TUCKER CARLSON - Glenn Greenwald: Dangerous New Escalation in Russia, & Our Blackmailed Politicians

Permanent Washington decides nuclear war is preferable to Donald Trump. Glenn Greenwald on the nihilism of our ruling class.

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Tucker [00:00:00] I think we're watching the most evil thing I've ever seen in my lifetime, which is the lame duck administration leaving the next administration with a world war, with a nuclear conflict by allowing Ukraine a proxy state of the United States to strike within Russia. And I'll have one editorial comment that I must let you go. But I think that people in Washington misunderstand Vladimir Putin and they think he's a monarch with absolute power, which is not true. And Russian politics is complex and it's lively. And Putin is very concerned with his approval rating within Russia. He cannot appear weak. That's a huge threat to him. He feels that I can confirm. And if he can't hide attacks on him by the United States through Ukraine, either in Moscow or big civilian casualties, I think he will have no choice, in his view, but to launch a serious response against Ukraine or some or NATO's countries or possibly the United States. So this seems like seems like the most reckless thing that's ever happened in my life.

Glenn Greenwald [00:00:58] I hardly have four words for it.

Tucker [00:01:01] Let me just say my overstating it. Do you think?

Glenn Greenwald [00:01:02] No. No, not not even remotely. If so, let me just say specifically what has been authorized? Yes. This is something that some NATO countries, including the United Kingdom, have been pressuring the Biden administration to do for quite a long time, for at least a year. But going all the way back to the beginning of 2022, this was an option that they had, which is the we have these these guided missiles called it outcomes, which are very powerful for attacking inside Russia. You can guide them specifically and very precisely to where you want them to go. Obviously, you have to get intelligence about where you want to strike. And the reason we never permitted the Ukrainians to use them is because the Ukrainians can't use those missiles on their own. In other words, if they want to launch these missiles, it's not just the U.S. giving them the missiles and then telling them they'll probably go and use them. It requires the direct involvement of the United States and or a major country like France or the U.K. or Germany, because the Ukrainians don't have the guiding capability in order to know how to launch these missiles. So this is not just us giving them missiles and saying go attack deep inside. Imagine if some major country, China, Iran, Russia, whoever gave missiles to Canada, if we were at war with them or Mexico or Cuba and said, we're giving you these specifically for you them to use them inside the United States, we would consider that a grievous act of war, not just on the part of the countries shooting them, but on the part of the country, giving them what Biden did here is so much worse. He didn't just give Ukrainians missiles and say, feel free to use them inside Russia. We are going to participate in the bombing of Russia, Naito and or the United States because there's no way the Ukrainians can launch these missiles on their own, which means we are now our military, our intelligence community are participating in missile attacks inside the country of Russia. This is something that even the Biden administration, for all their hawkishness on Russia and Ukraine, feeding that war, fueling yet preventing diplomatic resolutions because they wanted this war even they were unwilling to do it because they understood the dangers of the escalatory risks for Joe Biden or whoever's acting in his name to do this. Just two weeks after the country resoundingly rejected governance by the Democratic Party in the administration and on his way out as an 81 year old man, knowing that he has about six weeks left in office to just say, Yeah, I know that these are massive risks, but I'm willing to take them. I'm 81. I don't really care. And then to make it so much more difficult for the following administration to do what they promised to do during the campaign, which the American people voted for and wanted, which is to resolve this war. Instead, we're risking escalation with the world's largest superpower. Nuclear power. Over what?

Tucker [00:04:11] Over what we I mean, placed in context, too. This is without precedent and I think is Blinken I want to ask about that in a second. But so in 1956, Soviets invade Hungary and murder a ton of people. 61. They put nuclear weapons in Cuba, 68. They invade Czechoslovakia, murder a bunch of people. Once again, these are all, you know, incredibly provocative acts, far more provocative than invading eastern Ukraine. And this is the middle of the Cold War. And no American presidents, Democrats and Republicans in charge during those periods. They didn't respond by attacking Russia. I mean, there's nothing like this ever happened. No one's ever been this crazy.

Glenn Greenwald [00:04:50] Well, this is, you know, my big breach with the left, my big permanent split with whatever they thought I was in terms of.

Tucker [00:04:58] We want them to. They hate.

Glenn Greenwald [00:04:59] You. Yeah, I know. And that all happened in 2016 when out of nowhere, Russiagate appeared. And I remember like it was yesterday, the very first ad from Hillary Clinton's campaign with this menacing baritone voice. You know, what does Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have in common? What are they? What is Russia have and Donald Trump? And journalistically, I just couldn't believe it because it was so redolent of McCarthyism, which is a civil libertarian ism. I found I was caught was like one of the worst civil liberties of the 20th century. I agree. Yeah, I mean, you go around just accusing people of being Russian agents with no evidence, destroying their reputation, their lives, kind of like what they're trying to do to Tulsi Gabbard. Now, what they tried to do for Donald Trump for the last eight years. So just on that ground, I was kind of offended by it journalistically. I was so skeptical of it because when you have intelligence agencies leaking anonymously, unverified claims to The Washington Post in The New York Times and they put it on the front page and their Pulitzers for that, and that's usually a sign that a huge disinformation campaign of deceit is underway. That was the exact method used, for example, to sell the war on Iraq to the American people. Was that kind of process that why these intelligence agencies need to be rooted out? But what Obama most was that the climate was deliberately created in Washington, especially once Hillary lost, and they blamed Russia for it, that any communications. With Russia. Anyone who visits Russia, anyone who talks to a Russian official is automatically deemed sinister or treasonous. And as you said, during the Cold War, which dominated our American life for 50 years, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire. They were infinitely more powerful, more threatening, more everything than than Russia is now. We always communicated with Soviet leaders. There were phones all over Washington that rang to the counterparts. They comment that they communicated constantly. After Russiagate, there's basically no communication any longer between the Russian leaders and the Americans.

Tucker [00:07:02] On either side. And I should just say, I.

Glenn Greenwald [00:07:05] Mean, not because Russia wanted that. That was something that in Washington got created because they blamed Russia and claimed that Russia Russia was our existential enemy because of their claim that they interfered in the 2016 election. Before that, there was all the Obama administration and the Putin government cooperated in all sorts of ways around the world, of course.

