. You know, we're seeing it. We're seeing people go, wow, I've been lied to my whole life. Every day. Tucker [00:17:11] Is it? So what about the people you work with for so many years in the entertainment business, or any of them coming to these conclusions? Roseanne Barr [00:17:18] Oh, no, I don't think so. But, you know, once you're in that bubble. The bubble of show business or whatever bubble it is your little secret society or club. You don't never come out of it. You got to walk out like Egypt, like the Jews in Egypt. If you're not going to leave Egypt, you're never going to know what's beyond it, you know. And two thirds of the Jews, the Israelite tribes, they don't want to leave slavery. They had to be forced to leave. Yes. So that's how it is. So people that are like, able to still laugh and think and put severed parts together and get a clear picture are very needed now. And, you know, I'm praying that it will expand ever more so with. The things that are coming out in the news, but they do try to hide the news on the news. The news is to hide the news, you know. Tucker [00:18:18] I've noticed. Roseanne Barr [00:18:19] Yeah. So this whole. Tucker [00:18:21] Sinister lot is to tell the truth. Roseanne Barr [00:18:23] Yeah. That's what you're punished for in a world of lies that the truth is seen as. I can't remember how that thing goes. The truth is seen as only crime. Yeah. Tucker [00:18:34] So where. So you've been on the road with Trump. You were at that rally in Florida. Where do you see that going for him? Do you think he's going to win? Roseanne Barr [00:18:47] I don't know, it. It seems. Of course I want that to happen. But then when you get on Twitter or any of those social media things, you know, where everybody is paid to lie. Tucker [00:18:58] Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:19:00] And, you know, I saw it happening on Facebook a million years ago. I saw. All of this my whole life. I was raised in an apartment with survivors from Auschwitz. And I always knew it would come here because it always goes everywhere. And, it's a virus. And, you know, I see people in the streets repeating Nazi slogans that they don't even know come from the Nazis. Yeah, I've seen it my whole life. And I do think Trump is. The anti Hitler, even though Hillary says he's the Hitler Hitler. But I mean, that one is amazing, isn't it? How? They use the reversal and the mirror image? Yes. As they lock up. As they use the judicial system to persecute their opponent legally, and they make up these fake attorney general lawsuits that don't even have a victim. Tucker [00:20:16] Letitia James. Yes. Roseanne Barr [00:20:17] Who's seen as a civil rights worker or something. Abuse the law to that point. Allow no jury. I mean, it's just so terrifying to me as a Jewish American and and that that's allowed and that the press honks it up. You know, they just honk it up. Crank it up. We got to keep this going. We got a lot of people to divide and get hating on each other, which is why I came back to television. I didn't want them to do this because I know where it leads. Well, it starts with the Jews. Doesn't end with the Jews. The Jews are just the convenient canary in the coal mine. You know, because I know, you know, a lot of people don't like us. And, you know, there's a lot of reasons they don't want you got names like Epstein, Weinstein, Blinken, people that are like, you know, Yellen, people that are like on the side of against. The American taxpayer, for God's sake. Soros. Kissinger. I can name a ton of them. And, like I say in my act. Just because a very little sizable portion of our people are horrible fucking people. Please don't hold us all to that. But. But, you know, it's embarrassing. And then they're the ones calling me an anti-Semite. But they didn't stick up for me when I said the Iran deal was an existential threat to Israel. In so many words, in the Captcha captioning of a meme during a three month conversation about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Iran, and the United States. Nobody Jewish stuck up for me because I'm a Nazi. Because I like Trump. And why do I like Trump? Because Trump. Understands the Jewish people, and we owe a deep debt of gratitude to him for that. And that is why I myself and my mother is a lifelong Democrat. Unbelievably, also loves Trump. That's a minor miracle right there, buddy. Yeah, because she finally saw what the Iran deal is really about. And so she can't vote Democrat ever again at age 90. Tucker [00:22:48] What is, pardon my ignorance. I mean, I watched this happen. I knew some of the people involved in it, but I never really understood what the Iran deal is about. Roseanne Barr [00:22:58] Well, it's about what just happened in Israel on October 7th. That's what it's about in shorthand. They unleashed a, remember in the movie Planet of the Apes? Tucker [00:23:10] Yes. Roseanne Barr [00:23:10] Where they went after all the human beings who could read. They didn't even think they could talk. But they feared they might be able to talk. So all those militarized, beings like in Star Wars, came and beat down and locked those people in cages. The human beings in the movie Planet of the Apes, which was written by Rod Serling and was actually a movie about Nazi Germany and the Jews. So that was the reference I used in my tweet. But, you know, you kind of have to have. A, sort of a. A certain historical vantage point to understand that I was saying that which they lack in Hollywood. Yes. Because all all they are is we want a woman. We want a woman. We want this skin tone because our fetishists. Care nothing for our republic. Our way of life. Our constitutional republic. Which people have laid their lives down for for decades. I've seen it for seven decades. People have laid their lives down for that, and then they go about talking what's American? And it makes me sick when they say they might save our democracy. Well, democracy isn't burning down cities, okay? Democracy and forget that word because that's means mob rule. But. The heart of America. We keep being denied to see the real Americans, the heroes of America and I. I see him now because everywhere I go, I see him. Those are the people that those nurses say. Those are nurses and doctors that you know. Refused to go along. Those brave people in our armed forces who. Were kicked out because they they understood that no government, least of all this one, has the right to force, untested drugs on a captive population because that's nothing