Tucker Carlson: The moment I changed | Will Cain Podcast

man I'm glad to have you on the show I've never really got to sit down with you and talk to you I've never really had a chance to get to know you so I'm really excited to spend I don't know 40 minutes together and I think ask you all the things that everybody wants to ask you like why don't you go away [Laughter] close I'm gonna ask you I want to start with this I want to ask you a question I think almost every one of your haters and every one of your critics would like to ask and I think interestingly a great amount of your fans would actually like to ask as well and that is this what happened to you well I got to be 53 and I just I you know I've been in this business my whole life and um I have a very clear memory of the country that I grew up in and I really liked it you know I always liked the United States and I watched it change and I watched in those changes a lot of my preconceptions get debunked and um and so I changed my opinions along with the changing evidence which I I thought was what you're supposed to do and um you know I I I I'm not in I am embarrassed about how wrong I was about a number of different things but I'm certainly not embarrassed to have changed my mind what would be embarrassing is if in the face of a mountain of evidence that you were wrong you know you resisted admitting it and changing course so for me the Iraq War was definitely a pivot point I was in television then that was 19 years ago and um I was cheering it on basically in effect I I actually had reservation even the worst part in fact is that I had gut level reservations I never understood the connection between Saddam Hussein and 911 I assumed that the CIA and the various Intel agencies of other countries are allies Great Britain France were correct in saying that Saddam had wmd but I never exactly understood why why it would be a good idea to invade Iraq but I effectively passively went along with it and then I went to Iraq in December of 2003 the day in fact Saddam was captured in secrete and I watched the place fall apart and along with it a lot of my previous assumptions and I came back and I admitted I was completely wrong I'm ashamed I've been ashamed ever since and what was so striking about that whole process was how few people were willing to say the same thing they were like no it's a good idea in the in the face of really overwhelming evidence that the United States got nothing out of it and uh after that I just thought you know I don't know what this is but I'm I'm against it you know I don't think you should lie I think it's okay to be wrong but you should never intentionally lie and I watch people like David from and Bill Crystal people I worked with and respected who are very smart for sure both of them decide to say things they knew weren't true for whatever reason I can't guess at their motive and I was I found it repulsive and I still do so that was really the beginning of my break with the conventional view of things you know and giving someone a compliment is always in a dangerous proposition because probably more often than not Compliments are meant for some other purpose make that beware flattery definitely exactly to make that person like you whatever it may be but I'm going to give you a compliment that I think is totally devoid of any certainly any ulterior motive and and honestly also devoid of emotion you know I said this I think I'd like to be able to step outside myself and observe myself somewhat objectively if not objectively self-aware and and say look I was at ESPN and I had not yet joined Fox and I was asked you know who would you like to have dinner with name your three people and and you were one of the three people and the reason for that Tucker has to do with whatever this transformation is that you've gone through over some period of time you just described a much longer period of time than the one that I've observed of course I've known who you are for a long time but your transition here's the compliment I think obviously led the country led a lot of people and I would say in a lot of ways led me in seeing America through what I think is a more populist lens I would have probably 10 years ago Tucker really recalled at the idea of populism I would have associated with mob mentality but listening to you when I wasn't yet at Fox and you're not the only person but you are one of the primary people who helped guide I think me in a different direction than I was 10 years ago 15 years ago maybe even five years ago but I'm curious where would you say you are today like if you had to put a name or a brand on it you just described a Tucker that was probably pretty neo-conservative at one time I know you were pretty libertarian at one point what are you now gosh I don't know I mean I no one would ever believe me since you know I think a conventional view is I'm radical but I feel and have always felt very moderate I'm definitely not in favor of destroying things I I really see the world as a as binary at this point there are people who create and nurture and they're those who deface and Destroy it's really their only two varieties of people it's it's dualism and I want to be on the side that creates a nurtures that makes things that improves things that leaves things for future Generations that sounds high-minded but I I really believe it and so I don't like any political movement that begins with hey let's wreck everything we have and build something brand new because I just don't believe in that it doesn't actually work I like to read I'm interested in history virtually every Revolution with the exception really of ours has taken the society uh backward you know whatever Society is whether it's France or great or in the Soviet Union Russia in 1917 China in 1949 et cetera Etc and so um you know I I feel very moderate and by the way I'm not much of a populist either I mean I people are hierarchical I have four dogs I know animals are hierarchical it's just built into our nature you know we have a small number of leaders we look to them for Direction that's not weird that's just how we're born so you're always going to have a ruling class the question is is it an impressive ruling class are they smart people do they have self-restraint do they have wisdom are they thinking past you know the next 20 days or are they greedy day Traders and we just have wound up for a bunch of different reasons with a really bad ruling class I'm not against ruling classes at all everybody every society has one but ours are just unimaginably bad and I think that we should be asking how did the system that we built up over Generations create these people you know where you graduate Yale law school or go on to McKinsey and then you wind up with attitudes that hurt the country you're supposed to be leading like how did that happen no one else seems to be interested I'm very interested I mean I grew up in La Jolla and Georgetown so it's not like I'm the son of a coal miner I grew up in a world full of rich well-educated people I left that world a few years ago on purpose because I could no longer stand