Tucker [00:07:26] And but it's it's the leadership of the Republican Party, too. I had a conversation with the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and he was about to appropriate tens of billions more for Ukraine. And they said, well, why don't you check with Putin? Aren't you the speaker, the House number three in line for the presidency? What? What? Okay. I said, Bob, I'll see if I can facilitate that. I'll call the press office. Kind of set you up when you talk to Putin. No, absolutely not. Will not.

Glenn Greenwald [00:07:48] Why? Imagine if he had, though. And that leaked. But. But I'm not excusing him.

Tucker [00:07:53] Why wouldn't he just say I mean, I'm not attacking Mike Johnson. I guess I am attacking me, which I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just reporting what actually happened. I said, you know what? Don't you have a moral duty to get as much information about this war before you fund its continuation and the killing of all these people? Shouldn't you no more? No.

Glenn Greenwald [00:08:11] I think it is important to say that this war has been 100% bipartisan, although the Biden administration, as the leader of the executive branch, is primarily responsible. The primary there's been about, I would say, 5 or 6 dozen anti-interventionist Republicans, typically more Trump supporters, both in the House and Senate, who have spoken out from the beginning against funding this war. But the vast majority of Republicans, to the extent they have a criticism or had a criticism of the Biden administration at all with respect to Ukraine, it was that they didn't do enough. They didn't spend enough money on Ukraine. They didn't give Ukraine enough weapons. They didn't get more involved, more heavily, more and earlier than they should. But, you know, the thing that you said about encouraging Mike Johnson to speak to Putin, which of course, as the third in line to the presidency, as you said, when they're proposing to escalate a major war, of course, you should want to understand the Russian perspective. This is what Tulsi Gabbard did in 2017 when she was a member of Congress and the Obama administration had unleashed this billion dollar a year CIA dirty war to change the government of Syria, to dislodge Bashar al Assad from the government. And we fought along ISIS and Al Qaida, who also wanted Assad gone. We were told those were our existential enemies for 15 years. We fought alongside them to do it. And so many of the weapons we sent ended up in the hands of al Qaeda and ISIS and other Islamic radical groups in Syria. And Tulsi Gabbard, as a member of the military but also as a member of Congress, have constitutional responsibility to authorize or authorize a war, wanted to go to Syria and see what was happening for herself. And then she spoke with Syrian officials and got an opportunity to speak with the Syrian president. And based solely on that, she's now accused of being a Russian agent, being a some sort of, you know, treasonous sympathizer of Bashar Assad. This is the jingoistic climate that has been created way worse than what prevailed in the Cold War when all we Nixon went to China, Reagan negotiated all kinds of arms deals with the Soviets. This is now totally prohibited. It's like we live in a marvel cartoon for children where there's good guys and bad guys, where the good guys do not speak to the bad guys and the.

Tucker [00:10:19] Good guys and dangerous Qaeda and ISIS. They're the good guys.

Glenn Greenwald [00:10:22] Yeah, we can fight with them because they.

Tucker [00:10:23] To her point. I don't want to speak for Tulsi Gabbard, our new director of national intelligence nominee. But my view was I don't have any feelings about Assad or Syria, but it's a fact that that government protected religious minorities, including an ancient Christian community there and the Alawites, of which he's won in that country for a long time, he and his dad. So why are they my enemy exactly? I don't like what is why should I be opposed to Assad in Syria? Why should I be opposed to Vladimir Putin? Why was not supposed to be opposed to the Soviets who are anti-Christian? But now you have a pro Christian president supposed to be against him. Tell me why it wasn't him. Explain to me why, as a 55 year old American taxpayer, I should be against it.

Glenn Greenwald [00:11:03] So first of all, I think the principle is that and this is what Donald Trump requires politically in 2016 was that we shouldn't be involved in wars designed to change the governments of other countries, build, rebuild their governments, transform their societies, in part because it's not our place to do it, and in part because we're terrible at doing it, because they have very complex, rich, long histories that American intelligence officials and political leaders have no understanding of whatsoever. Good language.

Tucker [00:11:33] I mean, they don't know anything.

Glenn Greenwald [00:11:35] They know nothing. And we've proven that over and over and all these failed attempts. But also, when it comes to I mean, the policy gabbard's entire worldview, and I have spoken to her about this. I've interviewed her about this. So I feel comfortable saying this is that she's not in any way antiwar, pacifist. She believes that we should be very militarily aggressive against, say, terrorist groups that actually want to attack the United States or have done so, or American assets or American interests on the world. Her argument is, is that we should not be involved in regime change wars of the kind we did in Iraq that she fought in, of the kind we did in Syria, of the kind we did in Libya, of the kind that we did in Ukraine in 2014 when we actually engineered a coup on that most sensitive part of the.

Tucker [00:12:14] Kind that we're trying to pull off in Russia right now. The point of this is to knock out Putin.

Glenn Greenwald [00:12:18] Yeah. To to weaken that regime and to. But the thing is, though, what you said about Putin is so important, which is Putin's critics. He doesn't have very many liberal critics, meaning people to his left. Exactly. His real critics are hardcore nationalist. Exactly. And their criticism of.

Tucker [00:12:34] Him as a liberal.

Glenn Greenwald [00:12:35] Who see him as weak or insufficiently militaristic when it comes to confronting the West. But clearly, on Ukraine, they wanted they want destruction of Ukraine. They're there. A lot of them are enraged. And as you say, the Russian government has taken the position, warned the United States government privately and publicly that any use of these missiles involving as they do, direct U.S. or Naito involvement in their launching against Russia will be seen as the entrance of the United States and NATO's belligerence in this war as a war against Russia as World War three. And he will have to treat it as such, even though he's been very constrained, even though he clearly doesn't want a broader war. There are a lot of people inside Moscow who do wield a lot of power, who do and who who will demand that he treated as such. Why would why wouldn't they? We are attacking Russia. We're shooting missiles inside Russia.

Tucker [00:13:27] So I think, as you've said, I don't think we can say it enough. So much of this has been conducted in bad faith, but also so much of the bad faith has been informed by ignorance or uninformed by ignorance, not informed at all. And I think that people really think that Putin is an absolute dictator who can do whatever he wants, and that is not the case. It's not the case. Super complex place. A lot of smart people in Russia, complicated political situation. So I agree completely. We're pushing him toward that. The view I think I know from Putin is that Blinken is driving this and that Blinken has a lot of hostility, is reckless, but has a lot of hostility toward Russia. That has nothing to do with the United States at all. Do you think that's true? You think Blinken is driving this?

