E155: In conversation with Tucker Carlson, plus OpenAI chaos explained

this is Sax's big day there he is oh there's T oh look at the smile on Sax's face this is the greatest day in the history of the all in look at how happy s is s by the way I'm I'm not ashamed of that come on I'm honored oh wa s getting this heated up quickly how threatened do you feel right now this is the highest rated host in in cable history this is the world's true greatest moderator exactly yeah no doubt no doubt absolutely Zach where is this in relation to your marriage and the birth of your children don't ask it's right up there up there he's like what children it is for me let your winners [Music] ride David and instead we open source it to the fans and they've just gone [Music] crazy all right everybody we've got got an amazing guest for you today here on the Allin podcast Sachs his dream has come true Tucker Carlson is with us today you know Tucker he was the number one TV host for much of the past decade including last year when shockingly he was fired from Fox News on April 24th reason for the firing it's never been pinned down but maybe we'll get into it today and we're going to find out what is motivating a post Fox News Tucker who has obviously launched show on X the platform formerly known as Twitter he's done 42 episodes and Counting he's had everybody from Donald Trump Andrew Tate Dave pory and the newly elected president of Argentina on the program so welcome to the all-in podcast Tucker Carlson thank you for having me it is it is a legit honor to be here two-part question to kick us off here first have you figured out why you were fired from Fox and let's get into that a bit and second given that you were the number one host from for much of the past decade and I think probably in the top five highest paid of all time what's motivating you now what's the mission here as an independent journalist take those two questions in whichever order you like I I don't know why I was fired I mean it kind of is an Agatha Christie story there are like so many suspects you know what I mean um but I I don't know I was never told I can only speculate there were lot of different things going on I had a lot of opinions that were unpopular you know with people who might have influenced my show getting canceled so I I I really don't know I will say you know right after it happened people said well how can they fire the top Guy and because that's what it is I'm certainly not the first high-rated host to get fired it's not only about ratings there a lot of different factors it's a big company you all have worked for and run big companies and you know it's there's a lot of complicated stuff going on and um and it's never exactly clear you know why things happen the way they do but I was not shocked by it I mean I was shocked by it in a short term sense I didn't expect to have my show canceled that morning but um but I was not shocked at all uh when I thought about it for a minute I'd expected that you know you can't kind of give the finger to everybody um and persist in a in a corporate job so I no hard feelings I and I and in fact I said that on the call when I received the news it's it's not my company and I never felt like I had a right to be on the air I was I was working at the pleasure of the family that runs the company who treated me very well and and um and they wanted me off and so I was off did you ever have moments where somebody Taps you on the shoulder and says Advertiser XYZ is getting uncomfortable or we're trying to lend this new Advertiser and right they want you to shape things in one re did you ever feel that pressure is that or is that just a thing that is kind of like a boogeyman that doesn't actually exist oh it well it it not only exists it defines news coverage especially on Pharma you know because Pharma is the biggest Advertiser in television as I know you know and so for sure I mean if you know fizer is sponsoring your show you're not going to question the V I mean it's kind of that simple uh so absolutely and of course that's why they're the biggest advertisers so they can shape news coverage I mean that's that's the point but um I personally never had a single person say to me don't say this that I recall I haven't thought about it too much but that certainly I was there 14 years and I I didn't have that experience regularly or at all really that I can remember and and I think you know my producers may have been told that but it it didn't ever get to me because I was always really clear which is I I always said out loud to the supervisors there you know I work for your company I don't own this network all I can control is what I say if you don't like what I say don't have me on TV but as long as I'm on TV I'm going to say what I think is true and in a million cas cases I said only part of what I think not because of my employer but just because you shouldn't actually say everything you think I mean I have some crackpot views too or I have resentments that I didn't want to work out on the air I mean I did you know you're strain yourself and you want to as you do in your personal life but on no question of principle did I ever pull back because I just I wouldn't do that and again I was just super clear if you don't like what I'm saying take me off the air but I'm not going to you know tow a line and because I was so clear about that I I just think they didn't think it was worth having some kind of dispute with me and to their great credit for the time that I was there and I said this many times in public like I took positions on the Ukraine war on the covid vaccine on the co lockdowns among other issues that I think you know I've been V Vindicated on pretty conclusively on the origins of Co and all of those were super unpopular on January 6th which was so hated at the company where I worked that people a number of people including on air people four that I can think of resigned in protest test over my over me suggesting that actually was more complicated than it looked and there were a bunch of federal agents in the crowd how can you say that are you claiming a false flag well no not I wouldn't use that phrase but like this is something weird going on here well I've been Vindicated on that that sounds like I'm bragging I'm not I'm just stating factually that uh I said things that were truly hated by a lot of the people who worked there and they let me keep saying them so it's kind of hard to complain really at this point right again it's not company just from a business standpoint I think it's weird for a company to fire their top performer and to do so without giving any notes I mean if any of us had a superstar executive or a superstar engineer like a 100x engineer working at one of our companies and like day in and day out they were you know hitting every Milestone and crushing it like if you had a problem with them you would give them a note you would just like try to say hey can we just like so I just think from like a business standpoint it's so weird it just seems like self-destructive and I think it was I mean their ratings really cratered in the Wake right of making this change maybe they've come back a little bit but I don't think it's ever been the same I just think it's a crazy way to operate a business so yeah it's their right I mean they can do whatever they want but I don't understand it as a way of doing business well I don't understand it as a way of living either I mean you know you everybody in the course of life whether is a a parent or an employer or just a friend has to deliver uncomfortable news or disagree with with someone that you deal with and you have a moral obligation to explain the disagreement you you can't just you know Levy the penalty and leave it at that you have to explain why you're doing that and and I think that's it's it's incumbent on us morally to do that I wasn't that mad about it actually because I know the rules of that particular business which are are really harsh and and I've been in it you know my whole life and so I've seen a lot of people as talented or more talented than I meet bad ends and in you know for reasons that I thought were not justified and and I I know them all really well so I you you work in a business like that you know what it is you know the black car is going to show up at 3: a.m. and toach you to lanca and that's just what it is you know what I mean you can't kind of whine about it you know well how much of it was the you know this is a family-owned business and the patriarch obviously pioneered opinion-based you know journalism entertainment commentary and the younger ones maybe were on the other side of the political aisle and maybe were not as I don't know Cutthroat or maybe didn't share the same philosophy of uh their dad what was your relationship like with the the new generation with rert Etc and how much did that play into it do you think well my my relationship with the father and son who are directly involved in in that company was from my perspective very strong and um I will say this about the murdocks they're very polite I mean they're really kind of very Anglo almost elaborately polite in a way that I'm not mocking I'm complimenting and um they're not confrontational they're not nasty in the way that they deal with people directly and and I prefer that as sort of a way of communicating with people so I got along with them very very well I always liked them and they were very nice to me elaborately nice to me and always gave me assurances of my right to say what I thought was was true and so again I can only speculate I will say though and you see this with Trump especially I don't think I'm anywhere near as divisive As Trump obviously I'm not as powerful As Trump I'm not the figure Trump is but one thing that maybe Trump and I have in common is were really disliked by a certain set of people you know affluent people Highly Educated people people who work at NOS government Finance you know really kind of hate a certain brand of politics so it's not being conservative you can be conservative in the sort of you know I work at Ko or Heritage or I you know we need to get back to free trade or whatever that kind of thing the Mega night Forum policy that's all fine but if you start asking questions like well why doesn't our country act in its own interest there's something about that that's uniquely offensive to them and to that whole class of people now I could not have more contempt or loathing for those people having grown up among them I know how repulsive they are so you know their their hatred of me is I wear as a badge of honor it actually makes me happy but it's hard to take I would say I me again I'm I'm just speculating in my specific case but I know more broadly like it's very hard to have lunch at the Four Seasons in Jackson during the winter because there's some private Equity wife who's going to scream at you on your way to the men's room because that world hates you and so if you live in that world and you're employing someone like me you know you hear about it I guess that's my point you hear about it like what that guy's a Nazi like who wants to deal with that I want to actually pull this thread I would love your perspective on the state of American society just less on the political spectrum of Republican versus Democrat but just just observe for us Tucker what do you see in American society where are we as a society what has happened what is happening well this isn't an 8 Hour podcast I could actually give you my very lengthy theories and views on that but I will just say one thing that's I've been thinking about a lot recently I just have been had my college roommate staying at my house and um you know we're of course the same age known each other our whole adult lives he's been very successful and he lives in a you know an enclave of very very successful people and and so we're we're familiar with this culture and we were talking about American and he's from an immigrant family so he's got a kind of broader perspect I would argue a broader perspective on like America he's 54 as I am and we talking about how obviously this is not a democracy it's not even a sort of decent uh fa simile of a democracy it's to call it a democracy is like ridiculous actually but it's even worse than that our politics and not just our politics but our public conversation reflects the very specific and parochial concerns of a tiny tiny group of people which is middle-aged affluent women who tend to be very angry and tend to um mostly with their husbands but probably for other reasons too and exercise this like wildly disproportionate power over what we can talk about and think about and and the rules that the rest of us live by it's just kind of amazing and he happens to live in Jackson Wyoming so and I go there you know to ski and to fish and I have for a very long time and I always say to him I can't go anymore cuz I yelled at at lunch over my elk chili or in the lift line or whatever or at the you know Westside Market literally a a relative of mine yelled at me while buying bananas in the you know the Westside Market she lives there and I'm thinking what is it about this group of people that hates me so much when again I know them really well I'm related in some cases to them so and I'm not quite sure but I just I I see our politics and our concerns which if you take three steps back are like insanely picky like trans black lives matter well I never said they didn't but like if that's your main public policy objective to celebrate trans black lives in a country of 360 million people it's got a lot of big problems you are not seeing the whole picture so like what is that and what it is again is the disproportionate influence of a class of people and their Neurosis I wouldn't even say policy concerns but like there are things they're worried about and their weird personal ticks and like the result of years of therapy and ssris on their brains like that kind of controls our whole conversation and my friend was saying because he's really smart he's like yeah but the good news is this can't last because it's just too stupid and at some point very soon the country is going to revert to the place that all countries begin which is in a conversation about things that matter like who comprises the population do we have enough water where are we on energy exactly how are we going to manage these complex relationships with other countries like the things that you know the stuff of government the stuff of resour of well of of course resources but like just the basic questions that should dominate the consciousness of any of any country and should dominate our public conversation it's like our public obsessions are getting increasingly irrelevant actually increasingly it's like crazy as our problems get bigger conversation the conversation becomes more in as the problems get bigger thank you exactly so when you look at that that cohort's disproportionate impact and then you translated for example last night there was um I guess like a almost Riot protest when folks were trying to light the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center I guess and there was like a huge Pro Hamas I think somebody checked me if that's is wrong protest and then people were pushing back on the cops and all of this stuff and all these folks were trying to do was just like the Christmas tree can you connect the do how does that Cort get to it no but it it's actually a branch from the same tree Christmas tree in this case um because that whole conversation well I think it's interesting and I think it's you know geopolitically significant and and I've you know been to those countries and I know people there so I'm like interested in it and there's a lot to care about and be interested in but the displacement of all of our public passions onto a conflict in a foreign country however important that conflict may be really kind of tells you a lot it's like in other words yeah I care what's happening between Israel and Hamas I have views on it which are probably pretty mainstream views whatever I don't have any very interesting views on it but it it's a little weird for your entire country thousands of miles away to be so preoccupied with that conflict that they miss big history changing events happening like in their own country and I think that's again a species of the same problem we are unable to the the problems that confront us are so big that we can't deal with them and I and actually my wife and I had this