Stay Free - Russel Brand - The Real Reason U.S Is Going to War With Iran | Tucker Carlson Interview — SF706

00:00:08.000 Russell Brand.

00:00:10.000 Russell Brand.

00:00:12.000 Trying to bring real journalism to the American people.

00:00:16.000 Hello there, you awakening wonders.

00:00:18.000 Thanks for joining us today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.

00:00:22.000 Today I'm talking with Tucker Carlson, one of the most influential and controversial voices in modern media, a man who spent decades at the heart of American political journalism and now finds himself questioning the very system he once helped interpret.

00:00:36.000 I recently joined Tucker on his show.

00:00:38.000 There's a link in the description if you want to see that conversation.

00:00:40.000 And now he's here with me continuing what has become a much deeper and more urgent dialogue.

00:00:46.000 In this conversation, Tucker lays out why he believes the political system is no longer responding to voters, how power may sit beyond elected leaders, and why recent events from war to culture point to something far bigger than conventional politics.

00:01:00.000 We talk about Trump, influence, foreign policy, faith, and whether what we're witnessing is the unraveling of the model itself or the revealing of what was always there beneath it.

00:01:13.000 Tucker, Russell, you're right at the middle of the culture again.

00:01:18.000 Indeed, watching you move through what seemed to be vocal, and one might have imagined from the state that your country was in at the point and what appeared like a crisis, vociferous and meaningful support of President Trump to skepticism, now to the point where it seems that your criticism of him, and in particular his actions or announcements around, of course, war, which you've always been anti war, strongly anti war in all contexts.

00:01:45.000 So I know that's not personal.

00:01:46.000 But also with some of the announcements or posts that he's made regarding religion, have led you to as close to condemnation as I can imagine you being of him and his presidency.

00:01:59.000 It seems like it's a really significant moment, I think, for him, let alone you.

00:02:04.000 And I wonder how you feel at the middle of it, whether you feel like you're participating in some significant moment, indeed, whether or not your support is so pivotal and important that its denial could cost Trump.

00:02:17.000 Presidency in, well, it's not the free.

00:02:19.000 I mean, it's not going to run again.

00:02:20.000 But, like, I wonder how you have moved from a position of support to a position of condemnation and how critical you imagine it might be for him.

00:02:30.000 In reverse order, I don't think it's critical at all.

00:02:32.000 It's probably meaningless.

00:02:33.000 I have no power at all.

00:02:36.000 I don't think I've moved much.

00:02:39.000 I think I've stood pretty much standing still and that the time, the situation has changed a lot.

00:02:46.000 It's not about Trump.

00:02:47.000 I'm not condemning Trump.

00:02:48.000 I feel sorry for Trump.

00:02:50.000 My affection for Trump remains.

00:02:51.000 Probably forever.

00:02:53.000 I'll always have affection for Trump.

00:02:56.000 I think Trump has much less agency than we imagine he does.

00:03:00.000 I think the president of the United States has less than most Americans know, much less.

00:03:05.000 I feel great pity for Trump.

00:03:07.000 I think he's made bad decisions, but so have I. I'm not much of a judger of people, never have been.

00:03:12.000 I'm not in a place to be.

00:03:14.000 I'm in no place to judge anybody.

00:03:16.000 I mean that.

00:03:17.000 I'm not just saying that.

00:03:18.000 But what I've said is that certain decisions he's made or statements he's made are repugnant to me, and I can't.

00:03:25.000 Not say something about it.

00:03:26.000 Again, it's not personal in the slightest, but I felt that the war in Iran was not only a mistake, but it was a mistake that revealed the problem, the core problem of the United States, which is the system produces these really evil results against the will of the population or without reference to it.

00:03:44.000 In any case, it doesn't matter what people think.

00:03:47.000 We get what we get no matter what we vote for.

00:03:49.000 That's often said. 1.00

00:03:50.000 It turns out to be entirely true.

00:03:52.000 There are all kinds of distractions thrown up to convince us that it's not true, that there are massive differences between the parties.

00:03:59.000 Questions of economic policy and foreign policy, which are the core questions of government, there's no real difference.

00:04:06.000 That's just demonstrable.

00:04:07.000 That's not my opinion.

00:04:08.000 I mean, you could chart it out. 0.76

00:04:10.000 So I argued passionately my position on the war with Iran, which is it's not in America's interest at all.

00:04:20.000 And Trump agreed with me for 10 years.

00:04:23.000 I mean, I've been talking with him about this topic for 10 years since 2016 and a bunch of different points in the first term.

00:04:31.000 And now in this term, which has been dominated by it, you know, there, there, there's been real press on Trump to commit the United States to some sort of war with Iran.

00:04:39.000 And so I've been there and talked to him about it.

00:04:42.000 And I think I spoke to him, you know, not long before this war started and I never detected any enthusiasm from him.

00:04:51.000 I don't think he wanted to do it.

00:04:51.000 For this at all.

00:04:53.000 And I'm convinced of that.

00:04:55.000 Could be wrong, can't know a man's heart, but I mean, I talked to him a lot and I never thought he wanted to do it.

00:05:01.000 And I think he fully understood the potential consequences.

00:05:04.000 I think he's got a reckless streak, as I do too.

00:05:06.000 So I'm not judging, but I think he's a dice roller and the kind of guy who could say, as he did say to me, no matter what happens, it's going to be okay because it always is.

00:05:16.000 That's what he said to me.

00:05:18.000 Is that an expression of recklessness or is it resignation?

00:05:22.000 Of someone who knows he can't control the outcome.

00:05:22.000 Are those the words?

00:05:25.000 So he's just decided to accept it, I think the latter.

00:05:28.000 But the facts are that he was under enormous pressure from the prime minister of Israel to do this and from advocates for Israel in the United States and around him, not really in the White House, but among donors and advisors and friends.

00:05:42.000 And they pushed him into it.

00:05:43.000 Now, how did they get the power to do that?

00:05:45.000 I don't know the answer to that.

00:05:46.000 But I knew then, before it happened, and it's obvious now, that this was very bad for the United States.

00:05:51.000 And I live here.

00:05:52.000 It's our country.

00:05:53.000 And so I was upset about it.

00:05:55.000 That's all I said.

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00:07:34.000 When Barack Obama in 2008 elected to bail out the banks, it was as if there's some inevitable machinery that moves beyond and behind the office of the president.

00:07:44.000 And in a way, it marred perhaps irrevocably the presidency of Obama, even in the eyes of those that.

00:07:50.000 Exactly.

00:07:50.000 I adore him.

00:07:51.000 And I suppose similarly, it's an indication of a machine that operates beyond the purview of what we consider to be democracy.

00:07:59.000 Like, so when you say, I don't know anything like as much about politics as you do, but when I felt that the moment of, I thought that going to a war, going to war with Iran maybe represented the obvious assertion that geopolitics is not influenced and maybe even domestic politics in the ways that are super significant.

00:08:23.000 By whoever is the incumbent or occupant of that office.

00:08:26.000 And that's really frightening, I suppose, in the instance of Trump, because in a way, he was an anti political candidate from the get go and the truth teller and the person that was going to drain the swamp.

00:08:36.000 And so, do you think that that war is the end of that populist moment?

00:08:43.000 And where does America first go if Trump is a captive to political maneuvers that transcend what most people regard as the.

00:08:55.000 The normal mechanic of politics.

00:08:58.000 Well, I think it's the end of politics.

00:09:00.000 If you define politics as the debate over how best to represent the voters, which is what I thought it meant, then at this point it's very, very clear that the view of voters is just immaterial.

00:09:11.000 It doesn't matter at all who you vote for or what you think.

00:09:15.000 Many times over the past 35 years, covering politics and being mostly around mainstream people, but occasionally you cover some third party campaign and you hear people say that.

00:09:25.000 It doesn't matter who you vote for, you get the same result every time.

00:09:28.000 And you're like, that's too glib.

00:09:30.000 There's a very complex and old system with its rituals and rules, and it unfolds, and elections are real.

00:09:37.000 I've covered them.

00:09:38.000 I know this.

