An Evening with Tucker Carlson: America's Elites Are on a Ship of Fools

[Music] evening ladies and gentlemen my name is David Thoreau and I'm the president of the independent Institute we're so delighted to welcome you all to our special program with our friend Tucker Carlson the sworn enemy of lying pomposity smugness and groupthink and he'll be speaking we believe regarding his new number-one New York Times best-selling book ship of fools how a selfish ruling class is bringing America to the brink of revolution for those of you new to the independent Institute you can find information on the printed program that hopefully everyone received the independent Institute is a nonprofit nonpartisan public policy research organization we sponsor in-depth studies of major social and economic issues we have about 140 fellows and the purpose of this is to both the advance peaceful prosperous and free societies commit with a commitment to human Worth and dignity in the process we seek robust dialogue on key issues and we stand against efforts to show to shut down the free exchange of ideas and Tucker of course is a leader in doing that the results of our work are published as books and other publications and form the basis for numerous conference and media programs neither cept accepting or seeking government funding we hope that you'll all join with us as a member of the lighthouse society before I begin however I want to thank our board member dr. David T's who's here tonight David is chairman and CEO of the birthday research group and the Thomas toosha professor of Business at the University of California at Berkeley my alma mater David provided the wonderful view Mount beautiful wines from New Zealand that we've been enjoying this evening so I want to thank David in particularly in his work tucker carlson has been sounding a clarion call regarding america's elites a group whose status wealth and blind belief and government power have grown beyond imagination even as the rest of society has floundered in his path-breaking 1776 book The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith refuted that mercantilist system of government privileges as a result and under the leadership of the businessman Richard Cobden and John bright the so called Manchester League movement of working-class people arose swept into power and abolished mercantilism unleashing entrepreneurial freedom and markets that uplifted the lives of the entire British nation today under the secular religion of progressivism the people of run America for many many decades and profit from neo mercantilism now barely interact with America indeed they despise it in his book ship of fools Tucker offers a blistering critique of this ruling class or what the political scientists Angela Koda via calls America's political class traditional liberals who as civil libertarians once defended free speech and due process have been replaced by authoritarians whose art hard-edged agenda and hunt unhinged identity politics is now on parade for all to see in the process they'll not hesitate to fleece you while lecturing you about bathrooms plastic straws and safe places left and right Tucker says are no longer meaningful categories in America the rift between those who benefit from the status quo and those who don't our leaders our fools Tucker concludes quote unaware that they are captains of a sinking ship unquote in a signature fearless and witty style Tucker is addressing the all-important question how do we put the country back on course and Americans are indeed listening now Tucker Carlson is the host as you all know of Tucker Carlson tonight on the Fox News Channel I first had the pleasure of working with Tucker when he was on the editorial staff for the journal policy review years ago with the Heritage Foundation he has since flown and was host of the MSNBC Tucker program Tucker he was co-host of CNN's crossfire and spin room and he is co-founder and former editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller also author of the book politics partisans and parasites my adventures in cable news he was a recipient of the Warren Brooks Award for Excellence in Journalism and you can read more about his background in the program but I will simply add that he was born in San Francisco and raised in California so please enjoy [Applause] so please join with me in welcoming Tucker Carlson [Applause] but thank you David that was so nice I'm definitely I'm definitely from California and it's it's just so nice and also sort of wildering to be here every time I come back to the state I I think I mean I grew up in the state the proudest purse the proudest California and maybe ever and I grew up in a family from the state that came here in the 1850s and literally never stopped talking about how great the state was how great they were actually also but it was sort of a non-stop barrage of propaganda for my entire childhood about how basically anyone who didn't live here was unfortunate don't tell them because they might move here was the view but we really considered California Eden I did for sure it was born here as David just said Children's Hospital in California Street lived in Pacific Heights moved to LA and then La Jolla I never thought I would leave one of the many lists of the many things I never thought I would do I never thought I'd be up here defending 1970s liberalism like free speech and due process what I never thought I would think of myself as a civil libertarian I never understood why civil liberties might matter or I never understood that maybe the threat to speech might come from large corporations like Google that never entered my mind ever a lot of things never entered my mind but it's a completely different country from the one I grew up in and so some of my assumptions have changed and let me just say by the way what a deep pleasure it is to be in a room full of normal people I mean this really is this is no I'm not kidding one other and I have a million obviously relatives in California and you know they're all from this area they all went to cow tear people from you know Piedmont and Alameda and Oakland where my grandmother grew up it's just so weird and nice and it just reminds me of how I grew up I mean this wrong people like you so it's very reassuring um I would say to know that that California still exists um but I wrote this book because I started brooding I'm gonna host a daily show at Fox and I have four kids and two dogs and like going on those through last thing I want to do is write a book since they're they're really hard to write and I felt a moral obligation to write it myself which is not the way you sort of do it in TV you know what it means it's like you see some with the cable shows doing you know Alexander Hamilton's fiscal policy explained probably didn't write it okay just throwing that out there uh-huh but I actually wanted to write this because I found myself brooding on a single question and I'm hardly an intellectual or a profound abstract thinker I mean I'm literally a talk-show host okay so I don't want to kind of pretend that I'm something I'm not and by the way I should say this book is not a sort of populist war cry as it's been described by people I'm not a populist I mean I'm literally from Pacific Heights La Jolla and Georgetown so it's not like I'm I'm here to give you the view from coal country or something I'm not you know what I mean I'm not gonna pose but the question that I couldn't get over was why did America elect Donald Trump and it's one of those questions so I covered the campaign and then immediately after the campaign got a nightly show and so I didn't have that much time to stand back from it to sort of consider this but it was such a glaring question because it was such an unexpected outcome that I expected at some point it would be the topic of national conversation how did this happen whether you're for it or not and if you know I work at Fox I actually agree with a lot of what Trump says that doesn't make his election any less remarkable it was totally unexpected by everyone