it but it's not because you know I'm like in my heart a farmer no in my heart I'm a you know I grew up a rich kid and I read books and I'm not I I just don't like the people currently in charge I think they're awful I think they're absolutely awful and I know them so I would know I spent 35 years in Washington from 1985 to 2020. so I I'm not kind of guessing about what they're like I know them personally and they couldn't be less suited to leadership and I'm just mad about it I mean why wouldn't I be mad about it look at the effects and I would say one of the things as for populism My Views are very simple All My Views are simple I don't have complicated views really about anything but if you're running a country that purports to be representative democracy you should serve the majority of people I mean in some way if you wake up one morning the life expectancy is declining you've really gone off track you know if people aren't replacing the population through native foreign birth rates that's a red flag that's a siren that's an emergency and if you ignore it then you suck and you deserve to be replaced that's that's kind of how I feel it's not more complicated than that it's so interesting you describe some of your background that you're from La Jolla so you know a lot of people I think again probably best voiced by your critics say okay how did this guy become the voice of the Forgotten man how did this guy become the voice of populism and what I hear you telling me is the way that you have not by calculation not by any and that's what you will be accused of by the way I feel like I get a lot of the same criticism just in small doses compared to the heaping doses that you get but what what you're saying is that you arrive at this place because you have inside knowledge and essence of those that would be the ruling class and know how feckless and empty and incompetent that class is right that's and that's it I mean dishonest people always impute dishonest motives to other people it's like philanderers always assume everyone else is cheating on his wife that's just the way they are you know I've got a lot of faults I'm not that dishonest actually and I just kind of say what I think why wouldn't I I'm 53 there's no advantage in lying I don't if I can help it I mean I guess if you caught me doing something bad I would lie about it but in general I try not to lie my motives are super straightforward and I don't hear much criticism about myself because I'm pretty cut off but to the extent I hear it it's like oh no he's doing this for money no I'm not you know at all at all I remember my producer telling me last summer I was out west fishing and he's like there are all these stories about how you're secretly vaxed and you're casting aspersions on the coveted vaccine because you don't want your audience to get the vaccine or whatever I said why would people assume if I'm worried about the vaccine that I was secretly I'm not faxed I never have been vaxxed I'm not mad at people who have been vaxxed but like the idea that I would lie about why would I lie about that I would never lie about that it only Liars imagine everyone else is lying and it really does tell you a lot about the people making those criticisms I mean my faults and shortcomings and weaknesses are super obvious I'm on TV five hours a week so if I you know have dumb opinions or you know if I eat too many cookies and gain 30 pounds which I tend to do um everyone knows like I'm not hiding anything you know what I mean like why would I I don't and so the idea that like I'm some trust fund kid who decided that he could make more money pretending to be a car mechanic or something it's like it's insane I I didn't grow up in rural Middle America I never pretended I did I just think the it's really this simple I actually like rural areas because I hunt and fish and I like the people I live in one but but really it's as simple as the people in charge are bad at their jobs that's demonstrable we know that from the results I'm not just attacking people's characters or saying I don't like having dinner with them I'm saying they're not good at what they do and by every measure and they shouldn't be in charge it's it's really that simple I'm not saying that we should like turn out the entire Federal bureaucracy and give it to people who work at Napa Auto Parts I don't know but people who are good at leading the country should be leading the country we don't have those people so that's a huge problem so um so I do come from that rural Middle America place yes and you know by the way I arrive at this point of embracing a sense of populism more by aspiring to I aspired to achieve away from my upbringing as a lot of small town kids do I want to make my way to the big city and what I found Tucker once I made it in this case whether it was New York City or Corporate America of ESPN what I just found once I got there was these were not more sophisticated individuals interested in high level debates these were not people that somehow had any semblance of value in fact they had much less a semblance of value than the places and the people where I came from and there is something about where I came from that is deeply in touch with what it is to be an American what it is to be a valuable member of society and not only have that person been forgotten not only is that person the Forgotten man but that person is reviled and and what is esteemed and held up as as virtue you now is the opposite of what I at least grew up and what I've always honored as being what it is to be a man or an American or to be a Christian or to just be an honorable contributing member of society once I got to the Upper West Side I was disavowed of any of that and ready to go back to Sherman Texas it's totally right I mean it's totally I mean I think you're absolutely right to the people in charge hate Middle America and you have to ask yourself why and the answer is that they failed Middle America they failed middle class America which is no longer the majority of the country that's you know this happened in I think 2015 during the Obama presidency when the middle class became less than the majority of America so it's no longer a middle-class country that's a huge problem and they did that by their bad policies a bunch of them I mean I'm not you know what they are I'm not good bore you but um and it the truth is you hate the people you wrong if you commit a an offensive against someone if you sin against someone you end up hating that person and that's that's really why and so they invert it all I mean the most of course the most powerless and reviled people in America are rural people obviously there's no you know they can't get into Stanford no matter what their SAT scores are no one is putting the thumb on the scale for them but you watch television and they tell you oh you know the most you know underserved like you know the most marginalized communities or trans people in cities really there's no more privileged group than a trans person in the city they're like you know one hundredth of one percent of the population we spend 30 percent of our