00:09:39.000 And you'd be like, that is just simplifying a very complicated phenomenon.

00:09:44.000 And now, in my age, I'm about to turn 57, I'm like, no, that's right.

00:09:47.000 That's just right.

00:09:49.000 And I know it's right because look at what happens every single time.

00:09:53.000 So tell me how it's not right.

00:09:55.000 And so that means now that I think at this point is undeniable.

00:09:59.000 And we can debate, like, why is that?

00:10:02.000 In other words, what are the mechanisms by which forces outside of our political system seize control of that system?

00:10:08.000 And I'm not exactly sure.

00:10:09.000 I have a lot of theories on it, but I don't know.

00:10:12.000 But I know that it happens because I've seen it, and now we've all seen it.

00:10:16.000 So then you have to ask like, you know, there will be a time during which, if the current system remains in place, that we go through the motions in the way that the Roman Senate went through the motions and continue to be a Senate and convene and issue proclamations and da But once it became an empire, like it didn't matter.

00:10:32.000 I think something like that you could imagine happening here where the mechanics of democracy are still in place, but people by and large don't believe that they're real and for good reason.

00:10:42.000 You know, a reformation of the system, which is what I personally would like to see someone who was kind of pleased with the system, as imperfect as it was.

00:10:49.000 You know, and I don't know which one's going to happen, but I don't think we will in the near term find ourselves in a place where anybody believes that electing candidate X over candidate Y is going to solve the problems that led to our current decline.

00:11:05.000 I don't think anyone believes, you know, is Keir Starmer better than Rishi Sunak?

00:11:09.000 You know, like what does that even mean?

00:11:11.000 No, neither one of them ran anything.

00:11:13.000 They're just employees, they're dutiful servants of some other power, obviously.

00:11:17.000 The UK is so much smaller than the United States, less than a third.

00:11:21.000 So it's like the US in miniature, kind of.

00:11:23.000 And you can sort of see social pathologies and management crises and clear relief just because it's much smaller.

00:11:29.000 It's like an ant form.

00:11:30.000 But the.

00:11:31.000 Excuse me.

00:11:32.000 That's my beloved country where there's just a single tier.

00:11:36.000 No, I say that as someone whose ancestors are from there and whose system comes from there.

00:11:41.000 And everything good in the United States ultimately derives from the British system. 0.62

00:11:45.000 Not everything good, but our core institutions are English. 0.70

00:11:49.000 And so I say that as someone who was looking in the same way Americans look at California to find out what's coming next.

00:11:54.000 We look at Britain to find out what's coming next, or I do anyway.

00:11:58.000 And I know that the United States is exactly that.

00:12:01.000 It's just easier to cloak in a continent full of 350 million people.

00:12:05.000 So, but I, this system is done.

00:12:10.000 Yes.

00:12:10.000 Because it's been revealed to be the opposite of what they told us it was.

00:12:15.000 Now, you can imagine a kind of humane, decent country run by.

00:12:22.000 Non democratically, they do exist.

00:12:24.000 I don't want one because that's way too much power to vest in a person.

00:12:27.000 But the truth is, there are monarchies and certainly have been historically that are pretty free and open and humane and decent.

00:12:33.000 Like democracy is not the only system that gets you to freedom, by the way.

00:12:36.000 It's just not true.

00:12:38.000 It's the one that I trust most and would prefer to continue.

00:12:41.000 But what we have now is not a democracy.

00:12:43.000 And I think we can just say that without shame.

00:12:46.000 I'm not the one who subverted it, by the way.

00:12:48.000 I've got nothing to be embarrassed about.

00:12:49.000 I'm not attacking democracy.

00:12:50.000 I'm trying to defend it, but we don't have it.

00:12:53.000 And I would like it.

00:12:54.000 And so, how do you go about restoring it?

00:12:57.000 I really don't know.

00:12:59.000 My sense is that Trump is making it easier for the rest of us to understand what's at stake and what the potential solution is by framing the current war in religious terms. 0.93

00:13:09.000 I think that's actually a good thing. 0.85

00:13:10.000 Now, obviously, it's grotesque and scary because the last thing you want is a religious war. 1.00

00:13:15.000 Do you really want to be at war with 2 billion Muslims?

00:13:18.000 Why? 0.99

00:13:19.000 But that's what they're trying to convince us this is.

00:13:22.000 I don't want it to be that.

00:13:24.000 But I am glad that they're using the language of the supernatural because it is a.

00:13:29.000 In a secular society like ours, it's a much needed reminder that everything we see is the product of supernatural conflict of spiritual war, that we live in a supernatural world.

00:13:42.000 And by supernatural, I mean specifically, we live in a world in which things happen due to forces that can't be sensed or measured.

00:13:49.000 So it's outside of science, it's supernatural or supranatural, really.

00:13:55.000 So it's good to know that.

00:13:58.000 It's so good for all of us to know that.

00:14:00.000 So when the president posts a picture of himself as Jesus, And then intentionally puts a demon over his own head, which he did last night, Sunday night, Sunday night, and then denies he did it or whatever, whatever, but he did it.

00:14:16.000 It's just a fact.

00:14:18.000 It causes the rest of us to pause and ask, like, what is this?

00:14:22.000 It's not exactly clear what it is, but what it's not is a continuation of the mirage that we've lived with my entire lifetime, which is this is like a conflict between left and right, Republicans and Democrats, and they're trying to, you know, Come to some consensus on the best way to govern the country or the world.

00:14:40.000 Like that, that's not that.

00:14:42.000 It's something totally different.

00:14:45.000 And it's only by keeping that in mind that we can get closer to the truth of what it actually is.

00:14:50.000 But everything, and the last thing I'll say is I know a lot of people who run countries because that's my job is to interview people.

00:14:57.000 And a lot of people with power, I'm not one of them, but I've been around them a lot.

00:15:02.000 And they're, to a man, to a person, religious people.

00:15:07.000 Every single one of them, every single one of them, and almost every single one of them, with very few exceptions, poses as a secular person.

00:15:14.000 They are observant religious people. 0.89

00:15:16.000 Now, they are not serving the Christian God. 1.00

00:15:18.000 None of them that I've ever met.

00:15:20.000 But they are serving gods.

00:15:23.000 And they know it.

00:15:24.000 There's no question about it, however, they conceive that.

00:15:27.000 But they are not rationalist.

00:15:29.000 Not a single one of them.

00:15:32.000 They think in terms of supernatural power.

00:15:34.000 They all believe correctly, in my opinion, that they are being guided by and strengthened by, given authority by supernatural powers, and they appease those powers.

00:15:45.000 Not accusing them of what we'd call witchcraft, but it is, in fact, witchcraft, is what it really is.

00:15:49.000 They're all participating in it.

00:15:50.000 And all rulers, just in general, through history, participate in it.

00:15:55.000 But we should know that.

00:15:56.000 And we shouldn't fall for the biggest lie ever told about leaders is that they're just like technocrats.

00:16:03.000 Oh, no.

00:16:04.000 Every one of them believes, I've got a destiny.

00:16:06.000 I'm here for a reason.

00:16:07.000 Well, that right there is an admission of faith.

00:16:10.000 Every single one of them and every single one of them has, you know, things they will do and things they won't do, things they feel compelled to do because of a higher calling.

00:16:17.000 These are all expressions of religious faith.

00:16:20.000 And all of them have red lines in their minds and we can call that they're superstitious.

00:16:24.000 It's not superstitious.

00:16:25.000 There's no such thing as superstitious religious faith.

00:16:28.000 Now it could be faith in demons, which it typically is, but it doesn't make it any less religious.

00:16:34.000 So I think we should know that there's a sense in what you've just described that the model has exhausted itself, that the model has expired.

00:16:43.000 That there was something about Trump always that was, you could put it that he's vivid, lurid, a self caricature, a person who's very aware of his own mythology while it's unfolding.

00:16:55.000 His mythology draws from the lexicon and values of the immediate culture.

00:16:59.000 I mean, it's things like his own name at the top of buildings and Coca Cola and a fetish from McDonald's and all of these things and an amplification of male values.