Glenn Greenwald [00:14:09] Yeah, I mean, I think I think Blinken, Jake Sullivan, that's kind of the brain trust as it is. Obviously, Joe Biden has no involvement in this whatsoever, which I think, you know, has been a an issue which we've shockingly ignored. Everyone saw what Joe Biden was long before that debate. Yes, everyone knew it. The only people who didn't say so are the media and Democratic allies. After the debate, it became untenable for them to deny it any longer that this is an old man who has lost his cognitive capabilities, yet he's still the sitting president of the United States. And you had the vice president understandably doing nothing for the last four months other than working on her own empowerment through the campaign. She obviously wasn't involved ever in any decision making, let alone when she became the nominee. So the question has been all these consequential decisions we made deploying massive military assets to the Middle East, making declarations about when we would go to war in the Middle East and for whom escalating the war in Ukraine now authorizing the use of these long range missiles is obviously not coming from Joe Biden. He barely understands where he is. It's it's not a character flaw on his part, but is just a disability, a clear disability. He's obviously not making any of these decisions. I do think that if you look at the national security crowd that emerged from the Obama presidency, especially the people who are associated with the State Department run by Hillary Clinton, then John Kerry, even before Russiagate in 2016, they had an obsession with Russia. In fact, when Hillary Clinton left the administration as secretary of state and wrote her book Hard Choices, the only areas in which you were critically was critical of Obama was her view that he wasn't willing to confront Russia sufficiently. Obama had this view, sort of this realist view from Brant Scowcroft. Those are the kind of people who like Jim Baker that why would we send lethal arms to Ukraine and provoke Russia? Ukraine is not a vital interest to us, but it is to them. He wanted to work with Russia and did to facilitate the Iran deal to bomb terrorist targets in Syria. And there was a faction in the Obama administration led by Hillary Clinton. Blinken was there all these sort of national security people woven into the, you know, that victory, victory. No one was hired by Hillary Clinton. That's how she made her way into the Obama administration. They viewed Russia as this grave menace. The reason Putin hated Hillary Clinton was because when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, the United States openly spent millions of dollars funding opposition groups and organizing protests in Moscow. I mean, we talk about Putin interfering in our sacred politics and our internal affairs. Hillary Clinton was openly funding protests and and and and anti-Putin agitated outside agitators inside Russia in the 2010 election, in 2012, 2011, rather. And they were obsessed with Russia well before that. And I do think that Russia is disliked by a lot of people in Washington because of the perception that they are detrimental to our interests in the Middle East and especially to Israel's interests in the Middle East, including their support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The fact that they have a good relationship with Iran, it doesn't really always have a lot to do with the United States, but with the interests of other countries as well.

Tucker [00:17:34] So you think that's the prime mover here? Because it is true that Assad is only there because of Russia? I think I think that's a fair statement.

Glenn Greenwald [00:17:40] Yeah, that's their ally in the Middle East and has been their ally in the Middle East for four decades. And just like we support our allies around the world, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, you know, very savage, brutal dictatorships. But at least to do our bidding, the Russians have theirs as well. They have a long term relationship with Venezuela, with Cuba, going back to the Cold War and still do as well as with Syria. And yeah, the Russians operate in Syria, They protect Assad in Syria, and as a result, they end up being antagonistic to Israel, which ends up being defined as U.S. interests as well. Like there's no sure bit.

Tucker [00:18:12] But strictly speaking, this has nothing to do with us whatsoever. I mean, I don't I honestly.

Glenn Greenwald [00:18:18] Believe that unless you see Israel as a part of the United States.

Tucker [00:18:22] You know, I'm not hostile toward Israel, but I think it's a separate country.

Glenn Greenwald [00:18:24] It seems to me as well, it's often not treated as that. I'm just saying.

Tucker [00:18:28] Don't don't pay taxes there wasn't born there. So from my position, from an American perspective, without wishing ill on any other country at all, and I really don't, I have been struggling for really since the 2016 election, but particularly since the war began in February of 2022, to identify what exactly would be the U.S. interest in this. And I and I just can't and I've really, I think, tried hard, but I just I just don't see what's in it for us at all.

Glenn Greenwald [00:18:53] Tucker, there's nobody I'm certain of this in the United States, just an average, ordinary American voter who believes that their life is affected in any way by the question of who rules various provinces in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. Nobody thinks about Ukraine, let alone the Donbass, let alone eastern Ukraine. It's an incredibly complex situation there in terms of the people's allegiances, which are far closer to Moscow than they are to Kiev. The question of what that territory should be, should it be somehow autonomous, should it be used as a buffer against the West? The whole framework, as you well know, and as other people have pointed out, when Russia agreed to the reunification of Germany, which was obviously an extraordinary thing for the Russians to agree to, given the Russian history in the 20th century with respect to Germany, when they opened, the Berlin Wall fell and they allowed the eastern and the western parts of Germany to reunite and to become part of the West and become part of the EU. The only concession they extracted in exchange for that was okay with reunification. NATO's now moving eastward, closer to our border in a country that has devastated our country twice in two world wars, invaded Russia twice, killed tens of millions of Russian citizens. The only thing we need as a security guarantee in exchange for allowing that is that Neda will never expand one inch eastward beyond what was East Germany and the United States agreed to that. And immediately in the 90s, an administration, the administration started talking about it and implementing NATO's expansion eastward toward Russia. Exactly what was promised to Gorbachev the United States would not do in exchange for them agreeing to reunification. And why? Why? Why did we need to expand our I.

Tucker [00:20:38] Never understood.

Glenn Greenwald [00:20:39] Word toward Russia. And now it's not just eastward in general. It's going directly up to the Russian border on the part of their border that has been invaded twice in Ukraine to destroy Russia. And both of those those world wars, we also participated in the change of government. We remove the democratically elected leader of Ukraine before his constitutional term was expired in 2014 because we perceived him as being too friendly to Moscow, which is what the Ukrainians voted for and replaced him. Victoria Nuland constructed a government and they was replaced by a government that was more pro-U.S.. Imagine if the Russians engineered a coup in Mexico to take out the government because they were too friendly to us and put in a hard line, pro Russian, anti-American, anti-NATO president. Imagine how threatening we would regard that as. And that's exactly what we did in Ukraine. The question is, though, this has nothing to do with the national security of the American people. No American is threatened by who governs Ukraine. What they're threatened by is what the United States is doing in Ukraine, including this most recent act.