but fascism, Fascism and Hitlerism and Nazism and Stalinism all mixed together because, you know, this is exactly what Hitler would be like if we had computers. That's what we're living in. And now we got artificial intelligence where they're going to recreate people's lives using artificial intelligence for their movies. So nobody's even going to have a right to their own life story. They'll steal everybody's life story. It's so horrible. And, it's like, I feel like it's 99% sewed up, you know? I don't know if this is the end of the world. Looks like it to me. Tucker [00:26:24] Have you got about that? Roseanne Barr [00:26:25] Well, like I told my son, I don't really give a damn because I'll die my way out of it. Hahaha. But y'all have to deal with it. But here's the good news that this what I want to say. And I know you care. In the Torah, it says that 99% of this world is just physical. It's that 1% that matters. So I think that 1% is the one they can't factor in because they don't know what it is. They don't got it. But we do. And that's the 1% that. Is where all wars are decided and won and lost. That's God. So I just invite people to pray with me and pray themselves in their own words. Not by rote, not by prayers they've already heard, but in their own words that we. Because I know we do have the power of spirit together to make this whole stop and change it. I know we can do it. I just wish other people would know that too. I did it in my life. From a real low point. Let myself give myself permission to believe. I guess that's it. Gave myself permission to connect and believe and walk in. To do what I believed to walk in my, I don't know what you call it. Just to say what to live, what I say I believe to actually believe it and then live it. It's pretty amazing and it's transformative. Tucker [00:28:25] How do you feel different now that you've done that? Roseanne Barr [00:28:28] Well, I first did it in 1999 because I saw this all coming, you know, because I always everyone says I'm, you know, they got all these mental illness things for it, but really. I just found a safe place in my side myself that was connected to God at a young age. You know, it's a relationship. I don't know. I just, like, have been walking deeply with my God for a long, long time. And, you know, I gave myself, I gave myself, well, like, well, you know, if don't matter, I just want to be all in for America. I want to be all in for the United States of America, because this is where my family would have died if they didn't get here. And I saw that my whole life as a child, they would be dead. And I never would have been born if they didn't have an America. I wanted to be here for. Tucker [00:29:41] I do too. Roseanne Barr [00:29:42] I know you do. Tucker [00:29:43] I do. You spend a lot of time in Hawaii. Roseanne Barr [00:29:48] I haven't been back in a year since I went on that Fox deal. You know, I was doing that Fox deal. That was January 6th, a couple of years back when I was going to come do that special. Tucker [00:29:59] Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:29:59] So I moved to Texas December 5th and started working on my act. Talk about. Wait until the last minute. But I haven't been back in Hawaii since then. Tucker [00:30:13] So, I mean, you haven't been there since the fires. Roseanne Barr [00:30:16] No. They happen on another island. Tucker [00:30:18] Yeah. Not the one you live on. Roseanne Barr [00:30:20] Yeah, they happened on on, in Lahaina, behind the- Tucker [00:30:24] What was that? Roseanne Barr [00:30:26] Oh my God. Honestly, I feel that they target. They feel they target certain populations. They don't like anybody that has a direct connection to their sacred ground. I think it has a lot to do with October 7th. Also, that they don't like the people to live above their sacred ground in their, sacred ancestors, either because, you know, they might be able to put up a hotel there, for crying out loud. And people are nothing but useless eaters. And, you know, there are a bunch of, Bible clangers and gun toting and despicable or deplorables, whatever she called this. Tucker [00:31:14] Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:31:15] And, you know, they're just in the way. And then they bring out Oprah. You get $700 and you get $700 and you get 700. You know, it's just it's just part of it. And, is that it? Nothing has been done for them. Tucker [00:31:30] Is that a criticism of Oprah? Because I don't I don't know that we're allowed to do that. Roseanne Barr [00:31:33] No, no. Yeah, it is, because it was just. Oh my God. Yeah, it was an attack on the Hawaiian people, and that's. Something that's very meaningful to me too. When I went to Hawaii, I always. I won't even go into that. But yeah, they haven't done nothing. They're moving a lot of those people from Lahaina onto my island. Now, our big island, they're putting them in Hilo. That's a war crime, in my opinion. But thereafter every tribal people, if you noticed that, have oil under them, or a place where they can put a 15 minute smart city or, you know, a place where they can have a pipeline, they they don't like people that are connected to the Earth by ancestral ancestry. That's all a bunch of crap they read in their old books. Let's say we aren't supposed to be able to have sex with kids. In short. Tucker [00:32:38] Sure. So. Last question. Do you see? That's the maybe the greatest summary I've heard in a long. Thank you. Yeah. Roseanne Barr [00:32:53] Did you hear my other one? I said it to Dinesh D'Souza. Obama-Maoism. Tucker [00:32:59] Obama-Maoism. I like that. Do you think Obama is behind all this? Roseanne Barr [00:33:02] Of course. Duh. Tucker [00:33:05] Yeah. Dumb question. Roseanne Barr [00:33:05] In himself. Also, I need his old sock puppet upstairs so I can sit down here in the basement and do what I do best dropping bombs on people and drone them and, you know, getting richer. He's the richest president we've ever had. People don't even know that. They don't know Lolo Sotoro cofounded Halliburton with the Bush family. Did you know that? What else did you want to ask me? You were going to have. Tucker [00:33:33] No, I, I guess I'll end with this. Tell us the bear joke from your father. Roseanne Barr [00:33:41] See if I can remember correctly. On. This guy's telling a guy who lives in the woods the other day hunting and a bear come at me, and he started chasing me, and, oh, I was running. And, you know, I run up a tree to get away from him. My God, the bear