The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - My Chat with Chadwick Moore, Biographer of Tucker Carlson (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_629)

00:00:00.840 Hi everybody, this is Gatsad for The Sad Truth. Today I have another fantastic guest, Chadwick

00:00:06.500 Moore is a contributing editor at The Spectator and also the author. Oh boy, oh boy, this

00:00:14.040 is going to trigger some people. Biography on Tucker. Welcome. How are you doing, Chadwick?

00:00:19.840 Hey, I'm doing very good. Glad to be with you.

00:00:21.980 Likewise. Of course, as many people who got to know you, I first saw you on Tucker and

00:00:29.580 I thought, okay, this guy always seems to have a smile, always seems to be jovial. So

00:00:34.500 can I include you in the happy warrior? Because people call me the happy warrior. So can you

00:00:39.880 join my tribe and be part of the happy warrior club?

00:00:43.280 I would be absolutely honored. And I've always thought of you that way too. I think it's a

00:00:46.920 good club to be in.

00:00:48.720 All right. So let's begin with Tucker. I must admit, I only started reading it last night.

00:00:55.400 I'm maybe 30, 40 pages into it. Many of the stories that you mentioned, I think I was already

00:01:00.500 familiar with, but it's a, it's such a good read, such a fun read. I often read other types

00:01:05.440 of nonfiction. So this was kind of a nice departure. What led you to write the book and just let's

00:01:11.920 take it from there and drill down.

00:01:14.320 Sure. I, well, you know, my publisher reached out to me and said, you know, as you said, I

00:01:19.220 was a regular on Tucker's show for basically the entire run of the show, even on the last episode

00:01:23.320 of the show, which of course no one knew was going to be the last episode. And my publisher

00:01:27.960 reached out and said, you know, we want to do a book on Tucker Carlson. We think he's

00:01:33.120 the most important voice in American politics, one of the most important voices and, and we

00:01:38.640 want you to write it. And, you know, of course I was very honored and flattered. I wasn't

00:01:42.340 sure if Tucker would be on board with it. You know, I also knew that I hadn't really had

00:01:47.320 a personal relationship with him aside from being on the show and, you know, occasionally

00:01:52.380 texting, which, which he initiated. Um, and, uh, but I knew that firstly, there's not a lot

00:01:58.580 of cable TV news hosts. I think you really want to read a biography about. There's certainly

00:02:02.620 not many that, or any that I would want to write.

00:02:04.960 You mean not, not Rachel Maddow?

00:02:06.420 Yeah. Well, you know, she might, she might be an exception because I think she is, you 0.98

00:02:13.680 know, politics aside, if you're just looking at the human angle, she probably does have 0.99

00:02:16.920 a little more substance. Um, and I've got, I've got some actually, and I'm talking about

00:02:20.200 human substance, not intellectual substance, obviously. Uh, but, um, uh, I actually have

00:02:25.260 a story about her in the book and I have Tucker talking about her a lot because she got her

00:02:28.340 start by a Tucker. He gave her her, her leg into television. Um, but, uh, I, um, yeah, 0.72

00:02:34.040 I didn't think that, that, you know, there's many people, you know, so much of cable news

00:02:37.580 is, is so much artifice and all these sort of, you know, nipped and tucked script readers

00:02:41.820 who, you know, and, and you'd be, and when you're around television people a lot, which

00:02:45.580 I never wanted to be, I was sort of thrown into that world of being a talking head.

00:02:49.780 Um, and, you know, uh, but when you're in that world, you kind of realize there's not

00:02:53.300 a lot of, it's not speaking of everyone, but there's not a lot of depth, but I knew that

00:02:56.800 Tucker was, um, an interesting guy. And I could even just tell that he was, uh, there

00:03:01.840 was a lot to him and there's a lot to his story. Uh, and

00:03:04.020 I knew he'd be, you know, just a fascinating character study, not only who he is, but as

00:03:09.680 someone who's at sort of the center of a political moment and who gets, uh, so, uh, roundly

00:03:15.360 mischaracterized, um, both on the left and the right, uh, as many things, you know, on

00:03:21.280 the left obviously is, you know, some sort of demonic Nazi force of pure evil. And, uh,

00:03:28.440 on the right is someone who's, you know, I guess on the establishment, right. As someone

00:03:31.740 who's, um, you know, a reckless conspiracy theorist and an a-hole and whatever. And

00:03:36.460 then also people who kind of look at him as, you know, God, uh, which he certainly doesn't

00:03:40.340 see himself as. Um, so I, I, I wanted to, um, get in and just kind of, you know, tell

00:03:46.460 the human story of him and, and kind of write a book about not only, you know, the, the political

00:03:51.200 moment, but also, you know, the man who's at the center of it and, uh, you know, what

00:03:56.120 he, what he's really like off camera, who he is as a dude, what he really believes in

00:03:59.800 what it's like to just, you know, sit around in the morning and around his kitchen table

00:04:03.780 and drink coffee with him and, and, um, get to know his family and whatnot. Uh, so that's,

00:04:08.460 that's sort of how it came about. Um, you know, I immediately jumped on it. And, um, uh, as

00:04:14.620 I said, I wasn't sure if Tucker would really be into it. And I, I, I called him up, which

00:04:17.880 was the first time I'd spoken to him on the phone. I texted him and said, I have a question

00:04:20.700 for you. Are you available? And we talked to the phone for like 45 minutes and he had

00:04:23.760 me laughing so hard. He was packing up his home in Florida to go back to Maine for the

00:04:27.440 summer. And, uh, and then when I finally got around to my question, which was about

00:04:31.600 the book, uh, he, he sort of hem and haw and he's like, well, I don't really, I've never

00:04:36.440 really read anything about myself. I don't like that sort of attention. And I said, I

00:04:39.560 understand that's, um, you know, I get it. No problem. Thanks anyway. And then he

00:04:44.360 kind of stopped me and said, well, you know, you're a really good writer. And I remember

00:04:47.100 this column you wrote and this other column. I didn't, I didn't know he read

00:04:50.320 myself. And, um, and then he just sort of talked himself into it and was like, yeah,

00:04:55.840 let's do it. Why not come and hang out. Let me know when you want to do it. Uh, et

00:04:59.880 cetera. So that was, um, early 2022 when we started. And, um, that's sort of the, the

00:05:06.360 long answer to your question.

00:05:07.780 So what, what was the, by the way, as you're moving, there is some kind of noise

00:05:12.180 that's happening. Maybe it's the microphone. So just, just be mindful of that. Cause

00:05:16.160 it's causing a bit of a noise. Uh, what's, what was the process of how you, so, so for

00:05:22.920 example, when I only, I've only written nonfiction books, but in my case, you know,

00:05:27.680 my process is one where, you know, it's based on how I reference things as a

00:05:33.020 professor, right? So every statement that I make that needs backing up is, is, is

00:05:37.520 followed by the appropriate reference, but the process of you writing a biography

00:05:42.120 is different. How, how does it work? How do you start the process? Tell me about

00:05:46.300 your childhood. How does it, how does it work?