00:17:08.000 So many things that are kind of recognizable from the period of time he's been alive, the 1980s.

00:17:13.000 And it's an extraordinary thing.

00:17:15.000 Thing to see the implosion of that because it's difficult to imagine that can't be accompanied by an implosion of the system itself, in so much as how can the next natural step be the ascent of another Republican figure or the vicissitude delivering Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom or AOC?

00:17:35.000 Like you say, it's like the system is spent, wrung out through this sort of last peculiarly postmodern.

00:17:45.000 And yet, aged political figure, someone that was both simultaneously nostalgic and progressive in a way that's unimaginable.

00:17:52.000 I mean, just through his means of communication and his expertise with new media, and the fact that he was a person primed in the world of television before entering into politics.

00:18:01.000 Well, just a point about what you said about the UK.

00:18:03.000 Firstly, how dare you?

00:18:04.000 And secondly, for a while, because it's a sort of like an old, arcane, deep culture, I've got the sense that true British power has even migrated to institutions and agencies that are beyond the way we regard national power and.

00:18:19.000 Institutional power, and that for a time it's been subterranean, real British power is invisible.

00:18:26.000 That there are peculiar anomalies in British power, like the city of London being its own sort of tax exile in the middle of a capital city, the sort of lingering monarchy, the peculiarly technocratic politicians, actually, like Keir Starmer, who one finds it hard to imagine donning a robe and worshipping Moloch just because I would almost improve my view of him if I thought that.

00:18:50.000 And so, in a way, are we saying that, you know, in this kind of post Epstein, Middle Eastern, seemingly apocalyptic moment, that all leaders are in some way compromised?

00:19:03.000 Are we saying that real power is supranational as well as supranatural, that real power is concentrated elsewhere? 0.68

00:19:13.000 And what gave you the courage to start talking about Israel's agenda? 0.66

00:19:20.000 Israel's war, Israel's expansion into Lebanon.

00:19:24.000 And do you see occultism as being part of that facet of this conflict and this moment of revelation and decline, which you've described in a way as the end of democracy?

00:19:35.000 And it's difficult to argue with that aspect, certainly.

00:19:37.000 I mean, I, well, to again answer your last question first on the question of Israel, I mean, I have felt for a long time, decades, you know, having lived in Washington, son of a federal employee, and just watching the system most of my life since for 40 years, since the mid 80s.

00:19:37.000 Yeah.

00:19:54.000 I felt very strongly that the relationship between the United States and Israel was not healthy and that it would, in the end, probably gravely harm the United States. 0.99

00:20:04.000 I have just felt that. 0.84

00:20:05.000 I felt that not because I hate Jews, which I don't and never have and never will, not because I hate Israel, because I don't, but because Israel is a lot less like the United States than Americans understand. 0.59

00:20:19.000 Okay, so I would say that. 0.74

00:20:21.000 And also just because it's unequally yoked.

00:20:25.000 You can't, it's just an.

00:20:27.000 Got one large resource dense global power and one tiny, kind of irrelevant country with a lot of ancient monuments on the shores of the Mediterranean.

00:20:38.000 Like, one should not be in the little ones, should not be in charge of the big ones.

00:20:41.000 I just always felt that was unnatural, but I didn't say anything about it because it wasn't worth it.

00:20:45.000 And I had lots of other things going on, and I also had small children, and like, and I understood the penalties very, very clearly for doing that.

00:20:52.000 How?

00:20:55.000 Honestly?

00:20:55.000 Yeah.

00:20:58.000 I don't even want to say it, but I had, I mean, there was something in my, you know, because by marriage, I'm related to a United States senator who was, you know, who I didn't admire as a senator, but whose career was destroyed because he said something about the influence. 0.57

00:21:17.000 He was not an anti Semite or an Israel hater, but he was like, hey, why is Israel calling the shots here?

00:21:22.000 And he was a very, very famous senator.

00:21:24.000 And I watched him get taken out for saying that.

00:21:27.000 And it was obvious living in Washington, like, that's the one thing you can't say.

00:21:30.000 Is that maybe this relationship is unhealthy?

00:21:33.000 There's undue influence in the next.

00:21:34.000 So I just did, I was like, you know what? 0.86

00:21:36.000 And I would always tell my staff at various networks I worked at, I don't do the Israel stories.

00:21:40.000 I'm not against Israel.

00:21:41.000 I actually really like it as a place.

00:21:43.000 I still feel that, but we're not doing that.

00:21:47.000 Then the war in Iran really changed it.

00:21:50.000 And what really changed it, two things one, the persecution of Christians by Israel, which is widespread and longstanding and ignored, started to drive me crazy.

00:22:00.000 Killed by the state of Israel with my tax dollars, and I'm not allowed to say anything about it.

00:22:06.000 I don't have a ton of self respect, but enough that I had to say something. 0.93

00:22:10.000 Then, two, and most pressingly, really, was this acceleration of the effort to get the US into war.

00:22:17.000 I think the Israelis understood that this was really their last chance.

00:22:21.000 Right after the inauguration, Netanyahu showed up at the White House, was there more than half a dozen times pushing for this.

00:22:28.000 Of course, I knew a lot of people who worked there, including the president, and so I knew this was happening and I knew the details of it.

00:22:33.000 And I just pushed back as hard as I could.

00:22:35.000 And then, of course, they just attacked me in public and my family. 0.96

00:22:37.000 And you're an anti-Semite. 0.99

00:22:38.000 And you hate the Jews. 1.00

00:22:40.000 Okay. 1.00

00:22:40.000 You're a Nazi. 1.00

00:22:41.000 Now, none of that's true. 0.96

00:22:45.000 But it hardened my resolve.

00:22:47.000 You know, like, no, I'm from here.

00:22:49.000 This is, I live here.

00:22:50.000 This is my country.

00:22:51.000 Like, what do you, you can't use the US military to genocide people and get us into wars that are going to destroy the US dollar and double gas prices and get Americans killed.

00:23:01.000 Like, no.

00:23:02.000 Like, how much do you have to put up with?

00:23:04.000 Like, I'm, Totally happy to ignore, I don't know, Jonathan Pollard.

00:23:09.000 You know, you steal our secrets and then you give them to the Soviets at the height of the Cold War.

00:23:13.000 Okay, I'll be quiet.

00:23:15.000 You try and sink a US naval vessel, you get the president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, on board, and we all have to ignore the USS Liberty.

00:23:23.000 And, and other things, and other things too.

00:23:26.000 Um, bigger things.

00:23:28.000 And so, but I, hey, I'm happy.

00:23:31.000 I don't even have to say everything you think.

00:23:32.000 You're not required to give every opinion.

00:23:35.000 Jesus didn't say everything he thought, you know?

00:23:38.000 But when the war in Iran, when I could see that it was actually moving toward a war with Iran, I thought, I don't even care what the effect on me is.

00:23:46.000 I cared about my family.

00:23:47.000 Well, that's been very frustrating.

00:23:49.000 But, um, but anyway, so yeah, that's, that's why I did that.

00:23:53.000 And of course it didn't work in the end.

00:23:56.000 And the opposite happened, and it was worse even than I had predicted it was going to be.

00:24:00.000 Sad, sad.

00:24:01.000 Has there already been consequences for you?

00:24:06.000 Well, there have been no consequences.

00:24:08.000 I mean, I've already stated my advanced age.

00:24:10.000 I don't have any debt.

00:24:12.000 All my kids are thriving.

00:24:13.000 I don't work for anybody.

00:24:15.000 I don't have any business investors.

00:24:17.000 I don't have a mortgage.

00:24:18.000 Like, I don't know what you can do to me exactly kill me, I guess.

00:24:20.000 I'm not afraid of that at all.

00:24:22.000 So there are no consequences to me whatsoever.

00:24:26.000 I can't see what they would be.

00:24:28.000 And I'm not inspired by hate.

00:24:29.000 I don't hate anybody.

00:24:31.000 I won't allow myself to hate anybody.

00:24:32.000 It's against my religion, so I'm not going to do that.