comes up after me. So I've been jump out of the tree and run, and I see a little crick there. So I run across the creek because I think he'll lose my scent, you know, in the water. But hell no. He comes across the water, he's up there and he's got me up against, barrel. Hey there. And, oh, I just shit my pants. And the guy goes, well, I would have shit my pants, too if a bear was on me like that. The guy goes, oh, no, not then and just now. I should have my. Tucker [00:34:28] Your father told you that? Roseanne Barr [00:34:30] Yeah. Tucker [00:34:31] How old were you when he told you that? Roseanne Barr [00:34:36] That's one of his good ones. Tucker [00:34:37] Do you ever have I you hear from. Roseanne Barr [00:34:39] Oh, I got so many home movies when I said, daddy, how come Santa Claus don't come to our house like he does all the neighbor kids when I was just little? Because Santa Claus hates the Jews. So I can be no other way than this. Tucker [00:34:56] You know what I'm saying? It's wonderful to see you so wonderful. And I know, I know, probably next week or the week after, they're going to try and shut you down again, but I think it's going to work. Roseanne Barr [00:35:05] Well, I, I'm just all about God now and preaching the gospel from the Torah. And I'm going to tell everybody if they don't start repenting, they're going straight to hell. That's what I feel like I was born to do. You know how Trump says he's been preparing his whole life for this fight? So my. I feel that about myself. Tucker [00:35:25] I think you people, you may be onto something. Roseanne Barr [00:35:27] They're people. They need to look inside and straighten up their own life and stop blaming Jews and anybody else. That's my message. Tucker [00:35:39] And the old books tell you that you can't touch kids. Roseanne Barr [00:35:41] Yeah. And the old books also tell us that. I'm serious when I say this that God has damned on this earth. Anyone that is involved in any way that purposely hurts children, God has damned them all and it's time to say it. Tucker [00:36:01] Amen. Thank you. Roseanne Barr [00:36:02] Thank you.

The Biden administration is trying to send an 82-year veteran to prison for life for the crime of repeating ‘Russian misinformation.’ The scariest, most important criminal case you’ve probably never heard of. ucker [00:00:00] So it was about two years ago, a little over two years ago, that Russian troops moved into eastern Ukraine and throughout the West, Western media reported this as a totally unprovoked act of aggression. Who could have seen it coming? But there was, if you paid very close attention, one political group in the United States that had a different explanation for it, and it was a group a lot of people would dismiss as fringe, a group called the African Peoples Socialist Party. And to be honest, we never heard of them. But around this time they started releasing videos with a different view. Those videos were critical of the United States and NATO, and they pointed out that there was, in fact, a history here, and that NATO had been expanding eastward for quite some time and putting a lot of pressure on Russia. Now, you may agree or disagree with that, but they had a coherent view of it. And to give you an example of what that view was. Here's video from the group's chairman, a man called Omali Yeshitela. Watch. Omali Yeshitela [00:00:54] This discussion about Russian military buildup on its border with Ukraine, and how this represents a terrible threat, to Ukraine by, by Russians. But there is no acknowledgment of the history that took us to this place, how the US overthrew, participated in and facilitated the overthrow of a government in Ukraine that was friendly to the Soviet Union. Nor does it talk about the history of this relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Then you have to remember that they're using NATO here too and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was something that came into existence to deal with the Soviet Union of Soviet Russia, as it used to be called. And so this is an ongoing aggression that did not just start. It has been going on for a while, but the US government, relies on the eagerness of, of the people, in this country and in much of the world that's facilitated by people like Zuckerberg. Tucker [00:01:58] So you could agree or disagree with that analysis. Couple parts of it are indisputably true. One, the US government does rely on the ignorance of its population to do things in that population's name that the population doesn't want. Start all kinds of pointless wars, for example, get people killed, bankrupt the government. That's all real. It's also true that there is a history in Ukraine, and you may or may not think it justifies Russian aggression, but there's no question that NATO has been moving eastward, and it's hard to see why. What benefit is there to the NATO member states? In any case, that's a point of view. Agree with it or not. But for some reason, the FBI was watching. They were watching, and they considered sentiments like that not just wrong or offensive, but a crime. And so three months later, the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, our federal law enforcement tasked with keeping us safe, spent its time and a lot of agents - it looked to be dozens of agents - raiding the home and the office of the man you just saw speaking, as well as the homes of six other members of his organization. Dozens of heavily armed agents descended with automatic weapons. They used flashbang grenades and drones. The first thing they did when they broke in, when they smashed the door, was to tape over the internal security cameras, so there would be no record of what they were doing. And then they walked off with a huge amount of material they stole things from Yeshitela and his wife and a bunch of other people who work for this organization. Then they handcuff them and lead them away. This is how they describe the experience at the time. Omali Yeshitela [00:03:35] They handcuff me and my wife out here. They wanted me to sit on the curb, while they were carrying this out. Something that I refused to do. They wanted my wife to sit on the curb out here, but she refused to do. Speakers: [00:03:54] As I was coming out, this big old drum met me. The only revolutionary organization that's done something here on the ground practically for African people is the one that's come under attack. Institution that offers a community radio station, a newspaper, a commercial kitchen