00:05:49.380 Yeah. Um, great question. And so I, I bounce around a lot when I talk, I'm like a

00:05:54.100 cartoon character, so that's probably hitting something, but, um, so, uh, I, uh,

00:05:58.980 well, see, you know, um, unlike your field, which, you know, I have the utmost

00:06:02.340 respect for, you know, I come from a totally different tradition of, I don't even, I don't

00:06:06.660 even come from the political world. I come from magazines and newspapers and human interest

00:06:10.740 writing features, writing profiles. That's always where I was until about 2016, 2017,

00:06:17.380 when I was kind of thrown into the political sphere. Uh, so for me, I mean, firstly, it

00:06:22.820 was, um, it was wonderful to get back to that, uh, instead of just, you know, you know, firing

00:06:28.740 off some, you know, peacemaking fun of mayor Pete or whatever, and just, you know, kind of

00:06:32.580 cheap shots and political shots and whatever, uh, which is enjoyable and fun. And I like

00:06:36.960 doing as well, but this was nice because it's, it's more in the vein of what I really

00:06:40.900 love and why I got into writing and journalism. Uh, and that is just, you know, you know,

00:06:45.120 telling a story, uh, with Tucker, uh, you know, I want to make sure I was in the several

00:06:51.600 times I hung out with them and spent a lot of time with them over the last year. Um, you

00:06:56.380 know, there's so much already about him that's out there. So you can, you know, you can, you

00:07:00.520 know, there's so much been written about him. There's so much he's written

00:07:02.320 himself. So I want to make sure I'd read everything he's ever written. I was really

00:07:05.960 up to date on everything publicly available. And of course I could check with him and follow

00:07:09.840 up and dig deeper into what's out there, but, you know, mainly, um, it didn't really

00:07:13.920 start with, you know, tell me your childhood. I think it was mainly, um, you know, let me

00:07:18.680 just hang out and follow you around and observe and, you know, kind of pipe in if I want to

00:07:23.280 and, and, you know, have a recorder going, you know, for thousands of hours, uh, you know,

00:07:27.800 every second I'm with him, just be recording every moment. And, uh, you know, whether

00:07:31.600 you're like in the car driving somewhere, sitting down to eat, or he's, you know, doing

00:07:35.880 his live show and I'm sitting there and I'm getting all the little things in between breaks

00:07:38.840 that he's saying to his staff and whatnot. Um, for me, that's kind of, I think the heart

00:07:43.040 of something like that, because in the moment you can take notes and things are going through

00:07:47.540 your mind and you're observing and you're having thoughts about what someone's really

00:07:49.860 like and what motivates someone and certain things stand out to you. And then of course you

00:07:54.680 have moments where you sit down officially and you start kind of going through your list

00:07:57.880 of questions. So what about when this happened, tell me more about this controversy. Was this

00:08:01.940 thing about your childhood true more? Can you expand on that more? Um, so with Tucker, it's,

00:08:06.560 it's, it was easier in that respect because you don't have to, you know, sit down and do the like,

00:08:10.900 so where did you go to college? And that sort of thing. Um, it was more, I think, capturing,

00:08:15.240 and I think that the soul of the book is sort of capturing that, um, you know, those 23 hours

00:08:20.340 a day when he's not on camera and what his world is like and what's happening. Uh, and so that,

00:08:25.280 in that respect, the, the writing process was a lot of just showing up and observing and hanging

00:08:29.760 out and then kind of picking through it all. You know, that was, I think the better part rather

00:08:33.980 than sitting down and asking the, the, you know, very direct questions. And of course there's tons

00:08:38.400 of that, you know, really a lot of things you have to, how long did the whole process take from,

00:08:41.800 from the first time you hung out with them with the purpose of writing the book till

00:08:45.140 submitting your first draft? How long does that take? Uh, it was a little under a year,

00:08:50.720 which seems insane. Um, I think conservative publishing is different because I come from

00:08:56.440 the world of liberal publishing, uh, uh, you know, back when, back when it was okay to be

00:08:59.920 a contrarian in, in liberal publishing. And then they all, you know, they kick you out. Uh,

00:09:03.580 they kicked you out after 2016, for some reason, something happened that year. Um, but conservative

00:09:08.440 publishing, liberal publishing is so, is so, um, you know, they'll have like a, like a 10 person

00:09:15.300 editorial meeting on where a comma goes, you know what I mean? And it's like, here's your advance

00:09:19.200 to your book. Just get it to us in the next decade. If you can, you know, uh, conservative

00:09:23.780 publishing is like, we need it in a week. Can you have us, you know, 60,000 words or whatever.

00:09:27.600 So I had, um, under a year, a little under a year to, to write this. Um, and, uh, there's plenty of

00:09:33.420 work to do that didn't involve hanging out with Tucker, obviously. Uh, so I kind of, I tried to

00:09:37.800 maximize the time that I had with them and I tried to be like super respectful of his time, even though

00:09:41.880 he was, you know, so open to me, anything I wanted, anytime I wanted to come and hang out. So I spent

00:09:46.420 a couple of weeks, you know, just staying in his home, being physically with him. And then, um,

00:09:52.760 and then the rest was just a lot of, you know, phone calls and just lots of background. Of course,

00:09:56.760 you have to, there's so many people outside people you can talk to. You know, I spent time with his

00:10:01.560 father and, um, and also, you know, college roommates, people like that. I getting to know

00:10:06.380 those people, which is all very much a part of his story today. How about his nuclear family? Did

00:10:10.680 you spend time with his wife, his children? Yeah, his wife, Susie, definitely. She's wonderful.

00:10:15.920 She's really great. Um, and she's obviously so important to him. You know, they met, um,

00:10:21.080 in high school and they've been together ever since, since sophomore year of high school. Yeah.

00:10:24.560 They got married, um, right after college, both of them didn't graduate and they eloped and got

00:10:29.620 married. Um, Susie's parents, uh, uh, did not like Tucker. They disapproved. And, uh,

00:10:35.060 For what reason? He was, um, you know, he was a bad kid in high school. Um, he was, you know,

00:10:40.960 always not, not, you know, getting into legal trouble, but he was, um, he was always, um,

00:10:45.820 you know, ruffling feathers and upsetting teachers and staff and he, and, and rallying students to

00:10:51.600 his cause and on the debate team and challenging teachers to debate and humiliating them in front of,

00:10:56.940 you know, the school. Uh, and he just sort of had that reputation to not a great student,

00:11:01.600 bad grades. Um, and, you know, always more interested in other things than actually attending school.

00:11:06.700 So, uh, and sending class, uh, and, uh, uh, so the parents, you know, demanded that she end that 0.99

00:11:14.220 relationship when they left for college. Uh, and she pretended they had, but of course they hadn't

00:11:19.520 and they'd remained together. Um, and then, uh, and then she surprised them to, she took her mom

00:11:25.620 out to Chili's to say, you know, I'm marrying Tucker Carlson. She had to say his full name because she

00:11:30.120 thought that, that, um, they would have forgotten who just Tucker was. Um, so I got to know Susie really

00:11:35.540 well. She's awesome. Um, the kids, I, I, I, I know about them. There's some things about them

00:11:40.000 in the book, but I didn't want to talk to them out of respect. Uh, and, and I, I know Tucker's

00:11:44.820 super protective of his children. People try to come for them before. Uh, and you know, we talk

00:11:49.580 about fatherhood. I thought it was more important to get Tucker to talk about fatherhood, uh, and to

00:11:54.220 talk to Tucker's father about how he raised Tucker and his brother, um, then bring the children

00:11:58.480 into it. He's really protective of their privacy. Um, and you know, and they, they suffer of course,

00:12:03.280 for who their father is. They, they suffer greatly. And there's some of that in the book.