00:24:35.000 But I definitely think it's important to tell the truth, and I am even more convinced of that. 0.99

00:24:42.000 And no, I have no idea what's going to happen other than what I strongly sense, which is that there will be persecution of Christians. 0.98

00:24:50.000 I strongly sense that. 0.66

00:24:51.000 I strongly feel that.

00:24:52.000 That was the first thing I thought when I saw the tweet that Donald Trump sent out last night of himself as Jesus.

00:24:59.000 I thought this is I don't know why I thought that.

00:25:01.000 I certainly hope I'm wrong.

00:25:03.000 But I think that's likely.

00:25:05.000 The people that have always hated Trump will say that this is exactly what they were warning us against.

00:25:14.000 Similarly, they will say that Trump has been using Christianity, a kind of Margaret Atwood dystopic version of Christianity, to legitimize patriarchy and misogyny and all of the things that Trump has said. 0.98

00:25:28.000 You know, like, for example, the famous crotch grabbing speech were indications that Trump's a degenerate. 0.90

00:25:35.000 And then some will say, About you significantly and me, less so, hugely less so. 0.98

00:25:43.000 Oh, you were you lot.

00:25:44.000 You all advocated for Trump one way or another.

00:25:46.000 You went to Mar a Lago, you're friends with him.

00:25:48.000 You're the reason we've got Trump, and certainly this version of Trump that's so emboldened and empowered.

00:25:52.000 Totally fair.

00:25:53.000 Yeah.

00:25:54.000 And I noticed that a lot of people say from the liberal left whose affiliations and associations are so strongly focused on.

00:26:05.000 Israel and Palestine, and what many people regard as a genocide in Gaza. 0.66

00:26:10.000 It's difficult to think of a better word than that.

00:26:13.000 I'm talking about British journalists like, say, Owen Jones, very much over the left, or Mehdi Hussein, who's worked in your country, but it's very much over the left.

00:26:20.000 Those people, I know you don't look at social media, but like are very much using your position to legitimize their own positions.

00:26:30.000 Now, truth is truth and right is right.

00:26:33.000 But do you wonder?

00:26:34.000 There's two things, there's loads of things, as you know, you know how I ask questions now.

00:26:37.000 It's like, Just a heap of language that you're going to have to just pick through like seagulls in a dump, like in landfill.

00:26:46.000 But here is the final portions of verbal refuse that I want to fling you away.

00:26:52.000 One is that, like people say, but Christianity is part of the problem of Trump.

00:26:56.000 He's been using Christianity.

00:26:58.000 That's one thing I want to say. 0.95

00:26:59.000 Don't you think that this is going to lead to, you know, in the midterms, more Democrats and that, you know, do you have any concerns about the impact of it?

00:27:10.000 Do you feel that it is in any way?

00:27:13.000 A kind of a hypocrisy.

00:27:14.000 How could you not know about Trump in 20, you know, whenever the last election was, 23, what you know now?

00:27:22.000 What's the revelation?

00:27:23.000 The war?

00:27:24.000 And what do you think about the potential consequences of however you see your influence as an outside person?

00:27:29.000 It's significant and it's far reaching.

00:27:31.000 Well, let me just say, since you mentioned patriarchy, that I strongly support patriarchy.

00:27:35.000 It's the only system that works.

00:27:36.000 And I really mean that.

00:27:37.000 I believe that.

00:27:38.000 That's not an excuse to belittle women.

00:27:40.000 I love women more than men. 1.00

00:27:42.000 But the patriarchal structure is the only structure that works. 0.89

00:27:44.000 And one of the reasons the West is.

00:27:46.000 Collapsing is because we've attacked the patriarchy.

00:27:50.000 So, to the extent that Trump was a force for patriarchy, I'm strongly for Trump.

00:27:54.000 Uh, how did I get it wrong?

00:27:55.000 Well, I've gotten a lot of things wrong. 0.94

00:27:57.000 I supported the Iraq war. 0.98

00:27:58.000 Right.

00:27:59.000 Um, I would also argue that, and I'm get many future things wrong.

00:28:03.000 I know that I will, but I would also say that it was a process, um, of understanding for me.

00:28:11.000 But I think, you know, there were changes along the way and I don't into Trump and to his intent and his worldview.

00:28:18.000 And I don't fully understand all of them.

00:28:20.000 Now, Joe Kent, who was one of the top intel officials in the United States, suggested the Butler shooting and the murder of Charlie Kirk were related in some way to those changes.

00:28:28.000 I don't know if that's true.

00:28:30.000 I don't know the answer.

00:28:31.000 I really don't.

00:28:34.000 Clearly, I did ignore certain things.

00:28:36.000 For example, I was sitting directly across from him when he didn't put his hand on the Bible and it was a refusal to put his hand on the Bible at his inauguration.

00:28:43.000 That bothered me a lot, a lot.

00:28:45.000 Why wouldn't you?

00:28:46.000 If you didn't believe in the Bible, you wouldn't care.

00:28:48.000 Only if you believed in the Bible and didn't want to be bound by it, would you do that.

00:28:53.000 And I thought that at the time.

00:28:55.000 But I sublimated it, and that's my fault.

00:28:58.000 And I would say I'm sorry for doing that.

00:29:02.000 So, but I'm not sure it's about me or my faults.

00:29:05.000 I mean, if what I'm saying is dependent on my own personal virtue or foresight or wisdom, then you should ignore everything I say because I lack all of those things from time to time.

00:29:14.000 I'm sad about it.

00:29:15.000 It hasn't helped me to say any of the things I'm saying.

00:29:20.000 Here's what makes me hopeful, however, is I think because politicians, and I can't speak to Mehdi Hassan or whoever that is or the other guy who's now I've never even heard of, to their criticism, but I can say that.

00:29:33.000 I think normal, most people watching this, I shouldn't say normal people, but just most people like trying to figure out what is this and what does it mean, will come away probably with a conclusion that I'm reaching, which is that politics doesn't solve the core problems here.

00:29:46.000 And that maybe one of the most basic problems is you can't, there's never been a secular society in history.

00:29:54.000 Never.

00:29:54.000 We don't have one now, but we pretend to be.

00:29:57.000 But at no other time in all of human history that we know about, that's been recorded.

00:30:02.000 Has there ever been a society that was based on the idea that there is no God or the state?

00:30:08.000 It just has never happened.

00:30:10.000 So, I would say from 1917 until present has been the only example of that in the history of humanity.

00:30:18.000 So, that doesn't work.

00:30:19.000 It doesn't work.

00:30:21.000 And a country full of people who don't believe in God is going to, by definition, collapse.

00:30:27.000 And I think that the civilization will collapse.

00:30:30.000 It is collapsing.

00:30:31.000 Of course, that's why it's collapsing.

00:30:33.000 And by the way, I travel a lot internationally.

00:30:37.000 And one of the things you notice is that the Islamic world, which I've been going to for 25 years since 9 11 because of my job, the Islamic world is booming.

00:30:45.000 And it's not because there's no more oil and gas there today than there were 25 years ago.

00:30:50.000 It's because those societies got the religious extremism under control, but they are not secular societies.

00:30:57.000 And Europe, which is more secular now than it was 25 years ago, is that much more degraded and sad and kind of coming apart on every level. 0.51

00:31:06.000 So it's just another reminder that that just doesn't work.

00:31:08.000 And I, there's a Christian religious revival underway in the United States.

00:31:12.000 It's measurable by church attendance, by conversions at Easter in the Catholic Church, for example, the growth in the Orthodox Church.

00:31:18.000 That to me is the, A is the only answer.

00:31:22.000 And B is like the sign of hope in all of this and Trump framing everything or Pete Hegseth calling this a crusade, which, you know, obviously I find grotesque and, an offense against the gospel.

00:31:33.000 I'm still grateful that they're saying it because it gets all of us thinking like, what is this?

00:31:39.000 What could possibly be the motive, not just of the United States, but of Israel too, which is risking its own destruction?

00:31:46.000 What could possibly be the motive for attacking Iran in a regime change where like no normal person thought, no smart person thought that could work?

00:31:53.000 It's not working.

00:31:54.000 Why would you do it anyway?

