The Charlie Kirk Show - REWIND: Tucker Carlson on Atheism

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk show, Tucker Carlson and I have a rather important conversation about family, about faith, about metaphysics, about atheism.

00:00:10.000 It's a really important conversation.

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00:00:41.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:42.000 You're going to really enjoy this conversation with Tucker Carlson.

00:00:45.000 Here we go.

00:00:47.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:49.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:51.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:54.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:58.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:59.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:00.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:08.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:17.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:32.000 Tucker Carlson, welcome back to the program.

00:01:34.000 Ladies and gentlemen.

00:01:36.000 How's it going?

00:01:37.000 Silence dissent.

00:01:38.000 That's right.

00:01:39.000 It's great.

00:01:40.000 I'm able to just, I love that.

00:01:43.000 You've got the Earth's volume knob in your life.

00:01:45.000 You and I were talking about this at lunch about how you have to resist the temptation of just total Stalinistic power when you're in charge.

00:01:52.000 When you give speeches, especially, you come to the inevitable conclusion, usually toward the end of the speech, that you are Jesus.

00:02:01.000 And that is probably the worst conclusion a man can come to.

00:02:06.000 And I mentioned, and for our audience's sake, that neuroscience tells us that noreperephine, dopamine, endorphins, just off the charts when you speak publicly.

00:02:17.000 Or when you have control.

00:02:17.000 Yes.

00:02:19.000 I mean, this is this, I've decided, well, I've decided I don't really understand a lot of what's happening in the world right now, which is a good thing, I think, to conclude.

00:02:29.000 But I've also decided that the main motivator for people in charge is to feel like God.

00:02:36.000 I mean, I guess it's all very obvious, but this is coming to me late in life.

00:02:39.000 And the feeling that, you know, I run things, I make the big decisions.

00:02:46.000 I'm in charge of life itself, when it begins, when it ends.

00:02:50.000 This is like the highest high people can get.

00:02:54.000 And it makes smoking crack seem like nothing.

00:02:57.000 And it motivates, I think, a lot of really bad behavior.

00:03:01.000 In an increasingly secular society, it's the only thing that they can get to for a pinnacle or a zenith of feeling that way.

00:03:09.000 There is a God and you are not him.

00:03:11.000 They reject both of those.

00:03:12.000 Well, that's right.

00:03:13.000 And yeah, that's exactly right.

00:03:14.000 And at this point, you know, I'm never been very sectarian, kind of more ecumenical by my temperament.

00:03:22.000 And it's not even a question of who's a Christian, who's a Muslim or a Hindu.

00:03:26.000 It's a question of, you know, do you believe in God or do you think you are God?

00:03:32.000 And that is the dividing line.

00:03:35.000 And for you, and the point is that it's less theological in the sense, I mean, I have a very specific theological view of the historical Jesus, but do you at least believe in the concept that there's something bigger than you?

00:03:45.000 Well, of course.

00:03:46.000 Of course.

00:03:48.000 And do you think you're omnipotent?

00:03:49.000 Which would be fine, by the way, if you were, but we're not, actually.

00:03:54.000 And, You know, as my father always said to me when I was a child, the root, and he used a word I'm not going to repeat, it was a bad word, but it was an evocative word.

00:04:02.000 But he always said the root of all wisdom is knowing what a flawed person you are, effectively, you know, and seeing yourself realistically, which is someone who can't see beyond like the next 20 minutes.

00:04:14.000 If that person whose judgment is often clouded by desires and silly things like that, and basically a person who's imperfect.

00:04:24.000 Once you understand that and really internalize it, you're in a better place to make good decisions.

00:04:30.000 Mike Tyson says something to me.

00:04:32.000 I can't believe I'm quoting Mike Tyson, but I think there's only one Mike Tyson.

00:04:35.000 Well, my favorite Mike Tyson's got a plan until they get punched. 0.80

00:04:38.000 Everybody got a plan until he gets hit in the face.

00:04:40.000 Yes, totally true.

00:04:42.000 But that, it turns out, is one of like many Mike Tyson aphorisms that are worth remembering.

00:04:48.000 Mike Tyson just stayed at my house for an interview.

00:04:50.000 The hurricane distro was down in Florida.

00:04:52.000 The hurricane completely destroyed all the hotels.

00:04:54.000 Isn't he like a philosopher, though?

00:04:54.000 Mike Tyson.

00:04:56.000 He like reads a lot.

00:04:57.000 He's like a wonderful person.

00:04:58.000 He's super wise.

00:05:00.000 I would never have interviewed Mike Tyson.

00:05:02.000 I've heard this from three or four people.

00:05:03.000 It's unbelievable.

00:05:04.000 And a good friend of mine, someone whose judgment I respect, said to me, You know, you don't know Mike Tyson?

00:05:10.000 I was like, How would I know Mike Tyson?

00:05:12.000 You know, I'm a talk show host.

00:05:13.000 Well, you should meet Mike Tyson.

00:05:14.000 Well, why would I meet Mike Tyson?

00:05:16.000 Mike Tyson is a wonderful man.

00:05:18.000 My friend said, He's totally transparent.

00:05:20.000 He's totally honest.

00:05:22.000 And he's really smart.

00:05:23.000 I was like, okay, no, all right, he's really smart.

00:05:25.000 A lot of former boxers.

00:05:26.000 Yeah, really a smart guy.

00:05:27.000 Well, it's all true.

00:05:29.000 But, and I could go on, but I would just reduce it to this one thing that he said I thought was so smart.

00:05:33.000 I said, when you go out, you know, you're obviously one of the most famous people in the world and people approach you.

00:05:38.000 And I'm sure it's mostly positive.

00:05:39.000 Probably sometimes it's not.

00:05:40.000 You did go to prison.

00:05:42.000 How do you feel when people attack you?

00:05:44.000 And he said, this is almost a verbatim quote.

00:05:46.000 He said, when I feel like I'm somebody, I'm offended.

00:05:50.000 But when I remember that I'm nobody, it doesn't bother me.

00:05:54.000 And I thought, man, that is the key.

00:05:56.000 That is the key.

00:05:57.000 What percentage of our ruling class believes that?

00:06:01.000 Look, if you knew who you were in the scope of things, if you spent like 20 minutes staring up at night on a cloudless night and looking at the stars, I mean, you know, I'm not sure you would achieve enlightenment, but you would achieve perspective and you would recognize your place in the cosmos, which is infinitesimally small and totally forgettable in the scope of things.

00:06:24.000 Like you're nothing.

00:06:25.000 And that's just true.

00:06:27.000 I mean, we don't want it to be true, but it is true.

00:06:29.000 And so knowing that, you probably wouldn't imagine, you probably wouldn't convince yourself you could restore permanent peace to the world by putting a fake democracy in a rock, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:06:44.000 That you couldn't, you know, affecting regime change in Russia would fix everything.

00:06:48.000 You would know there are limits to your predictive power as a person.