time talking about them there is you know every possible the justice department you criticize them and they're like at your door with guns it's like everything that they describe is the opposite of the reality the rest of us live with that at a certain point you just completely devalue your credibility and I don't believe anything you say because everything you say is a freaking lie not only a lie it's an inversion of the truth it's the precise opposite of the truth and I'm sorry to rant but that's where we are no I'm always happy to hear a Tucker Carlson Ram you know uh you you said something earlier and I've heard you say it before and it's an interesting thing that you say here and you're either a wonderful Machiavellian or you are truly honest and that is that you acknowledge that you have the capability and will at times lie there are somebody that go oh gotcha Tucker admits he lies I mean who can honestly look into a camera or another person's eyes or the mirror and say I never tell a lie we Aspire it's like objectivity and media media you can aspire to it but you have no permanent position occupying objectivity and the same thing with honesty your willingness to say look man I hope I don't lie if I'm cornered and I'm in a desperate situation I'm sure like many flawed human beings I will lie is to me evidence of your honesty or or you are just like a Next Level Machiavellian at all times I'm too old you can't keep up with it all no of course I mean I mean what I'm supposed to say I would never lie I really love my wife for 38 years if I like I don't drink but let's say I got drunk and like slept with some random girl and got caught doing it I would probably deny it because I wouldn't want to be caught doing that because it's not it's an awful thing to do so of course I mean what is it I didn't even know that's held up is some example of my deep dishonesty whatever I I don't know my view is you can kind of tell who's telling the truth you can smell it I always tell my children this you know the the main loss of modernity is of our instincts and we're we're taught to ignore them and again I spent a lot of time with animals I really love animals and animals have one advantage over us they don't have opposable thumbs or a sense of the future but they do have a very close that's all they have is their instincts and their instincts are spot on if I was telling my kids if you think somebody's creepy he is if you think someone's lying to you you're right don't second guess it if you perceive danger it's real and don't override those feelings those instincts with your higher Consciousness because you're in effect long to yourself I don't like this part of the podcast because in the previous episode of my podcast I in a confessional moment said to my audience that I fully in all self-awareness understand that I'm a slow burn so your initial Instinct about me may not be exactly what it is if you invest a little time a little cane but Tucker's telling everyone run run your initial instinct is right and one of my favorite lines of all time is going to be animals don't have opposable thumbs or a sense of the future here's it so let me springboard off this because you've you've sort of introduced it twice and you have said this I think you've said it on Tucker Carlson tonight and it's absolutely true you interestingly for someone who has his name in his own show and spends an hour at least a good portion of that hour monologuing you do not talk about yourself a lot and I find that admirable and I actually find it something that lends credibility to what it is you have to say you're not pouring everything through the first person but people's curiosity about you remains so what will you tell me and and I appreciate your privacy I do um especially for a guy who they've literally showed up at your door the the mob has literally banged on your door um what what can you tell me you said you live rural you said you love being around animals what is life like for Tucker Carlson on a day-to-day basis well I would just say two things about the first things that I really try not to talk about myself not because I'm paranoid about security that I probably should be but because I just I'm not from a culture sure where that's rewarded or encouraged at all and it was really really discouraged in the family that I grew up in using the word I all the time or being a narcissist or and same with my my wife and I are from the same world so that's just that is not something that we would encourage in our children at all um and I don't and I don't like it and I'm also not that interesting there's this whole world out there and like it's not I don't live a particularly fascinating life I do we do um you know live in a really rural area we've got four dogs I live with my wife we have four kids they're all gone um and we're very close to them but they don't live with us anymore and um and they all laugh they all went to boarding school when they were young so they you know we've lived alone for a while and um you know I wake up I usually sit on the front porch with my wife have a cup of coffee talk about stuff or if it's cold out it's freezing where I live right now so we get back into bed with the dogs and drink our coffee in bed because it's cold and then um I write my I sketch out my show in the morning you know here's who I think we should be interviewing and here's what I think the stories are and then I usually write on my phone um some of the open like the the in coed thoughts that I have about it and then that's done and it's like I feel like the show's nailed down and then I always go out no matter where I am and try to be outside today I went it's Partridge season where I live rough grout season and so I took uh we have four spaniels two of them are bird dogs and two of them are kind of aged out but two of them are really in their Prime so I went um Partridge hunting today which I often do in October late September and October and um so we just hop in the truck go to the woods and um and Hunt Partridge I didn't I saw one and it's also turkey season and I saw six turkeys and I I didn't get any birds but um but I love watching the dogs work I also fish a lot I fly fish so we trout fish a lot uh and the dogs and I and so I try to get out a couple hours every day hunting or fishing in the woods or you know or stuff like that um because that's that's really important to me I grew up doing that and I and I continue to do it my children do it um my friends do it so it's just that's something that I've done all my life and I and I really really love it and uh but it's important and then I come back uh I take a sauna every day and um get out of sauna have a cup of coffee and uh and then just sit down to write and I filed the script at 7 45 throw on my necktie walk about 20 feet in the studio and bang up the show so it's not it's actually okay it actually is it actually is I'm sorry you don't get off that scot-free by dismissing your own life is uninteresting so here are my follow-up questions so you love animals you mentioned dogs what other animals are part of your life is it only Wild