Tucker [00:21:40] I'm Tucker Carlson for out now. As you know, the FDA requires us to warn you whilst we do the warning, quote, warning this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. And quote, We're required to tell you that by the federal government, but we don't shy away from that. It's addictive and there's an upside to it. Yes, nicotine is an addictive chemical. That is true. There are a lot of things in life you forget your car keys, your wallet. One thing you're never going to forget is out because nicotine is an addictive chemical. You may forget to put your shoes on in the morning. You may forget to kiss your wife on the way out. You may come home and not remember your own dog's name. But one thing you're not going to forget is your ALP. Why? Because you're addicted to it. Because your body will tell you, Hey, better bring your ALP with you and you will. I do. I'm never anywhere without my ALP. It's by the side of my bed. When I go to sleep. It's there. When I wake up in the morning, it's in the front pocket of my pants as I head out into the world. ALP is always with me. It's on the desk because I do interviews everywhere I am. ALP is because it's an addictive chemical. That's exactly right. And we're not afraid of that. We're not ashamed of it. It's addictive in the same way that air, water and sex are addictive. They're so great and you want to do them every day. Thankfully, it's easy to have the ALP with you at all times. Just go to our website. ALP couch.com and never be without it. Nicotine. Yes, it's addictive. That's why we like it. So I find it so terrifying. I'm not I don't think I'm sort of overstating that. I mean, we are on the brink of a global war.

Glenn Greenwald [00:23:20] But can I just say one thing about that, don't you think? Aren't you kind of amazed by how impervious and dismissive media and political elites are, the prospect of nuclear war?

Tucker [00:23:32] Well, I it's unimaginable. And and yes. And I mean, that's why I.

Glenn Greenwald [00:23:36] Think it can't happen.

Tucker [00:23:37] Without knowing the situation. Yeah. And I will say, the one thing that Trump has said repeatedly over the over the past, certainly since he left the presidency for years, that he's received no credit for and should get enormous credit for, is that nuclear war is the worst thing. He was, of course, been briefed on it as the person who controlled the launch codes. He knows what it means. And anyone who spends five minutes looking into what a nuclear exchange would actually, you know, do is is terrified of it. But only Trump seems worried about it. I don't understand.

Glenn Greenwald [00:24:13] I've said this. I've talked about it so many times. And I think it goes back to when Trump was president in the early stages of presidency. Every time Trump talks about the prospect of nuclear war, he knows that he's limited in what everything he can divulge. But he's so clearly trying to signal and he often says that these weapons are of a different universe than even the ones we dropped. And. That's correct. And he's obviously, as you said, understands and been briefed on.

Tucker [00:24:40] But you see these morons at the Atlantic Council or AEI or Hudson or these like this cluster of the dumbest people in the world all implicated in the Iraq disaster say, well, you know, maybe tactical nukes are fine.

Glenn Greenwald [00:24:51] That we that that's such next level crazy.

Tucker [00:24:55] That's crazier than any schizophrenic sitting next to you on a public subway.

Glenn Greenwald [00:24:59] Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. We we constantly call like RFK Jr. They call him crazy. They call, you know, talking government gates crazy. Whoever these people who have been in power, who have been generating American orthodoxy, especially on foreign policy, are the most insane people on the planet. It's because actually the United States has been the most powerful country in the world. No one could constrain it. No one could stand up to it. And as is true with everything, that level of unconstrained power corrupts people. That is, these people who have been control of this power for decades that has passed on one to the other through this document that gets increasingly out of touch and detached from reality and and.

Tucker [00:25:38] And megalomaniacal.

Glenn Greenwald [00:25:40] Exactly. I mean, at least during the Cold War, I'm not saying it was a good thing, but the Soviet Union and the states were of equal power. They were competing with one another. They were both very constrained in what they were. They both were petrified of a nuclear war. We almost came to nuclear apocalypse at least twice, especially in the Cuban Missile Crisis, through misperception and miscommunication, when a Russian commander of a submarine thought incorrectly that they were using nuclear weapons against the submarine and against Cuba and almost launched the nuclear weapons at the subcamp, about five minutes away from doing so until someone intervened on that sub. And so I don't think that this is actually an attack. It's very possible we've come to the brink of it before. It probably is the single greatest threat to the survival of the species. Not probably definitely is the use of nuclear weapons. Every time Trump talks about it, you can see the fear that he has. He's trying to convey to others every time. And. I'm. I mean, Tucker, I'm amazed. This is like impeachment level stuff. For Joe Biden on his way out of the door to involve the U.S. directly in a war for the first time, we've been very involved in other ways.

Tucker [00:26:48] They should impeach him. Why doesn't the.

Glenn Greenwald [00:26:50] Usual limitation on the president's ability to involve the U.S. in a war without congressional authorization, which is exactly what has happened through the use of these missiles, which, as I said, we need to help direct. And the question is, yeah, why? The answer, though, is, is that the vast majority of the Republican caucus in the House and in the Senate supports what Joe Biden is doing, thinks he should have done this a year ago. And there's probably not a lot of anger in the House and Senate over this, except the question that it's called lame duck for a reason. A lame duck is supposed to be a duck. That really doesn't do much, can't do much, does move much. It's by design, pretty limited. It's like this transition period.

Tucker [00:27:30] Yeah, he's floating in the water because he's been shot.

Glenn Greenwald [00:27:32] Yeah, exactly. His legs are broken, and so he's lame. This is not a lame duck decision and it's not like there was any emergency to it. It wasn't there was no emergency to it. They just wanted to escalate it because they thought Trump wouldn't. And so they did.

Tucker [00:27:52] It puts us in this remarkable moment where the only adult is Vladimir Putin. This person, we've been told, is Hitler and deranged, crazy, dying of nine different kinds of cancer can't be trusted like the only reason we're not. I mean, we're all relying on his restraint. That's just a fact right now. How weird is that?

Glenn Greenwald [00:28:13] Well, I mean, first of all, this is this is what amazes me is that sometimes propaganda and propaganda is you have to respect it. It's a very potent field of human knowledge that has been refined over many decades, using every field, the disciplines of social sciences and psychology and psychiatry. I mean, propaganda is not just some, you know, intuitive thing that people do.