00:06:51.000 And maybe you should scale back your ambitions a little bit, consistent with your abilities, which is pretty limited, actually. 0.55

00:06:57.000 The same people that wanted to bomb Baghdad now want to blitzkrieg a female's body to change their nature from female to male. 0.75

00:07:06.000 It's the same thing. 0.67

00:07:07.000 We are going to impose our will on what is to what we think.

00:07:09.000 100%.

00:07:10.000 We're in charge of nature.

00:07:11.000 Yes.

00:07:13.000 And, you know, on one level, I find it kind of poignant, sort of sad almost.

00:07:18.000 Like, no, I'm in charge.

00:07:20.000 Really?

00:07:21.000 Can you forestall your own death for 20 years?

00:07:23.000 No, you can't.

00:07:24.000 You can't even cure baldness, dude. 1.00

00:07:26.000 Shut up. 1.00

00:07:27.000 You have no power, actually. 1.00

00:07:29.000 And by you, I mean up to and including the president of the United States or anyone else who thinks he's God.

00:07:34.000 You know, you actually don't have that much power.

00:07:36.000 And again, that's not like my opinion.

00:07:39.000 And it's not even my wish.

00:07:40.000 I wish people had more power to change the course of human events and to change nature, but they don't have any power, actually.

00:07:47.000 So it's a question of whether you're going to acknowledge reality or not.

00:07:51.000 And we're just all a lot better off when you do, I think.

00:07:55.000 Who gets this right if anybody in public life?

00:07:58.000 Who has the requisite humility to lead?

00:08:01.000 Sure.

00:08:02.000 Or just the recognition of where they are in the grander scheme of existence.

00:08:08.000 I mean, that's a great question.

00:08:09.000 Look.

00:08:10.000 Like Bob Dylan?

00:08:12.000 You know, actually, I think I don't know Bob Dylan.

00:08:15.000 I know his son.

00:08:15.000 And I think Bob Dylan actually knows.

00:08:18.000 You know what I mean?

00:08:18.000 Like the people that are the poets and the songs.

00:08:20.000 Oh, you're right.

00:08:21.000 Of course.

00:08:22.000 The Willie Nelsons of the world, I guess.

00:08:23.000 You never go to any.

00:08:25.000 The best book I've read in the last, I don't know, many years is a book by Matthias Dismet, who's a Belgian psychologist, professor, written about COVID, but it's not really about COVID.

00:08:36.000 It's called The Psychology of Totalitarianism.

00:08:39.000 And in it, he makes many points about science.

00:08:42.000 It's a book that actually changed the way I see the world.

00:08:45.000 But one of the points he makes is that we never go to anyone who speaks literally or in formulas or in ones and zeros to find out what the truth is.

00:08:58.000 We always go to people who speak metaphorically.

00:09:00.000 We always go to poets or the entire New Testament is like indecipherable if you're a literal person.

00:09:06.000 That's right. 0.99

00:09:06.000 Door, garden, no question is ever answered in a straightforward men. 0.99

00:09:11.000 Exactly. 0.66

00:09:11.000 And you're like, why don't you just spell it out for me? 0.66

00:09:14.000 You know, if you're God, just say so.

00:09:17.000 And Dismet.

00:09:18.000 They tried in the Ten Commandments.

00:09:19.000 It didn't work.

00:09:20.000 It didn't work.

00:09:21.000 And Dismet, who does not self-identify as a Christian, I have no idea what his religious views are.

00:09:25.000 Clearly, he's a believer of some kind, makes the point that that's necessary, that you can't communicate truth literally.

00:09:32.000 It has to be metaphorical.

00:09:33.000 Why?

00:09:34.000 What's the argument?

00:09:34.000 Because we've reached the limits of language.

00:09:37.000 The reality.

00:09:39.000 The logos reaches a place.

00:09:41.000 Yes.

00:09:42.000 The reality of life, the spiritual reality, even the physical reality, is beyond the limit of language to describe.

00:09:49.000 We actually, we don't have the words.

00:09:51.000 So it's beyond reason, but it's, I guess that would be.

00:09:55.000 It is beyond reason.

00:09:56.000 It's beyond reason.

00:09:56.000 It's beyond physics.

00:09:58.000 Nothing that we have created can capture the essence of what's true.

00:10:05.000 Not the essence of what's true.

00:10:06.000 We can measure certain things, certainly in the short term.

00:10:09.000 Math is super helpful if you want to know what something weighs or how long it is.

00:10:13.000 But math is incapable of answering questions like what happens when you die?

00:10:18.000 What's the most important thing?

00:10:19.000 Like AI will never get to that, okay, ever.

00:10:23.000 And so, in place of literal descriptions and in place of math, we seek metaphor and poetry and, you know, indistinct, imprecise expressions of this thing or this reality that we all sense, but can't, again, quite sum up in words or numbers.

00:10:44.000 Almost every culture or civilization had their own way of doing that or communicating it.

00:10:49.000 And now we're ruled by a group of people that think 84% of the religious people on the planet are wrong.

00:10:56.000 It's pretty funny. 0.99

00:10:58.000 They don't have the balls to say that, of course. 0.97

00:11:01.000 But if you look at it across the scope of known history, it's like how many civilizations at scale, big civilizations, have been secular that we know of ever. 0.97

00:11:11.000 And by secular, I mean don't acknowledge in kind of hiring everyday conversation.

00:11:18.000 Yeah, exactly, the existence of something bigger and more powerful than our temporal leadership.

00:11:21.000 And you would say, none.

00:11:23.000 Like, this is the first one.

00:11:24.000 This actually is an experiment that we're conducting without even knowing it, I think, in secular society at scale.

00:11:31.000 That's so profound.

00:11:32.000 And so, like, how's it going?

00:11:34.000 And I would say, not that well.

00:11:36.000 And I'm not saying that as a Christian.

00:11:38.000 I'm just saying that as like an observer of how well things are going. 0.99

00:11:42.000 Not that well.

00:11:43.000 And why would it go well?

00:11:44.000 Like, people are born knowing there's something more powerful than us.

00:11:48.000 I'm a Christian.

00:11:49.000 I don't think it necessarily points to Jesus.

00:11:52.000 It hasn't over time pointed to Jesus for a lot of people.

00:11:54.000 They may be wrong or right or whatever, but every person is born knowing, obviously, that people are not kind of the final word on everything.

00:12:06.000 I mean, we're born with an intuitive moral sense, a sense of justice.

00:12:10.000 This is right.

00:12:11.000 That is wrong.

00:12:12.000 A lie is bad.

00:12:13.000 That's not something we're taught.

00:12:14.000 It's something that we know.

00:12:15.000 Why do we know that?

00:12:15.000 Because it pre-exists us.

00:12:17.000 That's why.

00:12:18.000 And to not acknowledge that is a recipe for... for disaster, the disaster we're living through.

00:12:26.000 Look, you need to acknowledge the inherent mystery in life.

00:12:29.000 You need to say out loud, we just had lunch and at lunch you kept using this phrase, the spoken truth, which I thought was such a cool, maybe a common Christian phrase.