including him no it's just true it's not right I mean like nobody expected this so where I live in Northwest DC washington DC not the state you know this was deeply unwelcome news I mean people really don't like Trump you think they don't like him in the Bay Area you don't think they don't like him at Presidio Heights usually go come to where I live which is ninety-six percent for Hillary Clinton and the rest for like the weed party or something our know our third party candidates outperform Trump every single one of them so Donald Trump is the nightmare of my neighbors all of them the three Republicans in my zip code Idi Amin would get a warmer welcome in our dog park I'm not no no exaggeration so they were completely horrified I was on the set and Fox in New York on election night in my next-door neighbor whom I loved whose are kind of moderate actually pretty conservative Democrat worked for Bill Clinton as a consultants been successful very good guy and really on the moderate and the conservative end especially in the social issues if you would all like him of the Democratic Party text me to say we're leaving and I said where are you going sinner no we're leaving permanently and I said are you gonna sell your house because I don't know we're just leaving you know we're going to New Zealand I said what can I use your pool when you're gone I didn't really it's hard to tell you this someone who covers campaigns it's sort of hard to take the hysteria too seriously because it's a perennial event we're gonna have another election right and if you don't like the outcome this time presumably you can change the outcome next time right that's our system so it's not really the end of the world it's the changing temporarily of the guard and that's okay it's happened before people I don't care for have won elections and I didn't abandon my house right in response but that was really their feeling and it wasn't Mitch it was a conventional stages of grief thing you know they felt deeply threatened by Trump personally they could not control Trump that was really the key to what I realized later he was not recognizable to them it wasn't that he was some right winger he wasn't actually he wasn't even really a Republican so for four generations for my whole life you would hear from the left Greenham growing up here I would always hear this if the right ever takes charge they're you know they're gonna impose the theocracy you know Jerry Falwell will be President remember that and you know the only person I ever met growing up who went to church was our housekeeper no I'm serious like I grew up in a totally I mean I was baptized in Grace Cathedral actually by my uncle the bishop and that was kind of the last time I appeared in church you know until I was an adult so the left was very concerned that the right was comprised of these snake handlers from deep in Alabama somewhere we were going to impose a kind of Old Testament version of government on the rest of us but when it really happened we got kind of the opposite actually Trump is not a theocrats a blow your minds in fact the friend of mine did the famous interview with him where he asked Trump you know what's your favorite book of the Bible and Trump goes well the Bible my friend said no no but like what's your favorite book of the Bible it's from kind of narrowed his eyes because he knew was a trick question he goes the Bible okay totally unaware their component books within so we didn't get a theocrats um one who was rigorously loyal to this for talking points of institutional conservatism that's for sure not even familiar with some of them so we got something very different from what they feared and they hated him more why it's kind of interesting why cuz he's so right no because they could not control him and because his message was aimed at them that's what it was really about at them when he said in effect look around is the country richer than it was before the financial crash no drive from DC to Pittsburgh you drive through towns with ten thousand people don't have a car dealership it's certainly true in this state Drive citizen I bought a family a nag to this day they're doing great by the way the Bowles family great people but drive to where they live and you drive through Victor Davis Hanson we have on all the time from up here is a wonderful man is this sixth generation Central Valley farm family you know he lives in the same house that his great-great grandfather lived in and there's deep poverty around him in a way that wasn't there a generation ago so even as our coastal financial centers and of course our political center Washington have thrived the rest the country has withered in measurable ways and Trump's message was basically that not everyone has benefited equally again cuz I'm not you know what I mean because I'm very much a product of the world I'm writing about I thought well that's kind of a you know you're right you're making a good point so he was aiming his message at them and the system from which they were benefiting and so they were more if I didn't I get that what I don't understand is why they never paused for one second to ask why this happened that is a bizarre reaction I don't care how horrible and unexpected an event is at some point you ask yourself why it happened particularly if it happened to you because the obvious question was am i implicated in this did I do something to cause this if you wake up and your wife has run off with the mailman and he weighs 70 pounds more than you and makes half as much obviously your first reaction is she's horrible how could she do that it's her fault but a certain point you think to yourself well wait a second if I was such a good husband why would she do that maybe I did something wrong that's what a normal self-aware decent person at some point would ask himself I didn't expect this to happen it did happen I didn't welcome it happening how can I prevent it from happening I'd like to get remarried maybe I won't repeat the mistakes that caused wife number one to run off with the fat mailman Trump is that mailman and the voters are his new wife that's what happened but what's so remarkable is that the abandoned husband thinks he's totally blameless in fact you know what Putin made a run off with the mailman that is really what's going on we are watching and I unfortunately am living firsthand this kind of very predictable psychological phenomenon of guilt transference were the people who did this absolutely refused to entertain the prospect that they're in any way culpable for it happening it wasn't me it was them or was voters that's my favorite explanation voters voters did this why well cuz they're racist duh well they're just they're horrible they're just immoral and I thought well you know I don't know I mean it's America's a cross-section like any group of people but I covered the campaign I never met a single person who you know saw the Access Hollywood tape and said you know what he speaks for me I was kind of on the fence until this came out and I realized that's my guy right there people didn't vote for Trump because of his shortcomings they voted for him in spite of those shortcomings in order that his election would send a crystal clear message to the people in charge and not just of our political system but also of our economic institutions our cultural institutions our education system they sent it's the system the ongoing scam that we're all participating in where we spend 60 grand a year to have our kids hate us and the values that made this all possible I have four of them so don't get me going all of the people controlling the levers of power or implicit including I mean the media yeah well I'm part of that too so my fear is my honest and this is a sincere fear is it that they won't get the message and won't seek to remedy the underlying problems that gave rise to the populism we're living through right now I just want to say it again for the third time I'm not for populism I think Trump was a needed message to the people in charge I agree with about 9 much more than I ever