Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #414
- He said very specifically, "Depending on the questions you ask Putin, you could be arrested or not." And I said, "Listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US government has like control over my questions and they'll arrest me if
I ask the wrong question. Like, how are we better
than Putin if that's true?" Killing Navalny during the
Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding, maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all. I don't think we kill
people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh wait, no, we do it a
lot, and have for 80 years. - The following is a conversation with Tucker Carlson, a highly influential and often controversial
political commentator. When he was at, Fox,
Time Magazine called him the most powerful conservative in America. After Fox, he has continued to host big, impactful interviews and shows on X, on the, "Tucker Carlson Podcast"
and on, tuckercarlson.com. I recommend subscribing,
even if you disagree with his views, it is always good to explore a diversity of perspectives. Most recently, he
interviewed the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We discussed this, the topic
of Russia, Putin, Navalny, and the war in Ukraine at
length in this conversation. Please allow me to say a few
words about the very fact that I did this interview. I have received a lot
of criticism publicly and privately when I announced that I'll be talking with Tucker. For people who think I
shouldn't do the conversation with Tucker or generally think
that there are certain people I should never talk to. I'm sorry, but I disagree. I will talk to everyone
as long as they're willing to talk genuinely in long form. for two, three, four or more hours. I will talk to Putin and to Zelensky, to Trump, and to Biden, to Tucker and to Jon Stewart, AOC, Obama, and many more people with very
different views on the world. I want to understand people and ideas. That's what long form conversations are supposed to be all about. Now for people who criticize me for not asking tough
questions, I hear you, but again, I disagree. I do often ask tough questions,
but I try to do it in a way that doesn't shut down the other person, putting them into a defensive state where they give only
shallow talking points. Instead, I'm looking
always for the expression of genuinely held ideas and
the deep roots of those ideas. When done well, this gives us a chance to really hear out the guest and to begin to understand
what and how they think. And I trust the intelligence
of you, the listener, to make up your own mind,
to see through the bullshit, to the degree there's bullshit and to see to the heart of the person. Sometimes I fail at this, but I'll continue working
my ass off to improve. All that said, I find that this
no tough questions criticism often happens when the guest is a person the listener simply hates
and wants to see them grilled into embarrassment, called
a liar, a greedy egomaniac, a killer, maybe even an
evil human being and so on. If you are such a listener, what you want is drama, not wisdom. In this case, this show is not for you. There are many shows
you can go to for that with hosts that are way more charismatic and entertaining than I'll ever be. If you do stick around,
please know I will work hard to do this well and to keep improving. Thank you for your patience
and thank you for your support. I love you all. This is the, "Lex Fridman Podcast." To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Tucker Carlson. What was your first impression when you met Vladimir
Putin for the interview? - I thought he seemed nervous and I was very surprised by that. And I thought he seemed like someone who'd overthought it a
little bit, who had a plan. And I don't think that's the right way to go into any interview. My strong sense, having done
a lot of them for a long time, is that it's better to
know what you think, to say as much as you can honestly, so you don't get confused by your own lies and just to be yourself. And I thought that he went into it like an over-prepared student. And I kept thinking, "Why is he nervous?" But I guess because he thought a lot of people were gonna see it. - But he was also probably prepared to give you a full lesson
in history as he did. - (chuckles) Well, I was
totally shocked by that and very annoyed because I
thought he was filibustering. I thought he would, I mean,
I asked him as I usually do, the most obvious dumbest question ever, which is, why'd you do this? And he had said in a speech
that I think is worth reading. I don't speak Russian, so I haven't heard it in the original, but he had said at the moment
of the beginning of the war, he had given this address to Russians, in which he explained
to the fullest extent we have seen so far why he was doing this. And he said in that speech,
I fear that NATO, the West, the United States, the
Biden administration will preemptively attack us. And I thought, "Well, that's interesting." I mean, I can't evaluate
whether that's a fear rooted in reality or
one rooted in paranoia. But I thought, "Well, that's
an answer right there." And so I alluded to that in my question and rather than answering
it, he went off on this long, from my perspective, kind of tiresome, sort of greatest hits of Russian history. And the implication I thought was, "Well, Ukraine is ours, or Eastern
Ukraine is ours already." And I thought he was doing that to avoid answering the question. So, the last thing you want when you're interviewing
someone is to get rolled. And I didn't wanna be rolled. So, a couple of times interrupted
him, politely I thought, but he wasn't having it. And then I thought, "You know what? I'm not here to prove that
I'm a great interviewer." It's kind of not about me, I
want to know who this guy is. I think a Western audience,
a global audience, has a right to know more about the guy, and so just let him talk. 'Cause it's not, you know, I don't feel like my reputation's on the line. People have already drawn
conclusions about me, I suppose to the extent they have. I'm not interested really
in those conclusions anyway, so just let him talk. And so I calmed down
and just let him talk. And in retrospect, I thought that was really,
really interesting. Whether you agree with it or not, or whether you think it's relevant to the war in Ukraine or
not, that was his answer, and so it's inherently significant. - Well, you said he was nervous. Were you nervous? Were you afraid that says Vladimir Putin? - I wasn't afraid at all,
and I wasn't nervous at all. - Did you drink tea beforehand? - (chuckles) No, I did my normal regimen of nicotine pouches and coffee. No, I'm not a tea drinker. I try not to eat all the
sweets they put in front of us, which is that is my
weakness is eating crap. But you eat a lot of sugar, as you know before an
interview, and it does dull you, so I successfully resisted that. But no, I wasn't nervous. I wasn't nervous the
whole time I was there. Why would I be? I'm 54, my kids are
grown, I believe in God. I'm almost never nervous. But no, I wasn't nervous,
I was just interested. I mean, I couldn't. I'm interested in Soviet
history, I studied it in college. I've read about it my entire life. My dad worked in the Cold War. It was a constant topic of conversation. And so to be in the Kremlin in a room where Stalin made decisions,
either wartime decisions or decisions about murdering
his own population, I just couldn't get over it. We were in Molotov's old office. So for me that was, I was
just blown away by that. I thought I knew a lot about Russia. It turns out I knew a lot
about the Soviet period, the 1937 purge trials,
the famine in Ukraine. Like I knew a fair amount about that, but I really knew nothing
about contemporary Russia, less than I thought I did it turned out. But yeah, I was just blown
away by where we were. And that's kind of one of the main drivers at this stage in my life of, you know, that that's why I do what I do is 'cause I'm interested in stuff and I wanna see as much as I can and try and draw conclusions from
it to the extent I can, so I was very much caught up in that. But no, I wasn't nervous. I didn't think he was gonna
like, kill me or something. And I'm not particularly
afraid of that anyway. - Not afraid of dying? - Not really, no. I mean, again, it's an age
and stage in life thing. I mean, I have four children, so there were times when they were little where I was terrified of dying, 'cause if I died it would
have huge consequences. But no, I mean, at this
point, I don't want to die, I'm really enjoying my life. But I've been with the
same girl for 40 years and I have four children
who I'm extremely close to. Well now five, a daughter-in-law. And I love them all, I'm
really close to them. I tell 'em I love them every day. I've had a really interesting life. - What was the goal? Just linger on that. What was the goal for the interview? Like, how were you thinking about it? What would success be like
in your head leading into it. - To bring more information.
- [Lex] Just information? - To the public, yeah, that's it. I mean, I have really
strong feelings about what's happening not just
in Ukraine or Russia, but around the world. I think the world is resetting to the grave disadvantage
of the United States. I don't think most Americans
are aware of that at all. And so, that's my view. And I've stated it many
times because it's sincere, but my goal was to have more
information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions about whether this is a good idea. I mean, I guess I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from
the American perspective, which is a tiny group of
dumb people in Washington has decided to do this for reasons they won't really explain. And you don't have a role in it at all as an American citizen, as the
person who's paying for it, whose children might
be drafted to fight it, to shut up and obey. I just reject that completely. I think, I guess I'm a
child of a different era. I'm a child of participatory
democracy to some extent, where your opinion as a
citizen is not irrelevant. And I guess the level of lying about it was starting to drive me crazy. And I've said, and I will say again, I'm not an expert on the regional, really any region other
than say Western Maine. I just don't, you know, I'm not Russian. But it was obvious to me
that we were being lied to in ways that were just, it
was crazy the scale of lies. And I'll just give you one example. The idea that Ukraine would
inevitably win this war. Now victory was never, as it
never is defined precisely, nothing's ever defined precisely,
which is always to tell that there's deception at
the heart of the claim. But Ukraine's on the verge of
winning, well, I don't know. I mean, I'm hardly a tactician
or a military expert. For the fifth time, I'm not an
expert on Russia or Ukraine. I just look at Wikipedia. Russia has a hundred million
more people than Ukraine. A hundred million. It has much deeper industrial capacity, war material capacity
than all of NATO combined. For example, Russia is
turning out artillery shells, which are significant in a ground war at a ratio of seven to one compared to all NATO countries combined. That's all of Europe. Russia is producing seven
times the artillery shells as all of Europe combined. What, that's an amazing fact. And it turns out to be a
really significant fact. In fact, the significant fact. But if you ask your average
person in this country, even a fairly well informed
person of good faith who's just trying to
understand what's going on, who's gonna win this war? Well, Ukraine's gonna win. They're on the right side. And they think that because our media, who really just do serve the
interest of the US government, period, they are state
media in that sense, have told him that for over two years. And I was in Hungary last summer talking to the prime
minister, Viktor Orban, who's a, you know, whatever you think of, he's a very smart guy, very smart guy. Like smart on a scale that we're
not used to in our leaders. And I said to him off camera,
so is Ukraine gonna win? And he looked at me like I was deranged, like, or I was congenitally,
deficient, are they gonna win? No, of course they can't win. It's tiny compared to Russia. Russia has a wartime economy. Ukraine doesn't really have an economy. No, look at the populations. He was like, looked at
me like I was stupid. And I said to him, I think
most Americans believe that because NBC News and CNN
and all the news channels, all of them tell them that
because it's framed exclusively in moral terms and it's
Churchill versus Hitler. And of course Churchill's
gonna prevail in the end. And it's just so dishonest that
even, it doesn't even matter what I want to happen or
what I think ought to happen. That's a distortion of what is happening. And if I have any job at all, which I sort of don't
actually at this point, but if I do have a job, it's
to just try to be honest. And that's a lie. - There is a more nuanced discussion about what winning might look like. - For sure. - A nuanced discussion is not being had, but it is possible for Ukraine
to, quote, unquote, "win" with the help of the United States. - I guess that conversation needs to begin by defining terms. And the key term is win. What does that mean? - Peace, a ceasefire, who owns which land. - Yes.
- Coming to the table with as you call the
parent, the United States. - Yes. - Putting leverage on the negotiation to make sure there's a fairness. - Amen, well, of course, and
I should just restate this, I am not emotionally involved in this. I'm American in every sense. And my only interest is in America. I'm not leaving ever. And so I'm looking at this
purely from our perspective, what's good for us. But I also as a human
being, as a Christian, I mean, I hate war. And anybody who doesn't hate war shouldn't have power, in my opinion. So I agree with those,
that definition vehemently. A victory is like not
killing an entire generation of your population. It's not being completely
destroyed to be eaten up by BlackRock or whatever
comes next for them. So yeah, we were close to
that a year and a half ago. And the Biden administration
dispatched Boris Johnson, the briefly prime minister
of the UK to stop it and to say to Zelensky, who
I feel sorry for, by the way, 'cause he's caught between these forces that are bigger than he is to say, no, you cannot come to any terms with Russia. And the result of that has
not been a Ukrainian victory. It's just been more dead Ukrainians and a lot of profit for the West. It's a moral crime in my opinion. And I tried to ask Boris Johnson about it because why wouldn't I,
after he denounced me as a tool of the Kremlin or something, and he demanded a million
dollars to talk to me. - [Lex] Oh wow. - And this just happened last week. And by the way, in writing too, I'm not making this. - Just for the record, you demanded a million dollars from me to talk to me today.
- (chuckles) I did. And you paid. No, I'm of course kidding. And I said to his guy, I said, I just interviewed Putin
who was widely recognized as a bad guy, and he did it for free. He didn't demand a million dollars, he wasn't in this for profit. Like, are you telling
me that Boris Johnson is sleazier than Vladimir Putin? And of course that is the message. And so, I guess these are really, it's not just about Boris Johnson being a sad rapacious fraud,
which he is obviously, but it's about like the future of the west and the future of Ukraine,
this country that purportedly we care so much about all
these people are dying and like what is the end game? It's also deranged that I
didn't imagine and don't imagine that I could like add
anything very meaningful to the conversation because
I'm not a genius, okay? But I felt like I could at the very least, puncture some of the lies. And that's an inherent good. - Vladimir Putin, after the interview said that he wasn't fully satisfied because you weren't aggressive enough. (Tucker laughing) You didn't ask sharp enough questions. First of all, what do you
think about him saying that? - I don't even understand it. I guess it does seem like
the one Putin statement that Western media ticket face value, everything else Putin says is a lie except his criticism of me, which is true. But I mean, I have no idea
what he meant by that. I can only tell you what my
goal was, as I've suggested, was not to make it about me. I watched, you know, he
hasn't done any interviews of any kind for years, but
the last interview he did with an English speaking
reporter, Western media reporter, was like many of the other interviews he'd done with Western media reporters, Mike Wallace's son did
an interview with him that was of the same variety. And it was all about him. I'm a good person, you're a bad person. And I just feel like
that's the most tiresome, fruitless kind of interview. It's not about me. I don't think I'm an
especially good person. I've definitely never claimed to be, but people can make their own judgements. And again, the only judgements that I care about are my
wife and children and God. So I'm just not interested
in proving I'm a good person. And I just wanna hear from him. And I had a lot of... I mean, you should see. I almost never write questions
down, but I did in this case because I had months to,
well I had three years to think about it as I was
trying to book the interview, which I did myself. But they were all, it was all about internal Russian politics and Navalny. And I had a lot of, I thought
really good questions. And then at the last second,
and you make these decisions, as you know since you
interview people a lot, often you make them on the fly. And I thought, no, I want
to talk about the things that haven't been talked about and that I think matter
in a world historic sense. And the number one among
those, of course, is the war and what it means for the world. And so, I stuck to that. I mean, I could have asked. I did ask about Gershkovich, who I felt sorry for, and I wanted Putin to release him to me. And I was offended that he didn't. I thought his rationale was absurd. Well, we wanna trade him for someone. I said, well that doesn't
that make him a hostage? You know, which of course it does. But other than that, I
really wanted to keep it to the things that I think matter most. People can judge whether
I did a good job or not, but that was my decision. - In the moment, what was your gut, did you wanna ask some tough questions as follow ups on certain topics? - I dunno what it would mean
to ask a tough question. - Clarifying questions,
I suppose they would- - I guess. I just wanted him to talk. I just wanted to hear his perspective. Again, I've probably asked
more asshole questions than like any living American. - [Lex] Sure. - I'm has been noted correctly, I'm a dick by my nature. And so I don't, I just feel
at this stage of my life, I didn't need to prove that I could, like, "Vladimir Putin answer
the question." (laughs) - Sure, for sure. - You know, I think if I
had been, 34 instead of 54, I definitely would've done that, 'cause I would've thought,
this is really about me and I need to prove myself and all stuff. No, there's a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at scale people do not understand. The US dollars going away. That was of course, inevitable ultimately because everything dies,
including currencies. But that death, that process of death has been accelerated
exponentially by the behavior of the Biden administration
and the US Congress, particularly the sanctions. And peoples don't understand what the ramifications of that are. Ramifications are poverty
in the United States, okay? So, I just wanted to get to that because I'm coming at this
from not a global perspective, I'm coming at it from
an American perspective. - So, you mentioned Navalny. After you left, Navalny died in prison. - [Tucker] Yes. - What are your thoughts on, just at a high-level
first about his death? - Well, it's awful. I mean, imagine dying in prison. I've thought about it a lot. I've known a lot of
people in prison a lot, including some very good friends of mine, so I felt instantly sad about it. From a geopolitical perspective, I don't know any more than that. And I laugh at and sort of resent, but mostly find amusing the
claims by American politicians who really are the dumbest politicians in the world actually. This happened and here's what it means. And it's like, actually
as a factual matter, we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened. We have no freaking idea what happened. We can say, and I did say,
and I will say again, I think, I don't think you should put
opposition figures in prison. I really don't. I don't, period. It happens a lot around the world. Happens in this country as you know, and I'm against all of it. But do we know how we died? The short answer, no, we don't. Now, if I had to guess, I
would say killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding. Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all. I don't see it. But maybe they killed him. I mean, they certainly put him
in prison, which I'm against, but here's what I do know
is that we don't know. And so when Chuck Schumer
stands up and rah, Joe Biden reads some card in front of him with lines about Navalny, it's like, I'm allowed to laugh at
that because it's absurd. You don't know. - There's a lot of interesting ideas about if he was killed, who killed him. - [Tucker] Yeah. - Because it could be Putin, it could be somebody in
Russia who's not Putin. - Yeah.