00:12:38.000 And I've never lived in a Christian world, so I don't really know, but I love that phrase.

00:12:41.000 It stuck with me. 1.00

00:12:42.000 Because it's not enough to know the truth.

00:12:44.000 The act of speaking it, articulating it, putting it into language makes it real.

00:12:49.000 Yeah, it is a Christian phrase because in the book of John, the first verse is, in the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God and the word became flesh.

00:12:58.000 But that word is logos, right?

00:13:00.000 So they're saying Jesus is the logos, which is Jesus was the spoken truth.

00:13:04.000 Interesting.

00:13:05.000 The spoken truth.

00:13:06.000 Yes, the spoken truth.

00:13:08.000 Because to not go too deep into Christian theology.

00:13:11.000 They didn't teach us in Episcopal school.

00:13:12.000 I'm just here to tell you. 0.77

00:13:13.000 I'm not shocked.

00:13:15.000 But in the creation story of Genesis, we're told we're made in the image of God.

00:13:20.000 God speaks things into existence, spoken truth.

00:13:22.000 Right?

00:13:23.000 So God didn't make it into existence.

00:13:24.000 He spoke it into existence.

00:13:25.000 And God said there would be light.

00:13:27.000 And God said there would be distinction.

00:13:29.000 And God said that there would be said spoken truth.

00:13:33.000 Well, I love that.

00:13:35.000 And I think one of the truths that we need to speak is that we don't know, that the mystery of life isn't just this ancillary thing.

00:13:45.000 Like there's some things we don't understand, but we will.

00:13:47.000 No, the mystery of life is life.

00:13:50.000 It's central to life.

00:13:51.000 It is the core of life, is unknowable by people.

00:13:54.000 What is this?

00:13:55.000 How do we get here?

00:13:56.000 Where are we going?

00:13:58.000 These are not questions we will ever answer with scientific certainty in this life.

00:14:04.000 And like, I think we need to start there.

00:14:06.000 Because if we don't start there, then you have this procession of charlatans who come forth.

00:14:10.000 They're like, no, no, no, no, we got it under control.

00:14:12.000 Here's what it's about.

00:14:14.000 Here's where we're going.

00:14:14.000 It's like, you don't know that.

00:14:16.000 Like, I call BS on you.

00:14:18.000 You don't know that.

00:14:18.000 I mean, I spent my whole life.

00:14:19.000 Like, I actually don't have very many answers, but I think my one skill is like I can tell deception from like 100 yards for some reason.

00:14:27.000 It's like it's a smell thing.

00:14:29.000 And I see these people come up.

00:14:30.000 It's like almost 100% of them are all lying.

00:14:33.000 Well, here's what we know.

00:14:35.000 Oh, really?

00:14:36.000 Do we know that?

00:14:37.000 How do we know that?

00:14:39.000 And the answer is, of course, but they don't know it.

00:14:41.000 And that's fine.

00:14:42.000 I'm totally comfortable with people saying, you know, I don't really know.

00:14:46.000 And that's how we ended our lunch where you said, you know, do you see a realignment?

00:14:49.000 I'll say, I have no idea.

00:14:50.000 Yeah.

00:14:50.000 Well, that's a liberating thing to admit.

00:14:53.000 It's a liberating thing to admit.

00:14:56.000 And that's, I must say, my tolerance for atheism has really dwindled to nothing at this point.

00:15:04.000 My tolerance for people who are agnostic or aren't really sure. 0.99

00:15:06.000 I totally agree with this. 0.99

00:15:08.000 But the idea that there are people who are completely certain as a matter of religious faith that there's no God, I just find it hilarious and like so childish.

00:15:19.000 I just can't take it seriously.

00:15:21.000 And so I was talking to somebody the other day.

00:15:23.000 He was like, well, Sam Harris is smart.

00:15:24.000 It's like, do we have evidence Sam Harris is smart?

00:15:26.000 Sam Harris seems like a child to me.

00:15:28.000 He has no wisdom.

00:15:29.000 Like a terrified little child.

00:15:30.000 I've never heard Samaritan. 0.99

00:15:31.000 Sam Harris seems like one of the dumbest people I've ever listened to in my life. 0.97

00:15:34.000 Like if you live in a world of people like, oh, well, Sam Harris is very smart. 0.99

00:15:38.000 Really?

00:15:39.000 I'm not going to agree to that because it's demonstrably untrue.

00:15:42.000 He's never said anything wise. 0.99

00:15:44.000 Sam Harris is like a ridiculous figure. 0.94

00:15:47.000 Sam Harris is very smart. 0.99

00:15:49.000 Oh, really?

00:15:49.000 Okay.

00:15:50.000 How are we measuring that?

00:15:52.000 Through how many degrees you have.

00:15:54.000 So I just love that.

00:15:57.000 And by the way, that was like a smart person who said it to me.

00:16:00.000 Okay.

00:16:03.000 Sam Harris is an interesting segue because he wrote the book Moral Landscape.

00:16:07.000 I don't know if you ever read it or not.

00:16:08.000 No.

00:16:09.000 Sorry, I missed that one.

00:16:10.000 No, I you probably spent that summer better than I did trying to maneuver that drive-by shooting of metaphysics.

00:16:21.000 He tries to say that you can come up with an objective moral construct via atheism and fails miserably.

00:16:29.000 And but the intelligentsia that's running our planet right now, they are, they are practicing parishioners in the church of Sam Harris.

00:16:37.000 Yeah, it's metaphorically.

00:16:39.000 No, of course, but it's like Unitarianism.

00:16:41.000 It's just like a sad, doomed little church.

00:16:43.000 It's not even interesting. 1.00

00:16:44.000 I mean, there are all kinds of religions that I don't believe in that I think are kind of compelling and speak to something that's true. 1.00

00:16:53.000 Or have some good premises, right? 1.00

00:16:54.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:16:55.000 Or at least like there is a kind of crackling fire about them that seems like it's coming from somewhere.

00:17:01.000 Like I don't, I don't believe in it, but I look at it and I'm like, I'm not dismissing that as like absurd.

00:17:09.000 I think it's wrong, but I kind of get it. 1.00

00:17:12.000 I get why people are Muslims. 0.84

00:17:13.000 I do.

00:17:14.000 I do. 0.98

00:17:15.000 And I'm not a Muslim.

00:17:17.000 But I look at Sam Harris and I'm like, you're like a fifth grader.

00:17:20.000 I'm in church.

00:17:23.000 That's fine.

00:17:24.000 There'd be a lot of people like that.

00:17:26.000 But for other people to look on at Sam Harris, who was truly an absurd figure and be like, oh, he's really smart.

00:17:35.000 God, we have just, we're not measuring this correctly, I don't think.

00:17:40.000 So you said something earlier that I totally agree with, but I want you to expand on.

00:17:44.000 You said I'm less certain about what I know, even in the time of which we are in.

00:17:49.000 Yeah.

00:17:50.000 What do you mean by that?

00:17:51.000 And I'm paraphrasing, of course, but.