00:31:56.000 There must be something bigger going on.

00:31:57.000 What was the point of the COVID vaccine, which didn't work?

00:32:00.000 They knew it didn't work and wasn't going to work.

00:32:03.000 Didn't save anybody.

00:32:04.000 It killed tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people.

00:32:06.000 We know that.

00:32:08.000 Why did they do that?

00:32:10.000 There's no obvious profit motive in any of this.

00:32:14.000 It's beyond profit.

00:32:15.000 It's beyond money.

00:32:16.000 It's not just money.

00:32:17.000 Yeah.

00:32:18.000 Okay.

00:32:18.000 Pfizer, Majority got rich from the, but is that really the reason?

00:32:21.000 I don't think so.

00:32:21.000 There's something bigger going on.

00:32:23.000 People are reaching that conclusion.

00:32:24.000 There's something bigger going on.

00:32:27.000 And I think that's an essential conclusion to reach.

00:32:29.000 And I can just say the last thing I'll say is in my own life, I've been a Christian my whole life.

00:32:34.000 I mean, I was baptized in the Episcopal church by my uncle, the bishop, but I, it wasn't, it didn't occupy the place in my daily life that it does now.

00:32:44.000 And what changed was the realization watching the politics around 2021, the height of COVID, and concluding that whatever was going on here wasn't political.

00:32:56.000 It wasn't part of the recognizable struggle between political parties or between nations or anything like that.

00:33:00.000 There was something way bigger and very hard for me as a man to understand.

00:33:05.000 But it was clearly there.

00:33:06.000 There was a force, an unseen force, a spiritual force, I concluded, that had at its core aim the destruction of people, of humanity.

00:33:16.000 That hated people because they're created in the image of God.

00:33:19.000 Well, that is the definition of evil, of the evil one, as described in the Lord's Prayer.

00:33:24.000 So, that understanding, which came to me slowly because my job every day was to think of what was going on in the world and write a script about it.

00:33:33.000 Over about six months, I began to really think, wow, the spiritual war is real.

00:33:38.000 We're watching this.

00:33:39.000 And that realization set off a revival in my own heart, totally changed my life completely.

00:33:44.000 And I think that's happening for a lot of people.

00:33:46.000 It's by watching evil that we understand God.

00:33:48.000 I guess that's what I'm saying.

00:33:50.000 Yes.

00:33:51.000 Do you feel that?

00:33:52.000 Yeah, I do.

00:33:54.000 I feel that the model has exhausted itself, that the performance is over, that the claim of secularism, I thought that was really profound, is important because secularism is, yes, the separation of religious ideals from the matter of politics, almost as if we can go with operations and management without any kind of divine inspiration.

00:34:13.000 But there is no neutrality.

00:34:15.000 In fact, just recently, someone explained to me that one of the Greek words for sin, one of the etymological Roots is a kind of formlessness, this claim of neutrality.

00:34:30.000 Now, when you sort of like, that's one of the claims of secularism.

00:34:33.000 We'll just get all religion out of it.

00:34:35.000 Then we've got this thing called neutrality.

00:34:36.000 Wait, wait, what do you mean?

00:34:38.000 It's almost like the establishment of this field that's so open to bias.

00:34:43.000 And one would have to exclude the possibility that there are nefarious biases being continually introduced, masked, occultist, nefarious intent.

00:34:53.000 Continually veiled.

00:34:55.000 Sometimes the worst motives hidden beneath a good one.

00:34:59.000 We just want to protect you all and help you.

00:35:01.000 I mean, that's what's become sort of impossible to participate in.

00:35:06.000 The idea that this war against Iran is because otherwise Iran are going to become super powerful and develop a nuclear weapon. 0.77

00:35:13.000 And to protect you, the people of America, we better go to war now. 0.75

00:35:16.000 Well, that sounds really similar to weapons of mass destruction, seems really similar to American foreign misadventure in the period ever since the. 0.52

00:35:24.000 Second World War.

00:35:25.000 And one can't help but be struck by your observation that the advent of secularism coincides with this goriest period of industrialized warfare in our history, where we have the facility to conduct these kind of destructive and brutal experiments near continually.

00:35:41.000 So the fact that it is primarily supernatural and only plays out materially and rationally, I think, is the dialectic that we're going to have to become well versed in describing and explaining because otherwise.

00:35:56.000 I'm starting to look at the instruments, ornaments, and participants in this peculiar moment.

00:36:03.000 Cause when I'm like, when say being English, British, like, and looking at my country and a lot of people are deeply concerned about the, what they would call the Islamification of Britain and migrants and people praying and like doing fighting age males and things.

00:36:15.000 Remember, Tucker, the ideas that a lot of people will have learned about through watching your content, like what people call population replacement theory, stuff like that. 0.54

00:36:24.000 Like when I envisage the forces that likely control the world and it is just a vision, I've got nothing to corroborate it.

00:36:32.000 I don't see, uh, the weaponry of Sharia law. 0.93

00:36:37.000 And some kind of Islamic might masquerading behind all of these instruments and implementing the Muslim lobby doing this. 0.97

00:36:46.000 I just feel like their communication skills have been sort of off key and like they've been, if anything, too authentic and too overt with some of their feelings. 0.99

00:36:57.000 Um, and But I do see that in my country, say, it seems that from the top, the imposition of bureaucracy that seems to be outside of British political will is certainly not democratic.

00:37:11.000 But from the top down, British people feel they're being controlled.

00:37:14.000 And from the bottom up, people feel like they're experiencing excessive migration, deterioration of their culture and their values.

00:37:21.000 And migration, it seems like from watching British culture and British media, seems to be a significant portion of many people's concern.

00:37:29.000 But really, what sort of struck me in this moment is when the Iran war started, and I've been, as you know, somewhat sort of stymied and hobbled by my own personal challenges for the last year or so.

00:37:40.000 It felt what hit me was this would have happened in ways in no meaningfully different way had Kamala Harris been president right now. 0.82

00:37:48.000 You would have that war with Iran. 0.86

00:37:50.000 It's kind of Kissinger level politics.

00:37:52.000 It's that there's a sort of a trajectory that can bypass all of these participants and players on the political stage, and therefore, Before the whole thing's a kind of mirage, we're content to quarrel about ridiculous details, and real power is transcendent of even international power.

00:38:11.000 And one eventually arrives at a point where you start to think, is it sort of an occultist power?

00:38:15.000 Is it esoteric power?

00:38:17.000 And indeed, to your point, I don't think that the motivation is resources and finances.

00:38:22.000 I think it's both subtler and more powerful than that.

00:38:26.000 And that's kind of both frightening and encouraging because it seems like the solution is surrender to Christ.

00:38:33.000 But again, How do you imagine and do you feel like it's your job to even imagine?

00:38:37.000 We conduct this conversation as participants in media, and do you feel like part of this conversation will ultimately mean systemic disruption and becoming an advocate for and participant in systemic disruption?

00:38:54.000 And also, by the way, Mehdi Hussain and Owen Jones, these kind of people are posting your stuff favorably, saying, Look, Tucker Carlson's putting this stuff better.

00:39:00.000 You know, when you, that woman, when you said Israel interest, you said, What do you mean by Israel interest and all that kind of thing?

00:39:05.000 You're on someone else's show.

00:39:06.000 He did a great job of that.

00:39:07.000 And a lot of people were watching that.

00:39:08.000 And a lot of people are watching, obviously, many of the things, even prior to the more overt condemnation of Trump for some of his irreligious statements, people were observing what you were talking about with regard to the benefits of America's involvement in the Iran conflict and what the motivation might be and who the true beneficiary of this conflict is.

00:39:29.000 So, just to clarify that.

00:39:30.000 So, how do we ensure that people understand that what they're participating in is something that's kind of supernatural, therefore religious?

00:39:38.000 And what do you think is Your role, and I don't mean in a sort of grandiose and personal way, what is our role?

00:39:44.000 What needs to be done to ensure that we don't just, like, if the result of this is, and then a Democrat candidate wins in 28, and then, like, you know, do you feel that the real trajectory is to centralize power, bureaucratic, globally, and imperially, while creating sort of disarray and despair?