- It could be Ukrainians 'cause it would benefit the war. - They killed Dugin's daughter in Moscow. So yeah, it's possible. - And it could be, I
mean, the United States could also be involved. - I don't think we kill
people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh wait, no, we do it a
lot and have for 80 years. And it's shameful. I can say that as an American, 'cause it's my money in my name. Yeah. I'm really offended by that. And I never thought that was true. And I spent, again, I'm
much older than you. And so I spent my worldview
was defined by the Cold War. And very much in the house I lived in Georgetown, Washington, DC, that's what we talked about. And yeah, and the left at the time, I don't know the wacko MIT professor who I never had any respect for, who I know you've interviewed, et cetera. Like the hard left was always saying, well, the United States government is interfering in other elections. And I just dismissed that
completely out of hand as stupid and actually a slander against my country. But it turned out to all be true or substantially true anyway. And that's been a real shock for me in middle age to understand that. But anyway, as to Navalny,
look, I don't know, but we should always proceed on the basis of what we do know, which
is to say on the basis of truth, knowable truth. And if you have an entire
policymaking apparatus that is making the biggest decisions on the face of the planet,
on the basis of things that are bullshit or lies, you're gonna get bad outcomes every time. Every time. And that's why we are where we are. - Does it bother you that basically the most
famous opposition figure in Russia is sitting in prison? - Well, of course it does. Of course it bothers me. I mean, it bothered me when I got there. It bothers me now. I was sad when he died. Yeah, I mean that's
one of the measures of, it's one of the basic
measures of political freedom. Are you imprisoning people who oppose you? Are you imprisoning people who
pose a physical risk to you? I mean, there's some
subjective decision making involved in these things,
however, big picture. Yeah, do you have
opposition leaders in jail? It's not a politically free society, and Russia isn't, obviously. And as I said, a friend
of mine from childhood, an American actually
was a wonderful person lives in Russia with his Russian, Moscow, with his Russian wife. And I had dinner with him. He's a very balanced guy,
totally non-political person and speaks Russian and loves
his many Russian children, and loves the culture. And there's a lot to love. The culture that produced Tolstoy. It's not a gas station
with nuclear weapons. Sorry, only an a moron would say that it's a very deep culture. I don't fully understand it,
of course, but I admire it. Who wouldn't? But I asked him like,
what's it like living here? And he goes, "It's great." Moscow is a great city indisputably. He said, "You don't wanna get
involved in Russian politics." And I said, "What?" He said, "Well, you could get hurt, you could wind up like
Navalny if you did." But also, it's just too complicated. The Russian mind is not exactly the same. It's a Western, it's a European city, but it's not quite European. And the way they think is very,
very complex. Very complex. It's just, it's too complicated,
just don't get involved. And I would just say two things. One, I'm not sure, I
mean like, I don't know, but my strong sense is that
Navalny death, whoever did it, probably didn't have a lot to do with the coming election in Russia. My sense from talking to Putin
and the people around him is they're not really focused on that. I mean, in fact, I asked
one of his top advisors, when's the election? And she looked at me completely confused. She didn't know the date of
the election, okay? (chuckles) She's like, March. Okay. And I asked a bunch of
other people just in Moscow, who's Putin running
against, like nobody knew. So it's not a real election, right? In the sense that we
would recognize at all. Second, I was really struck
by so many things in Moscow and really bothered by, deeply bothered by a lot of things that I saw there. But one thing I noticed was
the total absence of cult of personality propaganda,
which I expected to see and have seen around the world. Jordan, for example, I dunno
if you've been to Jordan, but go to Jordan in every building there are pictures of the
king and his extended family. And that's a sign of political insecurity. You don't create a cult of personality unless you're personally insecure. And also unless you're worried about losing your grip on power, none of that. It's interesting and I
expected to see a lot of it, like statues of Putin. Yeah, there are no statues of anybody other than like Christian saints. So that was like, I'm not quite sure. I'm just reporting what I saw. So yes, in a political sense,
it's not a free country. It's not a democracy in the way that we would understand it or want. I don't wanna live there, okay? 'Cause I like to say what I think. In fact I make my living doing it. But it's not Stalinist
in a recognizable way. And anyone who says it is
should go there and tell me how. - I mean this question about
the freedom of the press is underlying the very fact of the interview you're having with him. So you might not need to
ask the Navalny question, but did you feel like, are
there things I shouldn't say? - I mean, how honest do you want me to be? I mean it, when I say I felt
not one twinge of concern for the eight days that I was there. Maybe I just didn't. And I feel like I've got a pretty strong gut sense of things. I rely on it. I make all my decisions based
on how I feel, my instincts. And I didn't feel it at all. My lawyers before I left. And these are people who
work for a big law firm. This is not Bob's law firm, this is one of the biggest law firms
in the world, said, "You're gonna get arrested if you do this by the US government on
sanctioned violations." And I said, well, I don't recognize the legitimacy of that actually, 'cause I'm American and I've
lived here my whole life. And that's so outrageous that
I'm happy to face that risk because I so reject the premise, okay? I'm an American, I should be able to talk to anyone I want to." And I plan to exercise that freedom, which I think I was born with. And I gave them this long lecture. They're like, "We're just lawyers." But that was, it was a,
lemme put it this way, I dunno how much you've
dealt with lawyers, but it costs many thousands of dollars to get a conclusion like that. Like they sent a whole bunch
of their summer associates or whatever they sent,
they put a lot of people on this question, checked a
lot of precedent and I think, and they sent me a 10 page memo on it and their sincere conclusion
was do not do this. And of course it made me mad. So I was lecturing on the phone and I had another call with
a head lawyer and he said, "Well look, a lot will
depend on the questions that you ask Putin. If you're seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested
when you come back." And I was like, "You're describing
a fascist country, okay? You're saying that the US
government will arrest me if I don't ask the
questions they want asked is that's what you're saying?" "Well, we just think
based on what's happened, that that's possible." And so I'm just telling you what happened. - So, you were okay
being arrested in Moscow. and arrested back in- - I didn't think for a second. I mean maybe, look, I don't speak Russian, I'd never been there before. Everything about the
culture was brand new to me. Ignorance does protect you sort of, when you have no freaking
idea what's going on, you're not worried about it. Like this has happened to me many times. There's a principle there
that extends throughout life. So it's completely possible
that I was in grave peril and didn't know it, 'cause
like how would I know it? I'm like a bumbling English
speaker from California, but I didn't feel it at all. - But the lawyers did. - Yeah, I mean it scared
the crap out of people. And look, and you have to pay in cash. They don't take credit
cards because of sanctions. And you have to go
through all these hoops, just procedural hoops to go to Russia. Which I was willing to do because I wanted to interview Putin because they told me I couldn't. But then there's another fact, which is that I was being
surveilled by the US government, intensely surveilled by the US government. And this came out, they admitted it, the NSA admitted it a couple of years ago that they were up in my Signal account, and then they leaked it
to, The New York Times. They did that again before I left. And I know that because two
New York Times reporters, one of whom I actually like a lot, said, "Oh, you're going and called other people, Oh, he's going to interview Putin." I hadn't told anybody that, like anybody. My wife, two producers, that's it. So, they got that from the government. Then I'm over there and of
course I wanna see Snowden, who I admire. And so, we have a mutual friend, so I got his text and come on over and Snowden does not
want publicity at all. And so, but I really wanted
to have dinner with him. So we had dinner in my hotel room at the Four Seasons in Moscow. And I tried to convince him, I'd love to do an interview,
shoot it on my iPhone, I'd love to take a picture together and put it on the internet because I just wanna show support. 'Cause I think he's been railroaded. He had no interest in living in Russia, no intention of being in Russia. The whole thing is a lie. But anyway, whatever, all this stuff. And he just said respectfully, I'd rather not anyone know that we met. Great. The only reason I'm telling
you this is because, and I didn't tell anybody and
I didn't text it to anybody. Okay, except him. Semafor, Semafor runs this piece saying reporting information they got from the US Intel agencies leaking against me using
my money in my name in a supposedly free country. They run this piece saying
I'd met with Snowden like it was a crime or something. So again, my interest
is in the United States and preserving freedoms here,
the ones that I grew up with. And if you have a media establishment that acts as an auxiliary of, or acts as employees of the
national security state, you don't have a free country. And that's where we are. And I'm not guessing, 'cause I spent my entire
life in that world. 33 years I worked in big news companies, and so I know how it works, I know the people involved in it. I could name them. Ben Smith of Semafor among many others. And I find that really objectionable, not just on principle either,
in effect, in practice, I don't wanna live in
that kind of country. And people are like, they externalize all of their anxiety about
this, I have noticed. So, it's like Russia's not free. Yeah, I know. Neither's Burkina Faso. Like most countries aren't
free actually, but we are. We're the United States, we're different. And that's my concern. Preserving that is my concern. And so they get so exercised
about what's happening in other parts of the world, places they've never
been know nothing about. It's almost a way of
ignoring what's happening in their own country right around them. I find it so strange and sad and weird. - So the NSA was tracking
you, as do you think CIA was? Is people still tracking you? - Look, one of the things
I did before I went, just because of the business I'm in, all of us are in and
just 'cause we live here, we all have theories about
secure communications channels. Like Signal is secure, Telegraph isn't, or WhatsApp is owned by Mark Zuckerberg. You can't trust, okay? So I thought, before I go over here, I was getting all this, we're having all these conversations, my producers and I about this, and I decide, I'm just
gonna actually find out like what's really going on. So, I talked to two people who would know, trust me, and it's all I can say. And I hate to be like,
"Oh, I talked to people who would know by kentu there," but I mean it, they would know. And both of them said
exactly the same thing, which is, are you joking? Nothing is secure. Everything is monitored all the time. If state actors are involved,. I mean you can keep the, you know, whatever, the Malaysian mafia from reading your texts
probably you cannot keep the big intel services
from reading your texts. It's not possible. Any of them. Or listening to your calls. And that was the firm conclusion of people who've been involved
in it for a long time. Decades, in both cases. So I just thought, "You know what? I don't care, I don't care. I'm not sending a ton of naked pictures of myself to anybody." - Not a ton, just a little.
- (laughs) A ton. I'm 54, dude, probably not too many. - [Lex] All right. - But you, so I'm like, I'm just, so the guys I travel with, three people I work with who I love, who I've been around the
world with for many years, and I know them really, really well. And they all got separate phones and I'm leaving my other phone
back in New York or whatever. And I just decided I don't care actually. And I resent having to no privacy because privacy is a
prerequisite for freedom, but I can't change it, and so I have the same
surveilled cell phone. And I do switch them
out because there it is. Because if you have too
much spyware on your phone, this is true. It wrecks the battery.
(Lex chuckling) No, I'm serious. It does. And we got, it was, I don't know, five or six years ago
we went to North Korea and my phone started acting crazy. And so I talked to someone on
the National Security Council who called me about this, somehow knew that your
phone is being surveilled by the South Korean government. I was like, why the, I like
the South Korean government. Why would they do that? Because they want more information. They thought I was talking
to Trump or whatever. So, but I could tell
because all of a sudden the thing would just
drain in like 45 minutes. So, that's the downside. - So you keep switching phones, getting new phones for the battery life. That's good. - Yeah. I mean, I try not to do it, I'm kind of flinty
Yankee type in some ways, so I don't like to
spend a thousand dollars with a freaking Apple
corporation too often, but yeah, I do. - I mean, you say it lightly, but it's really troublesome that you as a journalist would be tracked. - Well, they leaked it to Semafor, and they leaked it to The New York Times. Look, I would even put up,
well there's nothing I can do, so I have to put up with everything, okay? But I would probably not be actively angry about being surveilled
because I'm just so old and I actually do pay my taxes. I'm not sleeping with the
makeup artist or whatever, so I don't care that much. The fact that they are leaking against me, that the intel services
in the United States are actively engaged in
US politics and media. That's so unacceptable. That makes democracy impossible. There's no defense of that. And yet NBC News, Ken Dilanian
and the rest will defend it. And it's like, and not just
on NBC news, by the way, on the supposedly
conservative channels too. They will defend it. And there's no defending
that you can't have democracy if the intel services are
tampering in elections and information, period. - So, you had no fear. Your lawyer said, be careful
which questions he asked you said, I don't have- - Well, the lawyer said no,
he said very specifically "Depending on the questions you ask Putin, you could be arrested or not." And I said, "Listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US
government has like control over my questions and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question. Like, how are we better
than Putin if that's true?" And by the way, that's
just what the lawyer said, but I can't overstate one
of the biggest law firms in the United States, smart
lawyers we've used for years. So, I was really shocked by it. - You said leaders kill, leaders lie. - Yeah, I don't believe
in leaders very much like this whole like Zelensky's
Jesus and Putin's Satan. It's like, no, they're all
leaders of countries, okay? Like grow up a little bit, you child. Have you ever met a leader? Like all of the, first of
all, anyone who seeks power is damaged morally, in my opinion. You shouldn't be seeking power. You can't seek power or
wealth for its own sake and remain a decent person. That's just true. So there aren't any like
really virtuous billionaires and there aren't any really
virtuous world leaders. You have grades of virtue. Some are better than others for sure. But I mean, in other words, Zelensky may be better than Putin. I'm open to that possibility. But to claim that one is evil
and the other is virtuous, it's like you're revealing
that you're a child. You don't know anything about how the world actually
is or what reality is. - That's quite a realist perspective. But there is a spectrum. - There is a spectrum, absolutely. I'm not saying they're
all the same, they're not. - And our task is to figure out where on the spectrum they lie, and the leader's task is to confuse us and convince us they're
one of the good guys. - Of course, of course. But I actually reject
even that formulation. I don't think it's
always about the leaders. I mean, of course the
leaders make the difference. A good leader has a healthy country and a bad leader has a decaying country, which is something to think about. But it's about the ideas and the policies and the practical effect of things. So we're very much caught
up in the personalities of various leaders, not
just our political leaders, but our business leaders,
our cultural leaders. Are they good people? Do they have the right thoughts? It's like, no, I ask a
much more basic question. What are the fruits of their behavior? And I always make it personal because I think everything is personal. Does his wife respect him? Do his children respect him? How are they doing? Is the country he runs thriving
or is it falling apart? If your life expectancy is going down, if your suicide rate is going up, if your standard of living is tanking, you're not a good leader. I don't care what you tell me. I don't care what you claim you represent. I don't care about the ideas or the systems that you say you embody. It's dogs barking to me. How's your life expectancy? How's your suicide rate? What's drug use like? Are people having children? Are people's children more
likely to live in a free or more prosperous
society than than you did and their grandparents did? Like those are the only
measures that matter to me. The rest is a lie. But anyway, the point is
we just get so obsessed with like the theater
around people or people and we miss the bigger
things that are happening and we allow ourselves to be
deceived into thinking that what doesn't matter at all matters. That moral victories are all that matters. No actually facts in the ground victories matter more than anything. I mean you certainly
see it in this country. Black Lives Matter for example. How many black people did that help? It hurt a lot of black people, but in the end we should
be able to measure it. Like how many black people
have died by gunfire in the four years since George Floyd died? Well the number's gone way, way up. And that was a Black
Lives Matter operation, defund the police. So I think we can say as a factual matter, data-based matter, Black Lives Matter didn't help black people. And if it did tell me how. Well, these are important
moral victories, I'm over that. That's just another lie,
long litany of lies. So I try to see the rest
of the world that way, but more than anything I
try to see world events through the lens of an
American because I am one. And what does this mean for us? And it's not even the war, it's the sanctions that
will forever change the United States, our standard of living, the way our government operates. That more than any single
thing in my lifetime screwed the United States. Levying those sanctions in
the way that we did was crazy. For me the main takeaway
from my eight days in Moscow was not Putin. He's a leader with, whatever. None of them are that different actually in my pretty extensive experience. No, it was Moscow that blew my mind. I was not prepared for that at all. And I thought I knew a lot about Moscow. My dad worked there on
and off in the 80s and 90s 'cause US government employee and he was always coming back, "Moscow, it's a nightmare." And all this stuff, no electricity. I got there almost exactly two years after sanctions totally cut off from Western financial
systems, kicked outta Swift, can't use US dollars, no
banking, no credit cards. And that city is just factually, I'm not endorsing the system. I'm not endorsing the whole country. I didn't go to Lake Baikal,
I didn't go to Turkmenistan. I just went to Moscow, largest city in Europe, 13 million people. I drove all around it. And that city is way
nicer outwardly anyway, I don't live there, than
any city we have by a lot. And by nicer, let me be specific. No graffiti, no homeless, no people using drugs in
the street, totally tidy, no garbage on the ground
and no forest of steel and concrete soul destroying buildings. None of the postmodern architecture that oppresses us without
even our knowledge. None of that crap. It's a truly beautiful city. And that's not an endorsement of Putin. And by the way, it didn't
make me love Putin. It made me hate my own leaders because I grew up in a country that had cities kind of like that, that were nice cities that were safe. And we don't have that anymore. And how did that happen? Did Putin do that? I don't think Putin did that actually. I think the people in
charge of it, the mayors, the governors, the
president, they did that and they should be held
accountable for it. - So, I think cleanliness
and architectural design is not the entirety of the metrics that matter When you measure a city. - They're the main metrics that matter. They're the main metrics that matter. The main metrics that
matter are cleanliness, safety, and beauty in my opinion. And one of the big lies that
we are told in our world is that no, something you can't measure that has no actual effect
on your life matters most. Bullshit, what matters
most, to say it again. Beauty, safety, cleanliness, lots of other things matter too. A whole bunch of things matter. But if I were to put them in order, it's not some like theoretical. Well actually I don't know if you know that the Duma has no power. It's okay, I get that. Freedom of speech
matters enormously to me. They have less freedom of speech in Russia than we do in the United States. We are superior to them in that way. But you can't tell me
that living in a city where your 6-year-old daughter
can walk to the bus stop and ride on a clean bus or
ride in a beautiful subway car that's on time and not get
assaulted, that doesn't matter. No, that matters almost
more than anything actually. And we can have both. And like the normal regime
defenders and morons, Jon Stewart or whatever he is
calling himself, they're like, "Whoa, that's the price of freedom." Like people shitting on the sidewalk is the price of freedom. It's like you can't fool me because I've lived here for 54 years. I know that it's not the price of freedom, 'cause I lived in a country that was both free and clean and orderly. So, that's not a trade off
I think I have to make. That is the beauty of
being a little bit older because you're like, no,
I remember that actually. It wasn't what you're saying. We didn't have racial segregation in 1985. It was a really nice country
that kind of respected itself. I was here and I think with younger people you can tell 'em that and they're like, well 1985 you were selling
slaves in Madison Square Garden. It's like no, they weren't. You're going to Madison Square Garden and not stepping over a
single fentanyl addict. - It is true. There doesn't have to be a trade off between cleanliness and freedom of speech. But it is also true that in
dictatorships, cleanliness is, and architectural design
is easier to achieve and perfect and often is
done, so you can show off, look how great our cities
are while you're suppressing. - Worse, of course, I
agree with that vehemently. This is not a defense of
the Russian system at all. And if I felt that way, I
would not only move there, but I would announce I was moving there. I'm not ashamed of my views. I never have been. And for all the people who are trying to impute secret motives to my words, I'm like the one person in America you don't need to do that with. If you think I'm a racist,
ask me and I'll tell you. - Are you a racist? - No, I'm a sexist though. (laughs) - All right, great. - Anyway, no, but if I was like a defender of Vladimir Putin, I would just say I'm defending
Vladimir Putin now, I'm not. I am attacking our leaders and I'm grieving over the low
expectations of our people. You don't need to put up with
this, you don't need to put up with foreign invaders stealing from you, occupying your kids' school. Your kids can't get an education because people from foreign
countries broke our laws and showed up here and
they've taken over the school. That's not a feature of freedom actually, that's the opposite. That's what enslavement looks like. And so I'm just saying raise
your expectations a little bit. You can have a clean,
functional, safe country. Crime is totally optional. Crime is something our leaders
decide to have or not have. It's not something that
just appears organically. I wrote a book about crime 30 years ago. I thought a lot about this. You have as much crime as
you put up with, period. And it doesn't make you less
free to not tolerate murder. In fact, it makes you unfree
to have a lot of murders. And so I just, but it makes
me sad that people are like, "Well, you know, I guess this is, I can't like live in New York City anymore 'cause of inflation and
filth and illegal aliens and people shooting each other," but I'm glad because this is
vibrant and strong and free." It's like that's not
freedom actually at all. - Your point is well taken. You can have both, but do you regret- - We had both.