conversation the other night I was for years a magazine writer and I have to file every Friday I work for Bill Crystal at the Weekly Standard and obviously I regret that but it was interesting at the time and I have to file the story every week and and I'd stay up all night because I'm very lazy and I put stuff off and I'd stay up every Thursday night all night and my had recall it's going to the pr you know it's going to the printing press in Pennsylvania this was back when it was in print and you got to file it and right around 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning I would have this overwhelm in urge to rearrange the books on my shelves in my library by title or by subject I like have all these weird kind of like librarian fantasies about rearranging books which in know on a normal day like why would you do that and better things to do but as my problems mounted and I couldn't like write the lead I wanted I would transfer all my anxiety onto something I felt I could control or that was of lower Stakes less consequence and I think that's kind of what we're seeing a little bit like we care more about Foreign Wars and trans lives as like the obvious things that hold our society together start to fall apart cuz like how do you even deal with that am I I don't know if I'm being very articulate but that's what's happen sense what do you put on the top of that list of things we should be focused on tuer oh God I mean but but from my perspective by far one two three this is what America needs to put its energy on it's not even close National cohesion and by which I mean something specific what does the majority of the country have in common with one another because look if it it it the Arc of the last Century's his American history is super super interesting so you have this massive influx of immigration you know the Ellis Island generation late uh 18th 19th early 20th century and it's both good and bad we only remember the good but there was a lot of social volatility like a lot like the mayor of Chicago got shot in his house there was bombings on Wall Street like the whole the wobblies the the anarchists like the foot soldiers that were were immigrants working class European immigrants and part of the problem was there were just a lot of immigrants and I mean Saku and Vetti you know who shot the shot the clerk in uh was it Brockton Mass anyway it was in M outside Boston they had been in the country for just a few years and they immediately got sucked into radical politics well why was that well because they weren't kind of bought in or rooted in or hadn't been fully assimilated into American society so then you have the first world war and we basically shut down immigration and we have this period of settling we're like all Americans let's think through our Civic religion what ties us together and then that leads into to October of 29 and you do have this National crisis that lasts for more than a decade and we didn't blow up and we had a successful you know the CCC we like had these big programs which I'll say this as a conservative kind of worked in keeping people fed and focused it gave them purpose kept the country from from collapsing during the Great Depression if that happened now when when there is no broad agreement on what it means to be an American no agreement at all on what we all have in common I don't think we can withstand it actually I really don't and I'm not even convinced it matters as much what that Civic religion is as it does that we have one if we don't have anything that ties us together when that day comes and you know what I mean when the economic crisis comes because it's coming like what's that going to look like it's going to be very scary and I so that's what I'm most worried about by far how do you define national cohesion I guess maybe then like what are the few elements that you think America needs to agree on as a as a majority wake me up from a deep sleep and ask me what it means to be an American okay and then do the same to a thousand other people and we'll just do a survey on it and do the majority of those people give the same answer and if they don't like so this is okay this I mean I have all so many theories God don't I'm I'm going to control myself but I would just say one other thing which is we overestimate people ability to metabolize change it's you know I'm not like a strict darwinist or anything but I do sort of believe that over time people adapt to their environment and that you know in US is you most of our abiles are inborn like that's just true sorry I have dogs I know that and people just haven't you know the world didn't change that much from you know 460 or whatever the sacking of Rome until the Renaissance it just didn't and then the Industrial Revolution to now has been like such massive change that is driving people insane people can't handle Relentless change and technologists love Relentless change and I like a lot of technologists a couple are really good friends of mine but their anomalies a lot of them are literally autistic I'm not attacking them I'm praising them but they're different from most people you know right but you know like they can handle it they can like they want a world that's totally different from today's world tomorrow they flux they they they thrive in that flux they like they do right but they don't they don't understand how rare they are and if you impose that on a society and you don't ever have a period where you pause and let things settle you will blow up that society and the Chinese who I don't admire for many things at all uh know this and I admire that about them they think that change for it its own sake is dangerous now they think it's dangerous to their power and they're absolutely right but it's also dangerous just to like the idea of a society what is a society and so um anyway I can go on and on and on but that that's my main concern let me propose a theory and see if you react to it I think that there's a big orientation in society where it's constantly about trying to shift the power dynamics that everyone always feels like they don't have something that someone else has and that other person that has it for some reason um is advantaged in a way that to them always feels unfair and everyone feels this way everyone that's right you're you're the top of the food chain you feel like someone else has something you don't have and it's unfair and the system is set up that way no matter where you sit and as a result of that F and and by the way this goes back I get I get whack super philosophical on this stuff but like buddhism's always had this point that like the desire that humans have is the one thing that causes all of societal suffering Behavior everything but it all comes down to this it's that you see that someone else has something you desire it and then you want to change the dynamic of how the system how Society is organized to uh to fix that the thing technology if you think back the Catapult gave an advantage to an army that allowed them to win in a war so did the rifle so did the nuclear bomb that ultimately technology was the enabling force that allowed a rapid shift in power dynamics and all technology ultimately creates leverage for the creator of the technology initially and then it diffuses to everyone but that is perhaps why I this is a a theory I have which is that there's generally pessimism towards technology because it creates unfair advantages that shift the power Dynamic too quickly yes um and too advantageously and it's also why I think you don't hear a lot of support for technology from most of society because technology creators are such a small percentage of society so I don't know if that that resonates with your point but for me it's always I think that's really smart and I think it's indisputably true ABS absolutely I will say you're making an argument in addition to many other things against tribalism because tribalism accentuates these pre-existing impulses in people which again like all impulses are just inborn like the human nature is immutable so let's just start there it cannot be changed AI will not change human nature it'll change everything but but human nature and you know envy and you know the fact that the fact that Prosperity is a relative measure above starvation so it's like there's a famous Russian proverb like you know I've got a cow my neighbor has a cow he gets a cow now he has two cows I kill his cow right totally right it's just right so so but but tribalism especially in a country like ours which as noted doesn't have a working majority of people with obvious connection to each other it really really exacerbates that a lot and because it makes it more obvious so it's not so all of a sudden it's not just like hey the smart kids are richer they have two cows it's it's like the Jews are richer or the Indians are richer or the whites are richer or whatever you know it's like just name the group and that once you go down that road you know it's it that that leads to violence and mass violence actually a lot of people listening right now Tucker are probably a little bit confused hearing you talk about cohesion of the country when most people would look at uh you know the tribalism as almost most manifested in cable news you and Rachel mat every night we're you know number one and number two in the ratings taking either side of the tribe so is this something that's evolved and how did your time and cable news inform you to this because most people would say like wait isn't Tucker and Rachel like isn't that aren't those those the two tribe leaders I think I think there are dumb people who think that um but no here's the difference my My Views um wait you talking about me oh no I'm not including you that I'm not including you no I'm not including you no no no no sh fits I'm ask onal of the audience thing to say I'm sorry it's all good it's all good sucker why should you be any different than the other panelists no I I love and not only do I love I don't always love but I certainly think that reason disagreement is essential it's the alternative to Violence by the way that's what that is debate and politics are the alternative violence you get two choices we're going to do it by arguing about it or we're going to do it by force okay so so I absolutely think it's essential to debate things um because if we don't then we just have to shoot each other and I'm against that but that's very different from tribalism because tribalism is based on things that you can't change so for example in 2002 I hosted a show on CNN and it was the runup to the war in Iraq I was uncomfortable with the idea that we would be invading Iraq to respond to an attack on America that had nothing to do with Iraq I did think that didn't make sense but I was sold on the idea finally by someone and I foolishly uh pared the bush administration's line on that so I was a proar person for a time then I went to Iraq and I changed my views completely so I I switched sides completely and I wound up on the other side anti-war in Iraq and that took about a week I I was born a white man you were born whatever you are everyone's born whatever they are that can't change so if we Stoke division along lines that can't be changed then we're really at a culdesac our differences can never be resolved you will always be what you are you can't change it and the same for me and so those are the things that wind up becoming generational conflicts Civil Wars Rwanda and so I've always been against that my entire life and my entire time on Fox I argued against that I think affirmative action is completely not only immoral because it's an insult to the idea of America which is like the people who do the best get the most but it is also a recipe over time for violence and I made that case I've made that case every single day you know since David and I had lunch 30 years ago I've never not thought that I've always had the Dr Seuss view of race relations which is we should deemphasize race and Elevate you know Merit achievement hard work character the things that we can control and um and but the other side has gone and by the way liberals used to agree with me that used to be a liberal position within my lifetime and then all of a sudden became a Nazi position and I you know that's just a manipulation of language but the truth is on the race stuff which is what matters over time if you convince people to hate others on the basis of their race you've committed a massive sin and you've done a lot to wreck our country that's coming from the left I'm sorry that's just true just to connect these ideas I think that is a major source of our division is one of the reasons why people have a hard time saying what it means to be an American is because there are dueling visions of what it means to be an American the left has been trying to change or rewrite American history so for example the key year in American history the founding of the nation was not 1776 with the Declaration of Independence it was 1619 right this is the base of the whole 1619 project of the New York Times is that the founding of the nation began with the importation of Slavery to the new world that was the key year and so I think there's been an effort for a long time on the part of the left to rewrite what it means to be an American and and to rewrite American history it's actually in a weird way it's the opposite of what dong shaing did in China where dung basically he flipped the the doctrine over there from communism to capitalism he didn't outright declare it he said that you know it doesn't matter whether a cat is is white or black as long as it catches mice and they didn't change the name they didn't change the party it's still the Chinese Communist party they didn't change the flag but he did a hot swap at the back end to capitalism and you know they changed what the country was about in that economically it worked out great for them I think in a similar way in the United States they haven't changed the flag they haven't changed the name but there is an attempt to hot swap the back end of what it means to be an American and I think this is the root of the conflict I mean I agree with that completely and I don't think we've thought through what it means to change you know out of out of many one to out of one many I I think that's um we've set ourselves up for something really really scary for again for for violent conflict cuz I don't see how that that resolves itself you know you wise people understand this in a diverse Society plural society whatever you call it in society where you know you got a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds and shades and religions and all this stuff you need to deemphasize the things that divide us inherently and emphasize the things that unite us like that's not hard and it's it's also so obvious that if you're not doing it my first question is why are you not doing that I mean why are you not and and that kind of explains the true loathing that I have for the people in charge on both sides because like if you did that in your household with your children your kids would be in rehab or jail or dead it's that obvious like you would never do that to your kids so why would you do that to your population seriously freeberg you had a question well where does responsibility lie there Tucker what's the mechanism for doing that CU we often and I find in conversations everyone says the government should and I often question why the government should anything in my in my life in in in my social settings in How I Live how I do business does the government the federal government in the United States have a role in responsibility to do what what you're suggesting we need to do in the United States or is it the media or is it social leaders or is it Business Leaders or is it local governments who is responsible ultimately for creating the social cohesion necessary for the US to enter a new era of prosperity and and why is that the right group to be responsible well look I would say well I it's a great question and I would say New Era of pro era of prosperity I don't think that's really the goal we have prosperity um and I think it's a real question as to whether but do people want Pro I mean I think there's actually a lot of evidence that human beings sort of hate Prosperity actually we're not designed to be prosperous and the second we are we invent climate crises to to to make us less prosperous I mean that's really what that is right but anyway leaving