00:17:53.000 Well, I mean, I'm just, I'm certain of what I believe.

00:17:57.000 I'm more certain than ever in my instincts about things.

00:18:03.000 I feel like if I have any advantage, it's not IQ.

00:18:06.000 I don't think I'm that smart at all, but certainly not in that way.

00:18:11.000 But I take my own instincts more seriously, I think, than most people do.

00:18:15.000 I was raised to do that.

00:18:16.000 I was trained to do that from childhood.

00:18:19.000 Stay in touch with your inner dog.

00:18:20.000 I mean, that was like the commandment in our house, like pee outside, smell things before you put them in your mouth.

00:18:26.000 Like we were taught that, you know, as I'm not joking.

00:18:29.000 And it really worked.

00:18:31.000 And so I still trust more than I ever have my instincts.

00:18:34.000 If someone feels deceptive, he is.

00:18:36.000 You get a vibe off someone, it's real.

00:18:38.000 If you feel some sort of like churning volatility inside someone and you can absolutely feel it, it doesn't take a lot of training to feel it.

00:18:47.000 That's coming from somewhere.

00:18:49.000 If you feel like someone's got a big hidden secret, he does. 0.88

00:18:54.000 If the Warren Commission seems ridiculous, it is.

00:18:57.000 Like, you know, these kinds of things. 0.64

00:18:59.000 Like, don't lie to yourself about what you feel because you're right.

00:19:03.000 If you see three guys walking toward you at night and they cross over to your side of the street and seem menacing, they're going to hurt you.

00:19:11.000 Don't talk yourself out of what your senses tell you, what your animal senses tell you.

00:19:14.000 So I'm certain of that.

00:19:16.000 But what I'm so grateful to be reminded of is that I really don't understand what's going on in the world right now.

00:19:25.000 Clearly, we're in the middle of a realignment.

00:19:26.000 This is a pivot.

00:19:27.000 We're going to look back from the vantage of 300 years and say, wow, a lot changed in a short period between 2020 and 2022.

00:19:35.000 Like everything changed in two years.

00:19:37.000 And we'll understand much more about it.

00:19:39.000 But right now, I don't really understand it.

00:19:41.000 And I was reminded of that in the midterms, which I miscalled completely.

00:19:45.000 I fell down in my duty as a talk show host to the extent I have duties.

00:19:49.000 One of them is to make a good faith effort to get it right for our audience.

00:19:53.000 I really do try.

00:19:54.000 I try not to overstate what I know.

00:19:56.000 I try not to say things I'm not sure are true.

00:19:59.000 I mean, I'm often wrong, but I'm always wrong in good faith.

00:20:02.000 I try to be.

00:20:03.000 But this time I was up on TV being like, wow, meet Lee Zeldon, your new governor.

00:20:07.000 It's like, what?

00:20:09.000 And I don't want to make it all about me because it has nothing to do with me.

00:20:11.000 It was the nation voting, right?

00:20:14.000 But one of the takeaways for me was I got it wrong.

00:20:17.000 It was in my mind about me.

00:20:19.000 Like, I played a role in this.

00:20:22.000 And I got it wrong up and down the board.

00:20:23.000 Wow, did I get it wrong?

00:20:25.000 And I'm still not really sure why.

00:20:27.000 I'm not really sure what happened.

00:20:29.000 I could give you a long list of factors that I think played a role.

00:20:32.000 I'm sure all of them are true, but it doesn't add up to a really coherent story in my mind anyway.

00:20:37.000 So at this point, and this is, I think, the 17th of December 2022, the only thing I've concluded is I'm not good at predicting the outcomes of things.

00:20:48.000 I should stand back and appreciate the majesty of the unexplained, unknowable mysteries of life.

00:20:54.000 Okay, that's kind of what I've concluded.

00:20:56.000 And I should be as honest as I possibly can be about what I don't know, about what I can't know, about what I'm guessing at.

00:21:04.000 And I should make a distinction between those things and the things that I'm certain of.

00:21:07.000 And I should be explicit about it.

00:21:08.000 Like, I think that's incumbent on me as someone who talks in public and as a father and a husband and a friend and all that.

00:21:16.000 As someone with the power of speech, I should be more fully honest about what I know and what I don't know.

00:21:22.000 And I'll admit, I hate, and I mean it, and I don't want to feel this way, but I actually hate this neoliberal movement or whatever this is, this anti-human movement that's sweeping the West right now.

00:21:34.000 I think it's a threat to everything that I believe in.

00:21:37.000 It's a threat to the well-being of my family.

00:21:39.000 And I really feel hatred.

00:21:41.000 I'm just being honest.

00:21:42.000 And I really hate it.

00:21:43.000 And that loathing clouded my judgment.

00:21:47.000 I was like, I dislike these people so much.

00:21:49.000 What they're doing is so wrong.

00:21:51.000 It is helping so few people and hurting so many.

00:21:54.000 It's so immoral on every level that I just want it to be repudiated.

00:21:59.000 I don't want anyone to be hurt or go to jail.

00:22:00.000 I'm not that guy.

00:22:01.000 But I do want it to stop.

00:22:03.000 And a rejection by the voters might be the beginning of slowing them down.

00:22:07.000 And so I wanted that so much, not because I like the Republicans.

00:22:10.000 I really dislike them more than I ever have, but I dislike the other side more.

00:22:14.000 That's it. 0.94

00:22:15.000 I'm over talking.

00:22:16.000 But I did learn that.

00:22:17.000 Like, I have no freaking idea what goes on in American politics.

00:22:19.000 That's what I learned.

00:22:20.000 What do you mean by neoliberal and anti-human?

00:22:23.000 How are those things connected in your mind?

00:22:25.000 Look, politics in the United States.

00:22:27.000 So, you know, I moved to D.C. in 1985, and I've watched pretty closely since then.

00:22:34.000 I lived there for 35 years.

00:22:36.000 I felt like I understood it, sort of.

00:22:38.000 But politics is a very straightforward enterprise with complications on the margins.

00:22:44.000 But the business is straightforward.

00:22:45.000 It's like your job is to represent your voters, and the guy who makes life better for the biggest number of voters or convinces them their life is getting better wins.

00:22:55.000 It's like not hard.

00:22:57.000 And like conventional politics in Washington for my whole lifetime, I'm 53, was always like Republicans would be mad because of earmarks and they're building bridges to nowhere in some congressional district in some state.

00:23:09.000 And yeah, I get it.

00:23:10.000 It's wasteful.

00:23:11.000 It's bad.

00:23:11.000 But at least someone drove on the bridge and like liked the bridge.

00:23:15.000 Someone's life was improved.

00:23:16.000 Someone's commute was shortened.

00:23:18.000 I look around now and I'm like, what are you peddling?

00:23:22.000 You're peddling things that, first of all, I disagree with.

00:23:25.000 You know, I'm not for abortion.

00:23:26.000 I'm just not.

00:23:27.000 I'm not for killing people in general, but you're peddling things that have no conceivable benefit. 0.98

00:23:33.000 Your son gets chemically castrated.