- [Lex] Yes. - That's the point. We had both, I saw it. - Do you regret to a degree
using the Moscow subway and the grocery store as a mechanism by which to make that point? - No, I mean I thought,
I mean look, I'm one of the more unselfaware people
you will ever interview. So to ask me how will this be perceived? (laughs) I mean, I literally have no idea and kind of limited interest. But I was so shocked by it. I was so shocked by it. And there were two. And to the extent I regret anything and am to blame for
anything, it would be not. And I've done this a lot,
not giving it context, not fully explaining
why are we doing this? The grocery store, I was
shocked by the prices and yes, I'm familiar with exchange rates, but very familiar with exchange
rates, but those don't, and I adjusted them for exchange rates. And this is two years into sanctions, total isolation from the West. So I would expect, in fact, I
did expect until I got there that the supply chains would be crushed. How do you get good stuff if you don't have access
to Western markets? And I didn't fully get the answer 'cause I was occupied doing
other things when I was there. But somehow they have,
and that's the point. And they haven't had the
supply chains problems that I predicted. In other words, sanctions
haven't made the country noticeably worse, okay? So again, this is commentary in the United States and our policymakers. Why are we doing this? It's forcing the rest of the world into a block against us called BRICS. They're getting off the US dollar. That will mean a lot of dollars
are gonna come back here and destroy our economy and
impoverish this country. So the consequences, the
stakes were really high, they're huge. And we're not even hurting Russia. It's like, what the hell are we doing? One, on the subway. That Subway was built by Joseph Stalin right before the Second World War. I'm not endorsing Stalin obviously. Stalinism is the thing that I hate and I don't want to come to my country. I'm making the obvious
point that for over 80 years you've had these frescoes and chandeliers. Maybe they've been redone or whatever, but like somehow the society
has been able to not destroy what its ancestors built. The things that are worth having. And they're a lot. And that, like why don't we have that? And even on a much more terrestrial plane, like, why can't I have a
subway station like that? Why can't my children who live in New York City ride the subway? A lot of people I know
who live in New York City are afraid to ride the subway. Young women especially. That's freedom? No, again, it's slavery. And how can, if Putin can
do this, why can't we? Like what? In other words, I mean
this is like so obvious. I'm a traitor. Okay, so if I'm calling
for American citizens to demand more from their government and higher standards
for their own society, and remember that just 30 years
ago we had a much different and much happier and cleaner
and healthier society where everyone wasn't
fat with diabetes at 40 from poisoned food. Like how is the, I'm not
a traitor to my country. I'm a defender of my country. And by the way, the people
calling me a traitor, they're all like, you know, whatever. They're not, I would
not say they're people who put America's
interest first. (chuckles) To put it mildly. - There's many elements. Like you said, you don't like Stalinism. You're a student of history. Central planning is
good at building subways in a way that's really nice. The thing that accounts for
New York subways, by the way, there's a lot of really positive things about New York subways, not cleanliness, but the efficiency, like the accessibility of how wide it spreads. Now the New York network is incredible. But Moscow under different metrics, results of a capitalist system. And you actually said
that you don't think US is quite a capitalist system, which is an interesting question itself. - That's true. We have more central planning
here than they do in Russia. - No, that's not true. - Of course it is. - You think that's true. - The climate agenda, of course. They're telling the US government has in league with a
couple of big companies, decided to change the way we
produce and consume energy. There's no popular outcry for that. There's never been any mass movement of Americans who's like, I just, I hate my gasoline powered engine. No more diesel. That has been central planning. That is central planning. And you see it up and down our economy. There's no free market
in the United States. You get crossways with the
government, you're done. If you're at scale. I mean maybe if you've got a barber shop or a liquor store or something, but even then you're
regulated by politicians. And so no, I actually am for free markets. I hate monopolies. Our economy is dominated by monopolies. Completely dominated- - Like, what do you mean? - Google, what percentage of
search does Google have? 90. Google's a monopoly by any definition. And Google is just rich enough to continue doing whatever it
wants in violation of US law. So there's no monopoly in
Russia as big as Google. I'm not, again, defending
the Russian system. I'm calling for return to our
old system, which was sensible and moderate and put
the needs of Americans at least somewhere in the top 10, (laughs) somewhere in the top 10. I'm not saying that Standard Oil was like interested in the
welfare of average Americans, but I am saying that
there was a constituency in our political system, in
the Congress for example, different presidential
candidates were like, "No, wait a second, what
is this doing to people? Is it good for people or not?" There's not even a
conversation about that. It's like, shut up and
submit to AI and no offense, and so I'm just-
- Offense taken. (Tucker laughing) I'll write, we will get you. When it's stronger enough.
- Yeah. I have no doubt. - You'll be the first one to go. - As a white man, I just
won't even exist anymore. - Right, so much to say on that one. - I bet when you google my
picture 20 years from now, it'll be a black chick. (Lex chuckling) - A hundred percent. - Well, I hope she's attractive. - I hope so too. It'd probably be an upgrade. (laughs) - So, well, the central planning point is really interesting, but I just don't, I don't know where you're coming from. There's a capitalist system. I mean the United States is one of the most successful capitalist system in the history of earth, so to say- - What's the most successful, I'm just saying that I
think it's changed a lot in the last 15 years and
that we need to update our assumptions about what we're seeing. - [Lex] Sure. - And that's true up and down. That's true with everything. It's true with your neighbor's children who you haven't seen in three years and they come home from
Wesleyan and you're like, "Oh, you've grown." That is true for the
world around us as well. And most of our assumptions
about immigration, about our economy, about our tax system are completely outdated
if you compare them to the current reality. And so I'm just for updating my files and I have a big advantage over you because I am middle aged and so I don't- - You've called yourself old so many times throughout this time. - I don't trust my perceptions of things. So I'm constantly trying
to be like, is that true? I should go there, I should see it. And I guess just in the end,
I trust direct perceptions. Like I don't trust the internet actually. Wikipedia is a joke. Wikipedia could not be more dishonest. It's certainly in the political categories or things that I know a lot about. Occasionally I'll read an
entry written about something that I saw or know the
people involved and I'm like, well, that's a complete liar. You left out the most important fact. And it's like, it's not a reliable guide to reality or history. And that will accelerate with AI where history or perception of the past is completely controlled and distorted. So I think just getting
out there and seeing stuff and seeing that Moscow was not
what I thought it would be, which was a smoldering ruin. Rats in a garbage dump. It was nicer than New York. What the hell? - Direct data is good,
but it's challenging. For example, if you talk to
a lot of people in Moscow or in Russia and you ask
'em is there a censorship? They will usually say yes, there is. - Oh yeah, of course there is. Well, I agree. I mean, just to be clear, I'm not, I have no plans to move to Russia. I think I would probably be
arrested if I moved to Russia. Ed Snowden, who is the most
famous sort of openness, transparency, advocate in the world, I would say along with Assange
doesn't wanna live in Russia. He's had problems with
the Putin government. He's attacked Putin. They don't like it. I mean, I get it, I get it. I'm just saying, what
are the lessons for us? And the main lesson is
we are being lied to like in a way that's
bewildering and very upsetting. I was mad about it all
eight days I was there, 'cause I feel like I'm better
informed than most people, 'cause it's my job to be informed and I'm skeptical of everything. And yet I was completely hoodwinked by it. I would just recommend
to everyone watching this like you think like if
you're really interested, if you're one of those
people and I'm not one, but who's like waking up every day and you've got a Ukrainian flag
on your mailbox or whatever, you're Ukrainian lapel pen
or it's like absurd theater. But if you like sincerely
care about Ukraine or Russia or whatever, why don't
you just hop on a plane for 800 bucks and go see it, okay? That doesn't occur to anyone to do that. And I know it's time consuming
and kind of expensive sort of, not really,
but you benefit so much. I mean I could bore you
for like eight hours. And I know you've had this experience where you think you know what something is or you think you know who someone is and then you have direct
experience of that place or person and you realize all your
preconceptions were totally wrong. They were controlled by somebody else. Like you'd know, in fact,
I won't betray confidences, but off the air we're
talking about somebody and you said, I couldn't
believe the person was not at all like what I thought. Well, that's happened to me- - In the positive direction. - In the positive direction. By the way, for me it's almost
always in that direction. Most people I meet and I've
had the great privilege of meeting a lot of
people over all this time, they're way better than you think or they're more complicated or whatever. But the point is a direct
experience unmediated by liars. There's no substitute for that. - Well, on that point,
direct experience in Ukraine. So I visited Ukraine and witnessed a lot of the same things you
witnessed in Moscow. So first of all, beautiful architecture. - [Tucker] Yes. - And this is a country
that's really in war, so it's not-
- Oh for real. - Like for real where most of the men are either volunteering
or fighting in the war and there's actual tanks in the streets that are going into
your major city of Kyiv, and still the supply chains are working. - [Tucker] Yes. - The handful of months
after the start of the war everything is working. The restaurants are amazing. The most of the people are able
to do some kind of job like, like the life goes on. Cleanliness, like you mentioned. - I love that.
- Security. Like it's incredible. Like there's the crime went to zero. They gave all guns to everybody. The Texas strategy.
- It does work. - Yeah, when you witness it, you realize, okay, there's something to these people. There's something to this country that they're not as
corrupt as you might hear. You hear that Russia is
corrupt, Ukraine is corrupt. You assume it's just all gonna go to shit. - Well, so that's been, and
I haven't been to Ukraine and I've certainly tried and they put me on some kill him immediately list. So I can't, I've tried
to interview Zelensky. He keeps denouncing me. I just want an interview with him. He won't unfortunately.
- [Lex] Yeah. - I would love to do it. - I hope you do.
- I hope I do too. But one of the things
that bothers me most, I love to hear that what
you just said about Kyiv, but I'm not really surprised. One of the things that I'm
most ashamed of is the bigotry that I felt towards Slavic
people, also toward Muslims. I'll just be totally
honest because I lived through decades of
propaganda from NBC News and CNN where I worked about
this or that group of people and they're horrible or whatever. And then you wind... And I kind of believed
it, and I see it now. Like we can't even put the word Russia at Wimbledon 'cause it's so offensive. Well what does the tennis
player have to do with it? Did he invade Ukraine? I don't think he did. Stealing all these business guys yachts and denouncing with oligarchs. Like what do they have to do with it? You know, whatever. Here's my point. The idea that like a whole
group of people is just evil because of their blood. I just don't believe that. I think it's immoral to think that. And I can just tell you my own experience after eight days there. I think it's a really interesting
culture, Slavic culture, which is shared by the way, by
Russia and Ukraine of course. They're first cousins at the most distant and I found 'em really smart
and interesting and informed. I didn't understand a lot
of what they're saying and don't understand the
way their minds work, 'cause I'm American but
it wasn't a thin culture, it's a thick culture, you know? And I admire that. And I wish I could go to Ukraine. I would go tomorrow. - So I think after you did
the interview with Putin, you put a clip I think on, "TCN" where like your sort
of analysis afterwards. - Yeah, it wasn't much of an analysis. - No, but what stood out to me is you were kind of talking
shit about Putin a little bit. - Yeah. - Like you were criticizing him. - Why wouldn't I? - It spoke to the thing
that you mentioned, which is you weren't afraid. Now the question I want to ask is, it'd be pretty badass if
you went to the supermarket and made the point you were making, but also criticize Putin, right? Criticize that there is a
lack of a freedom of speech and freedom of the press. - In the supermarket? - Yes. - Oh, you mean if I also said that. Well, yeah, I mean I of
course I think that, I'm not. So I guess part of it
is that I'm a little, because I have such a low opinion of the commentariat in the United States and the news organizations which really do just work for the US government. I mean I really see them as I did Izvestia and Pravda in the 80s. Like they're just organs of the government and I think they're contemptible. And I think the people who
work there are contemptible. And I say that as someone who knows them really well personally. I think they're disgusting. That I'm a little bit cut off kind of from what people are saying about me 'cause I'm not interested. So, I try not to be defensive. Like see I'm not a tool of Putin. But the idea that I'd be flaking for Putin when you know my relatives
fought in the Revolutionary War, like I'm as American as you could be. It's like crazy to me. And Applebaum calls me a traitor. I'm like, "Okay, right." It's just like so dumb. But no, of course they don't have... No country has freedom
of speech other than us. Canada doesn't have it. Great Britain definitely doesn't have it. France, Netherlands, these are countries I spend a lot of time in. And Russia certainly doesn't have it. So, that's why I don't live there. I'm just saying our sanctions don't work. That's all I was saying. And we don't have to live like animals. We can live with dignity. Even the Russians can do it. That's kind of what I was saying. Even the Russians under
Vladimir freaking Putin can live like this. And no, it's not a
feature of dictatorship. That's the most, I think discouraging and most dishonest line
by people like Jon Stewart who really are trying to
prepare the population for accepting a lot less. He is really a tool of the
regime in a sinister way. It always has been. Like, how dare you expect that? What are you a Stalinist? It's like, no, I'm an American. I'm like a decent person. I just wanna be able to walk to the grocery store
without being murdered. Is that too much to... Shut up then, you don't
believe in freedom. It's really dark if you think about it. - So there is a fundamental way which you wanted Americans to expect more. - You don't have to live like this. We don't have to live like this. You don't have to accept it, you don't. And everyone's afraid in this country, they're gonna be shut
down by the tech oligarchs or have the FBI show up at
their houses or go to jail. And people are legit afraid
of that in the United States. And my feeling is so like
show a little courage. Like what is it worth to
you for your grandchildren to live in a free prosperous country? It should be worth more than your comfort. That's how I feel. - We should make clear
that by many measures, you look at the world press
freedom index, you're right, US is not at the top,
Norway is, US scores 71. Same as Gambia in West Africa. - Really. So let me just ask-
- Hold on, hold on, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second. - [Tucker] (laughs) Now
you're making me laugh. - Ukraine is 61 and Russia is 35. The lower it is the worst. Close to China at 23 and North
Korea at the very bottom, 22. - Didn't Ukraine put Gonzalo
Lira in jail till he died for criticizing the government. How can they have a high press? - Yes, that's why there
are 61 out of zero. - But I'm saying look, I don't
know what the criteria are they're using to arrive at that. But I know press freedom when I see it, I try to practice it, which is saying what you think is true, correcting yourself when
you've been shown to be wrong, as I have many times, being as honest as you can be all the
time and not being afraid. And those are wholly absent
in my country, wholly absent. People are afraid in the news business. I would know since I've
spent my life work in there and they're afraid to tell the truth. They're under an enormous
amount of pressure and a lot of them have
little kids and mortgages. I've been there, so I have sympathy. But they go along with
things like you would, you are not allowed if you
stand up at any cable channel, any cable channel in the United States and say, wait a second, how
did the Ukrainian government throw a US citizen into
prison until he died for criticizing the Ukrainian government? And we're paying for that. That's why it's offensive to me. We're paying for it. And that happens all the time
around the world of course. But this is a US citizen and we're paying the pensions
of Ukrainian bureaucrats. Like, we are the Ukrainian
government at this point. And like if you said that
on TV on any channel, well, you'd lose your job for that. So like that's not, I don't care. Or Norway is at the top, really Norway. If I went to nor Norwegian television and said NATO blew up
Nord Stream, which it did, NATO blew up Nord Stream,
the United States government with the help of other
governments blew up, committed the largest act of industrial terrorism in history. And by the way, the largest
environmental crime, the largest emission of CO2, methane. Could I keep my job? No. So how is that a free- - We don't know that. I mean the whole point of- - In Norway?