that aside um it's it's incumbent on all of us anyone with authority anyone with a voice anyone with money and it's really kind of as simple and and I do think you know government is kind of the last to fall in line it's it's really as simple as making things socially unacceptable we certainly I grew up in a world where people smoked on airplanes okay now that was banned by the FAA but it was also made totally socially unacceptable you couldn't light a cigarette in someone's kitchen you just wouldn't think to do that in the same way that you wouldn't think to give the middle finger to an old lady which is not actually illegal but nobody would do that because it's so appalling in the minds of everybody and everyone's happy to say what what the hell are you doing and and I feel the same way about the race stuff it's like oh you know race this race that someone should say whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa stop that there's part of what you're saying which I think is which I really agree with which is this idea that we have gone as the human race okay from having to make major adaptations over the Arc of our Evolution as a species to now what you're kind of saying is we're now dealing with all these minor adaptations and it kind of breaks the entire circuitry of the brain which is like we had to fight to evade the animals to feed ourselves ex to build a machine to all of a sudden go from an agrarian to an indust these were huge adaptations and now we have all of this almost Surplus in excess and it's a little bit of a heads scratcher for a lot of people because now all the adaptations that are left are very minor in shape because all of these other things that would rather occupy your time sustenance survival resiliency are taken off the table I get that the other part of of what you say which is very reneer Ard which is like hey there's all this copying of people and desire there's going to be violence if we don't figure out how to decharge it what do you think we need to do in order to do that discharge how do you get these people to stop focusing on the small order bits and how do we reorganize people to focus on the big order bits so that we minimize this risk of violence we minimize the one group of immutable traits fighting another group of immutable traits how does that happen do you think you know I'm I'm I'm pretty pessimistic about about a a a country this big and we say the country I mean like when I talk about the country I'm talking about people I know or grew up with or people who speak my language I mean the country is so big that something can happen in New Mexico something big can happen in New Mexico or San Francisco for that matter and like people don't even know so like but in General I would say um you know it's hard to see changing course before we're forced to um and so I you know I do think you think basically there has to be a moment of something that's so egregious that causes a national reconciliation of some kind essentially that says hold on a second you want know you want to know what I really think which is like kind of crackpot but I know that it's right yes I I do think the problem is is is prosperity and I've noticed this as a middle-aged man as I've gotten older and I know people who've been successful um in some cases very successful and I've noticed that um when they succeed when they get everything they want they destroy themselves I've noticed this again and again and again it's you are the dog who caught the car and and it's and actually it's more than just having idle time there's something there's a metaphysical quality there's there's there are factors here that I don't understand that are are are deeper actually but I just notice it there's something about affluence that that over time convinces people to kill themselves and you see it like in a literal sense in the euthanasia numbers out of Canada and out of see you see it in a literal sense when you look at you know the incidence of diabetes as correlated to GDP that's exactly right exactly you look at these emerging economies and as GDP cranks the first thing that happens is heart disease cranks up and diabetes cranks up because to your point Tucker they start to enjoy the prosperity of their earned life but they're not enjoying it that's the thing the other thing you see is they stop having children which is a form of suicide you're not reproducing you know what I mean there's no other culture who has left a written record in history that didn't see having children as like the the primary first of all the primary source of wealth and not just because they worked on your farm but because they exist and and so do your genes um so if you start to see every it's not just a matter of culture it happens in non-Christian Japan it happens in post-christian Spain it happens in in South Korea with A7 replacement rate you know reproduction rate s so um what is that and again it's the same thing it's that affluence kills you and if you don't believe it fast for three days fasting by the way is a feature not just of you know Christian history every religion and every culture that I'm aware of um has acknowledged fasting as an important religious ritual why is that why would foregoing food be so important well try it for 3 days and experience you know you're quivering like a tuning fork you your sensitivity just explodes there's something about eating too much literally satisfying the most basic need of all which is for calories there's something about that that kills you and there's something about forgoing it that enlightens you it's like super interesting so I I and I'm look there's so much I don't know I'm the last person you want to listen to these are deeper waters that I'm qualified to wait in but my senses tell me very very strongly that the core problem is having too much and I'm not calling for taking things away I think the global warming [ __ ] is [ __ ] okay I mean obviously it is climate crisis it's propaganda but it's coming out of it's also sincere to some extent it's not just a power grab by Davos it's more than that it's people's gut level sense that we need to have less because this is killing us and that is real fre is Tucker said global warming is uh [ __ ] is I'm just going to pull anage for I just want I just want his reaction you just said that consultant of science let's see no no but no no I think it's like just on that topic um you know data shows temperatures are getting warmer off of a baseline of 500 years and now things get war no no no I'm I'm so sorry can I can I just make a small correction no I'm not saying it's not getting warmer it seems to be getting warmer I'm really saying this whole elaborate theory that humans are causing this rise in temperatures and we know how to reverse it through say shutting down you know the use of hydrocarbons yeah I mean and and even if that were true what we're doing to affect those changes shows how fraudulent the whole thing is I mean you you know the whole arguments but I'm not actually calling into a question that it's changing temperatures always changed I live in Maine which was shaped by the glaciers 10,000 years ago so like yeah we've had some climate change do you think that human civilization is not threatened by the changing climate I just just this is a quick little point but do I think well sure I mean it's threatened in some ways probably help in other ways I personally hate hot weather so um you know I don't care for it I I think there's quite a bit of evidence that previous that that actually temperature changes can be much more radical than we think and I'll just give you one example that no one's ever explained but you're aware that there are all these woolly mammoths found in case to ice in Siberia and the Soviet you know early Soviet 1920s expedition to map all of Russia found these things and at least one stranded Expedition ate them okay they ate the willly Mammoth because it had been frozen so thoroughly that the after thousands of years the meat was still edible yeah well the question is like how did that happen and I think it was the guy who ran bird's eye frozen food who was an expert on freezing meat it's like wait a second that weighs X th000 PBS it would have to be frozen extremely quickly and I know this from hunting too you have to freeze meat very fast to keep it from spoiling from the back so how did that happen well no no for real though cuz it decomposes very a big animal if you shoot say a moose or a big deer or a mule deer you have to open it up immediately or the meat will spoil because the bigger it is the more heat it generates right we know that it's like okay so how exactly did hundreds or thousands of large animals get frozen so quickly that the meat is still edible thousands of years later that's an honest question that no one's ever answered and the only potential or even plausible answer is temperature changed so fast it flash froze them well how did that happen like what no these are sincere questions I'll look into it I'll get back to you I've not heard about this flash frozen that's interesting no this reminds me of that Marlin Brando film you remember where he like goes to an island and eats the like super rare food it's like a kodo dragon or something the graduates Matthew broadrick in it so good it's like the expedition to Siberia to eat the flash frozen woolly mammoth to make a good sequel but it's interesting I'm going to look into it I don't know the answer to how and why the climate here's the point that we have physical evidence that the climate on Earth within you know inside our atmosphere has changed dramatically so dramatically that it would you know kill every person who was affected by it like a number of times that we know of over the course of the history of the earth So like um I mean I think there could we know we could be in for actual climate change that killed everybody that's entirely possible but the idea that it's the fault of the United States because of you know you driving F1 50 is like so absurd it's like hard to believe anyone takes that seriously there's like no evidence of that actually sorry yeah I'm generally just an I'm an optimist about Solutions anyway but you know I think human Ingenuity has always prevailed so all this pessimism and catastrophizing I I I do disagree with respect to like there is science that indicates that there are elements that were kind of affecting things in a in an adverse way to challenging way but I'm not concerned about the challenges just because of where human technology sits and the things we can do so I'm I have I have a slightly different point of view but I I hear you on it I don't want to Y debate the point sorry chth go ahead yeah that's a whole another thing yeah I just want to uplevel this back to something because I think if I had to summarize what you're saying is you're saying chath our society is too prosperous and as a result that Prosperity creates um small Fringe issues that dominate which then creates an inability for us to be cohesive so then if we have something that allows us to be forced to be more resilient we will actually wake up from this fever and say hold on guys what are the big issues let's really figure out what matters let's get organized and let's go after those and that both is a healing of the country but it's almost like our insurance policy is that kind of a is that a fair summary if I have to put what you're saying in a box or is that well I would I would hate ever to seem like I'm looking forward to catastrophe because I I'm not and I I hope I hope it doesn't unfold that no I mean I used to drink too much and I know a lot of people used to drink too much and you know use drugs or whatever and some of them didn't get better till they went to jail you know as people who drink too much tend to do over time that never happened to me and I'm so grateful for it like you don't need to you know get to the bottom you don't I don't think that you do I'm just I'm just really worried that we're not even having a conversation about this and but I again would point to I said a second ago about there's something metaphysical here there's something deeper than just you know the the Search for Advantage which is is a big motivator among people but there's something more than that going on why are we intentionally wrecking the society and we are and I and I hear people say well it's because some people are getting paid and yeah it's not really an adequate answer it's more than that there's something going on like instinctively people want to some people want to tear it all down and I don't think it's necessarily so they can rebuild it to their own Advantage I think like destruction is the point and I just watch carefully and I don't really know what's going on here but something much deeper than what we're acknowledging is going on here well I think it comes back to this point about I can't get what these other people have and there's now an insurmountable barrier that I cannot ever get there know I mean that doesn't explain why but hold on that that doesn't explain like why for example Dustin moscovitz is supporting revolutionary politics and Chas I think it's a good example S I think it does when you have massive abundance to jamat point about the idle mind you know DUS moskovitz has achieved more than any human could achieve billions of dollars and now he's got this Surplus and then whatever you know to to Tucker's Point whatever he's dealing with personally now becomes this you know canvas under which he's going to deploy that wealth in an outsourced way I think it actually does explain it it fits more with like luxury beliefs than with the idea that like scarcity or Envy is somehow driving it yeah but yes so those are luxury beliefs and he's got a huge bankroll therefore it has an outsized impact as sort of Tucker I think I think the the luxury point is once you reach a certain point your attention can then shift to morality you when you're starving in a street and you need to feed your children correct you're not focusing your whole day on the morality and better treatment of others in the world and extending you know morality to the rest of the world but when you have that luxury you have to focus your attention in that sense I do think that there's this large element that the term equality gets recast into every aspect of society which ultimately leads to this General point of view of Marxism which is everyone has to have an equal outcome versus an equal opportunity and that's where the prosperity takes this you but I think I agree with a lot of what you're saying but I I I I think it's maybe more profound than that I mean you're absolutely right that only societies that have reached a certain point can afford to think about certain things you don't see you know Hunter gather societies don't debate effective out is M because they're looking for roots okay so I I agree with that y however if you look at the behavior of you know some of the richest people in our society and I can't speak to Dustin mosit but I I have the you know I know people like that what they're funding are not exactly luxury beliefs they're it's they're like funding destruction actually and so like previous generations of liberal rich people funded things like public libraries summer camps for poor kids remember the New York Times used to have these fundraisers like fresh air fund or whatever and and people made fun of I always kind of like that like you have extra money and like you know help the poor kids you know whether it works or not we can debate but like I get it but Dustin MOS if you're Dustin MOS or any I don't mean to pick on him but any like really rich person you and you're at Baker's Bay or some Discovery property that you know you and your billionaire friends go to you might occur to you like why not build one of these for like all the poor kids but only poor black kids get to go to this Resort for a week and that might be it might work it might not work like all of American social the history of American social reform is kind of species of that like we're going to help poor people by doing this or that that's not what they're doing it's like hey poor people here are some more crack pipes and like we're it's immoral to criticize your drug addiction and what we need are more black people selling weed or it's cool to set fires or we can't criticize you for burning down Wendy's like what that is not the same thing that is super dark there's no even possibility of