game outside of the dogs or do you have horses and other things on the uh estate we have Springer Spaniels um I live in a tiny house I was like I grew up in acts weird um in my dreams yes and uh no we have a super small house and you know I married my high school girlfriend so um you know we're kind of living the life that we've always lived in some ways but then we lived in the city but we had a family house so we now live in that and I really I really love it so does she and we're we just been together so long we're pretty like-minded about stuff and um she's a nature person also we're very pro-tree in my family they're extremely pro-tree I mean look you get to 53 and you're with the same chick your whole life you can get into your own world so we spend uh we don't ever talk politics in our house you know my wife is a reader I am a reader we talk about what we're reading we talk about trees um we talk about dogs we talk about our children that's kind of that's my life we don't go anywhere we have a ton of house guests we always have people staying with us all the time and um we've got people we had people last night we're having people come tomorrow we always have people staying with us which I really enjoy and so does she and so it's a very low-key life we don't have a TV we're not on the internet all the time I get all my news by text message I just I'm not kind of done all that and I'm not that interested in being influenced or in letting that into my head because I I just don't think much of it I'm just being honest I really don't so you don't see anything you don't do social media you don't see any Google alerts on Tucker Carlson in the news you don't see anything no I don't have a Google alert I never read about myself I don't know what people are saying I am pretty I grew up in a family that was was uh you know good and bad in All Families but one good thing about my family was people were pretty serious about reading and serious in the sense that you know you should a book is an investment you're not going to read that many in the course of your life you should be thoughtful about the books you choose it doesn't mean that you're always reading you know escalus or the history of the Punic Wars but that you are you're thoughtful about how you spend your time reading and my brother and my father are big readers I'm actually I'm sitting in the middle of our family library right now you can't see it but there are a lot of books and a lot of really good books so and my wife is the same way so um she reads mostly fiction but and I read mostly non-fiction but yeah that's important to us and so I don't wanna what are you reading my life on on Google I'm reading right now I'm reading I just finished a PG Woodhouse novel he wrote 107 of them we've read most of them we really like PG Woodhouse my wife and I um and my kids but I am reading now an amazing book and I'm almost done called the psychology of totalitarianism by Matthias dismat who's a Belgian uh psychology professor and one of the true uh Geniuses I've spoken to I don't talk to too many Geniuses because there aren't many Geniuses but he is one and this book is has really changed my view on a lot of it's It's ostensibly about covid but it's not really about covid it's about the way the modern mind works and it's it's amazing I've sent it to a bunch of people I just I'm very overbearing about this stuff and so I've instead of told my children are like Amazon makes it super easy to just you know send books to people so this book I'm I'm very impressed by in fact I'm so impressed by it that I've I read like three pages in bed I always have a spaniel on my chest and all and then I'll just stop and think about it because my brain's not quite big enough to take it all in so I want to make sure I remember everything I want to ask here's something that occurs to me you just said I use Amazon it makes it too easy to send books to my children you also mentioned earlier by the way that your children went to boarding school and I know that at least a couple of them are currently at major universities in the United States you know and I'm honest with my listeners and viewers as well my sons after going to a charter school in New York City or in a private school now in Dallas and they do not meaning the schools live up to my hopes and expectations and requirements and then the obvious next question is well then why do they get my money um I'm curious about how you approach that I think we share a lot of the same views about education and and morality and value and then you know for example one of my brothers said to me last night well then why do you wear Jordans will why do you wear Nike why do you and Pete wear Nike and and I say I don't know man I'm not a Puritan I can't live a puritanical Life I Can't Live perfectly your children are a place I think where we both would say you should Aspire especially in their education to live out our values how do you reconcile that how do you reconcile using Amazon and sending your kids to schools that don't reflect your values well I hate Amazon and I can't reconcile it I'm a filthy hypocrite I try not to use it but I I actually don't like buying things very much so um so there's that so that kind of keeps me away from it anyway and I don't like the internet in general but um the school thing is a was a really big thing I won't even get into it but um we sent we basically I married someone who is you know exactly like I did and so we just had a lot of shared uh experiences and shared views about how you raise children and a whole bunch of other things um and so for our kids we basically just mindlessly did for them exactly what had been done for us and our parents and our grandparents are literally our great grandparents like everyone as people do everyone did exactly the same thing I mean my great-grandmother went to the same high school that every woman in my wife's family went to you know it's like literally my great-grandmother was born in the 19th century did that so we just didn't think about it very deeply at all and so our children three out of four went to the same high school that we went to um where we were married you know and like we just did it we just unfolded this childhood that was very familiar to us and we didn't think deeply enough about it and I would also say that that whole world that we grew up in changed completely and collapsed and it doesn't exist anymore and a lot of things happen that if I ever have time I'll write a book about but uh you know it was it was shocking to both of us and my wife is not political at all you know she's the same instincts I do we agree on everything but she's not I mean she hasn't read about politics in the 31 years we've been married I mean she's just it's not she's not interested so um she didn't see it coming I didn't really see it coming either bottom line I would never we grew up in the Episcopal Church I would never send my children to an Episcopal Church school and they went from you know pre-k through cop through high school to Episcopal schools I would never do that again I would never go to an episode again I