and a rental space and community office for organizers. That was the building that has come under attack. Tucker [00:04:47] So if you're watching this video right now, the chances are that you're probably not a revolutionary black nationalist. We're not, obviously, but you may be an American, and if you are an American or if you believe in the idea of America, you should care about this case. Why? Because of the charges. Now, typically in situations like this, when the city of Philadelphia, for example, incinerated the entire MOVE community back in the 80s when the US government under Bill Clinton killed all the Branch Davidians and their children at Waco, when federal agents murdered Randy Weaver's wife and child and shot his dog there's some pretext for doing it. There's a gun charge. They were caught with bomb making materials. There's some weird sex stuff going on. They're child pornographers. It's human trafficking. They at least bother to tell you a story that makes you stop asking more questions. Because you think to yourself, well, these people were obviously very bad. They did something that was a legit felony, and they probably got what was coming to them. What's so interesting about this case is that the government under Joe Biden is not even pretending that they did anything illegal. There's no actual crime here. No one has been charged with bomb making or hurting anyone or any act of violence, no active embezzlement or theft. What they're charged with is liking Russia, is having opinions that the Biden administration doesn't want them to have, saying things that they're not supposed to say in public. So even if you're not a revolutionary black nationalist, you should care deeply about this case, because first, they come for people like this, people on the fringe, and then they come for you. The details of the story are even more shocking than we're describing, and we're going to get them from the man at the very center of it, Omali Yeshitela, the chairman of this group, the man now accused of being a Russian agent and about to go on trial. We're honored to have him join us now. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for coming on. Omali Yeshitela [00:06:42] Thank you very much for having me. This is an important interview for us. It helps us to break out of this encirclement, information encirclement that has been imposed on us, by the US government. And when we talk about the ignorance of the people, being a factor here, part of the way to keep the people ignorant is to keep them from participating in discussion. Because, the attack on the right to speak is also an attack on the right of the people to hear. So I have something to say for me, as you said agree or not agree with it. But at least, they can have opinions that are informed opinions about, agreeing or not agreeing with me. But when they use grenades and battering rams, and armored vehicles and assault weapons and things like that to keep me from talking. And when they talk about putting me in prison for 15 years, which is the equivalent of a life sentence for me. This is designed to keep people from hearing what I have to say. And this is real testimony, in my opinion, of the fragility of a social system that cannot tolerate a discussion coming from somebody, from one of the most economically, depressed sectors, the city of Saint Louis. So, so it's all a falsification. I wanted to say, first of all, that, our lawyers for the point for the purpose of making this defense have to move forward and say that even if we did what they said, we did, that, the First Amendment protects us. But I want to say beyond that, that they fabricated most of what they say, that they're lying. It's mostly a fabrication and that they are politically motivated and doing what they do, they have done because of internal crises and crises in the existing global system, that sees, forces like China and Russia, and increasingly even countries like, Iran, countries like Venezuela, challenging the hegemony, of a country that has, held that, for the longest period of time has been the big hegemon. And so I think this is a domestic crisis that was best represented by what we see happening inside this country right now. And what we see being partially responsible for it, by forces around the world, who are challenging the ability of the United States, to continue to be the big dog here. I think that's what we're looking at. Then, of course, there's the immediate, immediate personal interests of a guy, who's running for president, reelection and, who is also attempting to escape the moniker of being sleepy. So, I mean, I think these are some of the factors that, that informs much of what's happening right now. Tucker [00:09:44] One of the great and beautiful things of this moment, of this moment that we're living in, is that we can sort of put aside some of our preconceptions, and I'm sure there's a lot we disagree on. I don't think I disagree with a single word that you just said. I thought it was very nicely put and wise. And I just want to say for the record, I agree with you. This is a sign of fragility of the regime. Confident rulers don't act like this. But I just had to say that. But I just want to get to the facts of it quickly. So am I misreading this? I think your lawyer is right. Even if you are guilty of what they accuse you of doing, you're not guilty of any crime because you're not accused of violence, theft, no conventional crime. You're accused of having the wrong opinions. Am I missing something? Omali Yeshitela [00:10:33] Well, yeah, because what they've said is that even if what we said was true, even if it's disinformation, we're accused of, spewing Russian disinformation. And they have said that even if we said what we said is true, it is it still amounts to disinformation. So they're not necessarily accusing us of lying. They're accusing us of talking. Tucker [00:11:01] Right? Tucker [00:16:23] But may I ask you. May I ask you a question, though? But this is being done by the administration that tells us constantly how much they love and worship black people. They love black people. No one's ever done more for black people than the Biden administration. And no one has has cheered that on more loudly than the New York Times and The Washington Post, which also love black people probably a lot more than you do. So have they come to your defense at all? Omali Yeshitela [00:16:52] Not at all. Tucker [00:16:53] Yeah. Why? That's kind of weird. Omali Yeshitela [00:16:54] And it's