uplift or advancement it's just the opposite they know it these are smart people so like what are we looking at seriously well Tucker he's in DUS in DUS mind I'm sure he believes he's doing the right thing yeah he thinks he's funding social justice I think like Soros would be an even better example right where like it's hard to argue that what he's funding is not extremely destructive so the Revolutionary politics are not somehow coming from below the way you would expect a revolution to normally happen they're being imposed from above by some of the biggest winners in our society and that is weird that is a contradiction not you it is it is a bizarre outcome let's um it's exactly what you'd expect and it's exactly what happened in the Bolshevik Revolution I mean half of the romanof household the you know Nicholas II who was murdered with his wife and children in the basement as you know by the Bolsheviks his extended household supported the Bolsheviks rich people who are a small minority by the way there are a million different revolutionary groups at the end of the first world war in Russia clearly there was going to be a change clearly the the monarchy was doomed and there were a lot of different options and the most radical crazy nihilistic atheistic option was the Bolsheviks and they had the support of the rich people and like including the Zar family so like what is that it's the same thing always the same thing it's the people with the most have the strongest desire to kill themselves and their society that's just true it's an interesting Theory I mean there are some people who are very thoughtful right you have Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos who are thinking about philanthropy in a very thoughtful way now they could make mistakes of course but they're thinking Hey where's the suffering how do I work backwards from mosquito T to you know vaccines or whatever you know we perceive is what they perceive is is the most suffering they can relieve in the world so it does seem like it can go either way Tucker do you think it's because most people that get very wealthy very fast feel like it was unfair and they feel guilty and then they have to like destroy the system that got them there I think there's a lot I think that's such a deep point though because and you I know that you know you live of among people I mean you're familiar with this world so and only someone who is could say that cuz you're absolutely right rich people are not all the same if you meet someone who made his money incrementally over time he's much less likely to have the desire you know you may not agree with him on everything he may be a good person a bad person but he doesn't want to tear it down and he doesn't feel especially guilty for what he has and I have found just a non-political point but as I get older I want to spend less time with people who hate themselves because they're not capable of loving other people like that's not a good place to start actually as a person to hate yourself or feel feel super guilty it really isn't you don't end up helping others when you feel that way but when you find people who inherited a lot of money we never talk about that it's a huge problem in this country I'm not I'm not arguing for the death tax at all but I'm just saying as an observation there are an aw there's a huge class of people with massive inherited wealth and they're almost all horrible not all of them I mean I know you know very well I know some of them and they're fine they're some of them are great but as a class they're awful and they don't help at all and they're Al super annoying and dumb and I think it's the well no it's just true and everyone knows it's true we're about to do that for tens of millions of Americans right you know like we're about to go the largest generation of wealth transfer Beyond imagination we're talking trillions and trillions and trillions so that problem that you just encapsulated we're going to Cascade across tens of millions of Americans which also happen in Japan I agree and in Japan they have a negative growth rate as well let let's pivot to a to that can I ask you have you been to Japan recently yeah I was there last year okay so me too so so I you know people you always read like all the libertarian e economists in the Wall Street Journal they're always like oh Japan's a disaster negative growth and then you go to Japan oh it's the best place you could ever visit it's my favorite country hands down did you go to Tokyo did you go skiing in the Secco where' you go I went to Koto and Tokyo and I'll be back to ski on the North Island because it's like why wouldn't you it's like the pero I never have but I'm it's incredible I went last year it is like 25 out of 30 days in January and February it dumps powder and the powder is like dust it it's like makes Utah powder look like heavy it is insane uh I'm going back if you want to go February inred share a room you guys could have like one this is gonna make SX lose his mind if Tucker and I go in a but can I just ask a question like if if Japan is is is the butt of every joke that economists tell or the focus of the concern of econ you know lots of chin tugging and threading about Japan's negative growth economy and then you go to Japan and there's literally not one piece of litter and four-year-olds ride the Subway on a company highest function Society you could imagine but yet birth rate is going down that's the only thing the birth rate is a real thing I totally agree that's probably the product of getting atomic bombs dropped on you or and maybe the fact also that like the highest testosterone males flew their planes into US Air craft carriers or whatever I there's probably a lot of reason but it well that's a real thing by the way you kill all the high te males in your Society changes but but I don't think that we're using the right measurements and I do think that we're taking economists a little more seriously than they deserve because they're not describing what Japan actually is which is freaking awesome and way more functional than our society despite the massive disparity and grow you find is every person in Japan takes their job that they're doing as incredibly important and has massive pride in it why when you go there as an American you're like wait wasn't this what America was about it's it's it's really shocking as American because you're like this is what I want Society to be I want the person who works in the Subway or the stock market or the newspaper to take their job deadly serious and put their best effort in why I care about growth rate wait but hold on why should I care about economic growth at least as measured in the conventional sense the only reason is if you have a lot of debt that's it yes if if if you didn't have all the debt you don't care about it you shouldn't care about economic growth rate with respect to the measure of prosperity strange also you know if the pie isn't getting bigger and people aren't doing better than that does sew the seeds for a revolution I mean yeah all this divisiveness will start to explode if people don't feel like their circumstances are getting better off this is where I mean in this in this one limited way I guess I'd be in favor of Rapid change which is the technological area I mean I'm against revolutionary politics I'm against that kind of revolutionary change because it almost never works out but I do think that revolutionary change in the narrow category of technology is ultimately good for us I know it creates challenges I know it creates disruption people do lose their jobs and have to find new ones but it is the basis for American prosperity and the basis for our economy being productive and America having a powerful military and all those things so I don't know if this is a difference between us Tucker but I do think that in this area of technological change I'm not sort of a dispositional conservative Ian this is kind of like like Peter teal right I don't want us to slow down I actually I want us to be successful and it and it feels like actually it's the people on the left who are generally in this Camp of wanting to slow us down and meire Us in regulations and make it harder to um make progress technologically uh because it's something they don't control I I agree with that I just I guess the net result is what I care about I think it's if you talk to old people people which I is now that I'm getting older and I've talked to you know older relatives and stuff like what what bothers you and I used to think it was you know taking a leak six times a night but it's really not the thing that bothers old people I've spoken to anyway is the change is like they don't just don't recognize it and that's really hard for people to deal with and so all I'm saying I'm certainly not calling for a halt to technological progress that would be terrible all I'm saying is in tandem with those advancements should be the concern about people's ability to digest massive change and like let's keep some things the same you know you just can't change everything it's like bad it's super bad so like maybe we get AI but let's keep Halloween so you're arguing for tradition and things that bring bring people together this country was built off of uh immigrants obviously and uh this is one of the most polarizing issues Tucker in each election cycle and in the country uh large right now now what do you what is your vision for how American Immigration should work here in the 21st century ideally or right now right now and and then ideally let's start with what would you do right now short term actually let me if you don't if you don't mind I'll quickly invert it and say of course the goal is just a is just a rational immigration policy whose purpose is to help your country what would that so I could see well I could see an argument for example if you needed you know I don't know there there was a time for the guy who was just my college roommate my best friend um came to this country from India because both his parents were Physicians and there was a lack of Physicians with de-industrialization everyone was moving out of the small towns and so we expedited the Visas of foreign Physicians most of them were Indians I think most were Indians his parents actually came from Africa but whatever the point is they're Indian doctors and they came here and they settled in a little town in Massachusetts a rural Town dying miltown and it was great it was great for them it was great for the town the guy my best friend I mean like it that's just that's what you want right we need this and we're going to in a very smart intentional way um try to get it on the World Market and we can we will and I'm totally for that what we're doing now is throwing open the doors to anyone who wants to come here from the poorest countries in the world at a scale that we can't possibly digest so how many people are here illegally working off the books some estimates 60 70 million those are real estimates by the way not crackpot estimates but the truth is we don't know we've no no idea we've completely lost control and we don't know who these people are I honestly think most of them are here for a better life I believe that I think most of them are probably good people I think most of them agree with my politics actually for whatever it's worth definitely much more than the private unhappy private Equity wives do for sure the average guy from Nigeria is like on my side every Salvadoran agrees with me so I like that but I also think it's too much actually at exactly the moment when native born Americans birth rates are tanking over 100,000 people die of fental ODS and we're pushing euthanasia on the population which we are you're you basically you're saying you I've given up on the people who live here whatever their color or background and we're just going to import new people and replace them with new people that's literally what's happening and when you say that out loud they freak out and call you some sort of craz bigot for saying the word replacement but that's what it is it's happening in Western Europe and Ireland particularly that's what those those riots were about not that I'm endorsing the riots but that's what that was and that's like insane for a government to do to its own people it's just it's totally insane and and more than anything it is an expression of loathing for the people who live there it's a delution of their political power it's a delution of their economic power it's the total Destruction of the basic services that they paid for like schools hospitals roads like those are gone so the last thing I'll say is people say well immigrants are coming here looking for a better life and I believe that having talked to a lot of immigrants and grown up around them in Southern California I totally believe that but the question for government is am I making the citizens life better it's like no one even thinks that so is importing people making the life so when my friend's parents came both Physicians to the little town little miltown in New England his parents made the town better for the people who live there they were the doctors and they were super successful actually and great people Tucker can you give us a rundown of the current political landscape just tell us I'm just really curious what you think about RFK Biden Trump VI maybe like 10 15 seconds on each it's so hard it's so hard I mean uh I I mean the thing that jumps out today my view changes all the time and I don't think Biden can be the nominee his only point was to you know stop Bernie Sanders basically and he's uh outlift his usefulness so I think he'll be I'm pretty sure he'll be replaced but um as on the rep on the Republican side and the independence you know it's so hard to know I'm just mesmerized by the love for Nikki Haley who's like the most and I'm s and like for example I saw Jamie Diamond who who I really like and I know and I have always admired but when Jamie Diamond starts like freeballing on you know Nikki Haley and saying nonsensical things about Nikki Haley I'm like I want to call him and say you're humiliating yourself first of all you're way out of your depth you have no idea what you're talking about but for another you're just betraying how completely out of touch you were and I think Jamie got and again I say this with admiration for Jamie Diamond which is long held but like if you get to a place where you think that Nikki Haley has a shot of getting elected in a free and fair election like you have no idea what's going on in your own country it's just embarrassing to say that super embarrassing explain to the audience unpack that why is n it really it's not personal I actually don't care for Nikki Haley as a person but that's IMM material Nikki Haley's program what she stands for what she believes maybe moral or immoral God Old Judge it's not popular with the with the public and it's super easy hers on war specifically yeah her stands on war and on economics and and we know that from looking at the Gallop poll which is a rolling survey of people's attitudes on things and in an actual democracy you would see the leading candidates or people who hope to become leading candidates articulate concerns and lay out views that reflected the concerns of the population who were going to vote them into office n the most right now well Trump is it fair to say Nikki Haley is basically an unreconstructed bush Republican I mean her views are basically the same views as George W bush she wants to get us in all sorts of new Wars and I don't even think she regrets the forever Wars of the Middle East that were so disastrous I I haven't heard one word of criticism from her or remorse that she supported all those things and on the economic policies is kind of this like corporatism it's like the whole Trump Rebellion never even happened in the Republican party it's just like it's just like right back to the past and the fact that the establish sort of coalescing around her kind of tells me that as much as I didn't want to believe this I think that Trump is still the indispensible figure in the Republican party because if you take him away they're going to revert right back to where they were they're going to exactly go right back to the factory settings on Republicans which is Bush republicanism Tucker can you just finish the rest of them RFK VI Trump well I mean I you know I know VI well personally and I I'm I'm it's shows I'm out of touch too I mean you know I'm 54 so I don't have my