thought I would of his message much more but I also recognize that political turmoil hurts the country long term or another way to put it would be the only reason that we have such a robust economy in a vibrant civil society and have for 250 years - for where we had some conflict but the only reason we have all these things that make us the place everyone else wants to move is because we have had for centuries this stable political system upon which all these other things were built we built them because we didn't have to worry about everything changing in Washington dramatically and that really is the difference between US and other places we have a stable political system therefore we can build a great civilization you don't therefore you can't I mean that is the difference in a lot of ways I went to Venezuela as a kid Caracas and it was a pretty nice place actually and the Venezuelans and don't anyone lie to you totally impressive you know huge middle class by regional standards in 1980 capable well-educated people by the way they're all in Miami thriving as they like they didn't have human capital in Venezuela are you kidding they had way more than a lot of other countries in the region natural resources yet check largest known oil reserves yeah they had that what they also had was an economic system that excluded a huge percentage of the population which is the rule by the way through human history okay one of the things that I always hated about liberals they're always whining about unfairness which for the last 40 years I've always thought well that's baked in the cake because life is unfair whining about it as like a college dorm room exercise it doesn't you know what I mean does it gonna get you anywhere what I didn't understand was that unfairness only works if you don't give everyone the vote democracy is the new ingredient in this formula and that's what I think we don't spend enough time thinking about I couldn't be a greater proponent of democracy I think it is actually the key to our stability the idea that if you don't like the system you can change it peacefully by voting is what keeps us from volatility it's what keeps us from storming the Bastille or torching the police station or acting like Portland Oregon sorry no I actually love Portland it's sad um some pro-democracy but if you have democracy which by the way has not been tried very often throughout human history we went from like the Roman Republic till our Revolution with no democracy so it's not like there's a long track record of it working there isn't common sense tells you if you have a democracy if you give every person an equal franchise in your political system a vote then you have to make sure that they at least feel enfranchised in other ways in other words if you give everyone the vote you can't tell people to just shut up and obey because you'll infuriate them and they will punish you by electing a populist to get your attention and if you continue to not pay attention they'll elect another and another and you may not perceive it's happening because these populist will arise under the cloak of some ideology or other so in Venezuela people woke up in like wait what is a second nine families control the entire economy let's elect you go Chavez and the rest of us look to this city oh wow why is socialism resurging in Latin America I thought we all knew that didn't work look at Cuba didn't work what we missed was that's not socialism it's populism it's exactly what that was they could dress it up under you know whatever kind of headline you want but the truth is that is a how will love rage from people who feel like they don't have a stake in the society you need to keep people in franchised in your society we're all in this together and the way you do that in a normal country is with a vibrant self-sustaining independent middle class that's the only circumstance under which you can have a functioning democracy is if you have the majority the country is bourgeoisie they're sort of normal working people who feel like their kids might do a little better than they are doing if you cease to have that Wow you can wind up with something very bad and that's exactly what happened to Caracas where there's no eating zoo animals and have no toilet paper it's bad so I don't think it's gonna happen here but I also think Trump is a sign to the rest of us you need to address the core economic issues that underlie all of this and I'm not certain of the answers because again I'm just a talk-show host but I'm pretty good at diagnosing obvious problems and this is an obvious problem so in 2015 the middle class ceased to be a majority in this country for the first time in over 100 years I mean except that we can't even know that its extent you know accurate records about wages have been kept it's always been a majority middle class country it stopped being one in 2015 so I'm thinking what was I doing in 2015 oh I was on TV every day as a news guy presumably I would have caught that Newt no no one noticed because we're busy argue about bathrooms or some other sort of distraction we're busy listening to some other bloviating demagogue you know make racial attacks on some group that's right man okay and and I thought to myself well maybe all of that stuff is a cover a distraction for the real conversation that we ought to be having which is what do you do for normal people and I mean literally normal people I mean people you know that like don't live in our you know like let's say you make 70 grand a year and have an IQ of a hundred and three kids that's a good normal person your society should be structured in such a way that that person can thrive not because I've ever met that person but a country is based on that person and without that part if that person thinks that his kids are gonna be in much worse shape than he is and there's no hope for them that person's scary right it's one step from there to nihilism so you need to organize your society so that guy he's okay this is like a basic concept in fact we had an entire political party based on that concept for like 80 years was called the Democratic Party remember that I was never a member of it I had contempt for them I thought they were silly but looking back it was good to have that party that party doesn't exist that party represents two groups two very rich and the people wholly dependent on government that is part of the realignment we're now and I see them my own family I mean I have relatives who you know on the affluent side voted Republican since well Lincoln like since it started a friend of mine is a Democratic pollster always says they had a name for his whole career he's almost 60 among pollsters of both parties for college-educated white Americans they were called Republicans it was the other word for them because they voted overwhelmingly Republican and now of course go through Presidio Heights in fact my cousin lives there right on you know those houses that are right on Presidio you can picture that in one of those and she's screaming right winger whoa love her uh she says she's the only one in her zip code that she's aware of who voted for Donald Trump I mean think about that my grandparents lived right there right there on one side the other side they lived in Green Street cific right you know nice neighborhoods I mean they wouldn't consider voting Democrat remember when Democrats showed the Republican parties the country club party and the public that's not true was totally true let's be honest was totally true okay it was completely true we used to scoff at it poolside at the Country Club that's not true bring me another bourbon anyway that was totally true what happened is that the affluent people who are benefiting under our totally brand-new economic rules brand-new economic rules where labor is basically irrelevant the value of labor shrunk like nothing okay so people in the knowledge or digital economy whoever we're calling it and then the service economy at the other side they all went to the Democratic Party so that left what everyone else those normal