Tucker [00:28:35] It's an argument you make. Yeah.

Glenn Greenwald [00:28:37] And it's very powerful. And we love to talk about how propagandized the Russians are and the Chinese are and how there's no dissent allowed. You know, George Orwell, in the preface to Animal Farm, wrote actually in 1984, wrote an essay where he was essentially saying that overt totalitarianism of the kind that was taking place in the Soviet Union is repressive, but it's not nearly as effective as subtle repression, the kind where you give the illusion that people are free. But in reality, the flow of information is heavily controlled because at least when you know the guys dressed in black with weapons come and take you and put you in a gulag for criticizing the government, everybody understands the level of oppression that often generates a backlash. But when you combine repression with the illusion of freedom, that's what's incredibly effective. And that's what we owe.

Tucker [00:29:30] People with an abundant consumer economy. Like, you know, here your edibles, here's your Netflix come down. Yeah, yeah. And you can basically get them to do anything.

Glenn Greenwald [00:29:40] Yeah. And at the same time, there has been a concerted effort to control what was supposed to be the one innovation that was going to break the centralized control of information, which is the Internet. That's why there's so much attention and energy. It's why it's the number one priority of Western power centers to control the Internet, because it's the one threat to their ability to maintain this propagandistic control. You know this I still can't believe this, that it's not talked about as much. But right after Russia invaded Ukraine and Western governments decided they wanted full on support for Ukraine and this very simple minded narrative that they fed their public.

Tucker [00:30:15] After they started the war, I mean, the bad administration started. That's my view of it. They knew that Russia would invade if they publicly pushed Zelensky to join NATO's. So they did that. Kamala Harris did it in Russia with my view as they started this war.

Glenn Greenwald [00:30:28] And threat, talking openly about expanding NATO's to Ukraine, you could find memos from the highest levels of the US government. Exactly do that. It's not just Putin. It's every political faction in Russia that will see it as a war and war. And they'll invade. They'll go annex Crimea and invade eastern Ukraine. Of course, the American government knew that you can show documents where it says that. But the you the EU the minute that war started. In earnest with the Russian army invading one of the very first steps they took legislatively was to ban the platforming, to criminalize the platforming of Russian media like Russia Party and Sputnik. They made it a crime and YouTube immediately pulled it off because they didn't want their citizens hearing any information from the Russian perspective. I mean, you can hate Russia. You can think Russia is evil, you can think whatever you want about Russia. But why wouldn't you want to hear from the other side? You know, The New York Times used to publish all the time, like the speeches of Brezhnev have, of course, and Yuri Andropov and Khrushchev. And you could read what the Russians would say. They would come to United States. They would speak openly. Now, it's it's practically criminalized.

Tucker [00:31:38] Putin's speech in February of 2022 to his country, nationally televised there right before the invasion was absolutely just a remarkable speech, which I, by the way, never got around to even looking at before I got to Moscow when I was like, I can you put I think I should watch that speech. I read about it, never watched it. And I think you're going to agree or disagree. You can hate Putin. I mean, it's totally fine. I don't care how people feel about Putin. But most Americans had no idea his thinking in invading Ukraine. Like no idea. Why wouldn't people want to know.

Glenn Greenwald [00:32:13] What it was? Just the cartoon. He's an evil Hitlerian figure who wants to reconquer Reconquest all of Europe the way Hitler did. Putin has been in office for 25 years. He has gone through six different American presidents. Every single one of them. I tell you, we're not allowed to say it anymore. Always said you meet with Putin. He's incredibly shrewd. He's incredibly smart. You can trust Putin. If you do a deal with Putin, you can count on the fact that he will adhere to.

Tucker [00:32:40] Other heads of state. Still feel that way.

Glenn Greenwald [00:32:42] And yeah, American president said it all the time, starting with Bill Clinton, that he's rational, that he acts in his self-interest, that he's calculating in terms of and careful. And then suddenly this is what amazes me. Propagandistic glee is that overnight everybody was forced to say that Putin invaded Ukraine simply because suddenly he became this psychotic, evil Hitler type figure who just wanted out of the blue.

Tucker [00:33:04] They all believed it, though. A lot of the people screamed at me at airports for being pro-Putin, which, of course, I'm not. I've never been pro-Putin. I don't have strong feelings either way. But they really had been convinced, not just by MSNBC and CNN, but by the entire oligarch controlled Internet, that, like anyone who talked about Putin, raised questions about the war, was like for Putin, like that worked the propaganda work.

Glenn Greenwald [00:33:28] Propaganda. Tucker propaganda work, especially nationalistic propaganda, because human beings evolved over thousands of years to be tribal like we we want to feel part of our group. We take pride in our group Like it's why if you're born in America, you say, I'm an American. This is my country, this is what I'm loyal to. It comes from these tribalistic instincts, right? It makes sense because we evolved for thousands of years where you if you got expelled from your tribe, you would you would die. You needed a tribe in order to survive. So we're tribalistic animals. So if you appeal to people's tribalism and say we're the good guys, we're the innocent victims. Our enemy are the bad guys. They're evil. They're you know, that appeals to people's most visceral instincts. And the problem, of course, is the countervailing punishment, which is the minute you question it. You know, I had from the beginning, I had on my show, you know, people like John Mearsheimer and and Stephen Walt and Jeffrey Sachs, and they were all saying from the beginning. There's no possibility that Ukraine can win this war as Naito has defined it, which means the expulsion of every Russian troop from every inch of Ukrainian soil, just simply on size grounds alone. Just. Just basic understanding of history. Every one of them, I'm sure. I think it happened to you, too. I know what happened to me were put on these official list issued by the Ukrainian government of being pro-Russian propagandist. Everywhere you went, you get accused of being a Russian propaganda ass or some sort of agent of the Kremlin simply by questioning our own government's propagandistic views or simply trying to understand things from the Russian perspective. Like this is, you know, after 911. The big question on the minds of all Americans after they were traumatized by this extraordinary assault on our soil, designed obviously, to impose as much suffering and and killing as possible was obviously, they ask why? Why did they want to do that to us? Why would people hate us so much that they would devise a scheme as complex and deadly as hijacking planes, passenger planes with box cutters and flying them into major American buildings full of people? Why would they hate us that much? And they had to the government had to give an answer to that question because people just wanted to know the answer. And that was on David Frum and Cheney. And all the people said they hate us for our freedoms. They just can't stand the fact that women are allowed to wear bikinis on the beach and that we have a Congress. And it's like no one ever thought, well, there's like dozens of countries around the world where women get to win over bikinis and have Congresses like in Japan and Korea and all throughout Latin America and like Scandinavia. Why aren't they attacking those places? And then bin Laden wrote a letter in 2002 to the American people saying, here's why there's so much animosity toward the United States. And there was, of course, some appeal to religion. And I made the.