00:23:38.000 Like, who would want that? 0.86

00:23:39.000 No one would want that.

00:23:40.000 No normal parent.

00:23:40.000 I'm a parent.

00:23:41.000 No parent would want that.

00:23:42.000 And that's what you're peddling.

00:23:44.000 We're going to have a war that literally couldn't possibly even theoretically benefit the United States.

00:23:49.000 And we're going to send tens of billions of dollars and risk nuclear annihilation.

00:23:53.000 Why would we do that?

00:23:54.000 What's the cost-benefit there?

00:23:55.000 Well, there isn't one.

00:23:56.000 Okay. 1.00

00:23:56.000 Shut up. 1.00

00:23:57.000 And a million things like that. 1.00

00:23:59.000 Our economy goes to hell.

00:24:00.000 Well, in a normal political scenario, the people in charge be like, it's not that bad, and we've got a plan to make it better.

00:24:08.000 The Treasury Secretary goes on television and said, oh, you gotten a little poor recently?

00:24:12.000 Well, have an abortion. 1.00

00:24:13.000 That's her answer. 0.57

00:24:15.000 Even if you're totally for abortion, even if you're all in, even if you're pro-choice, that's not much of an answer.

00:24:20.000 Don't have children?

00:24:22.000 Really?

00:24:22.000 What?

00:24:22.000 That's your answer to me?

00:24:24.000 And so I'm like looking at this and I'm thinking, again, even if I agreed with it, which I don't, but even if I did, I'd be like, I don't really think you can get elected on that.

00:24:34.000 Because the core promise is a chicken in every pot.

00:24:37.000 How about this?

00:24:38.000 If the Democrat, like, I got student loan forgiveness.

00:24:42.000 I wasn't for it.

00:24:43.000 Sets up bad incentives, but at least it made a kind of intuitive sense to me as a human.

00:24:47.000 It's like, I'll pay you to vote for me.

00:24:49.000 Okay, I will.

00:24:51.000 Like, I get that.

00:24:52.000 I get that.

00:24:53.000 I don't think that I think it's wrong and corrupt and all that stuff, but I don't think it's like demonic.

00:24:59.000 I think it's just sleazy politics.

00:25:01.000 It's transactional, of course.

00:25:02.000 It's transactional.

00:25:03.000 Thank you.

00:25:03.000 That's the word.

00:25:05.000 But we're going to castrate your children. 0.99

00:25:07.000 Okay, I'll vote for you. 1.00

00:25:09.000 Against your will.

00:25:10.000 Yeah.

00:25:11.000 Like, what?

00:25:13.000 What is that?

00:25:14.000 And that's when I started to think as an Episcopalian or former Episcopalian, like very conventional person theologically.

00:25:20.000 I'm like, maybe there's more going on here.

00:25:24.000 What do you mean by that?

00:25:25.000 Well, there's a spiritual component here.

00:25:27.000 It doesn't make any sense.

00:25:28.000 There's no rational explanation for it.

00:25:32.000 Why would someone want that?

00:25:34.000 Why would you want to hurt your own children?

00:25:35.000 No one's even making the case.

00:25:37.000 I would even understand it if people got on television and said, you know what?

00:25:40.000 I was chemically castrated as a child.

00:25:42.000 It was the best thing that ever happened to me. 0.98

00:25:44.000 If you chemically castrate your children, if you cut your daughter's breasts off, she'll be so much happier as a person as she gets older. 0.99

00:25:53.000 Okay, I don't think that's true, but at least it's like an argument based on incentives, I recognize, right? 0.95

00:25:59.000 Do this and you'll be happier.

00:26:01.000 They're not arguing that.

00:26:02.000 Let your cities become filthy and impoverished and dangerous.

00:26:07.000 Okay, what's the upside here for me? 1.00

00:26:09.000 Shut up, you deserve it. 1.00

00:26:11.000 Okay. 0.99

00:26:13.000 So clearly, people are not responding to conventional incentives at all.

00:26:18.000 So what is happening?

00:26:20.000 Well, I'm not sure, but I can promise you this is not politics as I've understood it for the past 35 years.

00:26:29.000 This is something very, very different.

00:26:31.000 And I think it's very obvious that there's a spiritual component to it.

00:26:36.000 That's an imprecise description because it's all I've got.

00:26:39.000 I have all kinds of theories.

00:26:40.000 None of them are knowable or provable, but it's not conventional.

00:26:47.000 This is not what we've seen before.

00:26:48.000 This is a completely different thing.

00:26:50.000 I mean, just like logic tells you that.

00:26:52.000 Logic is a gift, I think, from God.

00:26:53.000 We're born with it.

00:26:54.000 I agree with you.

00:26:54.000 The capacity.

00:26:55.000 It says that in Isaiah.

00:26:57.000 Does it?

00:26:57.000 Yeah, that reason is a gift from the Lord.

00:26:59.000 Let us reason together.

00:27:00.000 Well, I believe in that just intuitively.

00:27:02.000 And use your God-given reason to assess this.

00:27:08.000 It doesn't make sense.

00:27:10.000 There is an explanation, but clearly it's outside the political realm.

00:27:15.000 It's in the supernatural almost, yeah.

00:27:17.000 That would be my guess.

00:27:19.000 I know it.

00:27:19.000 I know it's not a political motivation.

00:27:21.000 I know that because what they're doing is doesn't make no one's ever done this before in our country at all.

00:27:27.000 And I really have tried for the 27 years I've been on TV not to overstate things too much.

00:27:33.000 Not every election is the most important election.

00:27:35.000 Not every person I don't like is a Nazi.

00:27:38.000 I mean, I don't like that kind of overstatement.

00:27:40.000 But I do think it's not an overstatement to say what's happening now is evil.

00:27:44.000 I'm not saying everyone involved in it is evil, knowingly.

00:27:47.000 I don't think they are.

00:27:49.000 But what they're doing is evil.

00:27:50.000 It's not helping anybody.

00:27:52.000 It's hurting a lot of people, and they're continuing to do it.

00:27:55.000 So why?

00:27:56.000 You said something interesting.

00:27:58.000 You said neoliberalism is hurting a lot of people, but also benefiting only a few.

00:28:04.000 Yeah, I mean, and the benefits are not simply material.

00:28:08.000 I mean, people have, I mean, this has been gone over at great length by people smarter than me, but, you know, people have a need to feel like they're doing the right thing, to feel virtuous.

00:28:20.000 I mean, clearly, that's a basic human need.

00:28:22.000 You know, food, water, shelter, sex, virtue.

00:28:24.000 You know, these are like, these are inherent.

00:28:26.000 But, I mean, what you're describing, though, I mean, we said this before.

00:28:31.000 This is unsustainable.

00:28:32.000 I mean.

00:28:32.000 Well, it's totally unsustainable.

00:28:34.000 It's totally unsustainable.

00:28:35.000 The demographic mix, by the way, is changing so fast.

00:28:38.000 None of us are even aware of it.