really, a real serious kind of contradiction, that this is, able to occur and especially, you know, I mean, we talk about Biden if we just take it on a personal level, which is not necessarily where I was intending to go. But if you take it just on a personal level, we're talking about Biden, who claims to be the great liberal who, white man who loves us. We're talking also about the guy who was opposed, to the civil rights bill, talking about the guy who was opposed to bussing because he didn't want his children to have to go to school in a jungle, etcetera. That's just on a personal level. And, but here they have never had to have to offer African people anything when they run for office. It's not because they are offering us anything. They are frightening black people. They say, if you don't vote for us, you're going to get Trump. Who is a demon? Or are you going to get the Republicans who are demons, or are you going to get what we characterize as fascism, etc., so they don't have to promise black people anything except they swear they they will protect us from from the other white people. That's one aspect of and then there's a whole body of folk who are employed through, things like welfare, slavery and programs that they create, and, it's a whole array of folk that employ liberals based on that and what we stand for, self-determination. We also believe in reparation. But the point is that we have in Saint Louis alone, we have in seven contiguous blocks in Saint Louis, economically depressed sector. We we purchased something like 20 some properties. And we put businesses and other kinds of things there. That's not permissible. We are supposed to get in line for welfare or something like that. And we are teaching African people that you can be self-determining. There is an alternative to what you got. But the whole Democratic Party apparatus rests upon this foundation of welfare slavery. And this is why they would have black people, located. And so our, the Democratic Party, you can't say, that they lied to us, whether it was Obama or whether it was, this guy, Biden. You can't say they lied to us because they didn't promise anything except they would protect us from Trump, from the Republican Party. And I'm not a Trump, person or Republican person. I'm for the liberation of black people. And that's what this whole thing about working for Russians is so ridiculous. I'm not looking for another master. I'm trying to get rid of the whole relationship. That presupposes, that we would be served with, service of anybody. Tucker [00:19:40] I mean, given that you haven't actually done anything, you're not accused of doing anything that isn't already legal, exercising rights that are guaranteed to you from birth till death under the U.S. Constitution. I'm a little bit surprised that nobody has defended you in the US media. Now, I will say your name sounds non-mainstream of your organization, but once. Omali Yeshitela [00:20:07] You go. Tucker [00:20:08] Yeah, everything's fair. Fair, Barack Hussein Obama. But once. But once you learn the details of this, you'd think there would be at least one civil libertarian at the New York Times editorial page of the Washington Post or NBC news or CNN or any of these groups. Has anybody said a word about an armored personnel carrier showing up at your house? First for speaking, for talking. Omali Yeshitela [00:20:38] You know, we've had to go out and really, work. I mean, in July of, this year, we had, a meeting, a conference, and we pulled together something like 40 different organizations and what have you to unite, as a part of a free speech, anti-colonial free speech movement who are pushing back on this. And I think that includes, one, organization of lawyers and what have you. But generally speaking, we haven't been able to get anything, even so-called progressive black politicians and what have you. Have not stepped forward. But you also got to remember we're talking about a period, where it's impermissible even to say, well, you can say from sea to shining sea, you kind of say from, from, how does it go from, from the river. Is it from the river to river to the sea? You know, you know, I mean, it's it's incredible. The, the attack that's being made on the right, the people speech. And by the way, as a point of information, I've been arrested several times on the question of speech. I was arrested in Florida. They created a law, called incitement to. Right. It didn't have to be a riot. I just had to want one to happen. When I spoke, I mean, they put me in jail and threatening to put me in prison for having done that. So this question of, of speech is a really critical issue, and people need to pay attention. I was under assault in Saint Petersburg, Florida in 1996. Some 300 cops, National Guard troops, building, set houses on fire. Used all kinds of machinations, including the FBI, because they were concerned, that we were protesting and speaking out against, police having kill, an 18 year old youngster and, and, the grand jury, having said it was all right for that to occur, and we were having a meeting and they didn't want me to talk. And so they attacked the building, they said in our own building and said that, that you have, something like five minutes to get out of the building because this is an illegal meeting in our own. We own the building. And so they attacked us. So the free speech question and the the problem is they did this and in plain view, people saw it happen. They brought I mean, the people in the community actually brought a helicopter down by gunfire. This is how intense it was. And not a single civil libertarians stepped forward to say, why are you attacking these people for speech? Tucker [00:23:12] Well, I'm I'm confused. So you're describing basically what the Black Lives Matter people said four years ago. They got some of them got legit rich out of it. You don't seem like you've gotten rich. And they they got all this money from Apple and the biggest companies in the world. And of course the media cheerlead them. Well, how did you miss out on that? Omali Yeshitela [00:23:36] Well, because the thing is, I like to say Black Lives Matter, is such an empty slogan. It's a win rather than a demand. Anyway, I mean, so, you know, Joe Biden says black lives matter. I mean, you got the whole Democratic, party, you know, Congress. And what have we get out on one knee with kente cloth from Ghana on the over their shoulder saying black lives matter because it doesn't mean anything. It's a it's a non