- [Lex] Yes. - Well as a Scandinavian I can tell you they would not put up with
that in Norway for a second. - [Lex] It's been a while. - You deviating for the
majority? No. (laughs) - Well, but in it's deviating
maybe is frowned upon, but- - [Tucker] Frowned upon, yeah. - But do you have the freedom
to say it if you do deviate? That's the question. - Can you keep your job? That's one measurement of it. - [Lex] You can keep your job, yeah. - Yeah, it's not the only measurement. Obviously being thrown into prison is much worse than losing your job. I've been fired a number of times for saying what I think, by the way. And it's fine. I've enjoyed it. I don't mind being fired. I've always become a better
person after it happened. But it is one measurement of freedom. If you have the theoretical
right to do something, but no practical ability to do it, do you have the right to do it? And the answer is not really actually. - You mentioned Jon Stewart, the two of you have a bit of a history, I don't know if you've seen it, but he kind of grilled your
supermarket and subway videos, have you got a chance to see it? - I haven't seen it, but
someone characterized it to me, which is why I pivoted against
it early in our conversation about how the price of freedom
is living in filth and chaos. - Yeah, that was essentially it. So in 2004, that's 20 years ago, Jon Stewart appeared on,
"Crossfire," a show he hosted. And that was kind of a memorable moment. Can you tell the saga of
that as you remember it? - I mean for me, you know,
as I was saying to you before about how it takes a long time to digest and process and understand
what happens to you, or at least it does for me. I didn't understand that as
a particularly significant moment while it was happening. I just got off a plane from Hawaii. I mean I was out of it as usual and I was very literal as usual. And so from my perspective,
his criticism of me, to the extent I remember it,
was that I was a partisan. Well, he had two criticisms. One that, "Crossfire," was stupid, which it certainly was. In fact, I'd already given my notice and I was moving on to
another company by that point. "Crossfire" was stupid. Crossfire didn't help,
Crossfire framed everything as Republican versus Democrat, whatever. It was not helpful to
the public discourse. I couldn't agree more,
and that's why I left. So that was part of his critique, fair. I'm not sure I would've
admitted it at the time 'cause I worked there
and it's sort of hard to admit you're engaged in an enterprise that's like fundamentally
worthless, which it was. But his other point was that I was somehow a partisan
or a mindless partisan, which is definitely not true. It is true of him. He is a mindless partisan. But I'm not, and I haven't been for, I really haven't been since
I got back from Baghdad at the beginning of the Iraq war and I realized that the Republican party, which I'd voted for my
whole life to that point and had supported in general was like pushing this
really horrible thing that was gonna hurt the United States which in time it really did. The Iraq War really
hurt the United States. And I realized that I had been
on the wrong side of that. I said so publicly,
immediately from Baghdad, I said that to, The New York
Times and I really meant it. I mean it now. And so to call me partisan, you could call me stupid,
you could call me wrong. I certainly have been wrong, but partisan, I just didn't think it was a meaningful, I mean it's like that's just not true. It's the opposite of true. So I didn't really take
it seriously at all. And I never thought much of him. So I was like, whatever, some buffoon jumping around on my show grandstanding. But I do think it was recorded. And by the way that
happened right at the moment that YouTube began, I think that was one of the first big YouTube video. It was one of the first
big YouTube videos. So it had a virality
that, if that's a word, it went everywhere in a way that didn't used to happen in cable news. I mean, by that point I
had, that was 20 years ago. As you point out, I've been
in cable news for nine years. So in the before 2004, we would
say something on television and then it would kind
of, it would be lost. Like people could claim they heard it. But you'd have to go to the, I think the University
of Tennessee at Knoxville archives to get it. Suddenly everything we
said would live forever on the internet, which is good by the way. That's not bad. But it was a big change for me. And I just couldn't believe how widely that was discussed at the time, 'cause I thought he was
not an interesting person. I think he is obviously
a very unhappy person. I just didn't take him
seriously then and I don't now. But, so anyway, that was it. It was a smaller thing
in my life at the time than other people imagined. - Okay, you said a lot of
words that will make it sound like you're a bit bitter
even if you're not. So you said unhappy
person, partisan person. - Well, I think he's an unhappy guy. Well, he's definitely partisan for sure. - So, can you elaborate why
you think he's partisan? - Well, so I think that, and I see this a lot,
not only on the left, but people who believe that whatever political
debate they're engaged in is the most important debate in the world. And so they bring an emotional
intensity to those debates and they're inevitably disappointed because no eternal question
is solved politically. So they're kind of on
the wrong path, right? And they're doomed to frustration, if they believe that, and many do. He certainly does. that
whatever the issue is. So, "Clarence Thomas should
not be Supreme Court justice." And the implication is, well, if someone else's Supreme Court justice we'll live in a fair and happy society. But that's just not, it's a false promise. So I think that people who
bring that level of intensity to politics are by definition bitter, by definition disappointed, bitter in the way the
disappointed people are. And that the real questions are like, what happens when you die? And how do the people
around you feel about you? Those are not the only questions in life, but they're certainly
the most important ones. And if we're spending a
disproportionate amount of time on who gets elected to some office, not that it's irrelevant, it is relevant, but it's not the eternal question. And so I feel like he's not
the only kind of bitter, silly person in Washington
or in its orbit. There are many, and a lot
of them are Republicans. But I just thought it was ironic. I mean, everything's ironic to me, but like being called a Russia sympathizer by a guy who calls himself Boris, like, it just made me laugh. (chuckles) No one else has ever laughed at that. Boris Johnson's real name
is not Boris as you know. He calls himself Boris,
it's his middle name. And so like if you call yourself Boris, you don't really have
standing to attack anyone else as a Russia defender, right? That's my, I think that's funny. No one else, as I noted does. But Jon Stewart, like, you know, if there are a lot of things you could say about me, but he's much more partisan than I am, so to call me a partisan, it's like what? - He would probably say
that he's not a partisan, that he's a comedian who's
looking for the humor and the absurdity of the system. That's a dumb-
- On both sides. He's a very serious person
in this, I will say this. And he shares this quality
with a lot of comedians. I know a lot of comedians. I know a cross sectioned people just having done this job for a long time. And a lot of 'em are very
serious, like about their views and they have a lot of emotional intensity and he certainly is in that category. He's not, that's like the silliest thing. Yeah, he's a comedian for sure. He can be very funny for sure. He has talent, no doubt about it. I've never denied that. But he's motivated by his moral views, this is right, that is wrong. And I just think that's,
it's a misapplied passion. - Well, do you think
I'm just a comedian, is- - I don't think any
serious person thinks that. I mean, if you're just a comedian, be. And look, I'm not trying
to claim, I couldn't claim that I haven't said a lot of dumb things. And one of the dumbest things I ever said was when he was on our set
lecturing me, he's a moralizer, which I also just don't really care for as an aesthetic matter. But he was lecturing me about something and I said, "I thought you
were here to tell jokes," which I shouldn't have said because he wasn't there to tell jokes. He was there to lecture me. And I should have just engaged it directly rather than trying to diminish him by like, you're just a little comedian. Well, he doesn't see himself that way. But I would just say this, Jon Stewart's a defender of power. Like Jon Stewart has never criticized. Like, what's Jon Stewart's view on the aid we've sent to Ukraine, the a hundred billion dollars or whatever. Like, what happened to that money? What happened to the
weapons that have bought? He doesn't care. He has the exact same priorities as the people permanently
in charge in Washington. So whatever, he doesn't,
he's not alone in that. So does Mika Brzezinski and her husband and all the rest of the cast of dummies. But if you're gonna pretend to be the guy who's giving the finger
to entrenched power, you should do it once in a while. And he never has. There's not one time
when he said something that would be deeply
unpopular on, "Morning Joe." That's all I'm saying. And so don't call yourself a truth teller. You're a court comedian
or a flatterer of power. Okay, that's fine,
there's a role for that, but don't pretend to be something else. - I'll just be honest that
I watched it just recently, that video-
- From 20 years ago. - From 20 years ago. I watched it initially and
I remember very differently. I remembered that Jon Stewart completely destroyed you
in that conversation. And I watched it and you asked
a very good question of him, which was, and there was no
destruction, first of all. And you asked a very good question of him, why, when you got a chance
to interview John Kerry, did you ask a bunch of softball questions? - [Tucker] Yeah. - I thought that was a
really fair question. And then his defense was,
"Well, I'm just a comedian." - So, I thought that was disingenuous. And I haven't watched it, I never have watched a
clip one time in my life and I don't like to watch
myself on television. I never have. And that's my fault. And I probably should force
myself to watch it though, of course I never will. But I think the takeaway for me, which was really interesting
and life changing was I agree with your assessment. I'm not just, I've lost a lot of debates. I've been humiliated on
television, I'm not above that. It certainly happened to
me, it will happen again. But I didn't feel like it was
a clear win for him at all. Maybe a TKO, but it was
not a knockout at all. And yet it was recorded that way. And I remember thinking,
"Well, that's kind of weird. That's not what I remember." And then I realized, no, Jon Stewart was more popular than I was, therefore he was recorded as the winner. And that was hard for me to accept because that struck me as unfair. You should rate any contest on points. Like here are the rules,
we're gonna judge the contest in the basis of those rules. And no, in the end it's just
like the more popular guy wins. Every TV critic liked Jon Stewart, every one of 'em hated
me, therefore he won. And I was like, wow, that, I guess I have to accept that reality. And you do like the
reality of the sunrise, you're not in charge of it, so that's just what it is. - Unfortunately, it's
a bit darker I think. The reason he's seen as the winner and the reason at the time I saw as the quote, unquote, "winner," is because he was
basically shitting on you, like personal attacks
versus engaging ideas. And it was funny in a dark way and like making fun of the bow tie and all this kind of stuff.
- [Tucker] Fair. Bow ties are- - I understand. - And it was fair to call me a dick. I remember he called me a dick. And I remember even when
he said that, I was like, "Yeah, I'm definitely a dick." Yeah, and that's not my
best quality, trust me. - I think but also to be kind of, I thought Jon Stewart came off
as a giant dick at that time and I'm a big fan of his and
I think he has improved a lot. - That may be true. - We should also say that
like people grow, people like- - Well, I certainly have or change anyway. You hope it's growth, you
hope it's not shrinkage. - It is cold outside. - Yeah, I mean look, I haven't followed Jon Stewart's career at all. I don't have a television. Like I'm pretty cut off
from all that stuff, so I wouldn't really know. But the measure to me is,
are you taking positions that are unpopular with
the most powerful people in the world, and how
often are you doing it? It's super simple. Not for its own sake, but
do you feel free enough to say to the consensus, I disagree. And if you don't, then
you're just another toady. That's my view. - Well, I think he probably
feels free enough to do it, but you're saying he doesn't do it. - On the big things. Look, the big things, this
is my estimation of it, others may disagree. The big things are the
economy and war, okay? - [Lex] Yeah. - The big things government does can be, I mean there are a lot of
things government does. Government does everything at this point. But where we kill people and
how, and for what purpose and how we organize the economic engine that keeps the country afloat. Those are the two big questions. And I hear almost no debate about either one of them in the media. And I have dissenting
views on both of them. I mean, I'm mad about the tax
code, which I think is unfair. I don't think we should be... The fact we've a carried
interest loophole in the tax code and people are claiming that their income is investment income and
they're paying half the tax rate as someone who just
goes to work every day. It discourages work, it
encourages lending at interest, which I think is gross personally I'm against it, sorry. And the fact that we're
creating chaos around the world, like is the saddest thing
that's happening right now. And nobody feels free to say
that, so that's not good. - How do you hope the war on Ukraine ends? - With a settlement. With a reasonable settlement. And what a reasonable settlement
is, which is a settlement, where both sides feel like
they're giving a little, but can live with it. And I mean I was really
struck in my conversation with Putin by how he basically refused to criticize Joe Biden
and to criticize NATO. And it is, I will just
be honest as an American, it would be a little weird to
be like pissing on Joe Biden with a foreign leader, any foreign leader, even though I don't think Joe Biden is a real person or really president. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous. But still, he is the American
president technically. And I don't want to beat up
on the American president with a foreigner. I just don't, maybe I'm old fashioned. So, that's how I feel. So I didn't push it, but I thought it was really interesting. And 'cause of course Putin
knows my views on Joe Biden. He knew I applied to the CIA, so they've done some digging on me. but he didn't mention it
and he didn't attack NATO. And the reason is I know for a fact 'cause he wants a settlement. And he wants a settlement not because Russia's about to collapse despite the lying of our media. That's just not true. And no one is even saying it
anymore 'cause it's so dumb. He wants it 'cause it's
just bad to have a war. And it changes the world in ways you can't predict, people die. Everything about it is sad. And if you can avoid it, you should. So I would like to see a settlement where, look, the thing that Russia wants and I think probably has a right to, is not to have NATO
missiles on this border. Like, I don't know why we would do that. I dunno what we get out of it. I just don't even understand it. I don't understand the purpose of NATO. I don't think NATO is good
for the United States. I think it's an attack on our sovereignty. I would pull out of NATO immediately if I were the US president because I don't think it helps the US. I know a lot of people are getting their bread buttered by NATO, but anyway that's my view as an American. If I'm a Russian or a Ukrainian, let's just be sovereign countries now. We're not run by the US State Department, we're just our own countries. Like that's, I believe
in sovereignty, okay? So, that's my view. And I also wanna say one
thing about Zelensky. I attacked him before
because I was so offended by his cavalier talk
about nuclear exchange because it would kill my family, so I'm really offended by that. Anyone who talks that
way, I'm offended by. But I do feel for Zelensky, I do. That he didn't run for
president to have this happen. I think Zelensky, he's
been completely misused by the State department, by Toria Nuland, by our secretary of state, by the policymakers in
the US who've used Ukraine as a vessel for their ambitions, their geopolitical ambitions. But also the many American
businesses who've used Ukraine as a way to fleece the American taxpayer. And then by just independent
ghouls like Boris Johnson are hoping to get rich
from interviews on it. Like the whole thing, Zelensky
is at the center of this. He's not driving history. NATO in the United States
is driving history. Putin is driving history. There's this guy Zelensky. So, I do feel for him and I
think he's in a perilous place. - Do you think Zelensky is
a hero for staying in Kyiv? Because I do. To me, you can criticize a lot of things. You should call out things
that are obviously positive. - Well, I just tried to a second ago. I don't know the extent
that he is in Kyiv. He seems to be in the
United States an awful lot. Like way too much. You can do a satellite interview. You don't have to speak to my Congress, you're not an American, please leave. - [Lex] Yeah.
- That's my opinion. - You got many zingers, Tucker. - No, no, no, it's just heartfelt. It's just bubbling up from the wellspring that never turns off. But I would say this about Zelensky. Yeah, to the extent he's
in Ukraine, good man. George W. Bush fled Washington on 9/11. I lived there with three
kids and he ran away to some Air force base in South Dakota. And I thought that was cowardly, and I said so at the time. And man was I attacked for saying that. And I wrote a column about
it in, New York Magazine where I then had a column. Hard to believe. But I felt that, I felt that. I think the prerequisites of
leadership are really basic. The first is caring about
the people you lead. That's number one. A deep, in the way a father
cares for his children or an officer cares for his troops, a president should care for his people. And that leads inexorably
to the next requirement, which is bravery, physical courage. And I believe in that. And I'm not like some tough guy, but I just think it's obvious. If you're in charge. I'm at my house and I feel
like someone broke in, I'm not gonna say to my wife, "Hey, baby, go deal with the home invasion." I'm gonna deal with it
'cause I'm dad, okay? So if you're the president of a country and your capital city is attacked as ours was at the
Pentagon and you run away. And the Secret Service told me to. Bitch, are you in charge? (Lex chuckling) Like, who's daddy here? The Secret Service. Do you know what I mean? I found that totally contemptible. And I said so, and man,
did I get a lecture. Not just from Republicans
but from Democrats. Oh you don't know, put
yourself in that position. I was like, "Okay, I
don't know what I would do under that kind of stress." Enormous stress, I get it. I know one thing I
wouldn't do is run away, 'cause you can't do that. And if you're not willing
to die for your country, then you shouldn't be leading it. So yes, to the extent if Zelensky really is in Ukraine
most of the time, amen. - Well, hold on a second, let's clarify. It's not about what is in
Ukraine most of the time or not. - Well, I thought that
was the whole premise of the- (laughs)
- No, no, at the beginning of
the war, when the tank, when Kyiv, when a lot of people thought that the second biggest
military in the world is pointing its guns in
Kyiv is gonna be taken. And a man, a leader who stays in that city and says, fuck it, when
everybody around him says flee, says everybody around
him believes the city will be taken or at least destroyed. Leveled, artillery, bombs, all of this. He chooses to stay. You know a lot of leaders, how many leaders would choose to stay? - Well, the leader of
Afghanistan, the US backed leader, when the Taliban came, got in a US plane with US dollars and ran away. And of course is living
on those dollars now. So yeah, there's a lot
of cowardly behavior. Good for him. I mean, I guess I'm looking
at it slightly differently, which is what's the option? You're the leader of the
country, you can't leave. Like Stalin never left
Moscow during the war. It was surrounded by the
Germans, as you know, for a year. And he didn't leave. And when I was in Russia,
they're like, Stalin never left. It's like how he's the
leader of the country. You can't, I mean like that's
just table stakes of course. I would say, but you raised an interesting by implication question, which is what about Kyiv? Like you think the Russians
couldn't level Kyiv? Of course, obviously they
could, why haven't they? They could, but they haven't. - Well, there's military answers to that, which is urban warfare
is extremely difficult. - Do you think that
Putin wants to take Kyiv? - No, I do think he
expected Zelensky to flee and somebody else to come into power. - Yeah, that may be totally, I don't know. I don't think, I have no
idea what Putin was thinking when he did that about Zelensky. I didn't ask him. But it's a mistake to
imagine this is a contest between Putin and Zelensky. This is Putin versus
the US State Department. I mean Zelensky, and that's why I said I felt sorry for him. I mean, as I said, we're
literally paying the pensions of Ukrainian bureaucrats. So there is no Ukrainian government independent of the US government. And maybe therefore that
maybe you're against it, but you can't endorse
that in the same sentence that you use the term democracy, 'cause that's not a
democracy, right? Obviously. - Well, that's why it's interesting that he didn't really
bring up NATO extensively. - He wants a settlement,
he wants a settlement and he doesn't wanna fight
with them rhetorically. And he just wants to get this done. And he made a bunch of
offers at the peace deal. And we wouldn't even know this happened if the Israelis hadn't told us. And I'm so grateful that they did that Johnson was dispatched by the State Department to stop it. And it's like, I mean
I think Boris Johnson is a husk of a man. But imagine if you were Boris Johnson and you spend your whole
life with Ukraine flag pen, I'm for Ukraine, and
then all those kids died because of what you did. And the lines haven't really moved. It hasn't been a victory for Ukraine. It's not gonna be a victory for Ukraine. And it's like, how do
you feel about yourself if you did that? I mean I've done a lot of
shitty things in my life. I feel bad about them, but I've never extended
a war for no reason. Like that's a pretty
grave sin in my opinion. - Yes, that was a failure. But it doesn't mean you can't
have a success over and over and over keep having
negotiations between leaders. - Well, the US government is
not allowing negotiations. And so, that for me is
the most upsetting part. It's like in the end what Russia does I'm not implicated in that. What Ukraine does, I'm
not implicated in that. I'm not Russian or Ukraine. I'm an American who grew up
really believing in my country. I'm supporting my country
through my tax dollars. And it's like I really care about what the US government does 'cause they're doing it in my name and I care a lot 'cause I'm American and we are the impediment to peace, which is another way of
saying we are responsible for all these innocent people getting dragooned outta
public parks in Kyiv and sent to go die. Like what? That is not good. I'm ashamed of it. - What do you think of Putin
saying that justification for continuing the war is denazification? - I thought it was one of the
dumbest things I'd ever heard. I didn't understand what
it meant, denazification. - It literally means what it sounds like. - Yeah, I mean I have a
lot of thoughts on this. I hate that whole conversation
because it's not real, it's just ad hominem. It's a way of associating
someone with an evil regime that doesn't exist anymore. But in point of fact,
Nazism, whatever it was, is inseparable from the German nation. It was a nationalist movement in Germany. There were no other Nazis, right? There's no book of Nazism. I'm like, I wanna be a Nazi. What does it mean to be a Nazi? There's no idea, there's no... I mean there's no, "Mein Kampf," is not, "Das Kapital," right? "Mein Kampf," is like, to
the extent I understand it, it's like he's about the
Treaty of Versailles. Whatever, I'm very anti-Nazi. I'm merely saying there isn't
a Nazi movement in 2024. It's a way of calling people evil. Okay, Putin doesn't like
nationalist Ukrainians. Putin hates nationalism in
general, which is interesting. And of course he does. He's got 80 whatever republics and he's afraid of nationalist movements. He fought a war in Chechnya over this. So I understand it,
but I have a different, I'm for national, I'm
for American nationalism, so like I disagree with Putin on that, but calling them Nazis, it's like, I thought it was childish. - Well, I do believe that he believes it. - I agree with that. 'Cause I was listening to this because in the United States everyone's always calling everyone else a Nazi. You're a Nazi. Okay. But I was listening to
this and I was like, "This is the dumbest sort
of not convincing line you could take." And I sat there and listened to him talk about Nazis for like eight minutes. And I'm like, "I think he believes this." - Yeah, and I actually having
had a bunch of conversations with people who are living in
Russia, they also believe it. Now there's technicalities
here, which the word Nazi, the World War II is deeply in the blood of a lot of Russians and Ukrainians. - [Tucker] I get it, I get it. - So you're using it as
almost a political term, the way it's used in
the United States also, like racism and all this kind of stuff. So, you can really touch
people if you use the Nazi. - [Tucker] I think that's totally right. - But it's also to me a really
like disgusting thing to do. - [Tucker] I agree. - Because, and also to clarify, there is neo-Nazi movements in Ukraine, which is, they're very small. You're saying that
there's this distinction between Nazi and neo-Nazi, sure. But it's a small percentage
of the population, a tiny percentage that
have no power in government as far I have seen no data to show they have any influence on Zelensky and Zelensky government at all. So really, when Putin says denazification, I think he means nationalist movements. - I think you're right. And I agree with everything you said, and I do think that the war, the Second World War occupies
a place in Slavic society, Polish society, central Eastern Europe that it does not occupy
in the United States. And you can just look at the death totals. Tens of millions versus
less than half a million. So it's like this eliminated a lot of the male population
of these countries, so of course it's still
resonant in those countries. I get it. I just, I think I've watched, I don't think I know I've
watched the misuse of words, weaponization of words
for political reasons for so long that I just don't like, and though I do engage in
it sometime, I'm sorry, I don't like just
dismissing people in a word. Oh, he's a Nazi, he's
a liberal or whatever. It's like, tell me what you mean, what don't you like about
what they're doing or saying? And a Nazi especially, it's like, I don't even know what the
hell you're talking about. - What troubled me about
that is because he said that that's the primary
objective currently for the war. And that because it's
not grounded in reality, it makes it difficult
to then negotiate peace because like what, what
does it mean to get rid of the Nazis in Ukraine? So like he'll come to the table and say, "Well, okay, I will agree to do ceasefire once the Nazis are gone." Okay, so can you list the Nazis? - I totally agree. Plus can you negotiate with a Nazi? - [Lex] Right, exactly, exactly. - No, I totally agree with you. - It was very strange. But maybe it was perhaps had to do with speaking to his own population and also probably trying to
avoid the use of the word NATO as the justification for the war. - Yeah, yes, that's all... Of course, I don't know, but I suspect you're right on both counts. But I would say it points to something that I've thought more and more
since I did that interview, which was like two weeks ago, I guess. I didn't think he was like, as a PR guy, not very good. Like he's not good at
telling his own story. The story of the current war in Ukraine is the eastward expansion of NATO and scaring the outta the
Russians with NATO expansion, which is totally necessary. Doesn't help the United States. NATO itself doesn't
help the United States. And so I'm not pro-Russian for saying that I'm pro-American for saying that. And I think that's a
really compelling story, 'cause it's true. He did not tell that story. He told some other story that
I didn't fully understand. Again, I'm not Russian. He's speaking to multiple
audiences around the world. I'm not sure what he hoped
to achieve by that interview. I will never know. But I did think that like this guy is not good at telling his story. And I also think honestly
on the base of a lot, I mean I know this, very
isolated during COVID, very. We keep hearing that he's
dying of this or that disease. He's got ALS. I mean I don't know, I'm not his doctor. There's a ton of lying about it. I know that. But one thing that's not a lie is that he was cloistered
away during COVID. I know this. And only dealing with two or three people. And that makes you weird. It's so important to
deal with a lot of people to have your views challenged. And you see this with leaders
who stay in power too long. He's been in power 24 years, effectively. He's done a, you know,
there's been upsides I think for Russia, the Russian economy, Russian life expectancy. But there are definitely downsides. And one of them is you get
weird and you get autocratic. Like this is why we have term limits. Very few kings don't get crazy in old age. - Yeah, and you said some
of this also in your, whilst in your post Kremlin discussion while you're in Moscow still, which was very impressive to me that you can just openly criticize. This is great. - Well, I don't care. - I understand this. I just wish you did some more of that also with the supermarket video and perhaps some more of that
with Putin in front of you. - Putin in front of me.