mean like you might take a personal shot at me I'm sending my kids to Episcopal School as we pee do we speak so I know means that's how I grew up I went to Episcopal School so did everyone going back no a long time so our whole world just collapsed and um I'm not really mad about it but you have to this is what I was saying at the outset you have to adjust to reality as you find it I'm not in charge of American society or of historical trends at all so you know if things change dramatically you you have to adjust I can say having we all went on vacation this summer all you know all four of the kids and my wife and and I went and I asked all of them which you send your children you know to the same schools that we went to you went to your grandparents were absolutely not you know absolutely not I don't think they would I don't think they will because it's all gone now you know whatever you can't control it yeah guy on the person experiencing it my kids as I mentioned go to an Episcopal School in Dallas hey I'm familiar with uh Matthias uh DeMent uh he was on Tucker Carlson today um I believe he's been one of the leaders in talking about Mass formation psychosis um so I am familiar with the guy who is now um the author of the book of which you are in love with as we speak the one that you're reading um which brings me also to this you have a new Tucker Carlson original which I don't think is a huge segue here it's not a huge left-hand turn for me to say this ties into some of our conversation as well it's called the end of men I've seen some of it I've seen parts of it it's about testosterone yes it seems a little tongue-in-cheek in some places but also no addressing a very serious issue that we've lost the concept of masculinity yeah not just the concept of masculinity but the physical components that make it possible I mean the drop in testosterone which is the the key sex hormone that makes men men um is remarkable it's not debatable it's measurable it has been measured in the last 40 years the testosterone levels in American men have plummeted no one knows why some people have theories on it I have theories on it none of them have been proven don't think NIH is studying this and that's kind of the point all of us I mean men are different physically than they were when I was a child now I don't know why nobody cares about that I think there are all kinds of effects men seem very passive to me I think there's a reason you know people always say well young men just smoke weed and play video games and never go outside and yeah well maybe there's a reason for that maybe they're physically different and I'm I just you know I don't I'm not bringing a lot more to the conversation than that observation but it seems like a profound one and why does nobody care you know if estrogen levels were plummeting and you know half American women were growing mustaches I think we would acknowledge that as a problem it's a huge problem you know sex differences are the basis of every civilization they're necessary to perpetuate Humanity itself you don't have children unless you have men and women so why does nobody care and I care and so the purpose of this documentary was just to point out that this is happening but the the people who run our society seem uninterested and why there are individuals who are very concerned about it they have theories about it they have what they believe are effective remedies to it and here's what they are and it's just kind of that but I I think it's worth declaring that an emergency because it is well it's an emergency I've always I've always observed this Tucker as a cultural emergency um obviously we know that you know depression suicide and these types of big societal markers are really bad really negative when it comes to men and particularly young men and I've always observed that as a loss of purpose um yes a denial of masculinity but you're taking this next step further you're actually looking at it from I guess a hormonious place and so I'm curious I mean I don't know if you want to share your theories but I'm why look diets have changed drastically over the last half century modern medicine has changed drastically over the last half century what why why is why are we seeing a drop in testimony I mean you're also seeing concurrently a dramatic rise in chronic diseases you know fewer people are dropping dead of heart attacks they're being denied the sweet release of heart disease as the doctor once said um but many more people have autoimmune disorders type 2 diabetes asthma many more people many many more people so what is that and again I I don't know the answer but I do know that our food supply is terrible I partake of it a lot you know I love pizza and Wheat Thins and chocolate chip cookies and every other garbage you know low-income type food that there is I mean I love that stuff but it's clearly bad for you and if you go to countries I've spent a lot of time in other countries if you go to countries that have lower gdps than ours and eat the food you you realize you can just feel it this food is much better for me than the stuff I'm getting in the United States so I there's clearly something wrong with our food supply there's clearly something wrong with the way the Department of Agriculture created the food pyramid I mean this is all much picked over but clearly we're being on some level poisons by what we eat obviously um so I would just say without getting into Waters that are too deep for me and about which I don't have sufficient knowledge to speak intelligently I will say the big questions are always the ones we ignore you know we spend an endless amount of time debating the minutia you know angels dancing on the head of a pin but like we never step back and say we're on the verge of a nuclear war with Russia our debt is literally unsustainable testosterone is falling to the point where we may not be able to reproduce and the life expectancy of your average American is in Decline these are the big things the big things are where you need to focus your attention in my view by the way UFOs are real like there are other things but that's that's that's verified we don't know what they are no trust me when when I sit in for you and I'm honored to do so and it's always weird because it's like hey we well I appreciate that but it's like house sitting you know I'm I'm there with the ghost of Tucker Carlson you know I don't really know Tucker but I can see the pictures of his family and I can see how it works and what's in the fridge for the fridge but well let me tell you something one of my favorite things in the fridge is the UFO story because I agree it's a it's a little bit of a big story like you know the fact that there are unidentified flying objects that the government acknowledges can't quite put our finger on it um but hey so so I sat in for you last Friday and I experienced some of this and and I do it here on the Wilkin podcast as well but you know what I find fascinating as you address these major questions like hey what's the risk reward on nuclear war and as you address these major questions I am shocked and here's