statement. But what we say is black people have to have power. So we want power on like that's the question. And that's the basis for the difference in how they would treat Black Lives Matter and how they would treat us. And and you're right, the Black Lives Matter slogan is almost a Zuckerberg manufactured slogan. Certainly, if it's not manufactured by Zuckerberg, it's certainly promoted, by Zuckerberg and and all the white people who love us. Tucker [00:24:28] So tell us about what else? I wasn't aware this. I was talking to someone on your staff, this morning. It's not just the government that went after you. And I should say you haven't gone on trial. You're not convicted of anything. I mean, you've not. You're not a criminal, okay? But it sounds like business has aligned against you as well. If you wouldn't mind explaining what's happening. Omali Yeshitela [00:24:53] Yeah. I mean, yeah, right. I mean, we've been sanctioned by banks, like, we have some kind of, hostile country, the banks that we've done more than 20 years, businesses with. And we've never missed a payment. We we, you know, really disciplined in terms of taking care and sometimes paid earlier than what was due. And the banks, regions, banks, one big bank that, they, they, kicked us off, they even some members organized members of, movement, they personal accounts have shut down. They shut us down. They forced the payment of, of, something like an $80,000, mortgage thing that we had, and we were given something like two weeks to pay it off. We've had. Similar things happening from another bank. We we've had, some 60, 130,000 signatures that have been collected on petitions, that we're calling on people to take the United States, before the United Nations, for violation of the, UN convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. They were taken down, disappeared because, as you know, the U.S government claims that, the work that we were doing, on a tour, getting, participated in by the United Nations, trip throughout the United States, and six cities. And we were collecting petitions on, that and talking about reparations that the Russians paid us to do that. So they took that down. I guess it must be some kind of evidence of crime that we committed. We don't know. It just disappear. And then, in terms of, and and that was just one of the banks, by the way, there was another bank that similar did a similar thing. And just recently, we had a situation where, within the last week or so, ten days at least, the fiscal, the the the fiscal, how do you characterize it? Sponsor that we use because we really want to have this thing be quite transparent and and quite aboveboard because we've had to spend 100, 200 and, and, just about a quarter of $1 million already just in legal fees alone. And we have this process where people can make contributions to us. And the fiscus, sponsor that has, been dealing with something like 600 different entities that they function as, as fiscal sponsors of suddenly this, they were going out of business. And of the six top, we was, 5 or 6 among the top, forces, in terms of money going into that, and others of them have not the other others, the five of them have not even been operational for the last two years, so they decided they were going out of business. There's a whole bunch of coincidences happen. Coincidence that the church right across the street from my house that they attacked on July 29th, that church, coincidentally, where we had it, was it would have been empty for ages, and we had it under contract to purchase it in order to put programs in, for the community that that church mysteriously burned down. And then this attack on us on July 29th followed, an attack on on July 2nd, 2000, 29, where, 50 foot, flagpole, hosting 15 by 25 foot, red, black and green African national flag was torched in broad daylight. And the guy who was there was even charged with with arson, you know, some kind of criminal mischief thing. I mean, it's just this just a host of of attacks that's being made over us. And sometimes the government and sometimes financial institutions, like, regions Bank, where we've had demonstrations and what have you, but they are moving. It seems to, first of all, make us spend money that we've been using to put, programs on the ground. For example, on the day they attacked us, that morning, that same morning. And later that morning, we had scheduled, training for, for African women, who, were becoming doulas, being trained to become doulas, people who, take care, and make safe birth, for women and for the children in Saint Louis, we have a situation where, there are enough black babies dying in the first year of life, to fill 15 kindergarten classes. So we have in this doula training, they attack our building. They attack our home. That that did happen, but we we've initiated a process. We've bought properties where we, setting up a women's center, things like that. That's the kind of stuff that they are attacking. And so they would divert the money that we would have for these programs, where. And you need to come to Saint Louis. By the way, I heard you make an, some kind of suggestion that you might like me if you have dinner or something. And so that's an open invitation. Come on, Saint Louis. Thank you, thank you. I want you to see what we have done, because I think it's really important to get a grasp of the significance of what is happening to us, because you won't find another organization doing this really, really transforming an impoverished community. That's in a state of despair. I mean, we built $150,000, a $60,000 basketball court, in a place where children, black children are playing in the streets, dodging cars, going back and forth using makeshift, hoops, basketball hoops from bicycle, rims and things like that. You would think that the city would be applauding us. The government would be. And but here's an irony, because. They call, this a food desert in North Saint Louis where we live. And, I think we got something like, 80,000 or more, dollars. Grant from the, if what is the the the the FDA, you know, to to create and operate, a farmers market there, which is the most one of the most effective farmers markets that they say that's happening in the country, that they that the FDA has sponsored. This is who we are. And this is this is part of the crime that's being committed against our community, our people, because this is self determination. And that's the problem that they have. And that's the thing that the