- [Lex] I understand. - I'm such a good person. - I know you see it as virtue signaling. - Yeah, it is. - Have you seen some of the interview he did with some NBC news child? - Yes, I understand. So I think you're just so annoyed
by how bad journalists are that you just didn't want to be them. - Yeah, that's probably
right actually. (laughs) - Some great conversations
will involve some challenging, like you were confused
about denazification. - Well first of all, I
accept your criticism and I accept it as true that in some way I'm probably pivoting
against what I dislike. And I have such contempt
for American journalists on the basis of so much knowledge that I probably was like, I
don't wanna be like that, fair. That is a kind of defensiveness and dumb. So, you're right. As for the Nazi thing, I was like, I really felt like we were just speaking so far past each other that
we would never like come to, I was like, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. And especially when I decided or concluded that he really
meant it, I was like, that's just too freaking weird to me. It's almost like, yeah, I can
think of many other examples. We were interviewing someone else, say something that's like, I
was interviewing a guy one time and he started talking
about the black Israelites, and we're the real Jews. And I was like, and it wasn't on camera, but I was like, I don't, that was so, it was so far out to me that I was like, we'll never kind of understand
common terms on that. - So you mentioned there's a
bunch of conspiracy theories about Putin's health. How was he in person? Like what did he feel like? Did he look healthy? - I'm not a health
person myself, so I mean, I can easily gain 30
pounds and not know it. So like, I'm probably not
a great person to ask. But no, he seemed fine. He seemed, he had his arm
hooked through a chair and I heard people say,
well, he's got Parkinson's. And Parkinson's can be controlled, I know for periods with drugs. So, it's hard to assess. I'm just not... One of the tells of Parkinson's is gait. How a person walks, I think. And his walking seemed fine. I walked around with him and
talked to him off camera. He's had some work done for sure. He's 71 or two. - [Lex] You mean like visual purposes? - Yeah, I'm 54. He's like almost 20 years older than me. He looked younger than me. - What was that like, the
conversation off camera, like you walking around with him. What was the content of the conversation? - I mean, I can't, you know,
I feel bad even with Putin or anybody like talking about
stuff that is off the record. But I'll just say that when I said that he didn't wanna fight with NATO or with the US State
Department or with Joe Biden because he wants a settlement, that's a very informed perspective. He doesn't. Say whatever you want about that, believe it or not, but that is true. - So, he's open for peace.
For peace and negotiation. Russia tried to join NATO in 2000. That's a fact. Okay, they tried to join NATO So just think about this, NATO exists to keep Russia contained. It exists as a bulwark against Russian territorial expansion. And whether or not Russia has any territorial ambitions
is another question. Like why would it, it's
the largest land mass in the world, whatever. But that's why it exists. So if Russia seeks to join NATO, it is by definition a sign
that NATO's job is done here we can declare victory and go home. The fact that they turned him down is like so shocking to me. But it's true. Then he approaches the next president, George W. Bush, that was with Bill Clinton at the end of his term in 2000. He approaches the next president and said, let's, in our next missile deal, let's align on this and
we will designate Iran as our common enemy. Iran which is now effectively
league with Russia, thanks to our insane policies. And George W. Bush to his credit's like, well, that seems like kind
of an innovative good idea. And Condi Rice, who's like one
of the stupidest people ever to hold power in the United
States, if I can say, who's like monomaniacally
anti-Russia versus, 'cause she had an advisor at Stanford who was or something during the Cold War. No, we can't do that. And Bush is just weak, and so he agreed. It's like, what? That is crazy. If you're fighting with
someone and the person says, you know what, actually
our interests align and you've spent 80% of
your mental disc space on hating me and opposing me or whatever, but actually we can be on the same team. If you don't at least
see that as progress. Like what, why would you... If your interest is in
helping your country, what would be the, what's
the counterargument? I don't even understand it. And no one has even addressed any of this. The war of Russian aggression. Yeah, it was a war of
Russian aggression for sure. But how did we get there? We got there because Joe Biden and Tony Blinken dispatched Kamala Harris, who does not freelance this stuff, okay? Fair to say. To the Munich Security Conference two years ago this month, February, 2022, and said, in a press
conference to Zelensky, poor Zelensky, we want you to join NATO. This was not in a back room. Things was in public at a
press conference knowing, because he said it like 4,000 times, we don't want nuclear weapons
from the United States or NATO on our Western border. Duh. And days later he invaded. So like, what is that? And if you even, I raised that
question in my previous job, and I was denounced as you, of course a traitor or something. But okay, great, I'm a traitor. What's the answer? What's the answer? These are not into... Toria Nuland who I know, not dumb, hasn't helped the US in any way. An architect of the Iraq war,
architect of this disaster, one of the people who
destroyed the US dollar, okay, fine, but you're not stupid. So, like you're trying to
get a war by acting that way. What's the other explanation. By the way, NATO didn't want Ukraine 'cause it didn't meet the criteria. So, for admission. So, why would you say that? Because you want a war. That's why. And that war has enriched a lot of people to the tune of billions. So I don't care if I sound like some kind of left-wing conspiracy nut because I'm neither left-wing
nor a conspiracy nut. Tell me how I'm wrong. - Who do you think is behind it? If you are to analyze, like zoom out looking at the entirety of human history, the military industrial
complex, you said Kamala Harris. Is it individuals? Is it like this collective flock that people are just
pro-war as a collective? - It's the hive mind. And I spent my whole life in DC from '85 to 2020, so 35 years. And again, I grew up
around it in that world. And I do think that conspiracies, of course there are conspiracies. But in general, the hive mind is responsible for the worst decisions. It's a bunch of people with
the same views, totally. Views that have not
been updated in decades. Putin said something
that I thought was true. Absolutely true. I don't know how he would
know this, but it is true, 'cause I lived among them. So the Soviet Union
dissolves in August of '91 on my honeymoon in Bermuda. I'll never forget it. And it was a big thing,
if you lived in DC, I mean, the receptionist
in my office in 1991 was getting a master's in
Russian from Georgetown. He was gonna be a sovietologists. And he was among thousands
of people in Washington on that same track. And so the Soviet Union collapses. Well, so does the rationale
for like a good portion of the US government has been
dedicated for over 40 years to opposing this thing
that no longer exists. So, there's a lot of forward momentum. There's a huge amount of money. The bulk of the money in the
richest country in the world aimed in this direction. And it's very hard for people
to readjust, to reassess. And you see this in life all the time. I love my wife. All of a sudden she ran
off with my best friend. Holy shit, I didn't
expect that this morning. Now, it's a reality. Like how do I deal with that? Well, I got stage four
cancer diagnosis, okay? And it's all bad. But I'm just saying like,
that's the nature of life. Things that you did not anticipate, never thought you'd have to
face happen out of nowhere. And you have to adjust your
expectations and your goals. And people have a hard time with that. Very hard time with that. So, that's a lot of it. People, if you're Condi Rice, sort of like highly ambitious mid wit who gets this degree from Stanford, and you read Tolstoy in the original. Sure, you did. And you spent your
whole life like thinking that Russia is the center
of evil in the world. It's kind of hard to be like, well actually there's a new threat and it's coming from farther east. It's primarily an economic threat. And maybe all the threats
aren't reduced to tank battles. That's the other thing, is these people are so inelastic in their
thinking, so lacking imagination and flexibility that they can't sort of imagine like a new framework. And the new framework is not
that you're gonna go to war with China over Formosa, Taiwan. No, the framework is that all of a sudden all the infrastructure in Tijuana is gonna be built by China. And like that's a
different kind of threat, but they can't kind of get there because they're not that impressive. - So you actually have mentioned this, it's not just the Cold
War, it's World War II that populates most of their
thinking in Washington. You mentioned Churchill,
Chamberlain and Hitler. And they kind of seeing the World War II as the kind of the good
war and the successful role the United States played in that war, they're kind of seeing that dynamic, that geopolitical dynamic and applying it everywhere else still. - Yeah, it's a template for everything. And I think it's of huge significance to the development of the West, to the civilization we live in now to world history was a world war. And so I think it's
worth knowing a lot about and being honest about and all the rest, but it's hardly the sum
total of human history. Yeah, it's a snapshot. And so you keep hearing people
refer to not even the war, no one ever talks about the war. Like what, how much does Tony Blinken know about the battle of Stalingrad? Hmm, probably zero. He doesn't know anything. Largest battle in human history. But everybody, he knows nothing. But he knows a lot about the cliches surrounding the '38 to
'40 period, 1938 to 1940. And everything is kind of
expressed through that formula and not everything is that formula. That's all I'm saying. And the Republicans have
a strange weakness for it, particularly the closeted ones, the weird ones who were like have no life other than like starting more wars. Everything to them, the
most vulnerable, I would say among them, emotionally,
psychologically vulnerable, the dumbest, they will always say the same thing. And it appeals to Republican
voters, unfortunately, that every problem is
the result of weakness. Everyone's Chamberlain. Like Germany never would've gone in to Poland, Czechoslovakia if
England had been stronger. That's the argument. Is that true? I don't know, actually. Maybe it might be totally true. It might not be true at all. I really don't know. But not everything is that,
that's not always true. If I go up to you in a bar and
I say, I hate your neck tie. I'm being pretty aggressive
with you, pretty strong. you might beat the outta me actually, or shoot me if I do that. Like an aggressive posture
doesn't always get you the outcome that you want. Sometimes it requires a more sophisticated
Mediterranean posture. I mean, it kind of depends. It's a time and place thing. And they don't acknowledge that. It's like everything
is this same template. And that's not the road to
good decision making at all. - Since we're on the time period, let me ask you kind of
almost cliche question, but it applies to you, which you've interviewed
a lot of world leaders. - [Tucker] Yep. - If you had the chance
to interview Hitler in '39, '40, '41. First of all, would you do it? And how would you do it? I assume you would do
it given who you are. - Man, it would be a
massive cost for doing it. It may destroy my life to
interview Putin, though. I can tell you as much as I want that I'm not a Putin defender, I only care about the United States. That's a hundred percent true. Anyone who knows me will
tell you what's true, I keep saying it. But history may record me to the extent it records me at all as a tool
of Putin, a hater of America. That seems absurd to me,
but absurd things happen. So, what would I ask Hitler? I don't even know. I guess that I would probably
ask him, what I asked Putin, which is what I ask everybody,
like, what's your motive? Why did you do, I mean, if
he'd already gone into Poland, like, why are you doing that? what's your goal? And then the question is,
is he gonna answer honestly. I don't know. You can't make someone
answer a question honestly. You can only sort of
shut up while they talk and then let people decide
what they think of the answer. - Well, just like in the bar fight, there's different ways. You could-
- There are different ways. That's exactly right. That's exactly, man, is that true. That is absolutely right. - I mean, your energy
with Putin, for example, was such that it felt
like he could trust you. I felt like he could tell you a lot. - I just wanted to get it on the record. - [Lex] Yes.
- That's all I wanted. - I think it was extremely like, we have to acknowledge how
important that interview was for the record and for opening
the door for conversation. Like opening the door to
conversation literally is the path to like more conversations
and peace, peace talks. - Well, I would flip it around
and say anyone who seeks to shut that down by focusing
on a supermarket video of four minutes versus a two hour and 15 minute long interview
with a world leader. Anyone who doesn't want more conversation, who wants fewer facts, fewer
perspectives is totalitarian, probably doesn't have good intent. I mean, I can honestly say for
all my many manifold faults, I've never tried to like,
make people shut up. I just, it's not in me. I don't believe in that. - So Putin's folks have shown interest of quite a while to speaking with me. So, you've spoken with him. What advice would you give? - Oh, do it immediately. How's your Russian, by the way? - [Lex] Fluent.
- Have you kept up With it? - Yeah, fluent. So it would most likely be in Russian. So like that's the other thing is I do have a question
about language barrier. Oh, like, did you feel was annoying? - It's horrible.
- [Lex] Yeah. - It's horrible. I mean the, I don't
have much of a technique as an interviewer other than
listen really carefully. That's my only skill. I don't have the best questions. I certainly don't have the best questions. All I do that I'm proud of and that I think works is I
just listen super carefully. I never let a word go by that
I'm not paying attention. It exhausts me, actually. But you can't do that
in a foreign language because there's a delay. Here I'm just whining, but it's real. - Well, it's not whining. Like can you actually describe the technical details of that? Are you hearing concurrently,
like at the same time? - Yes, but there's a massive lag. So what's happening
is, so the translators, so we were of course extremely uptight about the logistical details, so we brought our own
cameraman who I've been around the world with, who worked at Fox, came with me now. Amazing. And he did, I mean, it was our
cameras, lighting everything. Like we had full control over that and we had control of the tape. The Russians also had their own cameras, and I don't know what they did with it. But we had full control of that, and we brought our own translator. We got our own translator because I don't trust anyone, right? So, I think we had a good translator. We had two of them actually,
'cause they get exhausted. But the problem is, from my perspective, as someone who's like trying
to think of a follow up and listen to the answer, Putin will talk and in part of your ear
hear the Slavic sounds and then over that is a guy with a Slavic accent speaking English. And then you can hear Putin stop talking and then this guy's answer goes on for another 15, 20 seconds. So, it's super disconcerting
and it's really hard. And the other thing is, it doesn't matter how good your translators are. I'm interested in language, I speak only English fluently, but I'm really interested in language. And I work in language. It doesn't matter how
good your translator is. In literature and in
conversation, you miss so much if the language is moving for you. I mean, you see this in Bible study, you see it in Dostoevsk,
you see it everywhere. If you don't speak
Aramaic, Hebrew, Russian, you're not really getting. I mean, even in romance languages. I like Balzak, okay? Who's obviously wrote in French. You read, "Pere Goriot," it's
amazing novel, hilarious. And it's like, you're
not really getting it. And it's not that French and English are not that far apart. Russian, like what? - Plus conversation. So the chemistry of
conversation, the humor, the wit, the play with words, all this stuff. - Exactly. And my understanding of Russian as a lover of Russian literature in English is that it's not a simple language at all. The grammar's complex. There's a lot that's expressed that will be lost in the translation. So yes, I mean the fact that
you speak Native Russian, I mean I would run that
walk to that interview, 'cause I think it would just be amazing. You would get so much
more out of it than I did. - And we should say that you've
met a lot of world leaders, both Zelensky and Putin are
intelligent, witty, even funny. - [Tucker] Yes. - So like there's a depth to the person that can be explored
throughout conversation just on that element,
the linguistic element. - For sure, and Putin
speaks decent English. I spoke to him in English, so I know that. But he's not comfortable with it at all. - [Lex] Right.