the deal Tucker you can expect this from Media Matters and the people that are paid to hate you you you can expect this from the far left that no matter what you said they're going to take the opposite I'm really shocked that some of the people who I think you probably have been friends with in the past who would have been ideological compatriots who don't even don't even deign to offer a rebuttal to whether or not the United States might have sabotaged Nordstrom pipeline they don't formulate an argument it's simply and this is my latest episode before you and I together it's simply Fu that's that's the argument it's your Putin tool and it's Fu I mean it's literally what the Ukrainian Ambassador offered up right that was his offering up of the diplomacy to Elon Musk Fu I there's no attempt at a real uh effort at persuasion well yeah I mean and this is a symptom of this larger thing that you're seeing everywhere which is the rise of irrational Behavior you know maths just work just shut up and take the vax my 15 minutes no right from covid why did you take the backs and risk mayakada to shut up and take it what are you against science and look I you know it pains me as an American and as someone who's always been I think patriotic in the most basic sense I love America I'm not going anywhere I don't have another passport you know it pains me to ever think the US government is involved in something that it shouldn't be or that we've committed some crime um because it's being done in my name for one thing as an American but the idea that Russia whatever its many sins or Putin you know however evil and crazy he maybe blew up his own pipelines in the middle of a war when those pipelines are the main source of his foreign currency I mean the Russian energy business is Russia okay that's the thing that they sell abroad to keep their government running and it's Army fed and armed and the fact that they would blow those up thereby ending any leverage they might have over Germany which is obviously the biggest economy in Europe in the country that you need on your side is insane it's just that doesn't make any sense now if you have evidence that that happened okay I'm willing to I believe in UFOs so I'm willing to believe anything okay just show me them they have zero evidence meanwhile you have the president United States threatening to do it before the invasion you have other government officials doing the same and now you have last week last Friday you had the Secretary of State Tony blinken saying that the sabotage of the Nordstrom pipelines was a good thing so like put that all together right it seems like the United States could have handed it I doubt Navy divers did it but I wouldn't be surprised if British Navy divers did it with the help of the United States but you know I don't know but I I'm pretty sure Putin didn't do it hey let me um I don't you know it actually would feel really poor for me to spend 45 minutes talking to you and so we talk about all the things we agree and the truth is I don't know where I'm going to reach for disagreement instead what I'm going to do is be Devil's Advocate I'm going to try to embody somebody's argument who actually won't forward that argument to you they're just going to call you a Putin apologist so um as I watch you tell the story of Ukraine and Russia I actually don't even know if I know your position on where what should be American policy I actually just see you asking for honesty so the American people can make that decision democratically um but there you know and I've and I've had KT McFarland I respect KT on my program and we've talked about and she said to me Russia did it clearly well and she's laid out the argument and I said to her quite bluntly I don't buy it so it's just it's not convincing to me at this point but this is the way that I want to have a conversation honestly one of the most compelling Arguments for people that again I don't even know if this is in rebuttal to you but they say how valuable would it be for the United States of America to invest at this point it looks like 80 billion dollars 80 billion dollars roughly in a war where we don't lose a single American life and we hot we hobble our one of our geopolitical rivals in Russia and maybe that's the Dan Crenshaw argument I don't know maybe that I don't know whose argument that is definitely an argument made out there that this is actually a very successful policy that doesn't actually in the end cost a single American Life what do you say to that well I mean I would say a couple of things one I don't see Russia as our main rival on the world stage I don't see it as even approaching that level of threat to the United States our main rival is China and so I I have no idea why you wouldn't want Russia on your side Putin on your side as some sort of rough alliance against China and they would seem to be true for every European and Eurasian country like why wouldn't you want that I think that you would if you were serious about the Chinese threat which of course were not um so that's the first thing I would say second you know I'm certainly not for the Russian invasion of Ukraine I'm not for anything that destabilizes the world I'm not pro-putin in any sense I don't have strong feelings about Putin or about Russia or about Ukraine and that's kind of the point it didn't really see what the where the American interest in this was I still don't see it and I see very clearly now what the downside could be which is nuclear Annihilation and you know nuclear weapons have not been used since nineteen since the summer of 1945 when we destroyed Nagasaki and so our understanding of nuclear weapons is almost 80 years old but the technology has advanced to the point where I talked to anyone who understands it and I have to the point where I mean it's it's hard to comprehend how destructive it is a nuclear strike a New York would eliminate New York and also destroy North Carolina so like these are weapons that are much more powerful than the average person understands Putin is you know if he's as crazy and evil as they tell us he is why wouldn't he use them so a victory over Putin is not necessarily a win for us it's very easy to see how beating would mean destroying ourselves and I'm just I'm con I'm completely baffled as to why you'd even want to risk that and if I'm being totally honest I would say the second people start talking about nuclear strikes with their tactical nukes or limited nuclear engagements or whatever that's the moment when I look back and say you know you're insane you have no idea what you're talking about I I saw David Petraeus who reportedly is very smart I I've met him it seems smart I guess he was saying well if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine will blow up the Black Sea Fleet and it's like first of all if anybody uses nuclear weapons in any theater you know we're on the we're on the brink of like destroying the world and that's not an exaggeration at all so you don't even want to have that that's so reckless and crazy that I can't believe again I'm astounded by the recklessness of the people in short that