00:12:06.560 I've, uh, have the, uh, have Susie's parents come around to thinking that she made a good,

00:12:13.060 uh, spousal choice. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. They, they watch, uh, uh, his show every night. Um,

00:12:19.340 her mother texts him during commercial breaks along with, you know, half of America. Cause

00:12:23.400 everyone has this. That's like Jesse waters. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So she'll like, yeah,

00:12:28.620 she's yeah. So they, they, they, they're very close family and, and it didn't take long for them

00:12:32.440 to, to, uh, approve of the, of the union. Well, you know, I, uh, I just tell you a few,

00:12:37.860 a few of my own, uh, personal stories, uh, with Tucker. I I've not been on his show as often as you

00:12:43.820 have not even close. I think I've been maybe two or three times on his TV show. And then I did the

00:12:50.520 long form, you know, one hour show in Florida where I really got to know him. Cause that was the,

00:12:56.460 the first and only time that we've met, uh, you know, in person. And I had gone, uh, to do the

00:13:02.060 show. Uh, I brought my, my entire family, my, my wife and kids. And so, uh, they got a chance to,

00:13:08.740 to meet him. And I think one of the ways by which you, you measure the quality of a person,

00:13:13.900 if you have a astute eye is how, how do they interact with your children? How do they interact

00:13:20.080 with your wife? Are they all showmanship and they're always on? And he was so lovely.

00:13:26.880 Humane and, you know, attentive to them and engaging them. I mean, within the confines

00:13:31.520 of our schedule, but you know, I, so however much positive affinity and affection I had towards

00:13:37.520 him increased exponentially as a result of seeing those little snippets, but now comes the,

00:13:42.840 the ugly part, not, not from Tucker, but from my own family, not my nuclear family. You'll see

00:13:48.320 in a second. So immediately after I had gone on the show, I put out a tweet, uh, which was very,

00:13:54.780 you know, positive. Hey Tucker, thank you so much for having me on. It was such a lovely,

00:13:59.880 lovely to meet you. You were such a wonderful host, blah, blah, blah. I receive a reply from

00:14:05.740 a cousin of mine. Now let me give the context here. By the way, this is, this story is in

00:14:12.240 this book, my latest book on happiness. And the end result of that story is that the life

00:14:18.160 lesson is don't live your life like my cousin. And basically he kind of publicly chastised

00:14:27.160 me. I mean, the exact tweet you, you know, it's, it's referenced, but I'm paraphrasing

00:14:31.680 something like, really have you no shame? And so like, meaning that how could you not, not

00:14:38.700 only associate with a monster like Tucker, you're actually being complimentary towards him. I mean,

00:14:44.220 where's your sense of shame. Now, why is the story so powerful? Number one, it's powerful in that

00:14:48.860 it's quite incredible that a family member would do that publicly, but it's even more tragic than

00:14:55.460 that. That cousin was my closest friend. We were inseparable growing up in Lebanon, but there's even

00:15:03.940 more to that story. We went through the Lebanese civil war together. There are periods where he had

00:15:09.780 been stuck at my home because he had come to visit me. And then the fighting, the street to street

00:15:14.420 fighting was so severe that he would be stuck at my house for several days. So we went through

00:15:19.360 traumatic childhood experiences that should have us bonded for life. If ever anything could bond to

00:15:26.280 people. And yet apparently my affection for Tucker was sufficient to break that bond.

00:15:33.180 Isn't that incredible? It's so amazing because, because you've met him, you've spent off camera time

00:15:38.840 with him and like, you see like what a, I mean, kind of a fundamentally good dude he is.

00:15:43.700 And then if you, if any of these people actually just sat and watched the program, his old Fox

00:15:47.920 program for, you know, the full hour, they would probably be very conflicted and confused about

00:15:52.620 why they hate him so much. You know, it's, but he is, you know, he's certainly a media sort of

00:15:58.020 public enemy number one in that respect. It's so funny. My, my, I mean, I don't like talking about

00:16:02.560 my family, but, but I will my, my mom, I, you know, we're very close, but my mom's like a big

00:16:07.420 Democrat, you know, always has been. But thankfully she's like a Southern Democrat. She's not like a 1.00

00:16:12.520 New England college professor who probably would have disowned me a long time ago. So, you know,

00:16:16.900 she's got a, she's got a soul and I kind of understand, you know, the party that they affiliate

00:16:22.840 with no longer exists. It's sort of the, you know, the kind of party of JFK, but they can't really

00:16:27.300 admit that that party doesn't exist anymore because they're, they're much older. But, but even

00:16:32.040 she, after she read the book, just the other day, she finally read the book and texts me and she said

00:16:36.780 something along the lines of, well, well, you know, I have a lot more respect for Tucker now.

00:16:41.980 And I said, oh, really? Why is that? She said, well, I just, you know, I just don't understand a lot

00:16:45.500 of things about him. And I just, I'm a lot softer on him now. I thought, well, that's really interesting.

00:16:50.840 If someone like her who watches MSNBC all day long could think that. But I thought that's what was

00:16:55.980 important to, to set out to do. I mean, someone like your cousin, I'm sorry to hear that story,

00:17:00.060 but of course it's not surprising. It's, you know, they, he just fulfills such a role of,

00:17:07.040 of, you know, a target for their, their hatred and animosity when really there's plenty other

00:17:12.400 people in the media probably who deserve it more than he does. Do you feel that in your interactions

00:17:18.520 with him in, in, in the pursuit of writing the book, do you feel that he's ever, uh, not triggered,

00:17:27.980 but angered or upset or hurt by the animosity? I mean, we're all human and as much as we might be

00:17:34.220 honey badgers, it somehow breaks through our thick skin. Does it in his case, or is he completely,

00:17:40.040 you know, he's so used to it that it just rolls off like the water off a duck's feathers?

00:17:45.180 Uh, I think today it certainly rolls off like water. Um, uh, it's, um, well they have, they,

00:17:54.120 he doesn't like follow any of it. So they don't own a television in either of their homes and,

00:17:59.780 uh, you know, they don't watch TV. His wife's never seen the show. She'll read his, I think one,

00:18:04.800 one time she saw the show, she sat, she sat and watched it, but she reads his monologues every,

00:18:09.340 every day before he sends them into the producers and gives him, you know, so she knows everything

00:18:12.920 it's going on. And of course they hear chatter, but, um, you know, they were rolling their house,

00:18:17.000 no Googling dad. Um, so they try to protect themselves not only from the hatred, but protect

00:18:22.600 themselves from all the praise too, from, from people who are hardcore Tucker fans. Uh, and I

00:18:27.800 think that that's one of the reasons why he is so unique, I guess, personality wise, and maybe you

00:18:34.640 can even say spiritually wise in, um, in, in that role of like TV news anchor, like cable TV news anchor,

00:18:40.820 because a lot of these people are just obsessive megalomaniacs. And if you tweet one thing about

00:18:45.180 them, that's slightly, slightly critical, you know, you get a text message in five seconds.

00:18:50.740 Like, what did you mean by this? You know, these people are absolute narcissists. He realized really 0.52

00:18:55.960 early on, uh, and he had a lot of mentors, including his father, who was also in television,

00:18:59.120 um, who sort of told him as, as his star was starting to rise to not believe the hype about yourself.

00:19:06.280 Uh, don't believe the BS because, uh, every job in television is a temporary job as he's found out

00:19:12.580 for the third time now in cable news. And, uh, you're so, you're so replaceable. You have no idea.

00:19:19.020 Um, and so, you know, don't believe all the hype. I mean, hype can be both negative and positive.

00:19:24.640 Um, so I think he is really, you know, he certainly gets really upset and really angry and really triggered

00:19:30.080 about many things. He's very passionate, but I think the, the, the fake news, as we say,

00:19:35.760 or any criticism of him, isn't really one of them. Uh, not only did he shield himself from it,

00:19:39.560 but he has, um, he's very centered. Uh, you know, one of my favorite parts of the book is

00:19:44.920 he, uh, he has this golf cart that he drives into the studio in Florida and he cut the top off to make

00:19:51.700 it a convertible golf cart. And he told me that it's because he needs to see the stars every night

00:19:58.060 on his way home from work, from the studio, because it's the best way to remind himself that

00:20:03.440 he is nothing, that he's nobody, that he's won a billion to come before him. That he's a speck

00:20:08.520 on a speck on a speck and, uh, that he's not God because his job title as a cable news host at the

00:20:14.180 time was to be God. Like that's the job. I'm right. You're wrong. I'm telling you how it is. Um, but

00:20:20.680 that's just one hour a day. Uh, and so, uh, that attitude, and I think that's, you don't have to be on

00:20:26.260 cable TV too. I think, uh, think that that's worthwhile attitude. And if you start thinking

00:20:31.680 in those ways, you're probably going to be a much happier, sane person.