people the middle class remember that wage earners so the Republican Party if smart would have said well wait a second just as a math question if we just lost our base you know what I mean like everyone at the club oh my everyone I went to school with they're all Democrats now turn to my relatives too offensively makes for a very difficult Thanksgiving all those people have moved it and I'm sure some of your children you know exactly what I'm talking about do you know what I mean you sent him to Thatcher and Stanford you think they're gonna be conservative I knew wrong sorry if that sorry if that's too close to the bone but the other party might say well wait a second maybe we take everybody else but honestly I mean I live there so I can just tell you I know everybody in this world because that's what I do their reaction was what the American middle class know we're blackballing them and membership committee like no chance are we letting them in and the only reason the Republican part of what you're watching is a realignment where the Republican Party becomes the middle class party and Trump's singular contribution to this whole thing was forcing that he's a blunt instrument he's a fight King I'm serious he showed up at the Republican Party like a long hair matted beard he torched all their huts he slayed their livestock I'm not kidding carried their women over his shoulder back to his longboat and rode back to Norway I mean he really pillaged the Republican Party and with him came hordes of middle class people so all of a sudden if you're if you're wondering where all the drama is and all the kind of it's like you know Episcopalian Christmas dinner where there's lots of unspoken resentment and it takes a very high level of drunkenness for to come out you know what I mean what are you thinking about honey you never loved me I know you know nothing about that but um I've lived it if that's what's going on the Republican Party right now there's all this anger so you know on stage Paul Ryan Speaker of the House is like oh yeah Donald Trump I love Donald Trump you know he hates Donald Trump hates him what's that really about that's what it's about it's changing the composition and the orientation of a major American political parties not easy because it's the Republican Party it's taking place sort of in this passive aggressive way but the outlines will be very clear I would say two or three election cycles from now and by the way that's a good thing it's a good thing parties in and I'll stop with this and take your hoster questions but parties well I'll keep going no I'm sorry I'm just a guy get into free association mode and you don't even go there but the point is parties only exist literally oh I'm not over saying they literally only exist to represent their voters but New Hampshire primary I'm sitting getting a haircut that much Mountain Club was men's club in DC where I go for lunch with my dad my brother great place very staid and I go in to get my hair cut and I said the barber there's nobody here where is everybody there's a caller in New Hampshire for Jeb of course like the entire Club like emptied out and they all sort of took a day off from the law firm to fly up to Manchester to give it the old try for Jeb well you know she's fine I'm not taking Jeb that's kind of interesting so I'm sitting I get my haircut and this guy walks in who's actually a very well-known guy and a very good guy who's a Republican Party official and it's kind of a moderate Republican stronghold in Washington and we're sitting I said man it looks like Trump is like and I was leaving that day for Manchester's looks like Trump's gonna do pretty well he's like what I said what if he gets the nomination because we could get the nomination I said I know but what if he does like you never know I mean it's a little weird Donald Trump the New York Post headline guy is gonna be the nominee the Republican Party but like it could happen because we weren't gonna let that happen I said what are you gonna do he just would take it from the convention and at the time my thinking on this was evolving because you know I didn't catch a lot of this stuff I'm just watching and but I remember saying to him like what do you mean I gonna take it from him is it really yours to do you own the Republican nomination do you own the Republican Party or just some I didn't say this out loud but I'm saying you're just like some functionary who lives in my neighborhood you don't own the party its voters own the party don't they like by definition no no we can't okay Donald Trump is the nominee they never stopped thinking that which again I understand I try to be an empathetic person what I don't understand is why they don't understand the effect on the rest of the country of doing that what you're basically saying to people is your worst fears are true but going into eight-year-olds room being like I'm sorry Bobby there actually is a mom Stremme you're under your bed there it's those snuffling noises that's totally wrong it's not a screw tree scratching against the window it's a monster with sharp teeth and pools of saliva waiting to eat you the second I leave just so you know sleep tight that really is the message so out there and the rest of the country outside where I live people like wait a second they say it's a democracy but I noticed no matter who I vote for no one ever does what I want them to do like I'm not an extremist an immigration like I'm for immigrants but shouldn't you have control of your own borders and if you don't how are you a country exactly you're not it's a definitional question countries have territorial control of land period doesn't mean you exclude everybody it means you decide who comes that's it if I invite 10 people over to dinner at my house and Saturday night is called a dinner party if 10 people have never heard of show up and start eating my food it's something very different it's not a dinner party and if I say to them leaving they're like shut up racist then we have something very very different okay and it's not something that you want actually but I'm totally happy to have 10 people over for dinner I just want to have a say in who they are so it's it's not complex and voters have been saying that precise thing to Washington you know only since 1965 you know not that long 51 years and they totally ignored folk completely ignore voters and by the way this is not an esoteric fact that I dug up in my journey through political science these are publicly available polls you can pull up on what we call the Internet they're available to anyone who's interested in what the public thinks we know this conclusively they thought this for general literally generations totally ignored same with trade nobody can test the trade generates prosperity of course it does that's not even up for debate what's up for debate is whether you should sign a trade deal in which the other signatories get to cheat without you saying anything about it well who's for that exactly well we are turns out so if you raise your hand and say you know I'm not against trade but like why is this good for us shut up you what are you an economist now hmm oh yeah did you work at McKenzie where's your HPS turkey don't have one adults are talking and actually it's kind of intimidating as a non-expert isn't non-economists to like major in russian history and didn't even graduate I'm like oh yeah you know I mean I pronounced in economics I guess whatever I don't know you're right you're totally right here's what I do no BS I'll never forget all I covered the NAFTA debate of 1994 of course I was totally on the side of NAFTA because I'm on the side of progress and on the side of trade actually and I still AM but I'll never forget the one part of that debate that bothered me at the time and bothers me immensely now was the line Universal from everyone I knew that this trade agreement will be good for everyone there's no one who won't benefit from this now again I'm demonstrably not an economist okay but I do pay attention to life and I thought at the time as I think