00:40:00.000 So that's been the gig for a while.

00:40:01.000 So, how do we communicate that without generating fear and conflict?

00:40:07.000 Well, I mean, I don't think I don't seek to generate fear and conflict.

00:40:11.000 I've certainly done both.

00:40:13.000 Most of the time, it's been just a byproduct of what I think is true.

00:40:16.000 Sometimes I'm sure I've done it intentionally, and I'm sorry when I have because I don't want to do that.

00:40:24.000 My role in it is, I hope, you know, God willing, going to remain exactly the same.

00:40:29.000 I'm not capable of running anything.

00:40:32.000 I have no interest in exerting power over people at all.

00:40:37.000 And I don't think I'm suited for it.

00:40:39.000 So I am suited for, you know, being paid to think about what's happening, talking to a million people constantly, traveling constantly, just trying to understand what's going on and then explaining it to the extent of my ability, which is sometimes limited.

00:40:53.000 That's it.

00:40:54.000 Just telling the truth in public.

00:40:55.000 That's it.

00:40:55.000 And I think that that is my contribution.

00:40:58.000 It's obviously not a decisive contribution.

00:41:00.000 I couldn't stop that. 0.51

00:41:01.000 I was single minded in my effort to convince the president not to participate in this war and not to start it.

00:41:10.000 And I failed.

00:41:11.000 So, like, and my wife actually laughed at me in the kitchen in a good hearted way that the next morning.

00:41:16.000 She's like, well, I guess that didn't work.

00:41:17.000 And I said, well, I guess it did because I was constantly flying to Washington and talking to Trump on the phone and all this stuff.

00:41:22.000 And I was like, she's like, what are you doing?

00:41:24.000 And I said, I don't want a war with Iran.

00:41:25.000 Well, now we have a war with Iran. 0.85

00:41:26.000 So, obviously, That was a great reminder to me of the limits of my own powers, which I never overstated really anyway.

00:41:36.000 But it's easy when you're talking to powerful people to think that you're a powerful person, but I'm not a powerful person.

00:41:40.000 I'm what do we call it now?

00:41:42.000 Podcaster.

00:41:42.000 Podcaster!

00:41:44.000 But I'm going to continue doing that because I think it's what I can do.

00:41:49.000 As to what happens next, I don't really know, but I would say one of the great lies we've been told, and I have fallen for it up until very recently, is that.

00:41:58.000 Geopolitics is a contest between sovereign states.

00:42:02.000 You know, that the way to think of the world is 190 or whatever, I can't even remember the number of like countries.

00:42:08.000 And they all go to the UN or most go to the UN except for those outlaw states like North Korea or whatever. 0.71

00:42:13.000 But generally, the world meets on the east side of New York to like hammer out agreements on the basis of the relative power and their separate interests.

00:42:20.000 And a lot of that's fake.

00:42:22.000 In a globalized economy, you don't really have sovereignty.

00:42:26.000 How can you?

00:42:27.000 No country.

00:42:29.000 Can provide for itself the necessities of life anymore.

00:42:32.000 There's not one country.

00:42:33.000 I mean, many could, but none do.

00:42:36.000 Not one.

00:42:37.000 So in that kind of economic system, you don't have sovereign states.

00:42:40.000 You have interdependent states, and that system by its nature, a globalized economy, is susceptible to control.

00:42:49.000 So do you have one world government?

00:42:52.000 Well, no, not officially.

00:42:54.000 You don't.

00:42:55.000 Do you have it in effect?

00:42:56.000 Of course you do.

00:42:56.000 Or at least you've got spheres of government, right?

00:43:00.000 You've got the West.

00:43:01.000 Is, is it controlled by the United States?

00:43:04.000 Who are these powers who are pulling the strings?

00:43:06.000 Well, this is the way I think of it.

00:43:08.000 And I think it's the best way to think of it.

00:43:10.000 It's not just, you know, Israel is BB, who's like not a genius. 0.63

00:43:14.000 Is he running the United States? 0.60

00:43:15.000 Not really.

00:43:16.000 Was Epstein running whatever he was doing?

00:43:19.000 No, of course not.

00:43:21.000 We're looking at employees.

00:43:23.000 Who's in charge?

00:43:24.000 Think of the United States as a company.

00:43:26.000 Who's in charge?

00:43:27.000 You've got the employees who are making the product.

00:43:29.000 You have the management team that is running the employees.

00:43:31.000 At the top of that, you have the CEO and the CFO and the CTO and all the C's, the C suite, as we say.

00:43:39.000 But above them, you have what?

00:43:41.000 The board of directors who represent who?

00:43:42.000 The shareholders.

00:43:43.000 That's who runs a publicly traded company, the shareholders.

00:43:46.000 And their influence is exerted with precision or not, depending.

00:43:49.000 But when it really comes down to it, the shareholders are in control.

00:43:52.000 So, a country like the United States, up until recently, the world's largest economy, is controlled by its shareholders.

00:43:58.000 And that is true for the world.

00:43:59.000 So, the larger stake you have in the enterprise, the bigger say you get.

00:44:04.000 So, the idea that some election in New Hampshire is going to turn control over the world's biggest corporation to one guy is like a fiction, always has been.

00:44:15.000 But the idea that those shareholders don't like to make the big decisions in the meantime, that's absurd.

00:44:22.000 Of course they do.

00:44:23.000 And most of the time, the mechanics of this are just not visible because there's no crisis that rises them to the surface.

00:44:29.000 It's only when you have someone like Trump, who's like 90% compliant, 10% uncontrollable, that makes the people and the shareholders so nervous that they just can't deal with this guy.

00:44:41.000 Like, yeah, we can basically trust him.

00:44:42.000 He puts Jared Kushner in charge of the White House.

00:44:44.000 Okay, we know we're fine.

00:44:47.000 But then occasionally he says stuff that's just like not on script at all at too big a risk.

00:44:53.000 We got to butler him or whatever.

00:44:55.000 We have to impeach him or do whatever.

00:44:56.000 I mean, it's an acceleration ladder that goes from impeachment to assassination.

00:45:00.000 You can't take the risk.

00:45:02.000 Too much is at stake.

00:45:04.000 That's the way I see it now.

00:45:05.000 And I think it's a much more accurate way to see it.

00:45:07.000 So, who are the big shareholders?

00:45:08.000 Well, they're literally the biggest shareholders.

00:45:10.000 They're the people with the biggest economic stake in the country.

00:45:16.000 Why would they not be those?

00:45:18.000 So, now I am less surprised and less freaked out.

00:45:24.000 I'm as offended, but I'm not shocked by the idea that there are.

00:45:29.000 Forces that make the big decisions because there always were going to be that.

00:45:33.000 There's too much at stake.

00:45:34.000 People risk their lives to rob liquor stores for 300 bucks.

00:45:37.000 They'll risk their lives.

00:45:38.000 What wouldn't you do to assure control over the world?

00:45:43.000 There's nothing you wouldn't do.

00:45:45.000 And there's nothing they haven't done.

00:45:47.000 And then the last thing I'll say is that the second you have dense concentrations of power, you have evil.

00:45:55.000 And this is the message of Jesus' very famous observation that it's more difficult to get into heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, not simply because wealth is inherently bad.

00:46:06.000 It doesn't say that, but because it presents the temptation of evil, because it creates the illusion that you can rely on your own power, that you're in charge.

00:46:17.000 And I do think leaders get tripped up every time in exactly the same way.

00:46:21.000 They're searching for the same thing the rest of us are searching for, which is the illusion of control, power, and immortality.

00:46:27.000 And so, if you go to a leader who is about to turn 80 in June and say to him, if you, I mean, you can threaten him and you can shoot him in the ear, you can do whatever, a bunch of different things, you can threaten his family.

00:46:38.000 But in the end, if you say to him, you want to live forever, you want to be Jesus on earth, you want to be king of the world, you don't fulfill the prophecy in order to be fully in charge and to be enshrined both in statue and in memory for the rest of time, then you do this.

00:46:55.000 And I think having seen his tweet in which he, Compared himself to Jesus or made himself Jesus, made himself God.