00:28:39.000 We all live in communities that look like the communities we grew up in, but that's not the larger community at all.

00:28:44.000 And my instinct is, I have no evidence of this, but you get different people, you get different politics.

00:28:52.000 And I do know our politics are a product of a very small, specific group of affluent, well-educated white people who I grew up with. 0.62

00:29:02.000 And they're running everything, and they have a particular worldview that I find repugnant and horrifying, but it is particular to them.

00:29:09.000 And so if you change the demographic makeup of the country, you're going to get different politics.

00:29:13.000 This was not, this is like the end.

00:29:14.000 We're watching the end of something, not the beginning of something.

00:29:17.000 I think this is the final sort of scene in this play.

00:29:23.000 There's no doubt about that.

00:29:25.000 It's not just that it's going to collapse under the weight of its own ridiculousness, though it will.

00:29:29.000 It's that the players will go away.

00:29:32.000 You know, this is when Joe Biden gets up there and tells you that racial justice and reparations and equity and trans rights and all this stuff.

00:29:42.000 I mean, okay, these are the concerns of a group I know very well.

00:29:48.000 You know, these are the ladies waiting in the lift line in Jackson Hole right now, the sort of unhappy 45-year-old wives of private equity moguls. 0.96

00:29:55.000 That's what they care about.

00:29:57.000 And that's his constituency.

00:29:58.000 That's who funds the Democratic Party.

00:30:00.000 And those are the people in charge right now.

00:30:02.000 But this is a point on a continuum.

00:30:04.000 Nothing stays the same.

00:30:05.000 And you wake up and you're like, what is this?

00:30:07.000 Oh, it's my country?

00:30:08.000 It's totally different.

00:30:10.000 Weren't we supposed to begin to correct some of that in 16?

00:30:15.000 Yes.

00:30:16.000 Right?

00:30:16.000 That's kind of what is so confusing to me.

00:30:21.000 Well, that's why I was kind of happy.

00:30:23.000 And I tried to say this to my staff, just such wonderful, smart people.

00:30:28.000 I didn't express it very well.

00:30:29.000 I think they thought I was crazy.

00:30:30.000 But right after the midterms, we were so far out on a limb with like, you know, Washington State's going to elect a right where, you know, and meet Joe Kenny.

00:30:40.000 He's going to be Speaker of the House.

00:30:41.000 And I was just like, so, I was softing my own gas. 0.98

00:30:45.000 You know, it's like so ridiculous. 0.74

00:30:47.000 I wish it had all happened, but none of it did.

00:30:49.000 But anyway, but after, so I was like very, it felt like a repudiation of my judgment, which of course it was, the results.

00:30:56.000 But, and by the way, I think there was fraud.

00:30:58.000 I'm sure a lot of your listeners would be like, well, what about all the voterfront?

00:31:01.000 Yeah, there was a lot of voter fraud for sure.

00:31:03.000 On the other hand, you know, in Montana, they had a ballot initiative that said, well, if a baby's born alive, you can't kill the baby.

00:31:12.000 It seems like a pretty, you know, pretty easy one.

00:31:15.000 Not a close call.

00:31:16.000 In 9010.

00:31:17.000 Yeah, in at least 9010.

00:31:19.000 I mean, maybe at the Organic Foods Co-op in Bozeman, they'd be like, no, but everywhere else.

00:31:24.000 Right.

00:31:24.000 Yeah, it's fine.

00:31:26.000 And that failed.

00:31:27.000 So, yeah, voter fraud, but also there's something else going on, right?

00:31:30.000 So I looked at this and I felt really, you know, as I said, distressed about it.

00:31:36.000 But then I also felt just intuitively, and I think this is right, that everything is the opposite of what, it's like the Beatitudes.

00:31:42.000 Everything is the opposite of what you think it is.

00:31:44.000 You think the people first in line are going to be first.

00:31:46.000 No, actually, they're last.

00:31:47.000 They're last.

00:31:48.000 And that's not just something that Jesus said sitting on the shores of the lake.

00:31:52.000 It's a fact of life that's observable that your victories are your losses and your losses are your victories.

00:31:59.000 That is just inflexibly true.

00:32:01.000 That has been true in my life.

00:32:02.000 I can think of three or four things that I've had a very easy, happy life, very easy, happy life.

00:32:07.000 But, you know, like everybody, I've had things that were, I felt were a disaster or whatever, you know, that were sad.

00:32:14.000 And it's only the sad things in my life that I've learned anything from.

00:32:18.000 Every one of them has become the basis of future happiness.

00:32:21.000 Your losses are your victories.

00:32:24.000 That is true.

00:32:24.000 And I know for a fact, having been both poor and rich, and then poor and rich again.

00:32:31.000 I've done the whole cycle a couple of times that your victories are your losses.

00:32:36.000 Like ask any person who's worked toward a goal and then achieved the goal, particularly men.

00:32:43.000 And ask, have like some quiet time with the person where he's honest, and he'll tell you that it's almost post-coidal. 0.85

00:32:52.000 I mean, I'm sorry to be crude, but it's true. 0.97

00:32:53.000 It's almost that, as the French call it, the little death, you know, le petit motor.

00:32:57.000 It's like it's at the right after the peak comes, this is vulgar.

00:33:01.000 I'm sorry.

00:33:02.000 But it's true.

00:33:02.000 This is life, man.

00:33:03.000 This is like real, okay?

00:33:04.000 Nature is real.

00:33:06.000 And you feel this loss, this like sadness.

00:33:10.000 It's hard to explain.

00:33:11.000 You've achieved what every fiber of your body wanted.

00:33:15.000 You got what you wanted.

00:33:16.000 You sold the company for $100 million.

00:33:18.000 And I know someone who did that, $2 billion, $2 billion.

00:33:22.000 Never took a single loan.

00:33:23.000 His name is Jimmy John Leoto.

00:33:25.000 Yeah, he's speaking at our event.

00:33:26.000 What a wonderful man.

00:33:27.000 He's great.

00:33:27.000 He's a wonderful man.

00:33:28.000 He's wonderful because he knows himself and he knows himself because he's suffered.

00:33:31.000 And he suffered in his triumph, which is the standard.

00:33:37.000 It's not the anomaly.

00:33:38.000 It's what happens.

00:33:39.000 You win, you suffer.

00:33:42.000 And I don't fully understand this as I don't understand so many things, but that is just true.

00:33:47.000 And I've lived it.

00:33:48.000 I know it's true.

00:33:49.000 So I saw this disaster with no possible upside that was personally humiliating for me.

00:33:53.000 And I saw, I could feel in my bones that this was in some way something we would look back on and say, man, I'm glad that happened.

00:34:01.000 And I look at 2016 in the opposite way.

00:34:03.000 We thought this was the ultimate triumph.

00:34:05.000 We really did.

00:34:05.000 And I was thrilled by it.

00:34:06.000 And that was a vindication for me because I thought Trump was going to win.