now that that is a lie by definition if someone tells you that something is all good that it's an unalloyed positive from which everyone will benefit he's lying but I mean if you wake up and you find something that is all good you are dead actually and you have gone to a better place but in this temporal existence nothing is all good everything is a mixed blessing it's somewhat better than it is not you try to go for the thing that's better than not better okay but that's as good as you're gonna get here's the problem continuously lying about the effects of policies to the public that pays for those policies and has to live their consequences creates deep and profound resentment if you tell people this is gonna happen and it doesn't happen and you tell them that enough they're really mad if you think you're getting a pony for Christmas and you get a bag of hair you never forget it you're telling your therapist about it 30 years later okay and that's what we've done I understand but what's infuriating and this last my last sentence and critically what will ensure future cycles of volatility cycles that we should all be concerned about is the unwillingness of policymakers to admit any of this we caught you you won't pay attention so we elected an orange guy to get your attention and you're still not paying attention who are we going to elect next so it's super important they pay attention and with that I will stop thank you you mentioned the four-year interlude you use the word volatility we have formerly serious people senator Feinstein Eric Holder questioning the legitimacy of the Supreme Court yes we do am i alarmist to be concerned about that sort of thing I don't think you're alarmist at all I mean what we just did my producer Emily Lynn's here I think she could confirm so I think we did 16 leads in a row first segments in a row on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation and we did that because it was a story in the news was not the only story in the news but I found it overriding lis significant for the following reason not because of any personal loyalty to Brett Kavanaugh whom I haven't spoken to literally since 1998 when he worked for Ken Starr and you know I don't know I don't know anything about Brett Kavanaugh other than what I read in the paper and he seems you know probably not the most conservative guy you could nominate the Supreme Court so like I don't have any stake in this what I found of critical importance for our viewers I think for all Americans was the reaction to that you have a sitting United States Senator mazie Hirono of Hawaii which is technically a state saying into a television camera without any trace of embarrassment if you are accused of a crime it is incumbent upon you to prove yourself innocent and then I thought why had a lot of relatives in Hawaii in Hanalei Bay in fact my grandmother from Oakland lived out her days Kauai yeah boy and it's caught it's a little flaky honestly in the marijuana very very high so then I'm like okay it's Hawaii then I see Chris Coons of Delaware who's so sober minded and boring no one can remember his name looking into a camera and a very precise guy Yale Law School graduate I mean this is not some flaky Hawaiian this is not Neil Abercrombie's cousin this is like a real guy looking into the you know I remember Neil ever coming looking into the Cameron saying that's exactly right senator Hirono if accused it's up to you to prove you didn't do it and I'm thinking that's an inversion of the standard that has been universal since Rome with the exceptions of the medieval period when we had the kind of trial by fire or trial by dunking Thrall men if he floats he's innocent if he drowns he's he's guilty like that's a medieval tech this is a threat not simply to the nomination of one guy or the Supreme Court River but to our understanding the Western understanding of justice itself and these are a lawmaker saying our children and grandkids are gonna have to live here if they have to live in a country where you have to prove your innocence or else you're punished there's no reason to be here that is that is the cornerstone of our whole continent so people move here if you're asking anybody who's just like arrived from Burkina Faso I'm sure why'd you leave Wagga dugu it's a lovely place economic opportunity verb utt know in the United States I'm a free man and you can't imprison me unless you can show that I did it and that's the moment I realized I guess I am a liberal because I remember liberals when I was a kid saying stuff like it's better than 10 guilty men go free then one innocent man is imprisoned I was like oh shut up liberals and now I'm thinking yeah because punishing the innocent really is the worst thing and this is not a legal test this is a human test this is how you define not simply you know whether or not your your judicial system is on the level this is where you determine whether you're a fair and decent person so that's when I realized I'm gonna stop getting caught up in a lot of these flashy objects that arise before us like what do you think of Esther's tomy Daniels yeah okay what I care about are the fundamentals free speech due process how we treat other people all of that is under attack by a party that sees only one thing power which is its goal and doesn't care how it achieves it now I don't think this is gonna last forever hopefully the revolution will end soon and we can all go back to being normal and not think about politics all the time but for this moment that we're living in we need to defend those things above and beyond any individual has been nominated to anything so anyway that's a long-winded answer to a short question but that's alright yes ma'am I Tucker love your show thank you I'm from Chicago and my husband's actually from Venezuela oh he's right here one of the impressive Venezuelans I was talking up here he's the middle class that have fled the country yeah we moved to California three years ago so we did not grow up here and we see the changes when we moved here we're like what's going on here and we see the socialistic nature and the ideology here the question we have is who do you think is orchestrating this because we see it in the schools my eight-year-old came home the other day he said mom is social just as bad there's like you know the Walnut Creek School District has East Bay have a lot of these propaganda posters in the school district my eight-year-old is asking me this and thank God for Prager you and your show because I I'm indoctrinating them to be conservative children good but who is orchestrating this progressive socialistic movement throughout our country that my husband's always asking me that has to be coming from somewhere well where is it coming I don't know if I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and of course there are pivotal players in all of this you know exactly their names and their people who are funding it but I think that a lot of it is organic what you're looking at is very large well relatively small but but in terms of the power it wields a large group of people who have decided that they despise the civilization that made all of that they have possible now there's a psychological explanation for this which I sincerely believe which I'm not going to bore you but I mean it's sort of like here's the way to think of it and this may resonate with some people in the audience you may have seen families that possess multi-generational wealth and you may have noticed a certain very recognizable pattern there's not Universal but it's it's common enough that you'll know what I'm talking about the first generation people who made it are sort of hard-nosed smartFocus second generation yeah that little less Oh third generation honestly not that impressive fourth generation wrapping a Lamborghini around the tree at the club okay it's that generation that didn't work for what it has that takes for granted all the things that made its material comforts possible that tends to be deeply ashamed of its own wealth if you know what I'm talking about you