00:20:35.320 Very cool. Uh, any, I, I haven't gotten to it. So forgive me if you've covered this in the book,

00:20:41.620 but are, is there a final definitive reason that has been officially given as to why he was let go

00:20:50.040 at Fox? Yes. We've heard the different possibilities, but is there one now that's come out as this is

00:20:55.300 the thing that broke the camel's back? Uh, there has not. Well, uh, uh, uh, yes and no, no,

00:21:02.980 no is the true answer. Um, but Fox has the closest that Fox has come, uh, to saying the reason why.

00:21:09.560 And I think, I believe they told this to their good friends at the New York times was, um, that it was

00:21:15.160 over these leaked test text messages and not leaked. They came out in part of discovery and lawsuit,

00:21:20.140 uh, in which he made some, uh, and I address this in the book and ask him about it too,

00:21:25.260 that, um, he, uh, uh, made some comment about that's not how white men fight. Uh, and it was

00:21:31.340 actually him trying to, uh, he was talking to one of his producers and there'd been some video of,

00:21:37.560 um, some people, MAGA hats beating up in Antifa, getting up in or something. And, and the conversation

00:21:43.760 was that, um, you know, this producer was watching this video and saying, you know, just he, he was

00:21:50.020 shocked with how much it was making him want to, he was having violent thoughts about Antifa. He wanted

00:21:54.840 to, you know, really get revenge on these people. And Tucker was talking him down and saying, yeah,

00:21:59.280 I'd been there before too. You have to remind yourself that, that these Antifas, they have

00:22:02.320 families, uh, you know, they're human beings. And then he said something like, I'm watching that

00:22:07.340 video with people ganging up on him. That's not how white men fight something like that. Uh,

00:22:12.740 so it was actually really sweet and heartwarming text message. It really shows actually who Tucker

00:22:17.140 was as a boss and as a human, but of course they took that one line out. Um, and, uh, so Fox has

00:22:23.140 said, that's the reason why, cause it was racist, which is obviously not true. That's not true in the

00:22:27.140 slightest. And it's laughable. They want people to believe that. So, um, but Fox has not given,

00:22:31.800 um, an official reason other than that, selling that to New York times,

00:22:36.400 uh, but you know, there were, there were several theories and we address most of them in the book,

00:22:42.360 uh, about what people think happened. And then I get Tucker's opinion on what he thinks happened.

00:22:47.400 And then I talked to other people who, who also shared, uh, what Tucker told me, uh, and which we

00:22:53.800 put a video about, which is what, uh, you know, it had, it was involved with the Dominion lawsuit.

00:22:58.080 If you, if you remember that, that Dominion's obviously denied this and Fox has denied this

00:23:02.100 and Dominion will send letters to people who say otherwise, but, um, uh, it's, uh, um,

00:23:09.220 Tucker was not, he was only involved in the Dominion lawsuit. He only had his,

00:23:13.240 was a part of discovery because Dominion was trying to use him, uh, to show that sane people

00:23:17.740 at Fox did not believe that the voting machines were rigged. And, um, so, you know, a lot of lefties

00:23:23.920 were like, Oh, he was fired. Cause he, you know, he, he, uh, defamed Dominion, but that's not at all.

00:23:28.120 He was actually, he was, um, uh, really taking people to task who were making those claims

00:23:33.160 on his show. And he was one of the few people on Fox who was, uh, but he got fired and no one else

00:23:37.700 did. So, but what, so does, does he have a definitive answer, even though it may not be

00:23:44.620 the official one as to why he think, does he subscribe to the Dominion, uh, story or what

00:23:51.120 is Tucker's view of why he was fired? Well, that's in my book that it was a kid that he, uh,

00:23:56.860 it was a condition in the, uh, Dominion settlement. Uh, now again, Dominion's denied this, Fox's

00:24:03.060 denied this, other people told me this, uh, but that being, uh, you know, the settlement

00:24:07.100 was you pay us $760 million and get rid of Tucker Carlson. Now, whether you believe that

00:24:12.400 or not is up to you. One thing I was told is that the reason why Fox did settle, Fox felt

00:24:17.060 they could win the lawsuit, but the reason why they settled is that Rupert Murdoch was going

00:24:21.000 to testify. Rupert Murdoch is 197 years old. And they felt that if he were to get on the

00:24:27.460 stand, he would make Joe Biden look coherent and it would be, you know, very bad for not

00:24:32.080 only him, but the network. So they wanted to do anything to avoid him taking the stand.

00:24:35.780 So they settled. And, uh, in that respect, what I was told is that Fox was really, uh,

00:24:41.260 on a dog leash with Dominion. Dominion could make, could make them do anything they wanted.

00:24:44.640 Now it's one thing that's, that's, um, that's undeniable is that it was ideological. I mean,

00:24:50.400 they wanted talk Tucker off the air for a long time, especially in election year. Uh, the fact

00:24:56.660 that, that his entire team was fired, uh, a couple months after he was, they were all left

00:25:01.960 to go in one fell swoop, um, because they were very close. They're all ideologically on the same

00:25:06.120 page with Tucker. When you work at a network like Fox, you're not hired to work for a show. You're

00:25:10.240 hired to work for the network. So if your show gets taken off the air, you get moved on to another

00:25:13.560 show. So this was the highest performing group of producers and all the cable news and cable

00:25:17.820 news history, probably. So Fox was doing a purge of any Tucker loyalists, anyone who shared his

00:25:22.380 views, they got rid of the whole team. Uh, and also the fact that they won't let him out of his

00:25:27.420 contract. So he's still under contract right now. He's still getting paid by Fox news.

00:25:31.520 They've been sending him cease and desist letters for what he's doing on Twitter. They've stopped

00:25:34.860 because it's not a good look for them, but, um, Tucker and his team from what I've been told

00:25:40.340 has said to Fox, look, let us out of the contract. We'll go our step back.

00:25:43.560 You can stop paying me. Just let me be free and do my own thing. And Fox won't do it.

00:25:47.780 His contract ends, uh, December, 2024. So one month after the next presidential election.

00:25:53.160 So it appears that Fox is, uh, it was happy to fire him for if they had outside pressure or not.

00:25:59.900 And now they want to do everything they can to keep him as quiet and as minuscule as possible

00:26:05.260 until the next presidential elections over. Well, I, I, I read far enough in your book where you

00:26:10.820 said that, you know, if you thought that this would destroy Tucker or make him go away,

00:26:15.160 it has done the exact opposite. His voice has been, if anything amplified. And I can't remember

00:26:19.640 the exact metrics, but you know, the first one that he put out on, what was it? 55 million views

00:26:25.300 or whatever it was, 57 million, something like that. So it's, he's now, I think on show number

00:26:30.660 or episode number 40 something, if I'm not mistaken, if we were to add up all those impressions,

00:26:37.320 it's going to be a lot higher than anything that one could have ever imagined. Correct.