00:47:02.000 I don't think that's a crazy explanation.

00:47:04.000 I mean, having spent a lot of time at the White House in the last few months or in the last year, really, and seen the physical changes to it, I'm a big believer in architecture as an expression of values and desires and hopes.

00:47:18.000 It's more than just aesthetics, it's more than just aesthetics, right?

00:47:22.000 It's a religious expression.

00:47:24.000 And watching the physical transformation of the West Wing, which I visited pretty regularly since I was a teenager, so I know the layout.

00:47:36.000 I see expressed, and I'm not, this is not criticism because I feel bad about it, but I see an older man hoping to live forever, hoping to be remembered, hoping to be seen as significant, having lived a life worth remembering.

00:47:50.000 I see someone building a memorial to himself on the edge of eternity.

00:47:56.000 It's beautiful and tragic.

00:47:58.000 But it's always the same.

00:47:59.000 I mean, we all feel that way.

00:48:01.000 We all feel that way.

00:48:02.000 And the healthy expressions are I want to raise decent children.

00:48:05.000 A widow who weeps sincere tears when I die.

00:48:05.000 I want to.

00:48:08.000 I want, you know, I want friends who toast me.

00:48:11.000 I want, I don't know, I want to build a beautiful house and my grandkids can spend the summer in or whatever.

00:48:16.000 You know, there are, this is a very natural way to feel, but the more grandiose the personality, the greater the ambitions.

00:48:23.000 When we know him, we know that we are dealing in eternity.

00:48:26.000 By knowing him, we can be in eternity.

00:48:28.000 We step outside of time.

00:48:29.000 If you don't know him, you're vulnerable, I suppose, to the accuser and the counterfeit versions, emulations and imitations.

00:48:37.000 Mimetic desire.

00:48:39.000 The evil one creates false alternatives of the divine.

00:48:42.000 Exactly.

00:48:43.000 Exactly.

00:48:44.000 One time, one of the movies I'd done, a guy that was running the show.

00:48:50.000 He had previously worked for Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch of News International, Fox, the great oligarch and media operator.

00:48:58.000 And I suppose, in the sort of relatively recent incarnation of world power, Rupert Murdoch seemed to have the kind of maneuver, the ability to maneuver that one might now accredit to the powerful figures of big tech, say, those that seem to have a kind of ability that transcends nation, incredible financial control, influence, power, ability to manipulate and control reality.

00:49:20.000 I said, Tell me, could it be like, I was pretty young then, still at.

00:49:22.000 And all that kind of thing.

00:49:23.000 I said, can you tell me something about Rupert Murdoch that, like, that you know from working near him?

00:49:28.000 And this guy said, yeah, he acts as if he's going to live forever.

00:49:33.000 He has a kind of, this guy didn't say Mephistelian, Mephistelian kind of quality of like, if he doesn't, if a deal don't work out for him, he acts as if he has endless time to resolve it.

00:49:45.000 This idea of entering into eternity in the body, in form, of denying that eternity can only be achieved through resurrection, that you might know eternity by your own terms.

00:49:56.000 Seems to me to be kind of almost the apex of the fallen one's promise.

00:50:02.000 The idea that you could grasp and hold on to time.

00:50:05.000 Now, like Rupert Murdoch, he's still alive.

00:50:07.000 He's 93, 94, 95, whatever, four, five, six wives in, getting divorced in his 90s.

00:50:13.000 And I wonder what this is. 0.64

00:50:15.000 I wonder what's playing out here those old and aged desert fathers, those fallen prophets, those broken people.

00:50:23.000 As I get more familiar with scripture, I see that, of course, obviously, it's a supernatural proposition.

00:50:28.000 And secularism in itself, you can't divorce.

00:50:32.000 You can't run an operating system without an ideal.

00:50:36.000 Even the claims that are being made by AI look, we've got access to this endless intelligence, but of course, one sees the imprature, the fingerprint, the signature, the image of its creator.

00:50:46.000 ChatGPT has a different image to Grok.

00:50:49.000 You can see that the intelligence has an imposition within it, it's bearing some kind of fruit. 0.57

00:50:56.000 And what it seems to me is happening now is that the technology could be utilized to create entirely different systems where something closer to a church could be at the center of a community as opposed to governance.

00:51:12.000 That we could run with consent and real eternal principle rather than the continual imposition of fake compassion.

00:51:24.000 Like wokeness is a kind of fake.

00:51:26.000 Compassion.

00:51:27.000 Identity politics is a kind of fakeness of your individual beauty.

00:51:32.000 And I suppose that in this late empire moment, Tucker, it really does seem to be we, you know, who knows how long it takes?

00:51:41.000 Because if it's finished by Christ on the cross, then all of this is some sort of denouement.

00:51:45.000 The whole of history since the resurrection has just been the unfolding and unfurling.

00:51:51.000 But I wonder if we might see and might advocate for the introduction and implication of different systems that allow.

00:52:00.000 For true freedom, a different kind of democracy, absolute and real democracy, because I don't see how we can do anything other than remain in continual tension by accepting that, well, the answer to this problem is that Trump is replaced by Gavin Newsom or even JD Vance.

00:52:19.000 So, from the position that you're now in, like as a Christian commentator, do you think that, you know, there's going to be an election in 2028?

00:52:26.000 Do you envisage yourself advocating for one party or one candidate?

00:52:29.000 I know you have friendships, you know, you've been in Washington, D.C., you've been around power all your life.

00:52:33.000 How are you proposing that you're going to even personally navigate that?

00:52:37.000 How do you feel when someone that you know is like rude about you and sort of puts you in this sort of almost a sort of a basket of deplorables point O with Alex Jones and Candace, et cetera?

00:52:50.000 I, I wonder how you remain like, because what it seems like from the outside watching you is you've advanced into a new territory now.

00:52:57.000 You've advanced into a territory of you saying to people in the same way you said it was relevant that I was on YouTube during COVID because I still had some of the allure of like, oh, this person was in Hollywood and married to Katy Perry.

00:53:08.000 Well, now you have all your own constituency and your own magnetism and charisma. 0.57

00:53:14.000 And so when you start saying, Hey, my real concern is that Trump's a puppet, that Israel are pulling the strings that like that. 0.66

00:53:23.000 That's going to, I think, is somewhat epochal.

00:53:26.000 And it really fascinates me because if you keep going, there's going to be resistance, there's going to be challenges, there's going to be consequences, there's going to be results.

00:53:38.000 And, you know, and I'm.

00:53:40.000 It's hard to see where it goes.

00:53:43.000 I didn't want to say any of that.

00:53:44.000 I didn't want to think any of that.

00:53:46.000 I certainly don't.

00:53:49.000 I hate betrayal.

00:53:51.000 I hate betrayal above all else.

00:53:54.000 I loathe Judas more than any figure in the Bible.

00:53:56.000 And so I.

00:53:58.000 I don't like breaking with people either.

00:54:00.000 I've ended one friendship in my life in all these years.

00:54:04.000 I just don't like any of it.

00:54:05.000 I just felt like I was forced into it.

00:54:09.000 As for where the country - so my role in it, I don't know.

00:54:12.000 i mean i've certainly lost a lot of friendships most lately or just since in the last two years i would say i've lost uh acquaintanceships i mean i i don't read about myself ever but i do hear about it you know people People I really liked or helped, more precisely, people I've helped.

00:54:32.000 Denouncing me and calling me names and whatever.

00:54:35.000 It doesn't have as much effect on me as it would on most people just because of the weirdness of my childhood.

00:54:39.000 I'm pretty insulated from that stuff.

00:54:41.000 I know whose opinions I care about and I'm very focused on those people, and that's kind of it.

00:54:46.000 So I'm fine, but it is amazing.

00:54:49.000 The changes, where does it go?

00:54:52.000 You know, of course, I don't know.

00:54:53.000 My strong instinct is, however, that as in foreplay, the tension is building to an unmanageable point and that humanity kind of almost demands or expects catharsis at a certain point.

00:55:07.000 And that catharsis, uh, is likely to be violent as it so often has been.