finger on every pulse um but so I like vake actually and and but I see these surveys where he's not you know he's not doing well and people don't like his personality or whatever he's he's a little overbearing that never bothers me at all I'm just not put off by that at all and I'm a little bit confused by why he's not doing better again that's a reflection on I've just made fun of Jamie Diamond here I am doing it myself like why isn't V doing better I'm sure there are reasons I just don't I think his program is solid I think he's reasonable I think he's smart I don't think he has some creepy agenda um so but he's not he's not doing well that's just a fact uh Bobby Kennedy I know quite well and and think a lot of him and uh he's a very he's I think he's a decent man and a principled person I think he's smart um you know I'm I I don't have quite as much confidence in maybe some of the people around him I'm not I feel like maybe there are other agendas that he's not aware of you know I don't know I can't assess but uh yeah so that's what I think president Trump well I mean you know the New York Times had a a piece I think it was Jonathan Swan um who's smart and uh had a a piece telling you what you already knew kind of but proving it with numbers that Trump became the nominee in August of last year 2022 when the FBI went through his wife's underwear drawer in his house like that was so insane that even if you're like I can't deal with more Trump and he didn't actually do anything and he put Jared in charge you know like there are lots of frustrations you could have about Trump if you supported Trump and you could be disappointed but the second the FBI raids his house on a documents charge and anyone from Washington as I am can tell you that's like insane like every that's like so common it's not if they're charging him for that that's a joke where are the felonies he supposedly committed I was led to believe he like murdered people and buried them in the Meadowlands do you know what I mean like that's the best they got when they did that I I know for a fact and this piece showed it but I knew it already a lot of people are like you know I have mix feelings about Trump or I don't want to deal with more Trump drama but if this is allowed to happen our system won't continue that's so outrageous that I mean let's just stop lying about it that's a political prosecution you can't have that of the presidential front runner you can't have that we already did it with Nixon you can't do that again and so I think that's the key to his surge I really do think that who's the Democratic nominee if you think Biden's not going to be oh it's Gavin Gavin Gavin for sure well of course cuz he's by far the most evil person in the Democratic party and in the end they just sort of rise to the peak you know oil and water man he just yeah Tucker just just comment on Gavin uh vetoing the bill that said that you could kind of remove the parents remove the child from the parents if the parents don't affirm the transgender rights of the child that I think there was a a lot of folks who sit in your Camp typically who were shocked and surprised and said wow I didn't know Gavin actually you know had a stand had a span of opinions and this is interesting to see I mean what's what like there's no one I know who thought that um and everyone I know who watched that thought the same thing they thought when he met was G which is oh he's he's going to be the nominee yeah I of course that's what that was I mean I know I know Gavin Nome and um you know I think a lot about Gavin Nome uh many different things about Gavin but one thing I know for a fact about Gavin Newsome is he has the capacity to beat a light lie detector test Gavin Newsome will say anything he needs to say and not like Biden's not like this actually whatever Biden's fault he's not like this like Biden would you know he has like guilt if he's lying to you he gets Twitchy Gavin nome's Palms don't sweat his respiration doesn't increase his body temperature doesn't change nothing changes in Gavin new when he lies to your face and they're not that many people like that actually that's a rare quality like to lock down the state to keep people's kids from getting an education and to arrest people for surfing and then go have dinner at The French Laundry like most people couldn't do that they' just be like you're saying he's a sociopath just he can lie and not care I'm not a psychiatrist but I so I don't know that I don't really know the category and I'm not going to diagnose him but I'll just say in 50 years of being around a lot of people I've met very few who can behave that way very very few it's very usual quality and of course it's probably useful in politics is he electable is he electable yeah exactly are the American people going to see that the way that you see it or well as you know the system in California does not include elections I mean it has nothing to do with what the people think it's a it's a machine State it's the most corrupt out of 50 KLA Harris was like despised by most Californians and she you know was a sitting us Senator Diane poor Diane Feinstein my neighbor in Washington I don't I don't think she was a horrible person just for the record but she was non-comp Menace and like she could have lived well beyond her death as a US senator so it's like it's not a democratic State small D Democratic State it's not run on the basis of what the population wants it's a fixed game in California and so it does make me very uncomfortable that someone from that political culture which is an utterly corrupt political culture an authoritarian political culture could like enter a presidential race cuz like clearly what are you running on if you're Gavin Nome as native Californian uh you know I know what the state was like in 1985 cuz I live there and it's completely degraded from that from that time and like how did that happen well part of the big reason the big reason is the political leadership in the state you've got nothing to run on what are you running have you driven through La recently like seriously so the fact that he would get in the race suggests you know they think that they can win without the consent of Voters and that freaks me out well he'll have the media working on overdrive for him right I mean they will turn him somehow into like John F Kennedy or something I mean they will paper over all of his flaws and they'll you know they'll basically write puff pieces it'll it'll be like Non-Stop and then they'll be attacking Trump so the media will put him over the top I think if he well assuming that we have the same media that we had in 2020 that's true but I mean that's why you just got to pray every night for elon's health and I mean it too I mean it it's the only platform at scale in the world that's pretty you know there's censorship on it but there's not mass censorship actually there isn't and that's the only platform of its kind at scale it's the only one so let's talk about that actually so I mean we've talked in this conversation about how our public discourse is anain and self-destructive and divisive I would add another word to that which is controlled you know controlled um a good example of this I think was just on the Ukraine war David aramia who is zelinsky's parliamentary leader who was the lead negotiator for the ukrainians at Istanbul in the first month of the war when there was a deal on the table he just testified basically said in an interview there was a deal on the table to shut the war down we just would have had to agree to make Ukraine neutral and of course the Biden ministration told them not to this war is and has always been about NATO expansion and yet the party line from the media even as all of these proof points stack up I mean we're now on like the 10th person firsthand witness to say that this is what this war is all about you still can't get the media to honestly report this just as one example okay and I I believe that this is one of the reasons why you were a fire Tucker is because you were literally the only person on mainstream Network news saying what the war is really about so this is like one really big example is that we cannot get any truth on an issue as big as Ukraine war so I guess my question for you is like how does control like that happen like I I don't really understand it myself we live in a big what's supposed to be a big democracy there's supposed to be you know a lot of uh media channels but yet they all enforce a certain narrative on pretty much every issue but even you know again I'm picking on I think one of the biggest issues right now which is this war we've got going on I mean how does that happen I I don't understand it how do they maintain that control this is one of my personal concerns about technology and about progress of all kinds which is you don't actually know where it's going you don't I mean your best forecasts are mine have very often been wrong and the you know of course the promise of the internet was diversity and access to information from a lot of different sources unfiltered information you can talk to people in foreign countries for free you know every American will have an encyclopedia at his fingertips and people are going to be much more informed um um and no one will be able to control it because it's it's free and open and and the effect has been you know the opposite there's less I I would argue there's been uh less Freedom uh in information than there was 30 years ago how did that happen I mean that's it's a very comp I mean you guys are much better situated to answer that question someone should think about that I think but the bottom line is there are just not that many pipelines actually you know in television there were three big news channels cable you know broadcast kind of receded an importance it's mostly about prostate health now and um so there three big channels two of them on one side one was on the other and then there were the social media Giants but there are not that many of them and they were all locked down and they were all riddled with Intel in some cases actual saled Intel officers Matt Tai's amazing reporting has shown this not just American either from foreign countries the whole thing was an OP it was insane and um and you know you could I'm not going to beat up on Fox news but there was a kind of an fairly narrow band of acceptable views allowed on that channel is that control yes it is and so there there really was no remaining place with scale where someone with a dissenting view could give it voice and that's just crazy it's the opposite of what we were promised but whatever not to whine about it but the existence of X where anyone around the world or in most countries anyway can get for free a whole range of opinions that aren't controlled that changes everything like the the the Primacy of control of information in a war cannot be overstated like that's you can debate whether it's more important than ammunition but it's right up there you know and um so I think this election if that platform stays free for the next 12 months you know I think we have a shot at at least of a real election but if it does and I think they're going to do whatever they can to shut it down we also have web- based shows podcasts and that even predated a little bit Elon taking over you know X there's there is a self-correcting mechanism here if you feel too controlled like maybe perhaps you felt or you felt pressure at Fox I don't want speak for you if you did then all of a sudden Joe Rogan Allin podcast whatever podcasts all emerg and now your show on X and I'm sure it's going to be on other platforms as well maybe you could speak to what you think the impact of a post Fox Tucker Carlson show will be and how will you be able to sort of shape the show differently if at all and the mission here that was my first question we never really got to which is post Fox post money post Fame what is Tucker Carlson's mission statement going forward what is your goal just the same the same as before and I should just be extra clear I I wish I could tell horror stories about Fox you know forcing me to take some line or other but they they really didn't but you know they didn't want the show anymore so that kind of tells you but anyway the point is uh my intent in hosting that show is the same as my intent in hosting the show we're about to launch on X which is you know do your best to say what you think is true bring perspectives and information that you don't think are widely covered to a larger audience and you know try and stay firm in that admit when you're wrong like just be honest it's it's actually not it's you know I got in this business because I hadn't graduated from college and my father's like it's it's a pretty pure meritocracy in journalism you should do it and it's also pretty simple no no real skills required just be literate which I was and is the show going to evolve a little bit because you've been doing this experiment you've done about 40 episodes well here's the way here's the way that it already has evolved so I I got laid off in in April and I you know I like to I like to fish and bird hunt so I did a lot of that and then I was like H I need to do something so I've been stuck in a studio for all these you know many many years I couldn't really go anywhere and I went I took seven foreign trips in four months I just went to all these places where I knew people I was interested in what was going on and I just found it amazing two things I found amazing one the view of America the Vantage you get from a foreign country on what's happening in your own is completely different there's also a lot the whole world is reshuffling in my view after the Ukraine war February 2022 really did change a lot um particularly with respect to America's place in the world that's worth covering and the second thing I learned once I started putting videos up on X was that it's International I mean I was just shocked by that I mean because think about it I mean I'm working for a US News Channel it's one of three US news channels I've worked for CNN was International but I was on CNN us so I'm just used to thinking about America being viewed by Americans having a conversation about this country I had no experience at all of a of an of a big International audience and that platform has that and so I was amazed by that and so um we're going to continue to cover the rest of the world I'm going over to Dubai in February interviewing heads of state over it's just so it's just so interesting there going on it's like crazy people and this is not a political point this is like a human point that bothers me almost more than anything politically which is the death of curiosity it's like people are not curious like what the hell I thought the technological Revolution would would set off like explosions in the brain of every person like what is that I want to learn more and it had exactly the opposite it's like L me to sleep with Tik Tok don't tell me more I don't want to dble double down on what you already know what you already believe over and over and over know I'm less certain in my beliefs I know that I know less than any time of my life and I'm much more interested in many more things than I've ever been I think that's normal and I think there's something like in the water or something that's making people not care the UFO thing like what whatever you views of that like well what is that shut up and that's normal people don't want to hear it why I don't know whatever I don't want to preach I mean postco we still don't have an accounting of what happened and do what do you think about the the the clip yesterday of Elon let's play it for 45 seconds and then get your response talker Carson apology tour if you will that this had been said online there was all of the criticism there was advertisers leaving we talked to Bob Iger stop you hope uh don't advertise you don't want them to advertise no what do you mean if somebody's going to try to Blackmail me with advertising blackmail me with money go [ __ ] yourself but go [ __ ] yourself is that clear I hope it is hey Bob here in the audience well well let me ask you then that's how I feel all right Tucker your response to the good for you the old G FY I mean I interviewed people every week for over 30 years and so I know what it is to interview dro My Perry excuse me and I know you know I know I have a lot of experience interviewing people and I've interviewed Elon you know and I don't understand