Tucker [00:36:15] Mistake of reading part of that letter on the air at CNN at the time not to make a kind of point, but just because super interesting, you know, and 911 changed everyone's life very much, including mine. Lost a friend that day. Like, just like every American who was an adult, a 911, it was like you felt like it was an event that you participated in or it affected you. So I felt like I had every right to read that letter, like, Hey, this is he. He's now saying why he did it. I almost got pulled off the air for doing that.

Glenn Greenwald [00:36:40] Well, how could I just. What I just happened to forget? How could I not only doesn't that surprise me? A lot of people have forgotten that this happens, but it's actually quite extraordinary after 911. Obviously, Osama bin Laden was one of the most important people in the world. He had just perpetrated the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. And a lot of people wanted to interview him or play clips of interviews, The United States government told called all the network news agencies into the White House and said to them, You should not and cannot show interview Osama bin Laden or show any interviews with him. And they invented this excuse as to why, which is that he might put some sort of code in his interviews that signal to sleeper cells just like he might, like wiggle his ear like Carol Burnett did or like, you know, raises eyebrows three times or blink. And it's Morse code in a certain way. And and the networks all obeyed. And the most amazing thing was this letter which you could go read where he says exactly why all the different ways the United States has brought violence to that region has interfered.

Tucker [00:37:45] In your foreign policy is the bottom line.

Glenn Greenwald [00:37:47] Know we've been bombing that region and interfering in them, opposing dictatorships on those people for decades specifically to suppress the things they believe in. We don't want popular opinion being prevailing in democratically in the Middle East because we don't perceive it in our interests. So we've been imposing dictators on them, secular dictators. We've been bombing them, we've been sanctioning them, we've been invading them. Of course we support Israel, which in that region people view as this grave assault on the rights of Palestinians. But we put bases in Saudi Arabia, which is the most sacred soil to that religion. We imposed a blockade and sanction regime on Iraq, which Madeleine Albright admitted killed 500,000 children, but nonetheless said it was worth it. So we've been so active in that region and that's the reason they wanted to attack back. That's the reason al Qaeda had so much support. But they banned Osama bin Laden from being heard, just like the EU banned Russian state media from being heard because, of course, you don't want Americans being exposed to this. And then the amazing thing is that letter, which really didn't get much attention at the time, the only place that existed on the Internet was on The Guardian's website. And somehow, you know, 22 year olds on Tok found that letter and they started talking about it and they were like, my God, I was never told this before. He didn't attack us because he hates us for our freedom. He says specifically here why they're attacking us. And in other words, they were reading a historical document and discussing it, things that you would want a free citizenry to do. But the fear that they were allowed to not only read but talk about that document with one another was so intense that in 48 hours they forced TikTok to ban every discussion of that letter to remove the hashtags, to find it, to take down any post or accounts that were talking about it. And then The Guardian, a news outlet for a move, that letter, which had been there for 20 years, which was of obvious historical and journalistic important, they removed it from their website because they were too frightened that people were going to be able to read it. Why? Because it prevents the propagandistic narrative from being unchallenged. And that's the same with Russia and Ukraine. That shows you how we think we're so free. We have we can we hear so much dissent because you have a Republican and Democrat bickering on a cable show about trivial things like, look, we have free debates, open debates. They don't they don't get to have that in Russia and China. But the minute there's information that actually threatens the government that they fear people understanding, they clamp down on it and suppress it. And that's what they did there.

Tucker [00:40:16] You wonder why we put up with that. You wonder why we put up with a government that continues to keep secret files about 911. It's been 23 years. What what could possibly be the justification for not telling me information that I own and have a right to see, which is what the hell was that? And they constantly lecturing.

Glenn Greenwald [00:40:33] Even the JFK files.

Tucker [00:40:34] Especially the JFK file. But but much more immediate. It was 23 years ago. But I mean, we're both adults. We remember it very well.

Glenn Greenwald [00:40:41] Yeah. I mean, it was like I. I was traumatized by that. It was a horrible event. Exactly. And then a lot happened. Our country changed radically because of it. To this day, the Patriot Act exist.

Tucker [00:40:51] Well, it's not never been the same country. And in some ways, you know, it was much more successful in its aims than than I even want to admit to myself because it's so sad to see what it did to this country. But here's the point. They're constantly they meaning the media and the Intel agencies, which work together, as you know, they're constantly attacking other people for being conspiracy theorists and crazy and desecrating the memory of the 911 victims, etc., by coming up with explanations that are not authorized. Okay, then why don't you just tell us what actually happened? Why not just declassify it? What and what's the answer? It's going to jeopardize sources and methods. That's not true. And we all know that.

Glenn Greenwald [00:41:26] And you know that this the importance of protecting those secrets, keeping those documents that may show the truth, not just about I'm a jerk.

Tucker [00:41:35] That's the most important thing.

Glenn Greenwald [00:41:36] It's the it's in fact, the whole point of the second impeachment trial. Yeah. Which never made any sense. Why would you bring an impeachment trial against the president on his way out? The office was because they were petrified that Trump was going to do certain things in that transition, like, pardon Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, which came very close to doing, but especially fulfill his promise to declassify things like the JFK. Files and other national security files that have been kept hidden with no justification from the American public, even know what happened decades ago. 911 JFK. And they told him, if you do that, all the Senate Republicans are going to vote to impeach you, You're going to be convicted and ineligible to run ever again. That was the sword of Damocles. They held over his head precisely to prevent him from bringing transparency to the government and allowing the American people to see what they have a right to know.

Tucker [00:42:23] If your greatest fear is transparency, then you're a criminal. I mean, that's basically proof. I can't think of a better indicator of behavior than the crazed desire to keep that behavior secret.