Democratic Party has, because it relies on, having this relationship with, black people who are tied to welfare slavery and not self-determination. And we won't tolerate that. Tucker [00:31:28] Amen. If you don't mind my asking, well, let me tell you why I'm asking when asked how old you are. Because I see this armored personnel carrier in front of your house. It looks like a war. And I see dozens of heavily armed FBI agents. And the presumption is that you're very dangerous. So to put that into perspective, how old are you? Omali Yeshitela [00:31:50] I'm 82 years old. I was 82 in October. And, that's why I say that this whole fifth part of a 15 year prison sentence is effectively a threat of, a life sentence, as it, as it relates to me that there are other young people, younger people like Penny Hess, who is a white woman who and I'm going to mention that who, is chair of the African People Solidarity Committee, and Jesse Neville, who was a youngster, who, is the chair of who the solidarity movement. And they work primarily in the white community. And this, this concept even of understand who we are, you know, like as quote unquote black nationalists, we are anti-colonialist forces, but we have organize, we have organizations of white people and 117 cities in this country. And what these organizations are doing is they are taking the demand for reparation. They are taking the exposure of genocide. They are talking about the injustices committed against African people. So Penny Hess and Jesse Neville, they are heads of two of those organizations that up, the up front of our movement in the white community. So, just want to say that we, we we are not race based politics, politic is based on this fundamental relationship, because even the concept of race, find itself, comes into existence, through colonialism. We are anti-colonialist and and that's a change. I mean, because it doesn't mean that we haven't always been I have been at one juncture, seriously concerned about the question of race because I took, my examples of how to explain reality from what I learned from this system. And so, the racism and racism and things like that. But, even the concept of race, denies me of nationality, that I'm, I'm not even, you know, a person that can be defined in relationship to a history of my own. It's a negation of my history and even what the government has done, in terms of charging me with being an agent of Russia. Like we don't have agency as a people like we like. I, I am one of the persons that was working against your this notion that participated in organizing people to register and vote, and, particularly in the state of Florida. I was in the United States military. I was there when the I was in Berlin when the Berlin Wall went up. I was one of those forces and one of those techs that faced, one of the first time Russian American tanks faced each other in a combat there. I was there, and, I don't know where Biden was. I don't know where he was during that period I was there, you see. And, so this whole notion that somehow I'm being manipulated and I'm mentioning the thing about about Florida because I was there when the Cuban crisis, missile crisis. Now I'm stationed in Georgia. And so they send, a convoy of troops to go into, Florida, Fort Patrick, I think it was it was a Patrick Air Force base in Florida. And I'm on a convoy and I'm writing, from Fort Benning, Georgia, in a convoy, and we're driving down, to, to this area near cocoa in Florida. You know where I'm talking about. Yes, I live in Florida. And, and so we get to Palatka, Florida, and people get out, on the convoy to go and eat, in this restaurant. And we go in the restaurant, and and the woman who is serving said, we don't serve. Y'all can talk about me. I'm in the US military. I'm going to defend you, as you say, from the from the Cubans, missiles. And then you say, I can eat there. But that was all right because my officer, the white officer, said, don't worry about it. We'll bring you something out. So this is this is the history that we are talking about. And, so this notion that I don't know if, if, if the Russians ever had to experience that before, I don't think, Russians ever had to do that kind of stuff and, and be threatened as I was in Madison, Florida, with lynching for, for taking black people, to register and vote on, in Alachua County, where I was taking black people to register to vote. I don't know if Russians ever have experienced that. And, and and based on that, I don't see how the hell the Russians could be teaching me, leading me, you know, like around this issue. So it's just ridiculous on its face. Tucker [00:36:03] I think this is one of the most. Omali Yeshitela [00:36:05] Negate my history. That's what part of what it is they would negate, the history of black people in this country. And part of it is negation of the history of a country itself. And this part of what I mean in terms of, you know, history, I mean, it can be unpleasant, but if we don't face it, if we don't look at it, we can never solve any real problems. That's one of the contradictions we're looking at right now in occupied Palestine. Look at the history. That's the thing about Ukraine and Russia. People can get misused. People die. We are facing a possible nuclear conflagration, because of this falsified, this story that they've invented about Ukraine. It's, it's ridiculous and it's dangerous. And, that's that's one of the reasons I'm glad to have this discussion with you and. Giving me access to people who I normally wouldn't be talking to. Tucker [00:36:53] I hope this is seen far and wide. Yeah. It's. I'm grateful, that you came on and talk to us and Godspeed, on your trial. Omali Yeshitela [00:37:02] Thank you so much. We'll be fine. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