- But Zelensky is, I think. - No, well he's better
than Putin in English, but he's still, the humor,
the like, the intelligence, all of that is not quite there in English. He says simple points. But the guy's a comedian. And he's a comedian primarily in Russian, the Russian language. So the Ukrainian language
is now used mostly, primarily as a kind of symbol. of independence.
- [Tucker] I'm aware of that. It's a political decision. No, I know. - And he is, you know, his really, his native language is Russian language. - [Tucker] Of course, as a
lot of people in Ukraine. - But you can also understand his position that he might not want to be
speaking Russian publicly. That's something- - I don't think they're allowed to speak in Russia in some places
in Ukraine, right? That's one of the reasons
that Russia was so mad, is that they were attacking language. And that's a fair complaint. Like, what? And by the way, if you haven't
been to Moscow in a while, you should see it and you
will pick up a million things that were invisible to me. And you should assess it for yourself. And my strong advice would be, even if you don't interview
Putin, go over there, spend a week there and
assess what you think. I mean, how restricted
does the society feel? I mean, it would take a
lot of balls to do this because I mean, whatever you decide, you'll be sucked into conversations that have nothing to do with you. Political conversations.
- [Lex] Yeah. - You're obviously not a
political activist, right? You're an interviewer. But I think it would be so interesting. - But for interview
itself, is there advice you have about how to carry an interview? It is fundamentally
different when you do it in the native language. - Yes, I mean, I think I approached... And maybe I did it incorrectly, but this was the product
of a lot of thought. I was coming into that interview aware that he hadn't given an interview at all with anybody since the war started, so I had a million different questions. And as noted, I didn't ask them because I just wanted to focus on the war. But I mean, there's so many, I'll send you my notes that I wrote. I was like a diligent
little girl. (chuckles) - That would be amazing. But I think-
- (laughs) My interview. All these questions, and some of them I thought were pretty funny. - In your case, I think the
very fact of the interview was the most important thing. - Yeah, that's probably right. The question that I really wanted to ask that I was almost gonna ask, 'cause it made me laugh out loud. I was sitting having
drinking coffee beforehand with my producers and I was
like, "I'm gonna go in there. My first question's
gonna be, Mr. President. I've been here in the Kremlin
for two days preparing, and I haven't seen a
single African American in a position of power in the Kremlin." - [Lex] Sure. - (laughs) I thought that's too. - [Lex] Yeah.
- Culturally specific and dry. And he'd be like, "This
guy's freaking crazy." - Yeah, yeah, you don't
wanna open with a crazy. with humor.
- No, I know. I know.
- [Lex] All right. - That's probably, doesn't translate. - It doesn't. Oh yeah, and there'll be a small delay where you have to wait for the- - (laughs) Like what? - [Lex] To see if it lands or not. - This is not America. - At Fox, you were for a
time, the most popular host. After Fox, you've garnered a huge amount of attention as well. Same, probably more. Do you worry that popularity
and just that attention gets to your head is a kind of drug that clouds your thinking? - You think? I live in a spiritual graveyard of people killed by the quest for fame. Yes, I have lived in it. I mean, I would say the one advantage, the two advantages I have. And one, I have a happy
family and a stable family and a stable group of friends, which is just the greatest blessing and a strong love of nature
and that my family share. So, I'm in nature every day. And I have a whole series of rituals designed to keep me from
becoming the asshole that I could easily become. But no, of course. And I don't want to beat
up on, I'm grateful to Elon who gave me a platform,
and I mean that sincerely, but I definitely don't spend
a lot of time on social media or on the internet for that exact reason. Well, first of all, I
think it's, as I've said, a much more controlled
environment than we acknowledge. And I don't want lies in my head, but I also don't want to
become the sort of person who's seeking the adulation of strangers. I think that's soul poison. And I said earlier that
I think that the desire for power and money will kill you. And I believe that,
and I've seen it a lot. But I also think the desire
for the love of people you don't know is every bit
as poisonous maybe more so. And so, yes, and it's not just because I've obviously spent most
of my life in public. And in fact I don't
spend my life in public and I'm completely private person. But professionally I've
spent my life in public. But it's not just that. It's like social media makes everybody into a cable news host. And we were talking off
the air, my new, I just, I'm obsessed with this, but
I don't know enough about it, but here's what I do know. South Korea, amazing
country, great people. I grew up around Koreans,
probably no group, if I can generalize about a group that I like more than Koreans, are just smart, funny, honest, brave. I really like Koreans, I always have. My whole life growing up in southern California with Koreans. South Korea is like dying. It's literally dying. It's way below replacement
rate in fertility. Its suicide rate is astronomical. Why is that? It's a rich country. But of course, I dunno the answer, but I suspect it has something to do with the penetration of technology into South Korean society is
I think one of the highest, certainly one of the highest in the world. People live online there. And there was a belief in, for a bunch of reasons in South Korea that Western technology would be a liberating progressive force. And I think it's been the opposite. It's my sense, strong sense. And I think it's true in this country too. And I don't understand how
people can ignore the decline in life expectancy or
the rise in fentanyl use. Like, it's not just about China shipping precursor chemicals to Mexico. It's like, why would you take that shit? - I hope those two things aren't coupled. Technological advancement and the erosion. - Well, let me ask you, and
I know you're a technologist, and I respect it. And there's a lot about
technology that I like and it benefited from. I had back surgery and it worked okay, so I'm not against all technology. But can you name a technology, a big technology in the last 20 years that we can say conclusively
has improved people's lives? - Well, conclusive is a tough thing. - [Tucker] Pretty conclusively. That we can brag about. - Well you've criticized
Google search recently, but I think making the world
knowledge accessible to anyone anywhere across the world
through Google search. - Well, I love that, I love that idea. Are people better informed? Are they more superstitious and misled than they were 20 years ago? (laughs) It's not close. - Well, no, I don't know. I think they are more informed. It is just revealing the ignorance. The internet has revealed the
ignorance that people have. But I think the ignorance has
been decreasing gradually. And like, if you look even, you can criticize places
like Wikipedia a lot and very many aspects of
Wikipedia are very biased. But when you, most of
it are actually topics that don't have any bias in them because they're not political, so there's no battle over those topics. - [Tucker] Right. - And most of Wikipedia. - [Tucker] I think that's true. - Is like the fastest way
to learn about a thing. - I couldn't agree more. You can very quickly
imagine you're an expert. And that may be the problem, I think. No, it's true. I just experienced it in Moscow. It's like, again, I feel
like I'm in the top 1% for information, certainly
intake because it's my job. And I had literally... And I'm always outta the country. I've been around the world many times. Like I feel like I know a lot
about the rest of the world or I thought I did. And how did I not know any of that? And maybe I'm just like
unusually ignorant or something, or reading the wrong things. I don't know what it was. But all I know is the
digital information sources that I used to understand. Just something as simple as
what's the city of Moscow like. We're completely inadequate. And anyway, look, I just am worried that we're missing the obvious signs. And the obvious signs are reproduction, life expectancy, sobriety. If you have a society where
people just can't deal with being sober, don't
want to have children and are dying younger, you
have an extremely sick, you have a suicidal society, okay? And I'm not even blaming anyone for, I'm just saying objectively that is true. And the measure of a
health of your society is the number of children that you have and how well they do. It's super simple. That's the next generation. We all die. And what replaces us. And if you don't care,
then you're suicidal. And maybe other things too. But that's all I'm saying. So, what happened to South Korea? Like, why can't anyone
answer the question? They're great people, they're rich, they have all these advantages. They're on the cutting
edge of every American. For a foreign country,
they're more American than maybe any other
country other than Canada. And like what happened? - And I mean, your fundamental war is the same kind of
thing might be happening or will happen in the United States. - Well, lemme just ask you this. I think North Korea seems
like the most dystopian, horrible place in the world, right? Obviously. It's a by word for dystopia, right? North Korean. I use it all the time, and I mean it. If in a hundred years there are more North Koreans still alive than there are South Koreans,
what does that tell us? - [Lex] Yeah, that's
something to worry about. - But like, how did it happen? Like why? I'm interested in the why. This is a question I asked Putin. Sometimes we don't know why,
but why does no one ask why. - I've seen a lot of
increased distrust in science, which is deserved in many places. It just worries me because
some of the greatest inventions of humanity come from science
and technological innovation. - Okay, then let me ask you
a couple quick questions and perhaps you have the answer. And I've always assumed that was true. And I should say that when I was a kid, I lived in La Jolla, California, next to the Salk Institute
named after Jonas Salk, a resident of La Jolla, California, who created the polio vaccine
and saved untold millions. And so my belief, which is
still my belief actually, that's a great thing. It's one of the great additions
to human flourishing ever. But if technology is so great, why is life expectancy going down and why are fewer people having kids, and why would anybody
who has internet access every use fentanyl? What is that, what is going on? And until we can answer that question, I think we have to assume the question of whether technology is a net good or net bad is unresolved,
like at best, right? - At best, perhaps. But technology is the very
tool that which will allow us to have that kind of
discourse to figure out to do science better. - I mean, I want that to be true. And when you said that
the internet allows people to escape the darkness of ignorance. Man, that resonated with me, 'cause I felt that way in 1993, 4 when it was first starting
and I first got on it. And I thought, "Man, this is amazing." You can talk for free to
anyone around the world. This is gonna be great. But lemme just ask you this. This is something I've never gotten over or gotten a straight answer to. Why is it that in any European city, the greatest buildings indisputably were built before electricity
and the machine age? Why has no one ever built
a medieval cathedral in the modern era ever? What is that?
- Well, indisputably you're have a presumption we have a good definition
of what beauty is. There's a lot of people- - Right, let's be specific. Pick a European city or
any city in the world and tell me that there's
a prettier building than say Notre Dame
before it was set fire to. - There's other sources
of prettiness and beauty. - That it's purely in architecture. Of course, of course. Trees are prettier than any
building in my opinion, right, so I agree with you there.
- But also there could be, I mean I grew up in the pre-internet age. - [Tucker] Good, good. - But if you grew up in the internet age, I think your eyes would be more open to beauty that's digital,
that is in a digital. - I'm not discounting the possibility of digital beauty at all. And the Ted Kaczynski in me wants to. But that's too close-minded, I agree. I'm completely willing to believe there is such a thing as digital beauty. I mean I have digital
pictures of my phone, of my dogs and kids, so
I know that there is. But purely in the realm of architecture, 'cause it's like limited. And it is one of the pure
expressions of human creativity. We need places to live and
work and worship and eat, and so we build buildings
and every civilization has. But the machine age, the industrial age seemed to have decreased the quality and the beauty in that one expression of human creativity architecture. And why is that? - Well, I could also argue that I'm a big sucker for bridges. And modern bridges can give older bridges that run for their money. - I like bridges too. So I agree with you sort of. But like the Brooklyn Bridge, I don't know that there's any modern bridges that was built in late 19th century. Very much in the industrial age. But I'm just saying like the
great cathedrals of Europe. - [Lex] Yeah. - Even the pyramids, whoever
built them, it doesn't, it seems like if you,
it's like super obvious. I'm just like, I'm dealing
on the autism level here. Just like, well why is that? But that's a good way to start. If all of a sudden you have
electricity and hydraulics and you have access to, I mean, I have machines in my wood shop at home that are so much more advanced in anything than any cathedral builder
in 15th century Europe had. And yet there's neither I nor anyone know could even begin to understand how a flying buttress was built, right? And so, what is that? - And the other question is also consider that whatever is creating this
technology is unstoppable. - And well there's that, yeah. - And the question is like,
how do you steer it then? You have to look in a
realist way at the world and say that if you
don't, somebody else will. And you want to do it in a safe way. I mean, this is the Manhattan project. - Was the Manhattan project a good idea to create nuclear weapons? That's an easy call, no. - For me it's an easy call in retrospect. In retrospect, yes. Because it seems like
it stopped world wars. So the mutually assure destruction seems to have ended wars,
ended major military. - Well it's been what, 80 years? Not even 80 years. 79. And so we haven't had a
world war in 79 years. But one nuclear exchange would of course kill more people than all wars
in human history combined. - You're saying '79 makes it
sound like you're counting. - I'm counting, 'cause
I think it obviously it's like completely demonic and everyone pretends like it's great. Nuclear weapons are evil. - [Lex] Yeah, no, absolutely. - The use of them is evil and
the technology itself is evil. And in my opinion, I mean it's like, if you can't, that's just so obvious. And that's what what I'm saying is like, I'm not against all technology. I took a shower this morning. It was powered by an electric pump. - [Lex] Yep.
- Heated by a water heater. Like I loved it. I sat in an electric sauna. Like I'm not against all
technology obviously, but the mindless worship of technology. - Sure. Mindless worship of
anything is pretty bad. - But I'm just saying, so you said, let's approach this from
a realist perspective. Okay, if we think that
there is a reasonable, or even a potential chance it could happen maybe on the margins, let's assign it a 15%
chance that AI, for example, gets away from us and we
are now ruled by machines that may actually hate us. Who knows what they want. Why wouldn't we use force
to stop that from happening? So you're walking down the
street in midtown Manhattan, it's midnight, you've had a few drinks, you're coming from dinner, you're walking back to your apartment. A guy, a very thuggish looking, guy young man approaches you. He's 50 feet away. He pulls out a handgun,
he lifts it up to you. You also are armed. Do you shoot him or do
you wait to get shot because all the data,
look, he hasn't shot you. He's not committed a crime other than carrying a
weapon in New York City. But maybe he's got a
license you don't know. Could be legal. But he's pointing a gun at you. Is it fair to kill him
before he kills you? Even though you can't prove
that he will kill you. - If I knew my skills with a gun because he already has the gun off. - Right, but it turns out that you have some
confidence in your ability to stop the threat by force.
- [Lex] Okay, okay, yeah. - Are you justified in doing that? - I just like this picture. Am I wearing a cowboy hat? - No, no, but you are wearing cowboy boots and they're clicking on the cobblestone, actually you're wearing the meat packing, okay?
- Okay, great. I like this picture.
- [Tucker] Yeah. - I think about this a lot actually, no. Yeah, I understand your point. But also, I think that
metaphor falls apart if there's other nations at play here. So, if the same as with the nuclear bomb. If US doesn't build it,
will other nations build it? The Soviet Union build
it, China or Nazi Germany. - We faced this, I mean, we faced this and the last president to try
and keep in a meaningful way nuclear proliferation under
control was John F. Kennedy. And look what happened to him. - What's your suggestion? Wasn't it inevitable?
- But hold on. Well, their position in 1962 was no, it's absolutely not inevitable. Or perhaps it's inevitable in the sense that our death is inevitable,
but as human beings. But we fight against the
dying of the light anyway, because that's the right thing to do. No, we were willing to use force to prevent other countries
from getting the bomb because we thought that
would be really terrible. 'cause we acknowledged that
while there were upsides to nuclear weapons, just like
there were upsides to AI, the downside was terrifying
in the hands of... I mean, that's the thing
that I kind of don't get. It's like the applications
of that technology in the hands of people who
mean to do harm and destroy. It's like so obviously terrifying. - It's not so obvious to me. What I'm terrified about
is probably a similar thing that you're terrified about,
is using that technology to manipulate people's minds. That's much more reasonable
to me as an expectation. A real threat that's possible
in the next few years. - But what matters more than that? - Well, I think that could lead to like destruction of human civilization
through other humans, for example, starting nuclear wars. - Yeah, well, I mean this
is one of the reasons I wasn't afraid in the
Vladimir Putin interview, 'cause it's like it's all ending anyway. You know what I mean?
- [Lex] Yeah. - Might as well dance on
the deck of the Titanic. Don't be a pussy, enjoy it. - I think we will forever fight against the dying of the light as
the entirety of the civil. - Someone the other day said that Biden ascribed that to Churchill. That was a Churchill quote.
- Hmm. - That's kind of what I'm saying. It's like if you live in a society where people don't read anymore, like people are by definition
much more ignorant, but they don't know it. It's like, I do think
the Wikipedia culture, and I think there are cool
things about Wikipedia, certainly it's ease of use is
like high and that's great. But people get the sense that like, oh, I know a lot about you know, this or that or the other thing. And it's like the key to wisdom. Again, the key to wise decision making is knowing what you don't know. And it's just so important to be reminded of what a dummy you are and how ignorant you are all the time. - [Lex] Yeah. - That's why I like having daughters. It's like it's never far
from mind how flawed I am. And that's important. - Yeah, in the same way I
hope to be a dad one day. - You should have a ton of kids. Are you gonna have a ton of pups? - Five, oh pup. You mean like kids?