00:34:09.000 And I said so. 1.00

00:34:10.000 And my neighbors thought I was an idiot and they hated me for saying that. 1.00

00:34:12.000 But I said it in public. 1.00

00:34:14.000 And I turned out to be right.

00:34:16.000 So of course I made it all about me.

00:34:17.000 And I was like, oh, I was right.

00:34:18.000 I'm so smart.

00:34:20.000 And then I spent, you know, four years feeling like really disappointed and sad.

00:34:24.000 It never reduced my animal level affection for Trump, which I still feel.

00:34:29.000 I talked to him yesterday.

00:34:30.000 I will always love Trump as a person.

00:34:31.000 I will never stop loving Trump because he's just like, he's such an amazing, he's such an animal.

00:34:36.000 He's also uniquely American.

00:34:37.000 Only America is.

00:34:38.000 He's unbelievable. 1.00

00:34:38.000 He's like a savage. 1.00

00:34:40.000 He's just like, having dinner with Trump is like my favorite. 0.91

00:34:42.000 I could have dinner with Trump five nights a week.

00:34:44.000 I would need a break.

00:34:46.000 But for five nights, I could sit and eat with Trump and talk about another thing.

00:34:50.000 And you see that woman, she's beautiful. 0.83

00:34:52.000 And like, yes, yes, more.

00:34:54.000 I just love Trump.

00:34:56.000 But, but for four years, I was like, wait, what?

00:35:02.000 Jared made the decision.

00:35:04.000 Like, we didn't vote for it.

00:35:05.000 Like, what?

00:35:07.000 And so, again, I'm not, without even getting into all that, I will just say it is the iron rule of life that your victories are your losses and your losses are your victories. 0.96

00:35:17.000 And let me just lay it down here, my one, another one of my stupid theories, which happens to be true. 0.98

00:35:22.000 We're going to look back at the midterms and say, man, if that hadn't happened, we would have been even dumber than we are. 0.99

00:35:30.000 And it will require action, though.

00:35:31.000 That's that's part where it's not going to happen automatically.

00:35:34.000 So we got to get you on stage soon.

00:35:36.000 But I want to talk about young people, students.

00:35:39.000 Yeah.

00:35:40.000 Most depressed, anxious, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted, psychiatric, addicted generation history.

00:35:44.000 Why?

00:35:46.000 Because they've been, you know, encouraged to be.

00:35:51.000 I mean, there's something really dark going on with adults where they would intentionally hurt young people, but you see it at every turn.

00:36:00.000 It's so true.

00:36:01.000 It's on purpose.

00:36:02.000 It's from fiscal policy.

00:36:03.000 Everything.

00:36:04.000 The lockdown.

00:36:05.000 It's cruel.

00:36:06.000 It's the opposite of what you would do to your own kids.

00:36:08.000 If you treated your own kids like this, if you told them they were helpless victims, they'd be in rehab.

00:36:14.000 If you gave them access to drugs, if you let them order meth on the internet called Adderall, which they can because it's now legal after COVID, you would turn them into drug addicts.

00:36:25.000 And we have.

00:36:26.000 If you gave them porn and video games and then forced them into four years of pointlessness in the prime of life in college, took away any meaning or duty, any struggle, if you poisoned the relationship between boys and girls and men and women and made them suspicious of one another and hate each other, you would spike the suicide rate to the levels we see it now.

00:36:47.000 You would destroy an entire generation.

00:36:50.000 I would say, and I don't have a ton of contact with young people, but I have a bunch on my staff and I have four of mine.

00:36:59.000 And I'm amazed by the resilience, by the wisdom, by the cleverness.

00:37:06.000 You are seeing young people just like intuitively know.

00:37:09.000 You and I talked about this at lunch.

00:37:11.000 This is a tough time and it's a time to get ready.

00:37:14.000 It's a time to prepare physically, emotionally, intellectually.

00:37:19.000 I mean, I have young people that I come into contact with, some of whom I'm related to, who are reading things.

00:37:24.000 When I was, you know, I was reading Evelyn Waugh's comic novels, okay, when I was 20, which I love and I would still recommend them to everybody.

00:37:31.000 They're amazing.

00:37:32.000 Decline fall, vile bodies, scoop, black mischief. 0.99

00:37:36.000 They're incredible. 0.97

00:37:37.000 But like the young people I talk to are reading like Aeschylus or, you know, they're like really trying to, they're very serious about what they read.

00:37:47.000 I think most people don't read at all.

00:37:48.000 They're on their iPhones.

00:37:49.000 But the ones you do read are serious about it.

00:37:52.000 And I'm like, what is that?

00:37:54.000 Well, they live in serious times.

00:37:55.000 That's what it's about.

00:37:56.000 Yes.

00:37:56.000 And they know it and they can feel it.

00:37:57.000 They can start to feel things falling apart.

00:37:59.000 Yes.

00:37:59.000 They've already fallen apart.

00:38:01.000 But you know, there's a huge upside to that.

00:38:02.000 I mean, I spent my whole life bemoaning it.

00:38:05.000 But the truth is, you know, too much room service is bad for you.

00:38:09.000 Like, you don't want to live in luxury.

00:38:11.000 Luxury is bad for you.

00:38:12.000 And I say this as someone who grew up in an affluent family and I'm affluent now.

00:38:15.000 There's a great comfort crisis.

00:38:17.000 You should have him on your show, Michael Easter.

00:38:19.000 I don't know if you know or not.

00:38:20.000 Oh, he's fabulous.

00:38:21.000 He wrote the book Comfort Crisis.

00:38:22.000 That's his whole book is about how comfort's killing everybody.

00:38:25.000 Well, it comes close to killing me every year.

00:38:28.000 You know, the room service, man, I got to stay off the room service.

00:38:32.000 Had it today.

00:38:33.000 But no, there's something to that.

00:38:36.000 You know, when it's too, I know for my, speaking for myself, I don't want to cast aspersions on young people.

00:38:42.000 They have it so easy.

00:38:43.000 I'm saying for me, when I have it easy, when I've got, you know, it doesn't happen often, but if I've got nothing to do all day, I mean, that never happens because I won't allow it to happen.

00:38:52.000 But if it were ever to happen, if I had to sit, you know, outside at a Sandals Beach Resort for a week with an open tab, I don't know what I would do.

00:39:02.000 I would hurt myself.

00:39:03.000 You know what I mean? 0.89

00:39:04.000 Yes.

00:39:04.000 It's not good for anybody.

00:39:05.000 You need a mission.

00:39:07.000 Let me say of men.

00:39:08.000 Men need a mission.

00:39:10.000 They need something that they think is important that's difficult to do.

00:39:14.000 Challenging.

00:39:15.000 Yes.

00:39:15.000 And if they don't have that, they will turn all that energy on themselves and they'll destroy themselves.

00:39:20.000 And then what do women do? 1.00

00:39:21.000 What do they need?

00:39:23.000 You know, I just feel like I'm not, I have four in my house, but I just love them and I'm not an author. 1.00

00:39:32.000 I don't fully understand women. 1.00

00:39:34.000 That's one of the reasons I like them so much. 1.00

00:39:36.000 I get about 70%, and the rest is Sanskrit.