On February 22, 2024, Georgia nursing student Laken Riley went for a jog and never returned. This is a murder that could have been prevented just by enforcing our immigration laws. However, Democrats and the media seem more bothered by President Biden’s use of the word “illegal” in his State of the Union address than the ILLEGAL act of murder of an innocent U.S. citizen. It wasn’t always this way. More than a decade ago, Barack Obama said citizenship is “not guaranteed” and immigrants “must learn English.” So, what changed? Why is there now a big push for mass migration of unvetted immigrants? Glenn reveals how it all ties back to the United Nations’ conspicuously updated list of Sustainable Development Goals. Mass migration suddenly became useful to globalists. He also calls out Cato, the Washington Post, and Jon Stewart’s heartless and bizarre defense of deadly open border consequences. Plus, Glenn’s head writer and researcher Jason Buttrill gives a sneak peek of the new Blaze Originals documentary “Texas vs. The Feds.” He saw the standoff at Eagle Pass firsthand and says the border fight between Republicans and Democrats is smoke and mirrors, and you’ll never look at the immigration crisis the same way again. WATCH: http://texasvsfeds.com ► Click HERE to subscribe to Glenn Beck on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2UVLqhL ► Click HERE to subscribe to BlazeTV: get.blazetv.com/glenn ► Click HERE to subscribe to BlazeTV YouTube: / @blazetv ► Click HERE to sign up to Glenn's newsletter: https://www.glennbeck.com/st/Morning_... Connect with Glenn on Social Media: / glennbeck

"Lawful" was the code name for Ted Kaczynski in a study called "Multiform Assessments of Personality Development Among Gifted College Men". The study director was one-world-government enthusiast, Dr. Henry A. Murray. The objective of this video is to expose the political ideology motivating Henry Murray, and posit the question: did Murray's ambition for One World Government inform the study? Furthermore, was the study an experiment to deconstruct the authoritarian personality as defined by the Frankfurt School authors of the 1950 book by that name? "Authoritarian personality is a state of mind or attitude characterized by belief in absolute obedience or submission to someone else's authority, as well as the administration of that belief through the oppression of one's subordinates." In other words, why did Murray subject a vulnerable boy to intensive interrogation—what Murray himself called “vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive” attacks, assaulting his ego and most-cherished ideals and beliefs? "In one part of the experiment, subjects were pressured to respond to questions asked under extreme duress, with bright lights and cameras pointed at them and electrodes attached to their bodies. Dr. Ross Neissuler, who also took part in the study, said that participants also took the Thematic Apperception Test, a psychological test that Murray himself developed. The experiences left some participants scarred for life." What remains of Murray's notes from the experiment are sealed. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/200... Alton Chase cites several other participants in the study who were quite disturbed by the experience, and remembered years later how angry, frightened and violated they felt. Chase suggests that feelings of this kind might have driven Kaczynski to lash out against society. The body of this video is a reading of Murray's article, "America's Mission" (to lead the world to one world government) published in the periodical, Survey Graphic, Issue No. 37, October, 1948. The study Murray conducted and Kaczynski participated in consumed hundreds of hours of participants' time over three years. Ted was sixteen, an undergraduate, and away from home for the first time when he began the study. One might assume Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" is a rebuttal to Murray's "America's Mission" but is it? Below is a quote by retired FBI agent Greg Stejskal, (web page referenced by Kaczynski at bottom of his letter): http://ticklethewire.com/about-us/gre... "It is an interesting and sort of tantalizing theory that a CIA mind-control project caused Kaczynski’s later criminal acts – he became a “Manchurian Candidate” run amuck. But Kaczynski dispels that whole notion. Kaczynski already provided the reasoning and motivation behind his bombings in his 35,000-word manifesto." https://archive.org/details/Industria... "America's Mission" by Henry A. Murray, October 1948, Survey Graphic, XXXVII, 411-415: Feb 26, 2018 Facsimile: https://archive.org/stream/surveygrap... Text: https://archive.org/stream/surveygrap... Alston Chase's book "Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist" connects Kaczynski's abusive experiences under Murray to his later criminal career." - Wikipedia https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/... Murray's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_M... More on this subject in broader scope can be found in the highly acclaimed documentary, The Net: The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet (Das Netz), full HD with English subtitles here: • The Net - the Unabomber, LSD and the ... Subreddit for Das Netz: / dasnetz Murray is best known as the creator of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), a projective psychological test. Proponents of the technique assert that subjects' responses, in the narratives they make up about ambiguous pictures of people, reveal their underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world. Thematic apperception test - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themati... Letter by Ted Kaczynski's dated February 2, 2018. Link to source: / 965382381166321664 Opening Music: Edvard Grieg: In the Hall of the Mountain King • Edvard Grieg: In the Hall of the Moun... Ted Kaczynski and the Harvard Experiment CIA's secret brainwashing experiment: Former patients sue U.S. government (1984) - The Fifth Estate Link to original video here>>> https://youtu.be/cVqqQYiDrX8?si=hAEM-1Ml3mZ9zWv2

Ultimately stunning in its revelations, Lutz Dammbeck's THE NET explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology - a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution. * ASSUMED FAIR USE FOR EDUCATION PURPOSES. DEAD ASS!!! NOT FOR MONETARY FULL STOP (CT) A lot of Dense Material incoming so get ready Laurel Canyon led me here as a precursor to what was habbening there from 1940s through 1970s - Rand Corp / Tavistock Group / Macys Institute / and of course our imported (Operation Paperclip) Notsee science guys The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, And The Internet by Lutz Dammbeck Publication date 2003 Ultimately stunning in its revelations, Lutz Dammbeck's THE NET explores the incredibly complex backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology - a system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution. Addeddate 2020-11-02 13:15:49 Identifier the-net Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.4 Mirrored from Archive.org https://archive.org/details/the-net Topics lutz dammbeck, the net, documentary, ted kaczynski, unabomber, lsd, cybernetics