Glenn Greenwald [00:42:37] Right. I wanted to see more of that, which is, if you think about what a democracy is supposed to be like, what an ideal free society is, whatever you call that, it's supposed to be that everything that public officials do in the name of the public power is supposed to be known to the public. But very few exceptions, like if there's a war and they're planning troop movements, they can keep that secret.

Tucker [00:43:00] Yeah. Normandy a week before. Right.

Glenn Greenwald [00:43:02] Because they don't have to tell everyone that they're going to do that. But outside of those very rare exceptions, we're supposed to know everything about what they do. Of course, because they're doing it in our name.

Tucker [00:43:10] There are.

Glenn Greenwald [00:43:10] Employees. Yeah, they're supposed to be accountable to us, but they can't be if we don't know what they're doing. Conversely. They're not supposed to know anything about what private citizens do. That's supposed to track us or eavesdrop on us or keep dossiers on us or know where we are or where we're going. Unless, again, very rare circumstances where a criminal there's probable cause to to to to spy on us because we've convinced they've convinced a court, as the Constitution requires, that there's probable cause to believe her. But except in those rare circumstances, that's why they're called public officials and we're called private citizens. We're supposed to our privacy. They're not. They're supposed to have transparency. Our society has completely reversed. If you are a private citizen, the government knows everything about you. They keep all kinds of doubt on you. That was the Snowden reporting, obviously, that Edward Snowden revealed was the extent to which we are being surveilled by our own government. Conversely, we know almost nothing about what, you know, when I got the Edward Snowden archive, which was hundreds of thousands, if not more of top secret documents from the NSA, obviously what was surprising is what was in them and what they revealed. But even more surprising to me was that. The documents that so many of these documents, most of these documents were marked top secret, had no interesting information in them at all. Like they just reflexively put like how to get a parking credential, how to ask your supervisor for a vacation. These were top secret because everything the government does reflexively is kept secret from the public.

Tucker [00:44:33] All right. So that's the default you have no right. Right.

Glenn Greenwald [00:44:35] Exactly. So everything is inversed. We the government knows everything about what we do and we know nothing about what they do.

Tucker [00:44:41] So as a long time Intel official told me not that long ago, I guess I should have known this, that the big pornography sites are controlled by the Intel agencies, safe access to the data on those sites. And the reason that they do and I think the dating sites, too, and the reason that they do, of course, is blackmail. And once you realize that, once you realize that, like, the most embarrassing features of your personal life are known by people who want to control you, then you're you're controlled. And you look at the behavior of some of these people who I know personally and particularly in the Congress, you're like, Why are you doing that? You don't agree with that and you're out there doing it anyway. We always imagine that it's just donors, so they're getting paid to do that. I think it's more than donors. I've seen politicians turned down donors before. I see watched it. You know, I don't believe in I'm not doing that.

Glenn Greenwald [00:45:28] People are very safe seats. Not everybody is desperate for donors.

Tucker [00:45:31] Exactly.

Glenn Greenwald [00:45:32] Okay. Just give me an example. I mean, it's not.

Tucker [00:45:33] Just the carrot. There's a stick in there.

Glenn Greenwald [00:45:35] I'm not saying this happened here. I'm not saying that at all. I have no basis for saying it, but. I had Mike Johnson on my show. About two months before. Unexpectedly, he became the speaker when he just became like the night he would.

Tucker [00:45:50] Like his chance at on your show.

Glenn Greenwald [00:45:51] Yeah, I interviewed Mike Johnson, and the reason I interviewed Mike Johnson was because.

Tucker [00:45:56] He may not go on your show now.

Glenn Greenwald [00:45:58] No. Well, this is why.

Tucker [00:46:00] This is so interesting. I didn't know.

Glenn Greenwald [00:46:02] Why. So, yeah, just by chance, I interviewed Mike Trotsky. The reason was, was because Christopher Wray went before a committee on which he sat in the house. And make. Johnson grilled him about FBI spying, about the involvement of the intelligence communities in our politics, about the attempt to censor the Internet coming from the Intel agencies. And he did it with this great kind of intellect, but also this very effective demeanor. And I could just tell that he passionately, passionately about this issue. And then I started following more and more what I was doing. And he was almost single mindedly focused on spying abuses, curbing spying, power, curbing censorship.

Tucker [00:46:43] You're blowing my.

Glenn Greenwald [00:46:43] Mind. And so we asked him, I said, you know, can you call I show you like I'm a big fan of plans. I think the work that he's doing great. I think. Tom on.

Tucker [00:46:49] Louisiana.

Glenn Greenwald [00:46:50] Yeah and came on my show no go can go watch the interview.

Tucker [00:46:55] And I'm hard to shock you or shocking Manhattan.

Glenn Greenwald [00:46:57] On my show and after this interview I was like I love him. One of the reasons one of the things we spent the most amount of time on was Pfizer reform and the need for Pfizer reform. But the fact that I'm glad, Tucker, I'm swear I this is I'm telling you, Pfizer reform is coming up in about three months where they had to extend the Pfizer law that allows the FBI, the CIA to spy on American citizens, the NSA, without really any reforms. And he was determined it was, I guess, big issue. That's why he was on my show. That's why you like what my work was. He was like, we cannot allow this fight is allowed to be renewed. It is a grave threat to American democracy. At the very least, we need massive fundamental reforms blown away. And I was like, my God, I, I And he's very smart. He's like a smart lawyer. He's very informed about these issues. I walked away super impressed. That is what we spend most of our time on. But also, just when you put these.

Tucker [00:47:48] Clips on the Internet.

Glenn Greenwald [00:47:49] The whole show is on the Internet.

Tucker [00:47:50] But we just posted on social media because.

Glenn Greenwald [00:47:52] Right. I did. But I'll do it again because Mike Jones to become speaker about two months later, I don't mean four years later or two years later, about two months after that, three months at the most. Right. When the FISA law was coming up and I was like, it's so great he was made speaker. There's no way this Feisal Law is getting passed. Not only did Mike Johnson say I'm going to allow the FISA renewal to come to the floor with no reforms, not allowing any reforms, he himself said it is urgent that we renew Pfizer without any reforms. This is a crucial, critical tool for our intelligence agencies. And I put that crap everywhere when that happened, showing where just two months earlier.

Tucker [00:48:32] Did you but them together?