00:26:43.400 Correct. But you know, also, I mean, a big part of it is sure. I mean, he has way more eyeballs on

00:26:48.800 him. He has a much younger audience now than he ever could in cable news and more people than he ever

00:26:52.840 could, uh, and much more impact on what's happening on Twitter and, and what, you know,

00:26:57.740 the little people are talking about, but our leaders don't care what the little people are

00:27:01.440 talking about. They don't care what's happening on Twitter. Uh, I think that one of the reasons why

00:27:05.680 his show being taken off the air felt like a death for so many people. And I think what we're still

00:27:10.240 seeing today is that he's at least when he was on cable, he had a much smaller audience and what

00:27:16.320 Twitter gets, but he had the ear of our leaders because our leaders are very, very vain people who

00:27:21.700 desperately care what happens on cable news and they care what people were talking about in cable

00:27:25.340 news. So when he was there, smaller audience, but more powerful people were listening and were,

00:27:30.700 uh, afraid of him. You know, the, the, the left obviously hates him for all their reasons, but

00:27:35.180 the, the, the Republican establishment feared him. They didn't want him talking about what they

00:27:40.360 were up to. Uh, you know, once again, like everyone's favorite conservatives, they all get

00:27:44.980 taken down by their own side. They don't get taken down by the left as often, I don't think.

00:27:49.460 So, um, I think that's really the bigger point we can say, yeah, yeah. So many more people,

00:27:54.740 but our leaders don't care what people are talking about in the internet. They don't care what we

00:27:58.100 think. Um, they, they care what people on, on Fox are saying about them or people in the New York

00:28:02.920 Times are saying about them. Uh, so in that respect, um, I don't know if it was really a win

00:28:07.820 for the country. Um, you know, I think it's a win for independent media, uh, which we all like to see

00:28:13.160 do better. Um, but we're still, I mean, our, our society is being reorganized in so many ways and

00:28:19.580 media just being one of them. Um, I don't know. He had told me in a text and I, I don't want to say

00:28:26.800 anything that might violate any privacy thing, but that he was working on some sort of project is,

00:28:32.300 is any of that public? I mean, beyond, Hey, I've moved my show onto Twitter. Are there moves that

00:28:39.200 he's making that are public that you might feel comfortable sharing with us here?

00:28:43.780 Yeah, no, there is public, uh, information out there. Some people reported on it about him

00:28:49.020 raising money for his own, uh, media ventures, several million so far, uh, which he is partnered

00:28:54.520 up with, uh, Neil Patel, who he founded the daily caller with the last time he was fired from a cable

00:29:00.420 news network, he started the daily caller because he had nothing to do and he was so bored. Uh, so he

00:29:05.200 and Neil Patel, who, who I, uh, spoke to for the book, who's his college roommate, they started daily

00:29:09.960 caller together. Um, they've said, they've, they've, uh, this is publicly out there. They partnered up to

00:29:15.700 launch another media venture. Uh, what, uh, uh, Tucker's producers tell me, uh, very recently is that

00:29:21.800 when they're able to get this off the ground. And again, a lot of this is, is contingent on his

00:29:26.600 contract with Fox, et cetera. Um, it's probably going to be like a subscriber service and people are going

00:29:32.160 to be seeing a lot more Tucker than they ever did on Fox news. So that's what, um, what I've been told

00:29:37.360 about it. Yeah. I mean, I've heard something quite similar to that. Uh, you know, you mentioned in the

00:29:41.960 book that, you know, he, he kind of Tucker becomes an anchor in your day where, you know, it's eight

00:29:48.420 o'clock and, and I really, that, that those few sentences resonated with me because that's exactly

00:29:54.140 how I would organize my evening. Right. So I knew at eight o'clock Tucker was going to talk to me as if

00:30:01.900 he's only talking to me, he's, he's going straight to me. He'd do the monologue. Uh, I was

00:30:07.180 particularly partial to his delivery style because I happen to be someone who uses a lot of sarcasm

00:30:13.060 and satire and so does he. So I, I just found his delivery to be so refreshing, so different from

00:30:20.060 the usual kind of stiff anchors. And so even though now he may be having, uh, you know, a much broader

00:30:28.000 audience, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, that the, the root, the routinized, you know,

00:30:33.940 part of at eight o'clock I could turn on, uh, it, I did feel that loss in my, in my daily life.

00:30:42.220 I still feel it. Yeah. Cause you know, you made sure dinner was ready. Like it was like a thing.

00:30:46.140 Like, Oh, you know, I want to eat dinner and watch Tucker at the same times. Uh, and that was,

00:30:50.000 yeah, it was a, it was a nightly routine for millions of people. Um, I still, I still miss that.

00:30:53.860 I mean, now I haven't watched Fox since April 24th, but, um, I, I watched Newsmax at night.

00:30:59.820 I like Newsmax a lot, but they're great, but it's also kind of something you can more have

00:31:02.740 on in the background, which is not an insult to them at all. Um, but, uh, but with Tucker's show,

00:31:08.560 like you had to sit and like pay attention and listen, you know, and you had to like catch all

00:31:12.580 the jokes. Um, uh, I, I hope that when they, when they relaunch, he does something similar,

00:31:18.040 you know, to bring back every night, you know, nightly show to sort of address everything that

00:31:21.640 happened the day. I think that'd be really great. Um, uh, and it would be, um, uh, I don't know

00:31:26.940 really any people on the, um, online who do that in an evening show on prime time. So it'd be

00:31:30.980 interesting to see if he could pull that off in this new, um, media world that he's in. Um, but

00:31:36.920 that's, uh, yeah, I think people are still feeling that disruption to their routine.

00:31:42.280 Well, what do you think? So here I'm speaking as a psychologist, uh, who, who tries to measure

00:31:47.720 things. Right. So, you know, if you, if, if you ask me, you know, what makes Lionel Messi

00:31:52.540 the greatest soccer player ever? Well, I can offer some specific, uh, you know, attributes that he

00:31:58.540 possesses. He historically, I mean, he's slowed down a bit now he's 36, but he has an incredible

00:32:03.540 acceleration. He's got the best technique. His vision of the game is simply out of this world.

00:32:08.220 No one else can see some of the, the spaces that he can see. So for all sorts of reasons,

00:32:12.960 you put that bundle together, it comes out very clear that Lionel Messi is just an,

00:32:17.740 you know, astounding soccer player. Now, of course, Tucker is very smart. He's very well-read,

00:32:23.580 but, but so is Rachel Maddow, right? So there is this element of charisma, satire, delivery,

00:32:30.780 the, the, the crazy over the top laugh that he has, but what, so what is it? Can we, can we

00:32:35.900 quantify that? What is, what, what is it about the Tucker magic that draws people to, I mean, of course,

00:32:42.720 we know why they hate him, but those who love him, why?

00:32:47.800 He believes what he says and he wouldn't. Yeah. Cause people can smell artifice. And when

00:32:54.360 someone's being fake, you know, from a mile away, you know, when someone's not being real with you.