- Children. - Yes, five. But also I've been
thinking of getting a dog, but unrelated. I would love to have
like five or six kids. Yeah, for sure. - Have you found a victim yet? - (chuckles) You make it
sound so romantic, Tucker. - (laughs) Just joking, I love it. No, you should totally do that. - Yeah, 100%. But also in terms of being humble, I do jiu-jitsu, it's in martial art where you get your ass
kicked all the time. - [Tucker] Yeah, I love that. - It's nice to get your ass kicked. Physical humbling is unlike
anything else I think, 'cause we're kind of monkeys at heart and just getting your ass
kicked just really helpful. - I agree, I've had it happen to me twice. - (chuckles) Twice is enough. - It got me to quit drinking. I was good at starting fights,
not good at winning them. But no, I completely agree with that. - Let me ask you, you've been pretty close with Donald Trump. Your private texts about
him around the 2020 election were made public. In one of them you said that
you passionately hate Trump. When that came out, you said that you actually
know you love him. So, how do you explain the difference? - My texts reflect a lot of things, including how I feel at the
moment that I sent them. That specific text, I happened to know since I had to go through it forensically during my deposition in a
case I was not named in. I had nothing to do with whatsoever. It's crazy how civil
suits can like be used to hurt people you
disagree with politically. But I was mad at a very specific, I mean really what that... I mean, you're asking me, I'll tell you exactly what that was. It was the second the election ended and they stopped voting, stopped the vote counting
on election night. I was like, well this is, and it's all now mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines. I was like, that's a rigged election. I thought that then, I think it now. Now, it's obvious that it was. But at the time I was
like, I feel like there's, that was like crazy what just happened. I want, but I don't wanna go on TV and say that's a rigged election because I don't have any
evidence as a recollection. You can't do that. It's irresponsible and it's wrong. So I was like, I want... The Trump campaign was
making all these claims about this or that fraud, so I was trying my best
to substantiate them, to follow up on it. Everyone else was like,
"Shut up, Trump, you lost. Go away. We're gonna indict you." But I felt like my job was to be like, "No, the guy's, he's president, he's claiming the election just got stolen and he's making these claims. Let's see if we can." Well, the people around him
were like so incompetent. It was just absolutely crazy. And so, I called a couple of times. I finally give up, but
I'd call him be like, all right, you guys claim
that these inconsistencies and this, you know,
whatever this happened, gimme evidence and I'll put it on TV. It's my job to bring stuff that is not gonna be aired
anywhere else to the public. I couldn't, it was like, it was insane how incompetent and unserious. - So, they weren't able to provide like- - Well, here's the point of
the story and of that text. So then they come out and they
say, well, dead people voted. Well, that's just an easy call. Okay, if a dead person voted,
we can prove someone's dead, 'cause like being dead
is one of the few things we're good at like verifying, 'cause you start to smell, okay? And there's a record of it. It's called a death certificate. So it was like, gimme the
names of people who are dead, who voted, and then we
can get their registration and we can show they voted. Five names. So I go on TV and I say this, Caroline Johnson, 79 of
Waukegan, Illinois voted, here's her death certificate, she died. And the campaign sends me this stuff. Now I in general don't take stuff directly from campaigns 'cause they all lie 'cause their job is to
get elected or whatever. So, I'm very wary of campaigns having been around it for 30 years. So like, but I made an
exception to my rule and I got a bunch of stuff from them. Well, like of the six names,
two of 'em were still alive. What? I was so, well, I immediately
corrected it the next night. CNN did a whole segment on how I was spreading disinformation, which I was by the way. In this one case they were right. I was so mad. I was like, "I hate you. I'm not talking about you, I'm so mad." Anyway, that's the answer
if that's what that was. - Who were you texting to? - My producer. And I was like, venting. It's like a producer
I was really close to. And I've known him for a long time. He's really smart. And he's like, he was someone
I could like be honest with. And I was like, "Rah." And by the way, it was so funny. I mean now I'm doing what was me, which I will keep to a minimum, but it's like stealing someone's text. And by the way, I was an idiot. I should have said, come and arrest me. I'm not giving you my
freaking text messages, okay?
- [Lex] Yeah. - But I got bullied into it by a lawyer. I didn't get bullied into it. I was weak enough to agree with a lawyer. It was my fault. Never should have done that. Fuck you, they're my texts. I'm not even named in this case. That's what I should
have said, but I didn't. I said I was mad on the air the next day, but not in language that colorful. But whatever, whatever. I try to be transparent. I mean, I also think, by the way, if you watch someone over time, you don't always know
what they really think, but you can tell if someone's lying. You can sort of feel it in people. And I have lied. I'm sure I'll lie again. I don't wanna lie. I don't think I'm a liar. I try not to be a liar. I don't wanna be a liar. I think it's like really
important not to be a liar. - You said nice things about me earlier. I'm starting to question. I have questions.
(Tucker laughing) I have a lot of questions, Tucker. - I hate Lex Fridman. (laughs) - Yeah, I am gonna have to
see your texts after this. - My texts are so uninteresting now. It's like crazy how
uninteresting they are. - [Lex] Emojis and gifs. - Yeah, lots of dog pictures. - Nice. You said some degree
the election was rigged. Was it stolen? - It was a hundred percent stolen. Are you joking? - [Lex] Like it was rigged
to that large of a degree. - Yeah, they completely
change the way people vote right before the election
on the basis of COVID, which had nothing to do with- - In that way it was rigged, meaning like manipulated.
- 100%. And you censor the information
people are allowed to get. Anyone who complains about COVID, which is like, by the way,
it might have hurt Trump. But I mean it's like whatever. I mean you could play
it many different ways. You can't have censorship in
a democracy by definition. Here's how it works. The people rule. They vote for representatives
to carry their agenda to the capital city and get it enacted. That's how they're in charge. And then every few years they get to reassess the performance of those people in an election. In order to do that, they need access, unfettered access to information. And no one, particularly not people who are already in power
is allowed to tell them what information they can have. They have to have all
information that they want. Whether the people in charge
want it or don't want it or think it's true or think
it's false, it doesn't matter. And the second you don't have that, you don't have a democracy. It's not a free election, period. And that's very clear in
other countries, I guess. But it's not clear here. So, but I would say
it's this election that, I mean it took me a while to come to this, but it's this election that's
the referendum on democracy. Biden is senile. He's literally senile. He can't talk, he can't walk. The whole world knows that. Leave our borders, people are, you know, everybody in the world knows it. A senile man is not gonna get elected in the most powerful country in the world unless there's fraud, period. Like who would vote for a senile man? He literally can't talk. And nobody I've ever met thinks he's running the US
government 'cause he's not. And so I think the world is looking on at this coming election and saying, and a lot of the world hates Trump. Okay, it's not an endorsement
of Trump, but it's just true. If Joe Biden gets reelected,
democracy's a freaking joke. It's just true. - I think half the country
doesn't think he's senile, just thinks he's speaking- - Do you really think that? They don't think he's senile? - Yeah, I think he just
has difficulty speaking. It's like- - [Tucker] Why do they think
he has difficulty speaking? - Like gradual degradation,
just getting old. So, cognitive ability is a degrading. - What's the difference between degraded cognitive ability and senility? - Well, senility has
a threshold of like a, it's beyond a threshold to where he could be a functioning leader. - Okay, okay, that may be a term of art that I don't fully understand and maybe there's like an
IQ threshold or something, but I'm happy to go with
degraded cognitive ability. - Sure, but that's an age thing. - But he's the leader of the United States with the world's second
largest nuclear arsenal. - And I'm with you. I'm a sucker for great speeches and for speaking abilities of leaders and Biden with two wars going
on and potentially more, the importance of a leader
to speak eloquently, both privately in a
room with other leaders and publicly is really important. - I agree with you that
rhetorical ability really matters. Convincing people if that
your program is right, telling them what we're
for, national identity, national unity, all come from words. I agree with all of that. But at this stage, even someone who grunted at the microphone
would be more reassuring that a guy who clearly
doesn't know where he is. And I think everyone knows that. And like, I can't imagine
there's an honest person in Washington which is
gonna vote for Biden by 90% obviously, 'cause
they're all dependent on the federal government
for their income. But is there any person
who could say like, out of 350 million Americans, like that's the most qualified to lead, or even in the top 80%, like what? That's so embarrassing that
that guy is our president. And with wars going on, it's scary. - But it's complicated to understand why those are the choices we have. - Well, I agree. Well, it's a failure of the system. Clearly it's not working. If you've got one guy over 80, the guy, other guy almost at 80, like people that he
should not be running any. - So why you have on the democratic side, you have Dean Phillips, you have RFK Jr. until recently, I guess he's independent. And then you have Vivek
who are all younger people. - [Tucker] Yeah. - Why did they not connect
to a degree to where people- - It's such an interesting, I mean I think it's a really interesting, there are a million different answers. And of course I don't fully understand it even though I feel like I've
watched it pretty carefully. But I would say the bottom line is there's so much money vested
in the federal apparatus, in the parties, in the government. As I said a minute ago, our economies dominated by monopolies, but the greatest all monopolies
is the federal monopoly which oversees and controls
all the other monopolies. So it's like, it's really
substantially about the money. It's not ideological,
it's about the money. And if someone controls
the federal government, I mean at this point
it's the most powerful organization in human history. Like, it's kind of hard to fight that. And in the case of Trump,
I know the answer there. They raided Mar-a-Lago, they indicted him on bullshit charges. Like, and I felt that in myself too. Even I was like, come on, come on. Like whatever you think of Trump. And I agreed with his immigration views and I really liked Trump personally. I think he's hilarious and
interesting, which he is. But it's like, okay, there are a lot of people in this country. At very least like let's
have a real debate. The second... Messed up your cameras there, sorry, I'm getting excited. But the second they rated
Mar-a-Lago on a documents charge as someone from DC I was like, I know a lot about classification and all that stuff and
been around it a lot. That's so absurd that I was
like, now it's not about Trump, it's about our system continuing. Like if you can take out
a presidential candidate on a fake charge, use the justice system to take the guy outta the race, then we don't have a
representative democracy anymore. And I think a lot of Republican
voters felt that way. If they hadn't indicted him, I'm not sure he would be the nominee. I really don't think he would be. - So, now a vote for Trump is a kind of fuck you to the system - Or an expression of your desire to keep the system that we had. Which is one where voters get to decide. Prosecutors don't get to decide. Look, they told us for four years that Trump was like a super
criminal or something. I've actually been friends
with some super criminals. I'm a little less judgey than most. So I didn't discount the possibility that he had, I don't know. He is in the real estate business in New York in the 70s. Like, did he kill someone? I don't know.
- [Lex] Yeah. - No, I'm not joking and
I'm not for killing people, but like anything's possible. - It's good that you took a stand on that. (Tucker laughing) - Yeah, no, I'm not joking.
- [Lex] Yeah. - I was like, well who knows, you know, and I didn't know.
- [Lex] Yeah, real estate. - And what they came up
with was a documents charge. Are you joking? And then the sitting president has the same documents
violation, but he's fine. It's like, it's crazy this is happening in front of all of us. And then it becomes like at that point, it's not about Joe Biden,
it's not about Donald Trump. It's about preserving a system which has worked not perfectly, but pretty freaking well for 250 years. I know you don't like Trump. I get it. Let's not destroy that system. Like we can handle in
the four years of Trump. I think we can, so I'll calm down. What we can't handle is a
country whose political system is run by the Justice Department. Like that is just, you're freaking Ecuador at that point, no. - So speaking of the Justice department, CIA and intelligence
agencies of that nature, which you've been traveling quite a bit, probably tracked by everybody, which is the most powerful
intelligence agency do you think? CIA, Mossad, MI6, SVR. I can keep going. (chuckles) The Chinese. - It depends what you mean by powerful. Which one bats above its weight we know, which one is- - Mossad just to be clear,
I guess is what you- - Well, of course, tiny country, very sophisticated intel service. Which one has the greatest
global reach in comms? Which one is most able to read your text? I assume the NSA, but Chinese
are clearly pretty good. Israel's pretty good. The French actually are surprisingly good for kind of a declining country. Their intel services are
pretty, seem pretty impressive. No, I love France, but you
know what I mean, and all that. So but the question, I mean I grew up around all that stuff. That's all totally fine. Like a strong country should have a strong and capable intel service,
so its policy makers can make informed decisions. Like that's what they're for. As Vladimir Putin himself noted. And I don't talk about it
very much, but it's true. I applied to the CIA when I was in college 'cause I was familiar with it because of where I lived and
had grown up and everything. And I was like, seemed interesting. That's honestly the only reason. I was like live in foreign
countries, see history happen. Like I'm for that. I applied to the operations directorate, they turned me down on the
basis of drug use actually. True. But anyhow, whatever,
I was unsuited for it, so I'm glad they turned me down. But the point is I didn't
see CIA as a threat, partly because I was bathing
in propaganda about CIA and I didn't really understand what it was and didn't want to know. But second, because my
impression at the time was it was outwardly focused. It was focused on our enemies. I don't have a problem with that as much. The fact that CIA is
playing in domestic politics and actually has for a long time, was involved in the Kennedy assassination. That's not speculation, that's a fact. And I confirmed that from someone who had read their documents
that are still not public. It's shocking. Like you can't have that. And the reason I'm so
mad is I really believe in the idea of representative government acknowledging its imperfections, but like I should have
some say, I live here, I'm a citizen, I pay
all your freaking taxes. So the fact that they would be tampering with American democracy
is so outrageous to me. And I don't know why,
"Morning Joe" is not outraged. This parade of dummies,
highly credentialed dummies they have on, "Morning Joe" every day. They don't seem to, that
doesn't bother them at all. How could that not bother you? Why is only Glenn Greenwald mad about it? I mean, it's confirmed it's
not like a fever dream, it's real. They played in the last
election domestically. And I guess it shows how dumb I am because they've been
doing that for many years. I mean, the guy who took out
Mossadegh lived on my street. One of the Roosevelt, CIA officer. So I mean, again, I grew
up around this stuff, but I never really thought, I never reached the obvious conclusion, which is that if the US government subverts democracy in other countries in the name of democracy,
it will over time subvert democracy in my country. Why wouldn't it? The corruption is like core. It's at the root of it. The purpose of the CIA was envisioned, at least publicly envisioned as an intel gathering
apparatus for the executive, so the president could make
wise foreign policy decisions. What the hell is happening
in Country X? I don't know. Let me call the agency
in charge of finding out. The point wasn't to freaking guarantee the outcome of elections. - I'm doing a Israel-Palestine
debate next week. But I have to ask you just your thoughts, maybe even from a US perspective, what do you think about
Hamas attacks on Israel? What would be the right
thing for Israel to do and what's the right
thing for US to do in this if you looking at the geopolitics of it. - I mean, it's not a topic
that I get into a lot because I'm a non-expert. And because I'm not, unlike
every other American, I'm not emotionally
invested in other countries, just in general. I mean I admire them or not
and I love visiting them. I love Jerusalem, probably my
favorite city in the world. But I don't have an
emotional attachment to it. So maybe I've got more clarity. I don't know, maybe less. Here's my view. I believe in sovereignty as mentioned. And I think each country
has to make decisions based on its own interest, but also with reference
to its own capabilities and its own long-term interest. And it's very unwise for, I'm
not a huge fan of treaties. Some are fine, too many bad, but I think US aid, military aid to Israel and the implied security
guarantees some explicit, but many implied security
guarantees of the United States to Israel probably haven't helped Israel that much long term. It's a rich country with a
highly capable population. Like every other country, it's probably best if
it makes its decisions based on what it can do by itself. So I would definitely be
concerned if I lived in Israel because I think fair or unfair, and really this is another
product of technology, social media. Public sentiment in that
area is boiling over. And I think it's gonna be hard for some of the governments in the
region, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, to contain their own. They don't want conflict
with Israel at all. They were all pretty psyched actually for the trend in progress. The Saudi peace deal,
which was never signed, but would've been great for everybody, 'cause like trade peace, normal relations, like that's good, okay, let's just say. I know John Bolton doesn't
like it, but it's good. And it's kind of what we
should be looking for. But now it's not possible. And if you had like a coalition
of countries against Israel, I know Israel's nuclear weapons and has a capable military and all that and the backing of the United States, but like you don't, it's a small country, I think I'd be very worried. So, there's that. And I don't see any advantage
in to the United States. I mean, I think it's
important for each country to make its own decisions. - But it also is a place, like you said, where things are boiling over and it could spread
across multiple nations into a major military conflict. - Yeah, well I think
very easily could happen. In fact, probably right after
Ramadan, if I had to guess. And yeah, I pray it doesn't. But again, I don't think you can overstate the lack of wisdom,
weakness, short-term thinking of American foreign policy leadership. These are the architects of the Iraq war, of the totally pointless
destruction of Libya, totally pointless destruction of Syria and the 20 year occupation of Afghanistan that resulted in a
return to the status quo. So like their, of the Vietnam
War, their track record of the Korean War, even
going back 80 years is uninterrupted failures
one after the other. So I just don't have any
confidence in those leaders, when was the last time they
improved another country? Can you think of the,
oh, the Marshall plan. Well, you look at Europe
now and you're like, "I don't know if that worked." But even if it did work,
again 80 years ago, so when was the last country American foreign policy makers improved? So if I were... Netanyahu's in a very difficult place, politically impossible I mean. I'm glad I'm not Netanyahu. And I'm not sure he's capable of making wise long-term decisions anyway. But if I was just like
an Israeli, I'd be like, I don't know if I want like
all this help and guidance. So yeah, I actually think it's worse than just having just
returned from the Middle East and talking to a lot
of pretty open-minded, sort of pro-Israeli Arabs
who want stability above all. The merchant class always wants stability, so I'm on their side, I guess. And they're like, "Man, this could get
super ugly super fast." American leadership is completely absent. It's all posturing. It's like people like Nikki Haley. You just wonder like how
does an advanced civilization promote someone like Nikki Haley
to a position of authority? It's like what? Shh, shh, like adults are
talking, adults are talking. Nikki Haley, please go away. Like that would be the
appropriate response. But everyone's so intimidated to be like, oh, she's a strong woman. She's so transparently
weak and sort of ridiculous and doesn't know anything
and is just like, thinks that jumping up and down and making these absurd
blanket statements, repeating bumper stickers
is like leadership, so it's like a self-confident
advanced society would never allow Nikki Haley to advance. I mean, she's really
not impressive, sorry. - I just feel like you hold back too much and don't tell us what you really think. - (laughs) Sorry. - I think you just speak
your mind more often. - Well, by the way, these are not, I mean you can completely
disagree with my opinions, but in the case of Nikki Haley, it's not like an opinion formed just from watching television,
which I don't watch. It's an opinion formed
from knowing Nikki Haley. - So, strong words from Tucker. - Well felt too. (chuckles)
(Lex chuckling) Well the world's in the balance. I mean it's not just- - [Lex] Yes, this is important stuff. - Yeah, it's not just
like, well, you know, what should the capital gains rate be? It's like, do we live or die? I don't know, let's consult
Nikki Haley. (laughs) So if you're asking should we live or die in consulting Nikki Haley, clearly you don't care about
the lives of your children. That's how I feel. - Not to try to get a preview or anything, but do you have interest
of interviewing Xi Jinping? And if you do, how will you approach that? - I have enormous interest
in doing that, enormous. And a couple other people,
and we're working on it. - Yeah, I should also say
like, it's been refreshing you interviewing world leaders. I think when I've started
seeing you do that, it made me realize how
much that's lacking. - Well, yeah, it's just
interesting, I mean- - From even a historical
perspective is interesting, but it's also important from
a geopolitics perspective. - Well, it's really changed my perspective and I've been going on
about how American I am. And I think that's a great thing. I love America. But it's also we're so physically
geographically isolated from the world. Even though I traveled
a ton as a kid a lot more than most people. But even now I'm like, I'm so parochial. I see everything through
this lens and getting out and seeing the rest of the world to which we really are connected, like that's real is vitally important. So, yeah, I mean at this stage I don't kind of need to do it, but I really want to just
motivated by curiosity and trying to expand my own
mind and not be close-minded and really see the fullest
perspective I possibly can in order to render wise judgments. I mean that's like the
whole journey of life. - I was just hanging out with
Rogan yesterday, Joe Rogan, and I mentioned to him that
it's me being a fan of his show, that I would love for
him to talk with you. And he said he's up for it. Any reason you guys
haven't done it already? - I don't know, I would. I've only met Rogan once and I liked him. I met him at the UFC in New York. He was with somebody, a
mutual friend of ours. And Rogan changed media. I mean maybe more than anybody. And he did it. What I love about what
I admire about Rogan without knowing him, beyond
meeting him that one time, I mean, I'm still in media,
but I've always been in media, it's like not a great surprise. I'm doing what I've always
done, just a different format. But Rogan, like he's got one
of those resumes that I admire. I like the guy who was
like, I was a longshoreman, I was a short order cook,
I was an astrophysicist. I mean, he was like,
he used a man of parts. And this guy was a
fighter, a standup comic, he hosted some, "Fear Factor." Like how did he wind up at the vanguard of like the deepest
conversations in the country? Like how did that happen? So, I definitely respect
that and I think it's cool. And he, Rogan is one of those people who just kind of came out of nowhere. Like no one helped him,
you know what I mean? - And he was doing the
thing that he loves doing and it somehow keeps accidentally being exceptionally successful. - Yeah, and he's curious. So, that's like the main thing. And there was a guy
without getting boring, but there was a guy I
worked with years ago who like kind of dominated
cable news, Larry King, and everyone would always beat up on Larry King for being dumb. Well, I got to know Larry King well, and I was his fill-in host for a while, and Larry King was just intensely curious. He'd be like, "Why do you
wear a black tie, Lex?" I'd be like, "Because I like black tie." "Why do you like a black tie?" No one, everyone else wears a stripe type. You wear a black one, why? And he would like, he was
like really interested. - [Lex] Yeah, genuinely so, yeah.