Glenn Greenwald [00:48:33] Yeah, of course. I was attacking the shell. Mike Johnson. And then somebody finally asked him like, But you've been saying all along for years, for the last two years, that you vehemently oppose this and suddenly now you're for it. What changed your mind? And he was like, Yeah, well, when you're a speaker, you get access to a lot of things. And I was taken to this secret room in the CIA and they showed me these very important things and these sensitive documents about how important these powers are and how devastating it would be if we put any reforms on them. And so I realized that it was wrong what I believed. And now I believe this law has to be passed with no reforms. You don't have smart people like that. He was already in Congress. He had access to classified information, getting briefings, secret briefings. You don't have people that invested in position who with one meeting I can see someone really dumb being affected by that. Like all these guys with big medals on their chest take you to like a secret super secret room inside the CIA because all these locks and codes and things on the wall and you're all I'm like, my God, I can't challenge this here. Very smart guy. I don't believe he changed mine. So the question is, why did he? I don't know. I really don't. But I know that the person that was on my show two months earlier no longer exist.

Tucker [00:49:43] Wow. I can honestly say that's one of the most shocking things I've heard in a long time because I didn't I, I should also echo what everyone else who's ever met him will say, which is nice guy, you know, not a not a mean man or anything.

Glenn Greenwald [00:49:55] No great guy like he, you know, he adopt kids. He totally does everything he says about decency and justice for everybody. I totally I was even saying today that he was, you know, with the whole thing about the question of whether this new trans lawmaker was getting news about their homes, he was asked about it. He was just like emphasizing need for respect and decency and civility, even if you know things. Yes. And and I believe he believes that. I believe he is in connection with the best parts of Christianity and takes them seriously and conducts himself that way and always has nothing against Mike Johnson personally. Quite the contrary. But to watch that happen was I mean, as as cynical as I am.

Tucker [00:50:32] I don't even know how to respond because I didn't I have interviewed Mike Johnson over the years, but he was like some guy from Louisiana whenever I wasn't paying close attention. And it was only after he became speaker on the face. Question And on the question of funding Ukraine.

Glenn Greenwald [00:50:45] That was the other thing. You go on. I talked about that, too. He was like, you know, he did say he wasn't at all like, you know, say like a Matt Gaetz tape or, you know, Tom Massie. Like, we can't fund that war that where he wasn't saying that he was he was like, we can't let Russia win. But he was still pretty skeptical. But it was really on these questions of. Pfizer and the CIA and the FBI and spying powers and Internet censorship powers. Where he was passionate and vehement. That's why I had him on.

Tucker [00:51:18] You're making my arms go up because I agree. Look, I'm not alleging anything is I don't know anything. I didn't even know that he was that invested on precisely the opposite side, but very made all very possible. And, you know, I had a conversation with him off camera, which I probably shouldn't be too detailed about it, but he said something that I thought was like not only nonsensical, but like insane, like crazy. And just making it was internally incoherent. And he's not stupid, as you said. And I and I got upset and I was like, that doesn't make any sense at all. And and he just kind of said, no, it does make sense. It does. It was like there was no answer. It was just like, wow, this is I.

Glenn Greenwald [00:51:58] Saw I saw there's an Obama, too. You have to like, especially for people who are kind of new to power, right? Like not Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden or Mitch McConnell. People have been in these positions for decades. Mike Johnson went from a very backbench member of Congress to the third in line who controls the House of Representatives. You can only imagine, for instance, just unlimited amount of pressure that comes from multiple directions to force him to align himself with whatever the agenda is of the people who rule Washington. Same thing happened with Obama. I believed Obama when he talked for two years when running for president, but I was a constant law professor. How he believed so much in the core rights of the Constitution, like habeas corpus, the right to contest your imprisonment, to have evidence presented against you by places like on Panama and elsewhere, how we wanted to uproot the worst abuses, the Bush-Cheney war on terror. And then he gets into office. Now he doesn't uproot them, but he starts extending them because again, these generals come, including the ones he likes, who went to Princeton, like David Petraeus, you know, the ones who dazzle Obama and give him secret briefings about all the blood that's going to be on his hands if he does any of the changes. He spent two years promising and then suddenly on a dime, he switches. And there's a lot of other pressure you can imagine as well, like the stick, as you said. And anyone who thinks that this is that our intelligence agencies are above these kinds of things. The naivete required to believe that is, well, they're.

Tucker [00:53:25] Not above that.

Glenn Greenwald [00:53:26] Of course they've done it.

Tucker [00:53:27] This is their currency. It's just amazing. Having spent all this time in Washington with all these people, I have just who I know. And by the way, it's in some cases, like by chance, and I like it. You can't really reach another conclusion other than there's something very heavy duty going on behind the scenes, like really profound going on. And I just don't know why no one has ever emerged from the system to see what it is. Is there not one there? Very few courageous people. You're one of them. Maybe there just aren't many in this world.

Glenn Greenwald [00:53:58] Well, I mean.

Tucker [00:53:59] Why doesn't someone just just call one all these people.

Glenn Greenwald [00:54:01] Out of the things that made Trump so threatening and that continues to make him so frightening is that in a lot of ways, he was pulling the curtain.

Tucker [00:54:09] He is open. It's the fourth wall is coming down.

Glenn Greenwald [00:54:11] Yeah. I mean, you know, I remember he he he just said openly. Yeah. Like. As a billionaire, as a businessman, I just gave a candidate, you know, $50,000. And then they will automatically accept my call and do whatever I told them to do. Are you who says that in the top level politics, like, hey, you're I'm running for president. I want you to know, here's how the system works. You give a lot of money to some place that these lawmakers tell you to donate money to, and then they do whatever you want. They do your bidding. When in that 2016 debate, when he started railing against the evil and the stupidity of the Iraq war, because his principal opponent at the time was Jeb Bush, who was backed by the establishment. And the audience started booing, you know, as though the America was rising up in defense of the Bush family. He was like, these seeds here, these are all the big Republican donors. That's the only people who are booing me because they're supporting Jeb Bush. And that's how you have you ever into a debate, as I know you have. That's exactly how it is. The big on both parties. They put their big donors, the Partizan insiders, right behind where they get their audience. There's only their reaction. So Trump constantly was sort of doing that. Here's how things really work. And then once he started getting targeted by these agencies, by the CIA, the FBI, starting with Russiagate, but the Steele dossier, what Ji

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