00:55:13.000 And I, boy, I sure hope I'm wrong, but I don't, I don't actually believe that we're going to live In a world controlled by AI for very long.

00:55:24.000 I don't think we will.

00:55:25.000 Now, I mean, I'm hardly an apocalyptic character.

00:55:28.000 I mean, I'm originally from Southern California.

00:55:30.000 I have a pretty sunny disposition.

00:55:31.000 I'm always in a good mood.

00:55:32.000 You know what I mean?

00:55:33.000 I love dogs.

00:55:34.000 Like, I'm not a dark figure at all.

00:55:35.000 I'm the opposite of a dark figure.

00:55:36.000 I'm a very kind of shallow, cheerful figure.

00:55:40.000 But I do strongly feel that, strongly, strongly feel that.

00:55:43.000 And I should also say, in the interest of transparency, that I hate technology.

00:55:48.000 And I've always really admired as much as I dislike the murders.

00:55:52.000 Ted Kaczynski's analysis of this.

00:55:55.000 For many years, I've recommended his first book and his second, by the way, that he wrote from prison, but to people as much as I, you know, obviously sending mail bombs is terrible, you know, in no sense.

00:56:06.000 I'm totally opposed to that in every way.

00:56:06.000 No, I mean it.

00:56:09.000 But his analysis, I think, can be understood apart from that, those crimes.

00:56:13.000 And his analysis of technology is basically right, and that the machine winds up controlling you.

00:56:18.000 And that's never been truer with AI.

00:56:20.000 And you know that really.

00:56:21.000 And I know a lot of people developing AI.

00:56:23.000 In fact, I know all the people, the big AI developers personally, because I've spent a lot of time trying to learn about it.

00:56:28.000 And I'm really struck by how rarely, if ever, you hear them explain how this will help people.

00:56:34.000 So typically, in the advancement of technology, people say, We're going to have flying cars.

00:56:37.000 We're going to have, you know, here's a dishwasher.

00:56:40.000 You don't have to wash your own dishes.

00:56:42.000 It's incredible. 0.58

00:56:42.000 You have more time to have sex with your wife or make money or watch TV or whatever. 0.58

00:56:46.000 There's very little of that.

00:56:48.000 Yeah, it's going to help, you know, diagnose your cancer more accurately.

00:56:51.000 Great.

00:56:51.000 Good.

00:56:52.000 I'm all for that.

00:56:53.000 But there's really not a lot of energy spent trying to convince you that this is good for you or ever.

00:56:58.000 Could be good for you, and the downsides are obvious. 0.96

00:57:02.000 And in that way, it's very much like the war with Iran. 0.65

00:57:05.000 The difference between George W. Bush and Donald Trump is that George W. Bush spent, and I participated in this, so I know better than most, a year and a half trying to convince people that we needed to do this and constructing this whole architecture of lies about how actually, though no Iraqis flew the planes in the World Trade Center, Saddam was really behind 9 11.

00:57:25.000 It was all fake, but there was a kind of respect that he gave to the population by bothering to construct these lies and spending so many months doing it. 0.58

00:57:33.000 This current administration decided outside of public view, most people didn't even know this was like on the verge of happening.

00:57:40.000 Most people had no idea we're about to go to war with Iran.

00:57:42.000 Now, I did, and I was like on fire about it, but most people weren't interested because they didn't really believe it was going to happen because this administration didn't bother to make the case.

00:57:51.000 And you sort of have to ask why.

00:57:53.000 Now, clearly, they didn't care what people thought.

00:57:55.000 They didn't need congressional approval to do it.

00:57:57.000 But there's more than that.

00:57:59.000 It's almost like they were telling us, as the AI developers are telling us, but we're not listening.

00:58:06.000 This is bad for you.

00:58:07.000 I'm not even bothering to tell you how AI is going to make you happier.

00:58:11.000 At best, it's going to leave you unemployed. 0.86

00:58:13.000 Maybe you'll get UBI, but you'll definitely shoot yourself because you'll have no purpose.

00:58:16.000 They're basically telling you that.

00:58:18.000 And they're doing it anyway. 0.71

00:58:19.000 Same with the Iran war. 1.00

00:58:21.000 I consider that a really good thing. 1.00

00:58:24.000 I like to know.

00:58:26.000 I think the purpose of this is the result.

00:58:29.000 The result is the destruction of people, the end of human autonomy, the killing of children.

00:58:34.000 The result is evil.

00:58:35.000 Therefore, the intent is evil.

00:58:37.000 Therefore, it's not going to last.

00:58:40.000 It's not going to last, both because God won't allow it and because schemes built purely on evil tend to destroy themselves.

00:58:48.000 So, I really believe I mean, I have no evidence for this whatsoever.

00:58:52.000 Zero.

00:58:53.000 I'm not privy to any inside information, but the Tower of Babel principle never changes.

00:58:58.000 And this is a Tower of Babel.

00:59:00.000 And I do not believe my great grandchildren, God willing, if they exist, are going to have to live in a world governed by AI because I think the whole system will blow itself up.

00:59:08.000 You know, sometimes we talk about stuff.

00:59:10.000 Right.

00:59:10.000 Do you feel me here?

00:59:11.000 I do.

00:59:11.000 Yeah, I do.

00:59:12.000 Like, because sometimes we talk about stuff, like, why don't we make a movie studio and things like that?

00:59:15.000 Like, we start to talk about things like, why don't we start like a movie studio and things like that?

00:59:18.000 And I go, we're not going to have time.

00:59:20.000 We're not going to have time.

00:59:21.000 We're not going to have time to develop ideas like that.

00:59:24.000 When I see that Sam Altman on your show, I felt like, who are these people?

00:59:28.000 Where are they finding them?

00:59:29.000 How are they coming up with this stuff?

00:59:31.000 Why do they have this kind of like this peculiar neutrality, this lack of personality?

00:59:35.000 Who are these people?

00:59:37.000 And like, I'm starting to feel the lie, the scales are falling.

00:59:41.000 Like, where did Zuckerberg come from?

00:59:42.000 Who are these people?

00:59:43.000 Why did Serge Brin and Larry Page have CIA carve out sponsorship while they're still getting educated at Stanford or wherever they were?

00:59:51.000 And it's like you're saying, it's falling apart, and we're peculiarly continuing to continue.

00:59:57.000 To consent to it. 0.97

00:59:58.000 Once the Epstein files were out, it was a kind of a giddy, nauseating, and some of the things that just seemed like, you know, that piece of gay thing, that can't be real. 1.00

01:00:06.000 And then, oh God, no. 0.99

01:00:07.000 And it's all moving so quickly, like this weird carousel that you can't even hold on to the like 2019 COVID hold on.

01:00:15.000 They were lying to us there.

01:00:16.000 All you can do really, if you've got the tenacity, is look at the result and go, well, what happened as a result of that?

01:00:21.000 Loads of people have got turbo cancers, it seems.

01:00:23.000 Loads of people have got heart disease.

01:00:24.000 Loads of people lost their babies. 0.97

01:00:26.000 Loads of people are infertile now. 1.00

01:00:27.000 It's anti life. 0.99

01:00:28.000 It's anti life, it's anti Christ, it's the destruction of the most holy and divine principles that we have beauty, good faith, it's all being annihilated.

01:00:39.000 And what I see that brilliant Whitney Webb, she goes, You know, one time I was hitting her with, but what I've been struck by is because before being like in movies and all that, I was like a drug addict.

01:00:51.000 So I was like going around doing acid and tripping out and reading the crazy books of these folks like David Icke and interested in extraterrestrials.

01:00:59.000 You know, and having weird and not defined shamanic encounters with drugs. 0.86

01:01:05.000 And what's been extraordinary is to, as a person that had a kind of a very visceral dislike of systems, like these things are corrupt, they're disgusting and they're wrong.

01:01:15.000 And then, like, oh, maybe they're all right now that I'm in them.

01:01:18.000 Oh, I'm in Hollywood.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - April 20, 2026

The Real Reason U.S Is Going to War With Iran | Tucker Carlson Interview — SF706

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