- Totally. And I want to be like that. I don't want to think I know everything. That's so boorish and also false. You don't know everything. But I see that in Rogan. Rogan's like, "Rah, how does that work?" And people will, and it's so funny how that's threatening to people. It's like Rogan will just
sit there while someone else is free balling on some far out topic, which by the way might be true, probably true than the
conventional explanation. People are like, I don't
know, how can he stand that? He had someone say the pyramids weren't built 3,000 years ago, but 8,000 years ago, and that's wrong. It's like, first of all, how do you know when
the pyramids were built? Second, why do you care if
someone disagrees with you? Like, what is that? This weird kind of like groupthink. It's almost like fourth grade, there's always like some
little girl in the front row who's like acting as the
kinda the teacher's enforcer, like whip around and be like, "Sit down. Didn't you hear what Mrs.
Johnson said, sit down." (laughs) That's like the
whole American media. How dare you ask that question. And Rogan just seems like
completely on his own trip. Like he doesn't even hear it. He's like, "Well, really when
were the pyramids built?" And I'm just like, "Oh, I love that." - [Lex] Yeah, curiosity, open-mindedness. - Yes. - The thing I admire
about him most honestly, is that he's a good father. He's a good husband. He's a good family man for many years. And like, that's his place where he escapes from the world too. And it's just beautiful. - Without that, man, you're destroyed. - [Lex] Yeah.
- If I had a wife who was interested at all
in any way in what I did, I think I would've gone crazy by now. When we get home, we don't. She's like, how was your day? It was great. Oh, I'm so proud of you. That's the end of our conversation about what I do for a living. And that is such a wonderful and essential respite from you said, how do I not become an asshole
to the extent I haven't, I kind of have, but how
have I not been transformed into a totally insufferable megalomaniac who like checking his Twitter replies every day or every minute. It's that, yeah, you gotta have, the core of your life has
to be solid and enduring and not just ephemeral and silly. - So, the two of you have known each other for what, 40 years? - We've been together 40 years. - [Lex] Together 40 years.
- 40 years. Yeah, 1984. He was the hottest 15-year-old
in Newport, Rhode Island. - Wow.
- [Tucker] Sounds dirty. But I'm talking about myself. I was the hottest person. (laughs) - Yeah, you were just
looking in the mirror. - [Tucker] Yeah.
- Very nice. So, what's the secret to
a successful relationship, successful marriage? - I don't even know. I mean, no, I'm serious.
- [Lex] Yeah. - I got married in August '91, so that's, well, it's our 33rd year
of being married fall. - At the collapse of the Soviet Union. - Yeah, yeah, yeah as noted, yeah. So, you hear these people, it's actually changed my
theology a little bit. Not that I have deep theology, but like, I grew up in a
society in Southern California when I was little, that was like a totally self-created society. I mean, Southern California was, it was the root of
libertarianism for a reason. It was like, that's where you
went to recreate yourself. And so, the operative assumption there is that you are the sum
total of your choices, and that free will is everything. And we never consider questions like, well, why do children get cancer? Like, what do they do to deserve it? Well, of course, nothing, right? Because that would suggest that maybe you're not the sum total. Your choices matter. If I smoke a lot, I get lung cancer. If I use fentanyl, I may OD, got it. If I don't exercise,
I might get fat, okay. But like on a bigger scale, you're not only the sum
total of your choices. Like things happen to you that you didn't deserve, good and bad. And marriage is, and I'll speak for myself in my case, just one of 'em. I mean, I could say, I
mean, clearly spending time with the person you're married to, talking, enjoying each other. I have a lot of rituals. We have a lot of rituals that ensure that. But in 40 years, like you change, you're like a different person. I like did drugs, I was drinking
all the time when we met. It's been a long time
since I've been done that. I'm very different and so is she. But we're different in ways that are complimentary and happy. Never been happier. So, like how do we pull that off? Just kind of good luck, honestly. And then I see other people. No, I'm not kidding. But that's true. I think it's so important
not to flatter yourself if you've been successful at something. The thing I've been most
successful at is marriage, but it's not really me. I mean, I haven't- - So I think what you
indirectly communicating is, it's like humility, I think. - It's not even humility. Humility is the result of
a reality based worldview. - [Lex] Sure, okay, right, reality. - Once you see things clearly, then you know that you are not the author of all your successes or failures. And I hate the implication otherwise because it suggests powers
that people don't have. It's one of the reasons I always hated the smoking debate or the COVID debate. Someone die of COVID, did
you not have the vaccine? They'd be like, "See,
this is what you get. You smoke cigarettes, you die." Well, shit I've, you know... Yeah, if you smoke cigarettes, you more likely to get lung cancer. If you don't, if you get, whatever. Cause and effect is real. I'm not denying its
existence, it's obvious. But it's not the whole story. There are larger forces
acting on us, unseen forces. That's just a fact. You don't need to be some
kind of religious nut. And they act on AI too. And you should keep that in mind. The idea that all- - Convincing way you said that. - No, it's true. It's demonstrably true. We're the only society that hasn't acknowledged
the truth of that. And the idea that the only things that are real are the things that we can see or measure in a lab. Like that's insane, that's just dumb. - In the religious context,
you have this two categories that I really like that
of the two kinds of people who believe they're God and
people who know they're not, which is a really interesting division that speaks to humility and
a kind of realist worldview of where we are in the world. - Oh. - Can atheists being
in the latter category? - No, there are very few atheists I've never actually met one. There are people who pose this atheists, but no one's purely rational. And everyone, I mean, this
is a cliche for a reason. Everyone under extreme
stress appeals to a power higher than himself because everyone knows that there is a power higher than himself. So really it's just people who are gripped with the delusion that they're God. No one actually believes that. If you're God jump off
the roof of your garage and see what happens. You know what I mean? No one actually thinks that, but people behave as if it's true. And those people are dangerous. And I will say by contrast,
the only people I trust are the people who know their limits. And I was thinking actually
this morning in my sauna. Of all the people I've interviewed or met, this is someone I've never interviewed, but I have talked to
him a couple of times. The greatest leader I've
ever met in the world is literally a king. It's MBZ, Sheikh Mohamed of
Abu Dhabi, who is Muslim. I'm definitely not Muslim. I'm Christian, Protestant Christian, and so I don't agree with his religion and I don't agree with monarchies. But he's the best leader in
the world that I've ever met. And by far it's like not even close. And why is that? Well there, I could bore you
for an hour on the subject, but the reason that
he's such a good leader is because he's guided by
an ever present knowledge of his limitations and of
the limits of his power and of his foresight. And when you start there,
when you start with reality, it's not even humility. Humility can be opposed. Like, oh, I'm so humble. Okay, humble brag is
a phrase for a reason. It's like way deeper than
that's just like, no. Do I have magical powers? Can I see the future? No, okay, that's just
a fact, so I'm not God. But I've never seen anybody more at ease with admitting that than MBZ, just a remarkable person. And for that reason, he is
like treated as an oracle. I don't think people understand
the number of world leaders who trapes through his house
or palace to seek his counsel. I'm not sure that there is parallel since, I don't wanna get too hyperbolic here, but honestly since like Solomon, where people come from
like around the world to ask what he thinks. Now, why would they be doing that? Because Abu Dhabi's
military is so powerful. I mean, he's rich, okay? Massive oil and gas deposits. But like for a lot of,
you know, so is Canada. You know what I mean? And no one is coming to Ottawa to ask Justin Trudeau what he thinks. No, it's humility. That's where wisdom comes from. You start to think like, I
spent my whole life like mad at America's leadership class,
'cause it's not just Biden or the people in official positions, it's the whole constellation of advisors and throne sniffers around them. And it's not that even
that I disagree with them. I'm not impressed by them. I'm just not impressed. They're not that capable, right? So that's what I was
saying about Nikki Haley. I don't think Nikki Haley's the most evil person in the world. I think she's ridiculous, obviously. And everyone's like, "Oh, Nikki
Haley or Mike Pompeo," what? - Great leaders are so
rare that when you see one, you know it right away. - It blows your mind. And what blows my mind about
Sheikh Mohamed in Abu Dhabi is that everyone in the world knows it. And I've never seen a story on this. And I'm not guessing, I know this is true 'cause I've seen it. Everyone in the world knows it. And so if there's a conflict, he's the only person that people call. Like everybody calls the same guy. And it's like he runs this
tiny little country, the UAE, I mean, he's in Abu Dhabi. There are a bunch of Emirates, but he's the president of
the country, but still. And it's got a ton of energy and all that wealth and all that. And Dubai's got great real
estate and restaurants, but really it's a tiny little country that wasn't even a country 50 years ago. So, how did that happen? Purely on the basis of his humility and the wisdom that
results from that humility. That's it. - What advice would you
give to young people? You got four, you somehow made
them into great human beings. What advice would you give
to people in high school? - Have children immediately
including in high school, yes. I think that, that's all that matters. Like in the end, again, these
aren't even cliches anymore because no one says them. But when I was a kid, people
always say on your deathbed, you never wish you
spent more time at work. And I mean, everyone said that it was like one of these things. And now I don't think Google
allows you to say that. It's like, no, you're gonna wish you spent more time at
work, get back to your cube. But I can't overstate from
my vantage how true that is. Nothing else matters, but your family. And if you have the opportunity, and a lot of people are being denied the opportunity to have children. And this messing with the gender rules, and I'm not even talking
about the tranny stuff. I mean, feminism has so
destroyed people's brains and the ability of young people
to connect with each other and stay together and have fruitful lives. It's like nothing's been
more destructive than that. It's such a lie, it's so dumb. It's counter to human nature. And nothing counter to
human nature can endure. It can only cause suffering. And that's what it's done. But fight that, stop complaining about it. Find someone, by the way,
everyone gets together or most people get together
on the basis in a free, in a Western society where
there's no arranged marriages. They get together on a
basis of sexual attraction. Totally natural. Get off your birth
control and have children. Oh, I can't afford that. Well, yeah, you'll figure out a way to afford it once you have kids. It's like it's chicken in the
egg, but it's actually not. When you have responsibility,
when you have no choice. This is true of men. I'm not sure of true of women, but it's definitely true of men. You will not achieve
until you have no choice. As I always think of men, men do nothing until they have to. But once they have to,
they will do anything. That is true. Men will do nothing unless they have to. But once they have to,
they will do anything. I really believe that from
watching and from being one. And I would never have done
anything if I didn't have to, but I had to and I
would just recommend it. But by the way, even if you don't succeed, and even if you're poor. Having spent my life among rich people, I grew up among rich people. I am a rich person. Boy, are they unhappy. Well, that's clearly not
the road to happiness. You don't want to be a debt slave or starved to death or anything like that. But like making a billion
dollars, that's not worth doing. Don't do that. Don't even try to do that. If you create something that's
beautiful and worth having and you make a billion dollars, okay, then you have to deal
with your billion dollars, which will be the worst
part of your life, trust me. But seeking money for its
own sake is a dead end. What you should seek for
its own sake is children. Talk about a creative act. Last thing I'll say
the whole point of life is to create, okay? The act of creation, which
is like dying in the west, in the arts and in its
most pure expression, which is children. That's all that's worth
doing while you're alive is creating something beautiful. And creating children, by
the way, it's super fun. It's not hard. I can get more technical
off the air if you want. - [Lex] Yeah, please. - I have a lot of thoughts on it. - Do you have documents or something? - (chuckles) No, I can
draw you a schematic. - [Lex] Oh, thank you. - But yeah, that's the greatest thing. And the fact that
corporate America denies, oh, freeze your eggs, have an abortion. What? You're evil. Are you kidding? Because you're taking
from people the only thing that can possibly give them enduring joy. And they are successfully
taking it from people and I hate them for it. - You founded, TCN,
Tucker Carlson Network. - [Tucker] Yeah. - [Lex] What's your vision for it? - [Tucker] I have no vision
for myself, for my career, and I never have, so I'm like
the last person to explain, - Just roll with it. - Yeah, I'm an instincts
guy, a hundred percent. I have a vision for the world, but I don't have a vision
for my life, for my career. So really my vision
extended precisely this far. I just want to keep doing what I'm doing. I just want to keep doing what I'm doing. And there was a five hour period where I wondered if I would be able to, 'cause I feel pretty spry and like alert and I'm certainly deeply
enjoying what I'm doing, which is talking to people
and saying what I think and learning, constantly learning, but I just wanted to keep doing that. And I also wanted to employ the people who I worked with at Fox. I've worked with the same people
for years and I love them. And so, I had all these people and I wanted to bring them with me. So, we had to build a structure for that. - But this feels like
one of the first times you're really working for yourself, like there's an extra
level of freedom here. - Totally, totally. And the good, I'm not, you
don't want me doing your taxes. Like I'm good at some things, but I'm really not good at others. And more of them would be
like running a business, like no idea. I'm not interested, not a commerce guy, so I don't buy anything. So it's like the whole
thing I'm not good at. But luckily I'm really
blessed to have friends who are involved in this,
who are good at that. So I feel positive about it, but mostly I'm totally committed
to only doing the things that I am good at and enjoy
and not doing anything else, 'cause I don't wanna waste my time. And so I'm just getting
to do what I wanna do and I'm really loving it. - What hope, positive hope
do you have for the future of human civilization in say
50 years, 100 years, 200 years? - People are great just by their nature. I mean, they're super
complicated, but I like people. I always have liked people. If I was sitting here with Nikki Haley, who I guess I've been pretty clear, I'm not like a mega fan of Nikki Haley's. I would enjoy it. I've never met anybody I couldn't enjoy on some level given enough time. So as long as nobody tampers
with the human recipe, the human nature itself,
I will always feel blessed by being around other people. And that's true around the world. Like, I've never been to a country. And I've been to scores of countries where I didn't given
a week really like it. And like the people. So yeah, bad leaders are
like a recurring theme in human history. Like, they're mostly bad. And we've got an unusually
bad set right now, but we'll have better ones at some point. I just don't wanna, I don't... The one thing I don't like more than nuclear
weapons and more than AI, the one thing that
really, really bothers me is the idea of using technology to change the human brain permanently. Because you're tampering
with the secret sauce. You're tampering with God's
creation and totally evil. I mean, I literally
sat there the other day with Klaus Schwab, I
was with Klaus Schwab, it was like a total moron. I'm like a hundred years old and like has no idea what's
going on in the world. But he's like one of these
guys who, speaking of mediocre, everyone's so afraid of Klaus Schwab. I don't think Klaus Schwab is
gonna be organizing anything. Again, he's just like a total
figurehead, like a douchebag. But anyway, but he was talking and he's reading all these talking points, like all what the cool kids
are talking about at Davos and whatever, and he
starts talking about it. In his way and his accent, he was saying, I think it's so important that
we follow in an ethical way, always in an ethical way,
of course very ethical. I'm a very ethical man. That we follow using technology
to improve your human mind and implant the chips in the brain. And I'm like, okay, you have no idea what you're talking about. You're like as senile as Joe Biden. But what was so striking is that no one in the
room is like, Wait what? You're fucking with people's brains. (laughs) Like what are
you even talking about?" Who do you think you are? - It's like, I mean, you're
right, the secret sauce. The human mind is really special. Like, we should not mess with it. It's all be very careful and
whatever special thing it does, it seems like it's a good thing. Like human beings are fundamentally good and like these sources of creativity, a creative force in the universe
we don't wanna mess with. - Oh, I mean, what else matters? I don't understand. I mean, I guess look, I don't wanna seem like the Unabomber and I'm not, - We are in a cabin in the woods. - No, well I'm sympathetic
to some of his ideas, but not of course sending
mail bombs to people, 'cause I like people, and I don't believe in violence at all. But I think the problem with technology, one of the problems with technology is the way that people approach it in a very kind of mindless, heedless way. And I think it's important,
this idea that it's inexorable and we can't control it. And if we don't do it, someone else will. And there's some truth in that, but it's not the whole story. We do have free will and we are creating these
things intentionally. And I think it's incumbent on us. It's a requirement of a
moral requirement of us that we ask like, is this
a net gain or a net loss? To the extent we can foresee them, will the effects be, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, it's not super complicated. So I just, I prize long-term thinking. I don't always apply to
my own life, obviously, I want to, but I prize it. And I think that people
with power should think about future generations. And I don't see that
kind of thinking at all. They all seem like children to me. And like, don't give children handguns 'cause they can hurt people. - Yeah, fundamentally,
you want people in power to be pro humanity. - By the way, you don't want people who are 81 who are gonna die anyway. Why do they care? And by the way, if your track record with your own family is miserable, why would I give you my family to oversee? I just don't. Like, again, these are
artistic level questions that someone should answer. - Well, thank you for asking
those questions first of all, and thank you for this conversation. Thank you for welcoming me
to the cabin in the woods. - Thank you. - Thanks for listening
to this conversation with Tucker Carlson. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Mahatma Gandhi, "When I despair, I remember
that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it, always." Thank you for listening, and I hope to see you next time.