should never be on the table that should never be under consideration it should only be implied and I think that previous generations of generals and Statesmen and presidents and secretaries of State understood that implicitly they didn't need to be told if you're talking about nuclear strikes you've already lost you freaking lunatic and I think you just laid out the answer in a way that makes sense to me on the rebuttal to that well we've invested in destroying Russia without losing American life and the answer to that in rebuttal is yet you keep messing around with regime change and what does a wounded animal do in the corner in this case Vladimir Putin he uses his nuclear but why would we want to destroy Russia I've never understood okay you destroyed Russia I mean for one thing one thing on a rock it's not Syria it's not Libya it's not Afghanistan it's not a developing country very far away it's a semi-european country that's actually quite Advanced that makes its own airplanes and has 6 000 nuclear weapons so like so there's that it's not we've been trained to think that Wars can drag on but they can drag on at relatively low cost United States that is not what we're looking at here at all but moreover why would you want to destroy Russia is there some inherent good in that like I I just don't and I'm not pro-russian I've never been to Russia I love Tolstoy I like Dostoevsky but that's kind of the extent of my title Russia I just I have no kind of dog in the fight but why would you want to I think that's very weird Russia is not a gas station you know you hear these stupid no one's dumber than Republican members of Congress if I can just say and you hear them say oh Russia is just a gas station with a country no actually Russia is a real place with a real history it's a thousand year history like why would you want to destroy that so you can feel powerful you like I just don't understand it at all when can you put your finger on when it was that you lost your attraction for M M's for what [Music] for M M's oh man you're you're you're what was it I don't know I don't think it was your monologue but your statement of of Eminem's being made less sexy that was something man that was and you know a mark of someone as someone who's always loved Eminem's Not the regular M Ms or not even the peanut centered eminent you know the Reese's Pieces M M's but just like the conventional peanut M Ms the big ones the marble-sized ones and I've always loved Eminem's and I'll just I'll just admit that you know what I mean it's just I'm a Mars a guy um but I was I'm sad to see the Mars Corporation going woke I mean just leave my candy alone and I would say that if it was Zachary do you know what I mean it doesn't matter [Music] oh it was quite a statement Eminem's reducing the size of the heels on the green m m what's wrong with America you know what I'm a little too I try to keep abreast of trends two small questions and one big one I'll let you go and respect that you have a show to do tonight small two small questions um I asked you a book you're reading now what is what is your favorite book that you would recommend to all people you need to read this book oh gosh um you know there are so many I mean I I've never really moved past Orwell I love Orwell's journalism I would say you know a couple essays which have stuck with me for life I read them as a child and I I still I don't reread a lot of things but I I love the essay how the poor die by George Orwell with um with his accounts probably I don't know how many words it is probably 3 000 words his account of winding up in a French Charity Hospital in Paris during the Depression I think about that essay all the time uh shooting an elephant hanging you know I would recommend Orwell's collected journalism to anybody and his stories to anyone I would also as I said recommend PG Woodhouse um and also evil and why I have a weakness I have contempt for the United Kingdom I I couldn't say uh but I really do real contempt um for how they've destroyed themselves and how much they hate themselves it makes me sick but I do love British comic novels you know Kingsley Amos evil and War I love that I just really Graham green you know the comedians are man in Havana I just love that stuff I love it gave it to all my kids do you do you watch anything do you watch movies Prestige television series Yellowstone Game of Thrones um personally I mean I'm not I work in TV so obviously I'm very in favor of the medium but I'm extremely dyslexic um you know whatever the learning disability is and it affects certain things and one of them is uh my spatial relations are screwed up I can't park a car stuff like that but um I can't I just I cannot watch video it just makes me so anxious I just can't watch it no I I haven't watched a movie or we don't as I said we don't have a TV but even if we did I guess you can watch it on your iPad or something I don't have an iPad at home either I keep in my office but uh no I don't I don't watch anything but I keep hearing like for my children for example that there are you know great series out there which I love I love that it's a that there's still creativity in the medium I think movies have died but um people keep telling me that they're all these great shows so I love that but no I don't I don't personally it's just I just don't like the medium you know at all okay last question I'm sorry to end on sort of like a big one here as we go out but it's going to bring us full circle in that we begin talking about sort of your transformation over time and you did interestingly reject the idea of populism and said look human beings are hierarchical all animals are hierarchical and they'll always be a ruling class you know um I don't think I'm I'm definitely not as well read as you are and but I I try to be fair and I try to read as much as possible and I think it would be fair that there are and this is certainly not something I'm attributing to you so even bringing it up is not um you know guilt by association it's more a genuine curiosity and what your answer will be on this but there are some on the right that have have I think come to the conclusion that the Republic is lost that if it's an administrative State it's on autopilot and if that's the case the only real savior salvation for the country is a strong man is a Caesar and I don't mean that in that it has to be a tyranny but a c a competent CEO to cut the thing down to size of course I think it's a mistake because they don't consider what comes after the CEO um but but um I'm curious with your acknowledgment that there will always be a ruling Elite how do you see the future how do you see a fortuitous and virtuous future for America who is that ruling Elite I mean maybe your answer is a Caesar I'm I'm not leading you in that direction but acknowledging that there are there are people on the right that will put everything on the table I don't think it's a large group of people but there's some and and I think that everyone should be asking ourselves this question is what is the future of our Republic yeah what do we want I mean I know what I want you