will almost never meet anybody who worked for 25 years to incrementally build a company and then got rich at the end slagging capitalism never because that guy earned what he has but if you live in a world full of inherited wealth which I do and always have you'll meet a lot of people who are going on about capitalism really because you've never practice it in your life you're living paying half the tax rate that I pay because we tax capital at half the rate of labor as you well know in my rate and you're sitting around you hate yourself because you're a loser who got your money without putting in the required effort and you're filled with guilt about it multiply that times a whole ruling class that's exactly what you have so you never meet anybody like who came here from one of the things I really like I mean I think we should control who comes here for sure but when you see successful immigrants you never hear them say anything like that you never hear them going on about social gel you're married to one what am I saying I'm sorry I don't tell you that exactly because they know how valuable the things that our ancestors built are that's why they came here to partake of them our justice system our civil society our economy these things didn't arise overnight people gave their lives to build them our freedom of speech we're the only country world with the First Amendment that's worth a lot they get it but people who grew up here and have been bathed in generational affluence are filled with this corrosive self-hating guilt and you see it everywhere so it's not just that George Soros is funding this though he is it's that like kindergarten teachers across the country buy into it and what is the answer I'll tell you what the answer is let's not participate in this I can tell you I mean that you know let me put it this way if you were you know of any other group if your kids went to school and all of a sudden the teacher was telling them like you know you're bad your group is bet you would go in I mean if a gay couple showed up at school and the teachers like you know gay couples are terrible the parents be like what no I'm not putting up with this in my kids schools you know overpriced Episcopal dumb schools the parents sit there while the teachers are like yeah everything you stand for is terrible and we're telling your kids at the teacher and the parents really like you okay and by the way can I have an extra 20 grand on top of tuition just as a kind of guilt offering okay so this last year my wife who's you know daughter of an Episcopal priest very moderate person politically has been driven completely over the edge by what's happening and she says to me I'm out I said my wife is kind of liberal I've been married 28 years I never thought a verse concerned she's like you know what I'm not gonna use profanity so I'm not gonna say exact what you said I'm sick of this crap I'm not you know how you know about your giving 0 her father's an Episcopal priest is an Episcopal School like no I'm not funding us anymore they hate us they hate our family that hid our values we're opting out and I'm like good for you and by the way I just can't overstate what you were here so I could like pointed out to you like that's the last person who would say something like that but she said why would we fund an organization that is teaching our children to hate us and our values are we masochists are we insane the number of parents who do that including my family I just admitted it without thinking about it or without feeling like they can opt out is like terrifying I see these parents like oh my kids going to you know Princeton or whatever all so proud of it it's like really you really said you can do what they're learning it Prince is it making them better I mean this is in the humanities okay if you're going to whatever Cal the study engineering you know god bless you but if you're going to study you know interpretive feminist dance it's not making your kid better actually it's hurting your child and you're paying for it because you feel like you have no choice what we need is a growing population of upper income well-educated people who say I've had it I'm not gonna dig my family's grave for you that's how I feel like the stakes are really really high we lie to ourselves and say they're not high Oh it'll be fine and the last thing I'll say really quick the mistake that I made is I felt like as a conservative who is a libertarian temperament I've no desire to control other people it's just how I'm made I didn't want to like propagandize my kids and I would and my kids are actually they've been so driven crazy by liberals that all four of them are kind of conservative just because I sent him to Episcopal school so like I don't know what that is but I'm not into it okay but I wish I had been more systematic and less ashamed of my own beliefs with my children and sat them down and said here are the things that we as a family belief and we're not like everybody else all the other families to Walnut Creek they're nice people but we don't agree with him on certain things and here's why I wish I had done that and were too ashamed to do that I can do the left does it every night at dinner it's like everyone else is in the Klan except us I'm serious and they raise generations of extremists I don't want extremists in my house but I want people who understand what our family believes and why we're a little different from everyone else at Walnut Creek or Atherton or wherever you live there's nothing wrong with that we should do that amen hey Tucker self-deprecation aside I just want to make a quick comment and then a question you are an incredible mind and quite an intellectual in my opinion and one of the best intellectuals on TV you know that's a low bar perhaps but but unlike some of the intellectual deep thinkers you actually add humor to yours and you never talk down to people so that's what's so endearing about you and your personality and I just wanted to well I appreciate that thank you secondly I wanted to just ask you a question because you know on this whole issue of Trump you know here we have a man that's literally viscerally hated from Democrats from Republicans and leaf at least half of them from his own DOJ and spy agencies from the media and yet what he's accomplished in less than two years is astounding and so my question is is is there I mean can this just continue this sort of astounding success with Trump or is there a sort of a high mark that are we at the high mark or what so that's it I mean that's obviously a key question and I wish I could foresee I wish shake sorry yeah I mean I wish I could foresee the answer in fact I just had a very in the interesting thing about we was in San Francisco this afternoon the interesting thing about this area and about all places where the liberal culture is so overwhelming and oppressive is that it makes for a much smarter brand of conservative I will say that's what I always notice that I'm out here is it the people who dissent from the orthodoxy here have been forced to really think through what they believe they're not doing it because like all their neighbors are doing it they're doing it because they really believe it and they know why they believe it which is so great and I by the way I see the opposite too and overwhelmingly liberal areas everyone's just like I don't know you don't mean like I'm a good person you're not right right okay yeah there's something about being challenged that makes you sharper steel on steel so I was talking to an extremely smart tech executive secret conservative today about this exact really secret trust me about this exact question and I asked him because he's smarter than I am what do you think's gonna happen and he said I don't know but I'll tell you one thing is that things will never be the same and the reason is really simple because Trump whether he can achieve his goals or not has done the one thing you need to do in order to achieve anything which is name it he's named it this is why they hate him actually because Trump is