how the the New York Times character fussy little guy from The New York Times like how could you not laugh like what he just told Bob ier to [ __ ] himself don't get me started you and I are in say Andrew rorin is amongst the weakest of moderators and interviewers but he's just what a what a fussy little douche like that's the moment just like you erupt total like are you joking Elon Musk just told Bob haer to [ __ ] himself like I'd be texting my wife unable I know um no of course I love it I love it I I am in the Iger thing I you know I don't hate Bob Iger or anything but like I keep hearing from people you know mutual people I know who know Bob Ager very well that he's like very serious about running for president and it's like if you really think if you're bober you can run for president you have anything to offer people or they want you to be president like you're pretty out of touch so I like that but you know big picture I'm I'm really I'm not just saying this because it it you know aligns with my interest of some kind I mean it I'm worried about the pressure that's brought to bear on that platform on this platform on X because it's the only one the only big one you know huge one international one tens of millions of people hundreds of millions of people like they have to they meaning the people who would like to maintain the status quo kind of have to shut it down and I am just so hoping that you know I can help in any way and that all decent people whatever their views add their voice to a chorus that says no you can't shut down the one big Free Speech platform in the world you can't do that because then it's just dictatorship you're not free if you don't have free information and you can't say what you really think you are subject to a lot of these advertising attacks they they went after Fox and your show specifically and and and it worked they got people to not advertise on yeah so these advertising boycotts do Work Media Matters whatever you whoever's doing them so I'm curious what you see the business model being for your show and then how you hope to be resistant to it are you going to just go straight up subscription and hope that half your audience or 10% of your audience pays and you put half out for free half out for sub what are you thinking you got to have a subscription component to it and of course we're selling ads against our content um and we'll be doing that on x and on tuckercarlson.com where we'll be hosting the sub the subscription part of it um of course we're selling ads we're you know we'll have Network ads too I mean there are lots of different things you can do um but in the end you you have to have some subscription component if you're going to do it at scale I mean we brought our whole staff almost our whole staff from Fox with us so we got a bunch of people we've got you know bigger Ambitions than have been on display so far and um and we you know you got to have more information and and I would just say this about just having been in this one business my whole life the range of stories is the problem it's not that the stories are all totally dishonest some are dishonest but some are not they're technically true but they're taken from such a small pot of stories that it's like it's crazy there's all this stuff going on and it's just not I mean I was completely obsessed and remain obsessed with the industrial sabotage of the northstream pipeline it's like that's like that's that's a major historical event like you just you just ended the EU you just hobbled the economic engine of Europe which is Germany and like who did that and there were like very few stories on that that's like a very big deal and again back to the Curiosity thing but it's more than that it's like they people sort of know what where not to go and I just feel like that's first of all that's soul death you're not a free man if you're that constrained in your thinking if you're letting somebody else tell you what you're allowed to think how can your wife how can your wife even sleep with you at that point she no one can respect you if you live like that A B you can't have a democracy you can't have a free country under those circumstances so I don't think I'm overstating it and so we're going to try to I hope be one of many different similar efforts to just add to the sum total of information an analysis of that information well the end of the end of democracy and sex would be kind of rough I think yeah go ahead J yeah yeah I have a final question and and I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist but if one of the presidential candidates called you and said Tucker be my VP and replace kamla Harris I mean I don't think I could do that she's a historic first Tucker would you consider it if Donald Trump gave you that call well of course I would consider it I'd can I mean you have no idea how open-minded I am I would consider anything but I mean the truth is I kind of don't respect people who do stuff like that I really believe I've got a lot of theories which I will not inflict on you but which I do inflict on my own four children and my main theory of life is that you should do what you are designed to do I don't believe this whole you can be whatever you want to be thing I think it's a absurd lie I think we're made for certain things we have certain aptitudes they're inborn they can we can hone them and we need to through practice repetition but it's very I I think it's a it's it's a sign of hubris which is always the death of particularly of men huis thinking you have more power than you do when midlife you're like well actually what I really want to do is direct it's like you just one best actress honey go back to acting and I've never been involved in politics I've never I I haven't even voted in all elections I'm serious so like the idea that I'm going to at 54 like run for national office I is a little you know what I mean like I don't take my quite that seriously I mean I I can't imagine doing something like that Reas I ask question is that if we're at least the the Republicans will now prove that we've lived in a 12year era of a non-traditional candidate that was essentially a media personality that was able to then curate a plurality of support right that's right and there's going to be something that comes after him and so I'm just trying to get a sense of if it's not you it's probably to be very honest somebody like you right just talk to us about that for just a second I completely agree with you and I I love your characterization of trump as someone who's from a media background because that that's closer to the it's I'm not diminishing I'm from media background so I'm not attacking it but that's a lot closer to the truth than most characterizations Casino magnet developer is a media guy you he had lots of businesses but he was a media guy he had the top show in NBC and so I think you're absolutely right my concern is that and I have pure contempt for the professional political class I've written a book about it I've expressed it daily for a number of years now and that's real however I think that there you know these are complex systems and it's better to have someone who understands the systems in an Ideal World administer the systems because he's more effective at doing so um and I also think that once you decide that like hey let's just go crazy and you couple that with true social disorder like you get to a place where you can't buy anything at CVS because it's chained up because shoplifting has been legalized as it has been in California what you're going to get is fascism because people can't live in in that in they can't live with chaos like that's the one thing they can't deal with and I've covered a couple of wars and that was my main conclusion the main problem with war is not that people get killed it's that people have to live with total uncertainty and craziness and that's incompatible with what people want like that's the that's the worst thing you know we're all going to die dying is not the worst thing the worst thing is living in chaos and we're starting to live in chaos and so the return to order is what scares me I think it'd be very easy and I do think Gavin Newsome is a fascist I think he's the kind of person who would have no problem no hesitation about using the doj to C to imprison his political opponents now Biden is imprisoning his political opponents but at least they're lying about it Gavin Newsome is the kind of person would be like well yeah you're you're a threat to the general order and you're going to jail and I think because we're in a moment of chaos right now people kind of want that actually I think one of the purposes of degrading and confusing our society is to make way for authoritarianism even more than we have now um so that kind of freaks me out actually I personally my what I would really like is a kind of colorless you know boring non-charismatic like Gerald Ford Mike Pence without their views both of those men were bad men in my opinion but someone like that who could govern without making it about himself and restore the country to a sense of rules-based order that's what I really want and I but I'm probably going to be denied that Tucker I I feel like one of the one of the other consequences of the way things have gone is that the solution has always been to throw more money at the problem and we've got this kind of out ofc control fiscal condition what's your point of view on the fiscal condition of the us as a priority of the federal government that is priority and you know do we need to shrink government shrink overall discretionary spending do we need to cut these entitlements do we need to do it all and how do we get there given that everyone gets elected by telling people I'm going to give you more stuff and then this just kind of Cascades for decades until eventually bad [ __ ] happens well who's going to buy our debt I mean that's that's like it's scary it's so scary um you know this is of course the problem with democracy I mean I think since you know from the Roman Republic until 1776 like how many democracies were there exactly let me do the math on that I approximately zero in that range and this was the critique of course in Europe of democracy at the time is not that it gave too much freedom to the average person but that it would result in tyranny and when the majority discovered it could steal the goods of whomever it wanted Legally Legally um you would wind up dictatorship I mean this is like a very well trod path but I mean but I hope it doesn't get to that I'm not making argument against democracy I'm just saying it's a little bit harder to perpetuate than we thought that it was and um and this is kind of the fear that people have had for hundreds of years the condition is the manifestation of that structural problem yes yes that's exact exactly that's exactly right let's end on this uh Elon clip from yesterday just about virtue like to get your reaction to this Tucker Tesla has done more to help the environment than uh all other companies combined would be fair to say that therefore as a leader of the company I've done more for the environment than everyone any single human on earth how do you feel about that feel about that yeah no I'm I'm asking you personally how you feel about that because this goes we were talking about power and influence and I'm saying I'm saying what what I care about is the the reality of goodness not the perception of it and what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil [ __ ] them your thoughts on ver signal versus that was like it was like it was like the hand of God massaging my central nervous system like every arous Zone which just heightened awareness like that I I couldn't Rel full Chiropractic release wow so dirty I'm sorry no but I just I so vly agree and I don't even like Electric cars I don't think they help the environment I didn't even agree with that part I just love his point which is the point which is what actually matters is what you do it's not what you think it what matters is helping other people and I also think that the fact that Andrew rorin has a television job shows this is not a meritocracy like I don't know how he got that his response his response to that was like he didn't even he he can't even like I'll just kind of say this is like so inside baseball but it's literally what I do for a li have done all my life yes that's what we do talk interviewing people yes is to listen to them Larry King I used to fill in for Larry King at CNN he was number one 9:00 p.m. all this stuff the first time I filled in for Larry King there was no research on the guests I had two guests no research and I said the producer Larry was like in Cabo with wife number seven and I said where's the research oh Larry doesn't do research so I do the show when fine and I called him after I was like dude you do no research he goes and he was number one most dominant figure in cable news by far and he goes no I just listen someone says something weird I pause and I said wait wait a second wait a second wait a second you killed someone in 1962 why'd you kill him you follow up you're present in the interview yes and then you follow up based on what this guest said notice how Jason's interrupting you right now sorry go ahead Tucker listening to what Tucker said and reflecting back to him what he said is what game real that's right it's a cqu jal's treating this as validation absolutely there's story to this Tucker that you don't need to know about but I can tell it's it's tantalizing it is oh it is it is trust me H well let's end here I you know we have a lot of fans of not only there about 18% crossover between all in and your work Tucker and they send me images of you out there and about in the world and uh we just I just got this one in my DMs I don't know what's going on what's going on here is that a park in New Hampshire where you guys is the run out of these yet that is so you know what I'm not that's kind of hunky I'm just being honest yeah it's a lot going on here well listen we got Vineyard Vines t-shirt the the the romance is now complete Tucker we'd love to have you back on a regular basis actually so fun that was super fun that was great and I'm sorry for talking too much you guys spun me up into a frenzy but I appreciate it I understand I understand why you were number one in media I that was so fun enjy it thank you really really good thank you very much Tucker thank you yeah thank was amazing Tu good luck with the new launch everybody go to tuckercarlson.com and when the subs come out on day one give them a sub okay sub be Tucker sub didn't come out exactly how I wanted to sure you can sub for Tucker Z are you gonna be a sub for Tucker ax are you subbing I'm gonna Dom for Tucker Oh God po all right thanks tuck see you guys what' you guys think that was fun that was great yeah let's show you de socer for Tucker I'll be honest like can we get him on group chat I mean this can you imagine being on group chat with tuck such a fun guy great guy he's a great Entertainer and you know what he's into I know he's right-wing conservative but he's actually I think a first principal thinker who thinks for himself we we didn't get into January 6 we ran out of time but you know he he was you know not happy about that he wasn't happy about election denial I think he's intellectually regular wow J what do you think Jam I really liked it I like talking to people that have opinions that force me to like actually rethink about how I think and yeah it was I think the the most impactful thing that he said to me which touches upon my own life was just how one feels when you have a little bit too much too early versus grinding slowly and compounding success over many years I think it does create in moments an element of self-sabotage I lived it in my own life so that totally resonated this idea that there's just so much abundance that causes people to not really fight over the big issues and then fight over the The Fringe issues I I do think that there's an element of huge truth in that it was really really good I think like that this is probably one of the very few ones that we've done that I would listen to over again totally I'd say that was like one of my favorite episodes or probably my favor top five just just as a listener I just enjoyed listening the whole [ __ ] time the thing I I just wanted to I could hear him talk for hours probably I know I didn't want to talk I didn't have anything to say I just wanted to chill and hang