know this is when you asked you know My Views and I didn't give a very interesting answer because I don't have very interesting views but you know I lived in this country in 1985 I think it feels like a great year you know country a lot of problems or whatever but compared to what you know and it was a very middle class country with basically Bourgeois values and with with that American strain of libertarianism you know you do your thing I'll do mine and we're not going to get in each other's faces over it and I I like that you know I like that there was a you know people had something in common with each other do you know what I mean my brother was my brother said to me once we grew up in this affluent town and we would go up to like Tahoe to ski in the winter and you know because we were basically affluent people but we would always like eat at Denny's we drove we'd always stay at Motel Six you know what I mean and my brother said to me I wonder if there's anybody in La Jolla you know everyone has a ski house in Tahoe which is a long way away I wonder if anyone drives you know with like the dogs in the car and left at Motel 6 and of course the answer is what no they they're living and I'm not attacking them you know but I get it but they're living completely different lives like they fly maybe in their own plane or friends or they Charter or whatever they're not going to Motel 6 because there's no broad middle in the country anymore and that's what I would like more than anything like ultimately I'm an egalitarian I am we're Scandinavian I just feel that way I can't control myself I want to live in a country where you know lots of different kinds of people different races I'm all about that's great pluralism is great but ultimately that we're United in some kind of common American culture where every person feels I hate the word but empowered as a citizen hey I'm a citizen I'm a taxpayer you never heard anybody say that anymore you can't with me I pay my taxes I follow the law like I know my rights I'm I'm not a peon I'm not a surf I'm not your slave like I am I don't care if you're an FBI agent or the president United States I have as many rights as you do and I know what those rights are and we stand equal to each other we are peers because we're both Americans that's the attitude I want and that attitude only grows out of democratic government a government where every person feels that he is vested in the system that his vote is worth every bit as much as his neighbor he disagrees with and that's the country that I grew up in and they'll try and tell you oh is this racist dystopia that's a lie no it wasn't I was here it was not a racist dystopia it was a nice country with some problems but fundamentally the nicest country that's ever been and it was nice because in the end everybody or the overall majority had something in common with everybody else and I want to get back to that that's my vision for America and um and again that's only possible in a democracy the problem with the strong men are many problems of the strong man but one of them is the message that it sends to everyone else is there are multiple tiers you're either in the Royal Family or you're a subject to the royal family and that creates you know no man can be a citizen a full citizen in in a monarchy and um and I just I don't want that at all I do think democracy is very problematic in a country that's divided I think it's always been a difficult system to administer it's certainly an easy system to subvert cheating is really easy in a democracy there was a lot of cheating in the last election now let's say that it's true and um so it's hard but I still think it's worth it because the outcome is a country where each person regardless of income or birth or color has dignity and rights I'm an American you know what I mean you can't talk to me that way I have dignity and that's like essential yeah it's essential and that's you know where you're not afraid to get pulled over by the police even if you've been speeding because you know they may find you they may even arrest you if you're going too fast but in the end you know you know you're safe because you're a citizen and they can't dick with you too much anyway that's that's what yeah yeah I I think I I think I understand I think it's not far from my vision which I would describe as communitarian I mean I want citizens who are invested in something and see the reward of that investment and the human connection that comes along with small towns small neighborhoods small communities a job um and it just feels like we're becoming a refined monolith where everyone is disconnected and we've lost Community well completely and I don't think people form their own communities like one thing that I always notice when I travel which isn't that much anymore but I've been to all 50 states more than twice and I've really been every most places in America for sure is how they'll be these huge things happening these huge movements or cultural Trends subcultures within this country that I knew nothing about you know it's like the country's so big and it's so diverse in a basic sense no majority anything you know that you can have little countries within the country and I'm not against that I like regionalism but you have to figure out what unites everybody the country does not remain United just by accident or because no it it's a physics principle it will break apart unless you thoughtfully figure out a way to keep it together and I I don't think anyone's thinking about that at all big questions as you said no one's considering the big questions man thank you so much I I feel like I've only scratched the surface I could talk to you for hours um but instead what I'll do is I'll be watching Tucker Carlson original the end of men and I'll be watching Tucker Carlson tonight tonight thank you thank you I love that and come you know where I live come see me I'd love to I would love to uh I've never hunt Partridge before so I'd love to add it to the list for fun dear elk partridges okay I'll see you man thank you hey it's Will Kane click here to subscribe to the Fox News Channel on YouTube it's the best way to get our latest interviews and highlights and click to subscribe to the will Kane podcast for full episodes right now

Channel: Fox News

Views: 4,044,908

Keywords: fox news, fox news channel, fox news will cain, will cain podcast, will cain fox news, fox news will cain podcast, the will cain podcast, will cain podcast fox news, fox news podcast, fox news media, fox news network, carlson, fnc, fox news voices, tucker, tucker carlson, tucker carlson monologue, tucker carlson monologue tonight, tucker carlson tonight, tucker monologue, tucker monologue tonight, tucker reacts, tucker tonight

Id: SthTZ5jZfDk

Length: 56min 45sec (3405 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 07 2022

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[u/MmmhmmmTrump]

Thanks for posting this!

[u/H_G_Cuckerino]

Excellent interview

Tucker presents his views really well

He would have been a typical moderate in the 90s before the left brainwashed the masses