the guy who and sometimes in this kind of autistic Weibull just say it they'll just say it no I'm not side with the vulgar stuff I mean the obvious stuff I sought this summer we were in in Finland for his summit with Putin and no I'm not an expert on this stuff you know at all I was a big Cold War guy I'd like Europe was a long time in Europe but I'm not I'm hardly an expert on post-war institutions in Europe but I've often wondered like what what is that and I'm not against NATO I'm for NATO I guess I was always as a child very for NATO because it was of course it was the thing standing between civilization and darkness right but the purpose of NATO was to keep the Soviets for invading Western Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed in August of 1991 I remember cuz I was on my honeymoon in Bermuda I'll never forget it so that was well I just had my 27th anniversary so that was like quite some time ago so why don't we still have NATO and I thought this because Trump asked it in his Trump be noise I go out why we have NATO and everyone's like you're a tool of Putin be quiet and I thought why is everyone so mad about that why are they so angry that he's asking the question where I can think of 20 other questions he's asked that infuriate them and they're angry of course for the same reason you're angry when one of your kids asked you a question like that and the reason is because you can't answer it so you don't I mean and you like trying to be a reasonable parent but they're like you know mommy why are you doing this you're like well there's a good reason you don't they goes are the wife is well why well because there is you know there's a very good well what's the reason mommy mommy wants a glass of wine too quiet you know what I mean that's exactly what's happening you because our ruling class lacks self-awareness or humility or empathy and they do trust me they don't feel the need to examine any of their most basic assumptions even the ones that obviously might be outdated and so I guess my point is we're not gonna solve and Trump is not going to solve the question of what do we do with Naida we have this infrastructure I don't believe in destroying things it could be useful we probably do something with NATO you know important but what is that thing it's not keeping the Soviets from invading Western Europe because there are no Soviets but now that he has set it out loud it can't be unsaid that's the beauty once Trump has been like well why shouldn't we have borders or why shouldn't we build a wall everyone right lives in a loft a wall so I remember I was in Jennifer's igloo why not a wall well cuz a wall taller ladders okay but what if you build a super high wall I'll be quiet okay well what's the answer shut up it's like so there's certain mean if you think of Trump as you should think of everything as part of a continuum you know because the key mistake that people make is imagining that the future is exactly like right now it never is it's totally dynamic everything will be different in the year but if you think it's from that way as a marker on a much longer time line Trump is the guy who started a series of essential conversations and allowed reform to have and just by naming the absurdities of the way we do things so it's kind of Awesome actually so if you think of it that way as my genius friend said to me today it's like yeah he's one guy he's zero control of his own government none totally ignore him and he's not from our world so it's very hard to manage any agency try like X number of them three million executive branch employees like no all of whom hate him and in a union whose whole purpose is to defeat him yeah probably not gonna happen but doesn't need to happen because once he said those things we will talk about them until they're resolved so that actually made me feel so good did you Naveen and but but we're so trained to be like what you said you're gonna do this like hurry up and do it you got 12 minutes it's like no you don't you got another generation I kind of have a personal question yes ma'am on how you how you debate people that you so opposed and you keep your composure and your smile and your nice and I was talking with someone tonight that I have a lot of disagreements with and and we kind of did it but how how did you do it how would you trained to keep your composure on your your nightly show I don't know thank you I mean I just think I think a couple things one I always try to remind myself you know I've got five hours a week I don't have to decisively win every debate or crush every app um you know what I mean like I don't I don't have to do that I don't want to do that actually I want to say what I think and I want to air the other side and I want to let people decide again I my temper not a libertarian I should say that but my temperament is libertarian look I think it's okay to throw the ideas out there and people can assess like what do you think makes sense what do you think of that tell me what's your argument I actually that's my job that's what I do other people have different jobs you know other people in TV or in the I didn't I mean I just feel that way I sincerely feel that way I don't think I had a woman on tonight was the most interesting segment I've done in a long time where she came on just a well-educated but I didn't ask where she went to college but I'm sure she went somewhere way more impressive than I did not that that's hard I went to Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut go whatever the mascot is but she was a well-educated person clearly affluent I could spot that you know mile away a perfect teeth you know whatever so she's sort of the best that we have in this you know she's kind of like what our society produces at the top end bet you a million dollars or you know she's one rich family obviously and I said so she's saying that Susan Collins the kind of liberal Republican from Maine should have some honorary degree revoked because she voted in favor of Brett Cavanaugh that's fine okay whatever but she said she should have it revoked because she lacks integrity for voting for for Brett Kavanaugh and I just couldn't get over that I was thinking about our laughter I was like so you may disagree with the vote you think he shouldn't be on the court you believe you know whatever Kristine Ford or not but she lacks integrity because she reached a different conclusion from the one you reached is that really what you're saying and should shorten the cameras because that's what I'm saying I said so you're saying that you don't give the people you talk to the presumption of decency know anyone who disagrees with me is a bad person what that's what they think I do not think that I am NOT them and I'm never going to be them because that's soul destroying and I don't care if every person on planet Earth disagrees with me I'm not going to become that person because the consequences of that are too profound and but I have a wife who doesn't like it the other thing and so the one thing that my wife always says she's become she went from the sort of moderate Republicans last short a liberal person to like you know an intense Fox viewer all it took was Barack Obama was a high cost anyway but the only criticism she ever levels it me and she's like don't get mad you know you don't look good when you're mad and I don't know anyone who does look good when mad by the way does it does anyone improve with anger no right and I would say exactly so to the last thing I would say is that I also allow and you should always allow for the possibility that someone can change your mind and that doesn't happen a ton since I think about this stuff for a living but there have been many cases where over the many the 22 years I've hosted TV shows where someone will come on and say something to be like mm hmm wait what I interviewed a vegan the other night okay I'm going for a steak after this just to be totally clear but I ain't fit I won't get into it but this vegan guy comes on and I'm like you Wimpy little vegan you know what I mean and I was like