out like listen that's great yeah me too have you done Tucker show jth yet they asked me to do the show in December which I couldn't do and at some point in the spring I will do the show but then I was like can you come on our show and there you go doing it right it's amazing yeah that was amazing SX didn't you like go on his show no I've been on Tucker show a couple of times when it was on Fox and one appearance was about chasa buin you know the da that we got tossed out and then go team I I went on a couple other times I think one one was about the economy I was on a show a couple of times for you know short segments but anyway I thought I thought what was interesting about this conversation was that it was much more philosophical than I was expecting yes we we touched on a few like policy issues but we spent most of the time talking about his deeper clinical diagnosis of American culture and American discourse and I would say that one of the things that's maybe unique about his take and I mean definitely different than mine is it's much more psychological than metaphysical even metaphysical and psychological I mean like I don't really ask too many questions about why people believe what they believe I just sort of take it as a given and then discuss whether they're right or wrong whereas he actually sort of psycho analyzes why people have the views that they have and and um you know what I mean it's it's actually kind of interesting that whole methodology for whatever it's worth resonates with me I mean I think it's very it's the reason early on I really gravitated to Renee Gerard because I thought it demonstrated a lot of how people behave to me in in a language that I could understand so when Tucker describes problems in this context to me it's very powerful just because that is how I kind of frame things as I think humans are driven by psychological incentives and I think that there is something very worth exploring here which is these Western cultures get so prosperous that the big things we don't fight over so then we fight over the little things or we have to invent things to fight over and The Virtue signaling he kind of brings up in his own personal experience which is hey I go to Jackson Hall I'm getting accosted you know in line at the lift people's wives are upset at me the husbands are upset at me the hedge fund people these are all people of incredible wealth incredible privilege who have extra cycles and instead of having a debate over the issues in good faith full contact debate like we do here they just want to vilify people and you know I tried to listen to him and say hey what what does he get right here now I obviously think he's wrong about climate change I thought that was Bonkers but I do think he he understands human nature pretty well from doing 30 years of interviews yeah it's definitely worth exploring Jason this idea that the more successful people get the more self-loathing there is and then it manifests in some you know really destructive ways I think especially if you don't have a foundation once you get successful enough there's very little progress I think a lot of human happiness comes from ress progress exactly right's the purpose well there just there's just no higher order bits you buy the house that's a huge accomplishment but then when you buy your second house or third house I think the diminishing returns are severe yeah Sever and then and then these things are just baggage they're like Al yeah and then you're spending all this time dealing with headaches you know exactly what's your progress what's your progress what's the purpose in life I mean saxs when you bought your 6 house I mean how you cut that just busy uh reorganizing the US political establishments I think he's making progress you know in his own way SX is making progress yeah yeah well I I you know he's where does he sit on the political Spectrum today saak because you and he are both yeah because you're both kind of outcast in the Republican party now right like I would describe Tucker as probably the most influential populist in you know on the on the right so there is a sort of populism well there's a populism of left that I guess was Bernie Sanders before he to you know maybe like five eight years ago whatever describe us describe for the audience your perception of populism you know on the left and the right and what they share and what what they don't share kind of thing because this does seem to be the emerging party I think we would all agree is that people are sick of these extremes and they want something new and the something new seems to be populism well one way to think about populism is is just to democracy populism is the word that the elite gives to democracy they don't like so for example vast majority of the country wants our border sealed for some reason the elites don't want that so that's labeled populism I think the vast majority of the country regrets the forever wars in the Middle East and doesn't want us getting involved in more Wars this sort of hyper interventionism I think that's like a major part of of the platform and then of course I think the third big area of reevaluation was around our free trade policies you know they really ended up hollowing out America's industrial capability and exported a lot of manufacturing jobs globalization to to to China the globalization so yeah I think on the right big picture I would say the populism is a nationalist reaction to the hyper globalization that happened that was encouraged by the elites over the past few decades and he he hit on that he said you know at some point are the politicians going to match what the people want and they they call this getting to Denmark high functioning governments in the nordics you know tend to reflect what the candidates reflect what the people want right and we seem to have this kind of broken here we we have one other story people have wanted us to comment on when we had our week off so I thought we get into the Open Eye thing I just wanted to point out I don't mean to make this like a love triangle sacks but Tucker and I did go skiing last year we we tried to keep it but now that it's out you know here it is I'm sorry about this but we were actually in this Echo at the same time so it's gonna come out at some point we might look how old and nasty those ski clothes are oh yeah well you know what we're both very woke and we don't want we're fure signaling that we don't we want to recycle so we bought all this uh on eBay I thought that was Phil HTH on the left I guess that's job that's me before I was inic face all right let's do the open eye AI thing if you guys have time can we go over this real quick I don't want to we can I just wonder if the story is stale but I mean I I think one of the things we can do here is just sort of now that the three acts are complete we can actually talk about the epilog just to for for people who have I think the epilog's about to drop but yeah well that's that's what we'll get at I think we're still in the second act here I don't think this is over by a long shot all right so let me AR let's see why I'm curious why that is I'm gonna architect tuim moth Act One Sam's fired act two chaos for a week we were off you know what were all the reasons act three obviously just yesterday Sam's back I think il's out Microsoft's an observer on the board so I guess the epilogue trof is what we want to know is what happened why did this all happen was there a major breakthrough was it Sam doing deals with masi yoshian or in the Middle East to make uh you know AI chips what do if we if the epilog does drop or if like you're saying this is the second act and the third Act is going to begin whichever metaphor you want to use what will it say jam up I think we can all agree on what happened which is that the employees realized that in the absence of leadership business leadership that the Enterprise value of that company was going to disintegrate and what would have been imperiled was an 86 billion dollar valuation secondary so I think the employees did what was in their best interest and it makes the obvious and logical sense which is we need to circle the wagons and get the business leadership of this company back into this place so that the value of the Enterprise is sustained they did that so I think this valuation is going to hold I think the secondary is going to happen so I think like from that perspective whatever was supposed to happen there happened so what are the interesting threads that are left over we don't yet have a full accounting of what precipitated all of the all of the decision- making at the board number one number two is the person who seemed to be the Principal inventor is now no longer on the board and I think based on Sam's blog post could probably no longer be at the company that seems like an important thing and then the third thing which I found odd was Brett Taylor who I worked with at Facebook who I've known for a long time very sober reasonable guy puts out his own addendum to the blog post that basically says his chairmanship of this board is purely transitory H what do you take what's what is that yeah what do you take from that my takeaway is whatever's happening is still TBD there's enough question marks that look I told my friends on the board without saying who it was whatever you guys do the most important thing that you need to do is you need to retain great counsel and make sure that there and I said this publicly make sure that there's phenomenal dno insurance and make sure that there aren't any issues where you could be held personally liable for whatever happens in the future piercing of the Val the corporate Val yeah now that's a generic thing that I think all corporate directors should do I think it's even more important here because you have a non-standard governance structure that could change and it could change because the people involved want it to change but it could also could change because the government says hey hold on a second this should never have been like this in the first place I'll give you an example of that you know at Facebook there was a moment where we divested all of our IP to a subsidiary in Ireland and for tax reasons and there were two signatories to that deal it was me and Zuck and six or seven years later this is long after I left Facebook the IRS says hold on a second you misvalued these assets we're owed X billions of dollars in taxes it was a huge long drawn out thing so at a minimum if there's Great Value created here there will be consequences with respect to tax and who paid what and if you have the shielding of a nonprofit entity there's theoretically a lot of taxes that could have been paid that not so all of this to me says a lot of really open Curious threads which means it's not the epilogue yet we're probably somewhere at the end of act two fredberg uh my question to you is there's been speculation that there was an super intelligence AGI breakthrough possibly and that's what spooked everybody and maybe the claim that Sam wasn't forthcoming with the board was that he didn't tell him about it the second thing was there's been some forchan posts again this is pure speculation that maybe the AI they're working on could break in some way encryption and that would have been CA a really chaotic Global moment what are your thoughts on those three potential items or more are any of those possibilities in your mind Dave freeberg no idea I can that yeah go ahead sex goad s you take a out so I think the best theory on what actually happened here what precipitated all of this was broken and a piece by Reuters and what it said was that there was a letter to the board that was written in the few days before Sam's firing by the board in which they were raising concerns over the development of qar which was a new breakthrough at open AI that allows these language models to do math and previously uh llms just weren't very good at math it would sort of predict the next word but that wasn't actually based on mathematical reasoning qar actually allows the AI to do math it understands mathematical reasoning supposedly the capabilities only at a grade school level right now but it is highly accurate and it can be scaled up with more computing power and I don't think it was coincidental that Sam was supposedly in the Middle East seeking to raise billions of dollars to create a new chip company basically new specialized chip or ASC to perhaps run these types of models so they were going to scale up this capability and what mathematical reasoning allows you to do is unlock a whole new problem set so for example in chemistry in physics in computer science and cryptography encryption an encryption all these things mathematic mathematical reasoning underpins all of these disciplines and so it does represent a major new piece towards AGI and so I think the best theory about what happened is that the board but I'd say specifically Ilia um had a panic or moment of Panic or concern you know freak out or whatever concern whatever about this and it combined with probably underlying concerns that the board had about Sam's other activity because he's got his fingers and a lot of so it hits two of the three potential reasons you know putting aside any personal Behavior would seems like there's no personal Behavior here so it's those two right right so they fire him but they apparently didn't really think it through at all and these are not it's not a professional board yeah that's constructed I don't know I think Adam Adam is but the other two were considered technologist and then the two others who were you know from nonprofits they just not very familiar and so what happened is they took this drastic action but didn't explain it and with each passing day it became more glaring that they would not explain it so the pressure sort of built on the company to explain itself and provide a good justification for this and then meanwhile I think Sam just ran a textbook counter C operation here I mean they got Hearts emojis there was that aspect of it but disguise behind the velvet glove of all these hearts and saying I love you and all this stuff was the iron fist the iron fist was they got over 700 of the 770 open AI employees to sign a petition that they were going with Sam and Sam went to Microsoft and set up shop so the threat to the board was I'm going to take the whole company with me and set up shop over at Microsoft and that was sort of the compelling threat basically all the employees threatened to to quit and go with Sam and so the board was under immense pressure and then at the same time you got the sense that Ilia was under a lot of personal pressure from his friends from people he knew at the company it's not probably irrelevant that there's about to be a huge cash out there's about to be a big secondary at a86 billion valuation so all these early employees were about to make a lot of money in any event for all of these reasons I think I I don't think IL is motivated by money I think he's motivated by wanting to keep open AI intact I think that he must have had a moment where he realized wait a second what we've done here in throwing out Sam is destroying the company and then he recanted he basically apologized and signed that petition and at that moment it just became a fat comp plea that Sam was going to get his job back and so that's basically what happened now in terms of the epilog where I disagree slightly with chth is that although they still have to form this board they're going to form a n person board and they only have three members so far I think the conclusion here is it's sort of a foregone conclusion which is the board can never fire Sam again I mean they're they're not going to go through that again therefore he has total control it would take a lot it's would tell you a lot so I think that Sam has won and he's going to consolidate his control over the company by the way I thought he already had control I thought that yeah you outlined that in the that he had control apparently he did not do you think he makes AIT do you think it just it AIT and then says hey we'll amount of the equity or whatever to this nonprofit but we're going to we're just going to flip this thing and and separate it out and clean up the original sin I think apparently there's like tax problems with doing that but I but I think that what happens is look they already have this for-profit LLC entity which is where all the investors have have basically put their money into and they've