00:32:58.460 Um, and I guess it's amazing how rare that is in his job title, you know, but you know,

00:33:04.900 because we're just so used to, to, to not having that. So I think, you know, he wouldn't ever do a

00:33:09.960 segment on anything if he, if he didn't believe in it, uh, all those, all those a block monologues

00:33:14.380 that he's so famous for, um, that's all him. He writes all those. And that, you know, I really

00:33:18.780 saw that that's very much for him. He's, um, he comes from, you know, uh, as you said, he's really

00:33:24.980 well, well read. He comes from the world of, of prints of writing and literature, um, much like his

00:33:30.380 father. And, um, he kind of stumbled into television and just sort of happened to be like an amazing

00:33:36.340 performer as well as also being a very literary guy. And even, I think any writer, even, you know,

00:33:41.700 even some left-wing, you know, writer for some, some big publishing house couldn't watch his,

00:33:47.780 those monologues and not, if you, if you have an ear for such things, you could, you would know that

00:33:52.100 like, this guy's a writer. You would just know that this, that, you know, this wasn't some,

00:33:55.620 you know, producer, some 23 year old producer just being like the crazy left is at it again. You know,

00:34:00.820 there was like a depth to it. And, uh, so that's a huge part of it for sure. Uh, and that also I

00:34:07.140 think just exposes again, like how rare that is in that world. Another thing too, that maybe just

00:34:13.660 adds to that is, um, and I think adds to the reason why he's so despised is because he's a class 0.98

00:34:20.600 traitor. Uh, not only is, is he trustworthy because you, you think he's on the truth, but he's

00:34:26.500 trustworthy because he comes from that world and he rejected it. He, you know, he grew up in

00:34:32.020 establishment Washington, you know, uh, up until, um, Antifa attacked his home in 20, uh, 20, um,

00:34:40.180 2018. Um, it was, uh, you know, he lived on in the same neighborhood as Dr. Fauci and Hunter Biden

00:34:45.820 and, and all of these people. So he knows them so well. He's been going to the same vacation spots

00:34:51.180 as these people belonging to the same clubs in Washington, DC. And, uh, he's got the dirt on

00:34:57.280 them. If not, you know, the paper trail, he's got the, the, um, the, the, uh, dirt on their

00:35:04.880 character, uh, and who they really are. And, uh, and he can see through it and he hates it and he

00:35:10.540 wants to call it out. Um, and Donald Trump is similar in that respect. I mean, Donald Trump comes

00:35:15.020 from the donor class and he, and that's another reason why they hate him because, um, you know,

00:35:19.860 it's similar to, there's that famous line, uh, during the 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton.

00:35:24.320 And somebody said something about, um, you know, if Hillary Clinton's so awful, like if you hate her

00:35:29.780 so much, uh, why was she at your daughter's wedding? And Trump said, because I paid her to be

00:35:34.160 there. And it was just really peeling back the curtain. Uh, and of course it drives them insane

00:35:39.360 because it's all true. We know that's how it works. And to have someone on that side, who's been there

00:35:43.940 tell you everything you think about these people is exactly true. And here's some more,

00:35:48.780 uh, I think that's also a big part of it. Yeah. I mean, I, I love that you, you, you draw the

00:35:53.740 analysis, the comparison with Trump, because there is some, it's kind of like when someone who comes

00:35:59.420 from the, uh, Muslim faith criticizes Islam. Now that's the worst thing. I mean, short of a Jewish 1.00

00:36:05.460 person criticizing Islam, it's really, I mean, you're already part of the believers and you dare

00:36:10.980 criticize Islam. So I think you're exactly right. Tucker comes from that world and yet he rejects it. 0.99

00:36:16.540 Donald Trump comes from the billionaire class and yet he rejects a lot of the stuff so that a lot,

00:36:21.640 you know, the average person in the Midwest can, can actually feel as though Donald Trump is hearing

00:36:27.080 him. That's a unique quality. And of course, also Donald Trump for better or worse is authentic,

00:36:32.560 which by the way, is something that I talk about in this book. If I can engage in shameless

00:36:37.040 plugging, I talk about, well, in this case, I talk about existential authenticity, not so much

00:36:42.380 realness in one-to-one existential authenticity, meaning that you really need to live the life

00:36:47.580 that is consistent with your internal values. And I think Tucker exemplifies that perfectly.

00:36:54.300 All right, let's move on very quickly to some other projects that you may be working on.

00:36:57.840 Although of course we could keep talking about guys, go out, get this book, do it now. When you

00:37:02.900 finish listening to this show, what are some other projects that you're working on? How do you choose

00:37:07.780 which projects to work on? Is there another book coming? Give us your whole trajectory over the

00:37:13.000 next, say, year or so. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm so itching to get started on a new book. And I've got,

00:37:20.720 I've got three ideas I'm thinking about. It's, you know what? One of them is a biography of me,

00:37:27.640 I'm guessing. Is that? Well, you, you ruined the surprise. I was going to say, I was going to call

00:37:32.740 you after this and say that. Um, but I do want to read your book actually. So I need to let me know

00:37:37.540 where I can buy that. Cause I, I do really enjoy your content. I have a really long time. I discovered

00:37:41.780 you right when I, um, when I, when I, you know, uh, abandoned when I, when I publicly abandoned the

00:37:47.220 left, like an early 2016, 2017, the first people I came upon. I'm like, who is this guy? I never did

00:37:53.520 because I'm just kind of like shy like that actually. Um, uh, no, I've, so I've known about you for a

00:37:58.700 really long time. You're one of those like, um, uh, early, uh, uh, thinkers that I gravitated

00:38:04.120 towards. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, uh, when it comes to books, um, there's a couple of ideas. There's

00:38:09.620 one that, that, that my publisher seems to like that is really commercial, uh, um, and political.

00:38:16.380 And I think it would do really well, but I, I'm, I'm kind of in this, I want to get, I want to be

00:38:20.540 doing, I don't know. I don't know if I want to do another like biography of a political person,

00:38:26.680 uh, or, or even a hands on, I think I want to get into something, some bigger things that I care

00:38:30.100 about, or, or even there's one idea like that's not political at all, but it's, but it's the kind

00:38:33.720 of realm of reporting that I'm, I'm. But you don't want to share what the ideas are. No, I don't want

00:38:38.700 to share just yet, but I'll keep you updated. No, but I, I, I like the fact, I mean, from,

00:38:42.800 from the kind of cryptic answer that you just gave, uh, you, if I dare say you're seeking variety in that

00:38:50.760 you could have easily said, Hey, I have done a good job writing a biography on an

00:38:56.580 important figure. Let me look for the next important figure and kind of do the same thing,

00:39:01.280 except that the target of the biography changes. Whereas you're saying, no, I want to move on to

00:39:06.200 other, uh, pastures, which again, forgive the, the plug, but in this book, I talk about

00:39:11.820 in the happiness book that, uh, you know, variety seeking is the spice of life really is operative

00:39:16.760 across many domains, you know, food variety seeking, uh, intellectual variety seeking. So I talk

00:39:21.860 about, I, I contextualize variety seeking in the, in the, in the, in the, uh, within the ecosystem

00:39:26.900 of academia, academics are usually taught to be incredibly narrow in their specialization,

00:39:32.840 right? You, you are the very narrow expert on this very, very hyper specialized field. And so you keep

00:39:40.300 pumping out papers within this stay in your lane approach. Whereas my entire career has been exactly

00:39:46.780 the repudiation of that, which is, I just follow, you know, wherever my heart takes me, wherever my

00:39:52.380 mind takes me, I've published in medicine and in politics and in evolutionary psychology and in

00:39:57.840 marketing. I don't care. I just, if the problem is interesting, let's have fun and explore it.