doing the whole like you know I don't have to slap you around a little bit you know what I mean and this guy totally can tighten Faison was mocking him he totally kept his comedy so ya know actually at someone's about it's about animals and I love animals and I thought well I love animals too you know I have two spaniels in my bed every night he's like you know maybe you should think about this if you love animals and he kind of I'm not sure I don't agree I'm having a steak tonight but it was a totally legitimate argument and he was a totally decent guy I could just feel it when you're with someone you get a very different vibe so I'm sitting at my desk I've got all my papers I'm reading about this that on that person I think I just I despise that how could they say that and then like one out of five times I'm like actually I kind of like that check or whatever he's looking as good guy or what you just get the vibe and I always want to be the person who lets the person be the most important thing I'm an ideas guy and you know half of my head all the time but I want my feelings about the person to play a role because I want people to matter because I want to be humane at the end of the day so at the end of that segment I was like hey vegan guy you know I kind of invited John to be mean to you but you know go vegan guy kind of you know what I mean and I felt great about that I really did I like seeing a common humanity I like learning stuff they're big issues of I mean big issues I've changed my mind I I won't bore you with it but like where someone made a systematic argument to me and had it and that argument was so powerful that I rethought my own ideas about it which most of the time turned out to be more reactions than ideas and I came over to that side like that's what it is to be human that's why we're not that's why we're better than the robots that will inevitably replace us I would say I have time for one more question okay yes ma'am okay uh first of all let me tell you how much we enjoy your show well thank you you know you're really wonderful okay my question is this we used to be a country that was a melting pot yes we have become a country that is a mosaic yes I know and your show has brought up the point that you are looking into what makes an American that's right and I will be so interested to be hearing what you have to say about that because I mean if if we're a mosaic and we're what is it that makes us an American it's really the other thing just one quick second that I thought was very interesting is that you could become a citizen in China you can become a citizen in Canada Mexico but you're not considered Chinese you're not considered Mexican only in America are you considered an American so what makes us an American so great that is what you're gonna answer for it what's show you interesting thank you thank you very much and this is actually where my Californian upbringing multi-generational really am and I can't overstate how much I was steeped in California and its history and sort of the ethos of California in my childhood was very strong like we were Californians and we vacationed we crossed the cal-neva line into incline we'd be like oh man out of California can't wait to get back but the thing about California and my childhood was we people are staying now I know it was Nevada then it's now Nevada but whatever anyway my point is the thing about California then was even my family which is really in its own head anyway like native Californians extent they're native Californians but we really felt that way we still the whole idea of California was an idea and like you bought I mean that's why the West was different from what we called back east where I now live where people were totally like constipated and caught up in their rituals from seriously from the 17th century you know what I mean like we were about this idea and if you bought into California like come on you know you're one of us like all my friends parents were from like Milwaukee literally as you know there weren't many people at my parents age who were born in the state so I bring that set of assumptions to my show that America is an idea but in order for it to work everyone has to buy into the idea and as I age I understand the weakness inherent in that system it can work but you have to be really thoughtful about it I mean countries you know this idea and I took an enormous amount of criticism for saying it but this slogan that everyone throws out diversity is our strength is a lie and it doesn't mean by the way let me just say diversity is neither good nor bad I'm not against diversity I'm not for it it's a state that's neutral morally but it's definitely not our strength is that true in your marriage the less you have in common with your wife the closer you are are you super close if you don't share a common language is it true in your company like no one can agree on what we're supposed to be doing therefore we're really successful is it true in a military unit it's insane actually and so again that's not an argument against diversity I'm not against it it's just a reminder that if you want to have a tree that's cohesive that doesn't fall apart and wind up at war with itself you need to find a unifying belief that everyone buys into and new arrivals are required to buy into and I think the Bill of Rights is a good place to start and so if you bring people over and the next thing you know they're like I don't think we need freedom of speech in this country now which and I've interviewed a million people who've been here about 20 minutes who are lecturing me about why freedom of speech is like immoral Oh a hundred percent a hundred percent that when the imperatives of diversity and freedom of expression collide diversity wins like literally those are the segments are I have trouble keeping my temper because it was just such an outrage prima facie that someone show up in your country start lecturing you about your ancient traditions and telling you they're immoral first well that's just offensive but more to the point it's a threat to our existence as a cohesive country we need and by the way this is the job of the ruling class look if you're in charge of any if you're charged with a family is I am then you need to figure out what are you know what's there six of us what do we all believe like what are our traditions like what are we about what does it mean to be one of my kids and every Christmas day we go to a Chinese restaurant in downtown DC even though we're Protestant everyone else is Jewish or Chinese but we go and that's what we do did you don't I mean and that's what it means to be one of my kids you go to Tony Chang's Mongolian barbecue every Christmas Day and that's the decision I made as the head of my family Jesus it I'm saying and my kids are like what does it mean to be one of the Carlson's or well we go to Tony Chang's or like the nine you know what I mean and that's what we believe that's what leaders do they set the terms for the group and our leaders because they are totally inadequate to the job in front of them have refused to do that and what you're getting is something whose consequences we will all suffer which is disunion so I mean in my tiny role as a cable host of one show I just want to be a voice to remind people that no diversity it's not bad it's definitely not our strength let's find what our strength is thank you you [Music]

Channel: Independent Institute

Views: 865,474

Rating: 4.8602247 out of 5

Keywords: Independent Institute, Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools, Left, Right, politics, Fox News, liberty, political correctness, Donald Trump, political power, elites, free speech, conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, immigration, illegal aliens, populism, libertarian, identity politics, Silicon Valley, privacy, First Amendment, Free Market, Capitalism, Progressive, Political Class, individualist, California, humor, Donals Trump

Id: vbv2FQ9GVUg

Length: 66min 53sec (4013 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 02 2018