gotten shares or membership interests or some sort of profit interest synthetic shares whatever synthetic shares Phantom shares and then the vast majority of that is owned by this Foundation the nonprofit Foundation that I always thought was under Sam's control but apparently it wasn't I think it now will be I think that I just think that what's going to happen in the next few months is that Sam will consolidate his control because he's proven that he has a total loyalty of the troops and they're behind him and there's no choice so why won't he get everything he wants yeah all of the all of the smoke I think leads to the fire that you point out which is there was some great advance there was some deals going on and those things it matches what the board said we didn't feel like we was being forthcoming with us and it could be on two issues like that it just totally makes sense it locks the puzzle pieces in place Dave let's assume that they have now not only done language models predicting the next word and and you know understanding that but there is some reasoning going on here and they understand math and it understands how to do the next math problem I don't know if we put that under reinforcement learning it's obviously very different than language models explain what you think if that is what's happening here with the Q project what that could mean on a scientific basis I don't know enough I'm sorry I gotta I mean this is why we love you because you're honest when you don't know jamat anything here as we wrap in terms of watching this whole brewhaha I think it's probably not the end yeah yeah more drama I think there probably will be more drama yeah I mean of drama did you see the article this morning where they started saying all the houses that Sam bought he bought all these houses and so I think there's a lot of investigators digging around now trying to figure out all the backstory because the board was and so forth coming with what happened and why they made this decision there's a lot of people digging around trying to figure out more about Sam than may have been you know looked into in the past so this will reveal all sorts of new threads that'll start to become part of the The Narrative it's unfortunate I think that technology the progress is what really matters here not all the kind of personal people stuff it's weird I also the the other comment I'll make I thought one of the the biggest takeaways for me on the whole drama last week was that the employees basically got their way employees got together voted and said this is what we want and the board did what they wanted and it really um I think sets another precedent much like I think Elon said a really big presedent in Silicon Valley when he came in and slashed heads at Twitter um the precedent that it it triggered a lot of other Executives to start to think well maybe that's possible and I should think about doing you know more cost savings and so on this is another interesting precedent where an entire employee base gets together and says we want X and the board acquiesced and said here you go you can have X does that mean that other startups and other companies are going to start to see employee groups band together saying we want X in a more vocal public way possibly well I mean freeberg this is not a new Tac right but look if the employees are willing to sign a petition on mass and you get over 90% of them supporting something and then you also threaten to all set up shop somewhere else I mean boards usually respond to that pressure yeah but look I think that it's very clear that Sam has the support of the troops I'm not questioning that but I think it would be a mistake to just see this as some sort of spontaneous ground swell I think there was clearly like some organization to it like I said I think he ran a textbook operation there yeah and wasn't it Paul Graham who said something like if Sam were dropped in an island of cannibals like kind of a lord of the fly situation he'd be the one to come out on top he's like really he's in his element don't don't just assume look this is all covered up by hearts and I love you I mean I've never read a corporate announcement with the word love in it more times this was not about love and hearts all you know this is there's some he's a warless corporate in fighting here yeah he came out on top but look the board was totally incompetent I mean listen if if a board is going to take a drastic action of firing the founder CEO when everything is going great I mean because everything's been going great at open AI it's incumbent on them to explain their actions and there needs to be they do that why there need to be why didn't they do that even as a c their reputation I'm saying it was totally incompetent yeah they should have dropped it yeah hm well no what I'm saying is either there's a Smoking Gun or there's not I don't think you should take an action like this ever unless there's a Smoking Gun and if there is a Smoking Gun you need to communicate that right and I think with each passing day that they didn't communicate it people came to the conclusion There Is No Smoking Gun and so my guess is there is no Smoking Gun and they were overly Hasty about taking this action yeah this could have been a very simple discussion hey Sam can we work on you telling us in advance when you're going doing deal making so we can be in alignment on it like there seemed like there was something that could have been done that wasn't firing him know yeah I mean like you could you could put somebody on a pip you could do all kinds of things so taking the step of yeah letting somebody go in that way with that orchestration again I just I just think that this stuff is too juicy and too interesting for the details to not come out oh it will come out yeah the fact that it hasn't come out yet is crazy I I would have suspected it would have come out in the first 72 hours so you think there is maybe not a Smoking Gun but there's something no no no I think I think it's what what we said which is that the economically rational decision for all the employees and for Sam and Greg was to do what they did because it allows them to get an 86 billion valuation and a big secondary done right so that makes complete rational sense that is the rational decision that should have happened and so that did but it doesn't stop whatever underlying chaos was happening that caused this decision to exist in the first place to not come out I just think that the incentives for that decision to come out now for example from the two departing board members is quite High how do you get this information from the incoming board members how do they not say anything all the new six people will have that join the board will have to get read into this thing right so you're just multiplying the number of people that knows whatever it is and it's either going to be David to your point path a which is the board didn't know what they're doing and they acted hastily or you know the self-preservation of here's what we knew but it is just going to come out and leak after leak after leak and then to your point the pulling the sweater of all of the other deals that may have been happening on the side or whatever all of this stuff now comes out because it's just too salacious for too many people the numbers are too big everything just looks too juicy now you have this like hidden technology that could theoretically ruin the world everybody will be leaking to everybody and that that's the that's the only guarantee here which is why I really think that you have to commend the leadership team for trying to become very militaristic about all of this everybody had the same tweets they said the same things they use the same hard emojis I mean it was extremely well-managed it it was mantras it's amazing what a secondary will do to the Troops there's alignment of the St what was the Mantra the Mantra was that open AI is nothing without its employees or something like that nothing without our team or something and that was that was basically something that on the surface appeared to be a positive affirmation of camaraderie but like I S said Iron Fist beneath the velvet glove it's a threat it's a threat we can set up shop formula in in Excel spreadsheet that says they are nothing without the team the Enterprise Value equals zero company is a zero without us and we can go step shop somewhere else so it was perfect velvet glove Iron Fist type stuff yeah well done Sam we uh well Sam will be on the pod in the coming weeks I think I've been texting with him so I think if Sam uh I think what Elon said yesterday was also really interesting which is he described Ilia as an extremely moral person who thinks about these things subtly and so again and and I've known Adam for a long time I think Adam is tremendous he is from cor Adam D'Angelo yeah he was the CTO at Facebook we worked together in the trenches in war for years he is just the best of the best totally he's very smart you know very um very knowledgeable this is not an irrational emotional person my guess is that that they had good reasons to want to act based on the Ila's philosophy around AI safety you may not agree with that philosophy but their mistake was if you're going to do something like that you have to be able to defend it you have to be able to communicate it and I mean if your concern here was around AI safety write a Manifesto you know explain the values that you're invoking and support that's right I think that's a takeaway for all of us for for all of us on boards that at some Point have to make these decisions because we're all faced with them and we've made them the lesson that I learned is we're at a point where it is so important that you give employees the transparency to reer why they should stay so when you make a decision like this in any company going forward my reaction will be open the kimono and lay out the case bare so if you have to make a CEO transition this is exactly why we did it this was the precipitating events that caused it here here's the evidence and here's what we're going to do about it and I think that that's probably a good takeaway for all boards to learn which is that level of transparency is going to be needed in the future so that folks don't fill in the blanks with their own conspiracy theories also there were apparently two companies or two organizations running in parallel here to build on your points J moth which is Ilia and the nonprofit this might have been the right decision for that organization but the right decision for the employees who are incented by the secondary that was about to be shipping the employees apparently billions of dollars that for-profit company this would be the wrong decision the for-profit company should go fast and it should be releasing Jason and Jason like the I I from what was reported there's like this obligation and it's hard to understand what it means of the board to determine when AGI is reached and then as a result essentially hit the kill switch on the commercial business and if I were a board member dealing with that I would want a gazillion trillion dollars of insurance to cover me and the reason is that when that's litigated not if when that's litigated it is that board that will be at the center of dealing with that financial responsibility and liability this is the other Master stroke I think of what Sam did he's not even on the board so that liability is no longer his yeah so he's got complete he's got complete control of the business and and the actual none of the responsibility and and the actual fiscal responsibility he doesn't have to bear good well can I speak to the kill switch for a second so I I think it's a really interesting point so so by the way Jason there is a for-profit entity here the for-profit entity is this new LLC that was created correct the nonprofit entity is above it at the governance layer and it kind of owns the LLC right so again investors and employees get compensated out of the LLC and then this nonprofit Foundation was supposed to exercise it's a really complicated orc chart there you go yeah whenever orc chart has more than like two arrows it's crazy you're [ __ ] right how many arrows one two three four five six seven eight arrows that's six too many but my point is that this complexity was justified by this idea of the kill switch that if the AI gets out of control the AI gets out of control we're going to have this board of Super Wise people who are not motivated by a profit incentive right because that we can't trust the profit in motive right and so we're going to have this board of of of wise Elders who are going to make this you know super intelligent decision and if this whole episode shows anything it shows this structure completely failed I mean the board ended up acting in a completely incompetent way either they had good cause to do what they did and didn't explain it which was incompetent or they had no cause at all which was incompetent either way you cannot say that this acted with a high degree of competence no matter how competent any of the individuals are I'm just saying that as a board Dynamic it completely failed so they did not invent some higher form of governance as they originally claimed was Frank strcture it's a Franken structure so it didn't work and I think this all I mean it's a I think important lesson in human motivations which is just because you take out the profit motive does not mean that human beings all of a sudden become Noble they just pursue other agendas basically political agendas or whatever and um so this idea that we're going to solve the AGI problem or alignment issue by creating nonprofit structures I think that this episode proves that's not going to work like look elsewhere and you and I talked about this on a Twitter spaces and X spaces which was you know people give VCS and and you know investors a hard time about you know I don't know their existence and how they operate in the world okay fair enough I'm sure there's valid criticisms but the share price and employees participating and the share price going up and secondaries occurring on a regular basis is the most perfect structure that has been created by humans to date for running an organization I think we would all agree and it's super imperfect and there's weird things that happen but if you want everybody to grow in the right direction giving them some shares and then everybody watching the share price go up to the right is pretty phenomenal this board did not have one VC on it it was not right and all the VCS in the company were they were the biggest you know they were the most aggressive tweeters saying you know WTF like what are you doing because they could see their investment Going Up in Smoke yes they had a alignment with the share price but nool so so as much as you don't like the profit motive it does create alignment and that makes people predictable and that's a good thing and like Adam Smith said in the 1700s the reason we can trust that the Butcher and the baker will serve us our dinner is because they're going to make a profit they're aligned with us and you know we don't look to charity we look to their self-interest and like you said for all the [ __ ] that VC's take that if you properly align people it can create I think it creates a great Enterprise it creates a potential for great Enterprise for great outcomes great outcomes absolutely all right this has been another extraordinary all in episode probably top five five thanks so much for Tucker Clawson for coming on the program and uh four the Sultan of science David freedberg the Rainman yeah definitely David Sachs and the dictator himself jtia I'm the world's greatest moderator and we will see you next time let your winners ride Rainman David and in said we open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it love queen [Music] of [Music] Besties my dog taking driveway man oh man myit will meet me at we should all just get a room and just have one big hug orgy cuz they're all this usess it's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release Som [Music] we need to get [Music] mer I'm goinging [Music] all

Channel: All-In Podcast

Views: 1,872,482

Keywords: chamath, david sacks, david friedberg, jason calacanis, all in podcast, tech, news, politics, big tech, antitrust, election, covid, quarantine, stocks, stock market, tech stocks, palihapitiya, government

Id: 4pLY1X46H1E

Length: 129min 8sec (7748 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2023