00:40:03.760 And I also live my life professionally that way. And that, you know, I was one of the early guys to

00:40:09.040 have a long form podcast, certainly probably the first professor to do so, uh, because I just

00:40:15.120 wasn't willing to be constrained by these are the things that professors should do. And these are

00:40:20.660 the things that they shouldn't do. Uh, I use humor. I use self-deprecation. You might've seen some of my

00:40:25.500 clips where I'm hiding under the desk, feigning that I am afraid of something. Uh, I engage, I,

00:40:30.660 I literally take a whip and I do self-flagellation to mock the progressives. Some people would write to

00:40:35.700 me and say, but doesn't that taint your kind of professorial gravitas? I say, no, people are

00:40:43.000 multifaceted creatures. If I go give a talk at Stanford, I can be very professorial,

00:40:47.640 but I don't take myself so seriously, a la Tucker, that I can't also have fun and play around. So

00:40:53.340 I'm, I'm happy to hear that you are seeking, uh, variety in, in your writing pursuits. Okay. If you

00:41:00.000 don't want to talk about what the idea is for your book, what about some other project? What makes you

00:41:04.980 say, okay, I'm going to spend the next three weeks working on this investigative piece. What,

00:41:09.540 how do you decide that? Well, um, well, I kind of want to go back to what you just said,

00:41:13.640 cause I think that's, that's wonderful. I, I, I think that was the best life coaching session

00:41:18.360 I could have asked for. Cause I think I've been needing to hear that because I think one of the

00:41:22.460 things, cause you're right. Actually, my next thought was, well, who is the next big political

00:41:25.420 person that I can write a biography of? And then I had a very big name in mind and I was starting to

00:41:29.780 turn the wheels, but I just thought, and as much as I appreciate this, you know, any of those people

00:41:34.340 would think, and I think that they would be good for biography. I just thought, you know, my heart's not in it.

00:41:38.680 And that's one thing you learn, uh, is that if you're, if I'm not excited about it, if I'm looking

00:41:43.480 at it as like, well, I got to pay the rent, so I better write this book and, you know, conservatives

00:41:47.560 will probably buy it. Um, which I think a lot of tons of conservative authors do. Um, and, um,

00:41:54.300 not all obviously, but, um, I just thought of my heart's not in it. It's going to be like the worst

00:41:58.700 year of my life. I'm going to be so bored to tears. And so like, what am I really interested in right

00:42:02.820 now? And what's getting me excited. And if one of those isn't political, you have this shame of,

00:42:07.380 of being like, well, no one's going to buy it. Cause I've been pigeonholed as this kind of

00:42:11.980 conservative, whatever, and no one's going to buy my book. If it's not political, they're going to

00:42:15.800 be like, why didn't you write about X, Y, or Z? But I just think you can't care. And I've never been

00:42:21.860 someone that thought like money was, it doesn't, I think it's, it's a horrible topic, you know? So I,

00:42:27.120 yeah, I think it's much more better to, um, I love what you said. Yeah. To, to embrace,

00:42:31.560 to follow where your heart's leading you and, and, um, and have some diversity in what you're

00:42:36.740 approaching. And if people respond to it, great. And if not, whatever, you did what you wanted to

00:42:40.000 do. Um, anyway, but I loved it. You said that, um, with, with what you said with the best pieces,

00:42:45.440 I'm not sure. I think it's the same thing. It's like, if something I was really, I was really worried

00:42:50.420 about getting into book writing at first, because I've been in magazines and newspapers for so long.

00:42:55.660 And a lot of that is you, you dive really hard into a subject and then you publish it and then

00:43:01.260 you're totally bored with it. You're totally over it. You're ready for the next thing. It's a very,

00:43:04.120 you know, instant gratification kind of pursuit of, of what you're interested in. And with the book,

00:43:09.440 I'm like, how can I stay interested in one topic for this long? But then you do become,

00:43:14.140 at least for me, uh, you do, it becomes more fascinating, uh, the longer you work on,

00:43:19.500 on one topic and dig into it. Um, so with, um, with, you know, whatever article I want to write next,

00:43:25.580 I think it's just sort of, if I see something or think of something that get, that has the kind

00:43:30.040 of sparkles to it, you know, you get that like, Ooh, like what's so happening there. That's

00:43:33.760 interesting. That could be really funny. That's typically where I, what it leads me. And, and,

00:43:38.120 you know, often you pitch netter and they're like, no, that's a dumb idea. And you're like, 0.85

00:43:43.260 no, it's not, I swear I can do it. It's gonna be great. Just trust me. Um, and then they want

00:43:48.040 something more easily to explain, but, um, that's, that's always how it is, you know,

00:43:51.720 you, you know, uh, I hope you'll appreciate the next life lesson from the book. Uh, so one of

00:43:57.220 the things that I talk about in, uh, in, uh, the happiness book is, you know, I argue that the two

00:44:03.100 most important decisions that are either going to impart great happiness or great misery upon you

00:44:08.120 is choosing the right spouse and choosing the right job or profession. And, and there's no

00:44:14.180 mysterious reason why that would be the case. If I wake up in the morning next to a person that I

00:44:18.460 really appreciate, that's great. I'm off to a good start. Then I go off to my job and I love my

00:44:23.980 job. Then I come home at night to that bed next to that person. Well, I've pretty much cracked the

00:44:27.920 mystery of being happy. And so, so to the point of how to choose the right profession, I argue in the

00:44:34.260 book that there are two fundamental metrics that if you can meet those, you're well on your way to

00:44:40.580 being at least occupationally happy. Number one, I argue that, uh, whatever allows you to

00:44:46.100 instantiate your creative impulse by definition is going to grant you a direct pathway to purpose

00:44:53.140 and meaning because the act of creation is, is a mystical process, right? I mean, I mean, this book

00:44:59.640 right here, there was a day when you opened up the laptop and there wasn't yet a single letter

00:45:07.880 struck. And then a year later, there's a book that, you know, Gadsad is reading in his, in his

00:45:16.040 bedroom, right? Tucker is in Gads' bed. That process is magical. It's mystical. It's metaphysical.

00:45:23.200 And so I argue that you could be a chef, you could be an architect, you could be a standup comic,

00:45:27.920 you could be an author. All of these jobs are very different, but what they share in common

00:45:32.440 is the act of creation. And so that you are immersed in that world, either as an author of

00:45:39.320 books or author of investigative pieces, uh, has to be the means by which you get, you know,

00:45:44.740 you kind of wake up in the morning with an existential glee, correct? Yeah, definitely. Um,

00:45:50.960 and, and, and I love what you said about, um, you know, uh, your, your spouse, like certainly it's,

00:45:56.760 it's got to have that. Um, and I saw that so much with Tucker. I mean, like my God, they,

00:46:01.080 they just seem so in love still to this day. And there's such an adorable couple

00:46:04.360 and seems so wonderfully matched. And he's so funny about her. He has like the funniest things

00:46:08.440 to say about her. Um, that just seems to be so important. Do you, so I have a question to you.

00:46:13.840 Do you think that, um, especially now this day and age, do you think that you can be in that kind

00:46:20.160 of relationship with someone who has opposite political views? It's tough. So that's a great

00:46:24.700 question. So one of the things that I talk about, uh, in dealing with, uh, how to choose the right

00:46:29.980 spouse is I contrast two maxims, opposites attract versus birds of a feather flock together.

00:46:37.960 And I, uh, demonstrate that the research overwhelmingly supports the birds of a feather

00:46:46.060 flock together when it comes to the likelihood of a successful union over the longterm. If we're

00:46:51.720 talking about a short-term sexual dalliance behind the bushes, then opposites attract might be very,

00:46:56.880 very nice, right? I might be a introverted guy and I'm sexually reserved. Uh, you may be the exact

00:47:03.160 opposite. You bring me out of my shell and we just had a great, you know, fleeting sexual moment.