00:39:41.000 I'm just like, I like the tonal qualities of it.

00:39:44.000 I like the way it sounds, but I don't really understand what you're saying, but it doesn't detract from my love for you. 1.00

00:39:50.000 But here's my one observation about at least young women, is that they're far more self-directed, far more self-directed.

00:39:58.000 Is that a good thing?

00:40:00.000 You know, I think it is.

00:40:01.000 I think it's one of the reasons that women do so much better in college. 1.00

00:40:05.000 As I always tell my girls, boys will never do anything unless they have to.

00:40:12.000 But if they have to, they will do anything.

00:40:15.000 That's the key to men.

00:40:16.000 Boys will never do anything unless they have to.

00:40:18.000 But if they have to, they will do anything.

00:40:21.000 In other words, you've got a man and he's got nothing to do.

00:40:25.000 He's going to be on the couch drinking beer, okay?

00:40:28.000 Or whatever.

00:40:29.000 He will be utterly indolent.

00:40:31.000 They're energy savers, right?

00:40:33.000 But if some menacing force shows up at your house, he will beat them to death with a two by four if he has to, because that's his job.

00:40:42.000 There's a crisis and he's responding to it.

00:40:44.000 And so if you're organizing a society that you want to be healthy and successful and you want to harness that energy, that male energy, which is like the driver of civilization, that's why we have office buildings, you need to think through like, how do we get the most out of young men?

00:40:59.000 And if, by contrast, you wanted to destroy young men, you would do what we're doing now, obviously.

00:41:06.000 You would give them nothing to do.

00:41:08.000 You would berate them.

00:41:09.000 You would patronize them.

00:41:11.000 You'd belittle their natural qualities.

00:41:13.000 You would get them addicted to drugs.

00:41:15.000 And that's literally what we've done.

00:41:17.000 Drive through, last thing I'll say, drive through rural America right now.

00:41:19.000 The only new buildings, in other words, the only capital flowing into small towns across rural America is for weed dispensaries.

00:41:28.000 Where's all that money coming from?

00:41:29.000 I live in a place like that, so I know. 0.94

00:41:30.000 The only new buildings in the entire freaking county are weed dispensaries. 0.97

00:41:33.000 That's true. 0.98

00:41:34.000 Go to rural Colorado.

00:41:35.000 You see exactly the same thing.

00:41:36.000 The only new buildings are weed dispensaries.

00:41:40.000 Take three steps back.

00:41:41.000 What are we watching here?

00:41:42.000 Why is the only money BlackRock is sending to Leadville going to weed dispensaries?

00:41:48.000 Like, what?

00:41:49.000 Unless they're buying the home to rent it back. 0.99

00:41:51.000 I don't even know if it's Black Rock. 0.82

00:41:52.000 I'm just saying like, well, but that's, yeah, but that's.

00:41:54.000 What are you, what?

00:41:56.000 So anyway, so that's my view.

00:41:59.000 Last thing, what gives you hope right now?

00:42:01.000 Because there's so many people that are just down and cynical negative.

00:42:03.000 You mentioned it briefly, young people more serious.

00:42:05.000 What else gives you hope? 1.00

00:42:07.000 They're worth the low point.

00:42:08.000 Worth the low point.

00:42:10.000 And by low point, I don't mean that things are so difficult.

00:42:12.000 I mean, Uber Eats apparently still works.

00:42:14.000 I don't use it, but like there's a lot of luxury still, right?

00:42:17.000 The empire is not quite dead.

00:42:19.000 We have Advil.

00:42:21.000 Air conditioning.

00:42:22.000 Forgot about Advil.

00:42:23.000 Advil's a big deal.

00:42:24.000 It is.

00:42:25.000 I'm off Advil, but apparently we have an Advil shortage.

00:42:28.000 But imagine like 1800s and you have a headache like that.

00:42:30.000 No, that's totally true.

00:42:31.000 I tried to get off Advil last year and I have.

00:42:34.000 But anyway, leaving Advil, I've got a bunch of Advil theories, that and under Om deodorant, which I'm not going to share with you or your viewers.

00:42:39.000 But I will say this.

00:42:41.000 When you're at the moment of least hope and maximum confusion, when you're like, not only are we going in the wrong direction, I don't even know what that direction is.

00:42:53.000 We're going really fast.

00:42:54.000 And really fast.

00:42:55.000 That is almost always the point at which things start to make sense.

00:43:01.000 It starts to come together.

00:43:02.000 I really believe that.

00:43:03.000 Why do you believe that, though?

00:43:04.000 Because I've seen it so many times.

00:43:06.000 I've seen it so many times.

00:43:09.000 The worst thing is not poverty or death.

00:43:13.000 Well, death is certain.

00:43:14.000 Poverty is always the normative state.

00:43:17.000 That's exactly right.

00:43:18.000 The worst part of life, the worst condition to live in, is a world without meaning or purpose, a world defined by chaos and uncertainty.

00:43:31.000 So it's modernity.

00:43:32.000 Yeah.

00:43:33.000 And that is the worst thing.

00:43:35.000 That is the I'd rather be hungry than live in a chaotic world.

00:43:39.000 Victor Frankl would agree.

00:43:40.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:43:41.000 The man who's literally went to concentration.

00:43:43.000 No, that's exactly right.

00:43:45.000 And that's where we are.

00:43:47.000 And that's an intolerable state for most people.

00:43:50.000 And I really believe that there will be clarity soon.

00:43:54.000 I do.

00:43:55.000 I can feel it.

00:43:56.000 But not political.

00:43:57.000 It'll be something else.

00:43:58.000 I don't know.

00:43:59.000 I mean, look, these things find their final expression or penultimate expression in politics.

00:44:06.000 Yeah.

00:44:06.000 But that's like the thing that we forgot.

00:44:08.000 You said the Sam Lynch was so wise.

00:44:09.000 It's like, it's true. 0.96

00:44:11.000 We like imagine for a moment we are as dumb as Kevin McCarthy and we're like, no, really, the most important thing is to vote. 0.99

00:44:17.000 No. 0.99

00:44:17.000 Sorry, Kevin. 0.99

00:44:18.000 That's important.

00:44:20.000 Is that the most important thing?

00:44:21.000 If you come to a place where you think the most important thing is to vote, you have lost your way.

00:44:25.000 Actually, the most important thing is to be nice to your wife.

00:44:28.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:44:29.000 Like go to work.

00:44:30.000 Honor God.

00:44:31.000 Yeah.

00:44:32.000 Right.

00:44:32.000 Amen.

00:44:33.000 Tucker, thanks so much.

00:44:34.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:44:35.000 Don't give a barn burner.

00:44:37.000 Spinning off into Crazy Land.

00:44:38.000 Thank you.

00:44:38.000 It's awesome.

00:44:38.000 Thanks so much.

00:44:42.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:44:44.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:44:47.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

00:44:52.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 29, 2023

REWIND: Tucker Carlson on Atheism

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