00:47:08.860 Fine. But for long-term stability, you really want birds of a feather flock together. So now the

00:47:15.060 question is flocking on which feathers. And so to your question, you really are looking for someone

00:47:21.360 who shares your fundamental foundational beliefs, values, attitudes towards certain really kind of

00:47:28.760 deontological things. And so, no, I, I mean, it's not impossible for a rabid progressive to be with

00:47:35.660 an ultra conservative, but statistically speaking, boy, you're putting the odds against you if you

00:47:41.260 don't assort on those values. Yeah. And it seems even, even, even more,

00:47:47.160 it seems lately, even if it, it doesn't even have to be an ultra conservative and a rabid

00:47:51.840 progressive, but even a kind of center left and center right. I just don't even know if they could

00:47:57.020 really make it work. You know, there's just two, and it just seems to, it's just not that politics

00:48:01.960 should define everything, but, but in a way it does, because it, it describes how you fundamentally

00:48:06.400 see the world. Right. So I, yeah. Sorry, finish your point. Forgive me. No, go ahead. No,

00:48:11.620 I was going to say that, you know, I, I talk briefly about political orientation and happiness

00:48:20.080 and the happiness book. And I, I demonstrate that the research overwhelmingly shows that

00:48:27.460 conservatives score higher on happiness than liberals. And so then the question is why? And

00:48:33.700 so I offer, I mean, a speculative explanation, but I think a reasonable one, and I would love to

00:48:38.640 hear your thoughts on it. So I think that when a conservative wakes up in the morning, by the,

00:48:44.180 by the sheer definition of the word, there are things that are worth conserving. So yes,

00:48:49.760 the society may not be perfect, the one that I live in, but Hey, I believe in family. I believe

00:48:55.800 whatever. And so I wake up in the morning saying, Hey, I I'm happy. I'm existentially happy. The

00:49:01.420 progressive wakes up in the morning and they're existentially unhappy. We live in a transphobic,

00:49:07.380 homophobic, Islamophobic, patriarchal, misogynistic. We're raping mother earth. So 1.00

00:49:13.840 everything about the status quo is ugly. And just around the corner, if I can eradicate the current

00:49:20.960 system, there'll be unicornia. And so therefore I am existentially unhappy when I'm a progressive

00:49:27.460 because I need to create a better world. Whereas the conservative says, yeah, of course we can improve

00:49:32.340 things, but there is a good world world right now. What do you think of this explanation?

00:49:36.960 I I've lived it and I absolutely agree with you and I've lived and I've seen it firsthand. And I was

00:49:41.920 like deeply ensconced in the progressive left for all of my twenties and even, you know, into, well,

00:49:49.660 until around 2016, when I started just, you know, calling them out and then officially,

00:49:55.500 but what, what is the, forgive me for interrupting. What is the thing? Are you able, you know,

00:50:00.000 there's a thing called episodic memory whereby you remember exactly where you were when something

00:50:04.900 happened. You know, for example, nine 11, people typically have an episodic memory about that

00:50:09.160 exactly where I was when I first heard about the, the, the, the planes hitting the buildings.

00:50:15.160 Are you able to identify that episodic memory that took you from where you were in 2016 to where you

00:50:22.000 are now? In terms of, of, of, of ideological shift or, or yeah, exactly. A logical realignment.

00:50:27.940 Yes. Uh, uh, there's not a nine 11 moment, but there's, so I remember, um, I could point to,

00:50:36.160 um, let me see one, like four moments leading up to that. That was like, like, Hmm, what's going on?

00:50:43.180 The first was 20. If you've got, I'll run through them quickly, but, um, the first was, uh, 2013.

00:50:50.480 I was sent to Russia to write a story about, um, gay rights in Russia because it was all over the 1.00

00:50:57.620 news ahead of the 2014 Olympics that, you know, gays are being persecuted in Russia or whatever.

00:51:02.200 So I did the cover story for the magazine. I was like, same thing. I'm like, well,

00:51:05.700 let me just show up and like, see what's going on. You know, go to the gay bar. Like what's happening. 1.00

00:51:09.900 That was the first time that I realized that the mainstream media was like totally 1.00

00:51:13.560 incompetent and on the border of, of being complete liars, but at least stupid at the time, 0.99

00:51:19.940 because, you know, the New York times, uh, watch, uh, Washington Post, the New Yorker magazine, 0.99

00:51:24.380 all these hollow journalistic institutions with these very, very smart people were all reporting

00:51:29.440 on this. Um, but they were, I was the only Western journalist at the time to actually go there.

00:51:34.500 The only gay Western journalists actually go there. And when I got there, I'm like, wow,

00:51:37.800 these people are so dumb. Like they're just so stupid. And how do they like, and I knew nothing 1.00

00:51:41.620 about Russia at the time. I knew they were stupid. So that was the first like crack in the ceiling. 1.00

00:51:45.560 I'm like, wait a minute. Maybe these people don't actually know, like they're not the smartest

00:51:48.960 people in the world. Um, fast forward. The next moment was, I was listening to some, I don't know.

00:51:56.600 I don't remember if it was Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or some surrogate, but it was like

00:51:59.980 in 2016 and they were, uh, early on and they were giving some speech and they're saying something

00:52:05.740 about equal pay and we're going to guarantee equal pay for equal work, which is about the

00:52:09.320 wage gap myth. And I just stopped and I thought like, wait, I remember hearing that women made 1.00

00:52:16.580 70 cents on the dollar back in college in the early 2000s compared to men. Like, is that still

00:52:21.400 true? Like, has nothing changed? And just like looked it up. And then I was like, whoa, like

00:52:26.180 they're, wait, they're totally lying about this. So like, like, like it's the easiest thing

00:52:30.080 to debunk. And I remember just being like, well, like why, if they, why, like, why are

00:52:34.340 these Democrats? So I thought, um, I never, I didn't consider myself a Democrat, but like

00:52:39.320 I always voted for them and definitely believed that they were like the good guys, the, you

00:52:43.480 know, the smart people and the, you know, the justice seekers, uh, as much as I hated so

00:52:49.900 many of the, you know, progressives around me. But, um, I started thinking like, why do

00:52:53.740 they have to lie about this? That they're so good. And then I just, and that was like down

00:52:57.500 the rabbit hole of like all the talking points. I'm like, wait, they're lying about everything.

00:53:01.400 And then I, you know, later that year I was sent to profile Milo Yiannopoulos. Uh, and

00:53:05.920 then I realized everything, like I'd never heard a gay guy saying the things he was saying. And 0.94

00:53:09.380 I'm like, I've quietly thought these things all like forever. Uh, and then, you know, the mob

00:53:14.520 came after me after that story and tried to cancel me. Uh, you know, it was just like stuff

00:53:18.700 like that kind of building up to where, you know, I had a breaking point, um, during the

00:53:22.780 inauguration when the, the women, women's March was out there. And I just thought it was so

00:53:28.440 absolutely ridiculous. And then the moment during that, when I saw them, they had these 0.86

00:53:32.800 like posters of like women. It was like a cartoon of like a woman in a hijab, but the hijab 0.99

00:53:38.020 was an American flag. And I thought, what on like, what on earth? Like who are, that was

00:53:43.060 my moment where I'm like, I'm done. I'm totally done. I'm not even going to pretend anymore

00:53:46.440 that I'm like these people. And then I wrote a piece of the New York post just sort of coming

00:53:50.920 out as, you know, conservative. And, um, uh, and then that was the end. Then I was lost

00:53:57.460 some of my friends after that piece was fired from all my jobs, you know, et cetera. And

00:54:00.620 that's when Tucker had me out. That's when I first met Tucker. That's right. It was that

00:54:03.480 they got, they got ahold of it. Um, that's sort of, yeah. So it wasn't like a one, but

00:54:08.260 it was definitely like a kind of building up of like, wait a minute. Within a few, within

00:54:11.520 a, I mean, within a, what looks like a two year period, this whole thing happened roughly.

00:54:17.000 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Roughly a two year period. Yeah.

00:54:19.320 Well, what's amazing is, and I don't, I'm sure there's probably some empirical validation

00:54:23.700 of what I'm about to say, but certainly anecdotally, when I hear of stories of, as you mentioned,

00:54:30.980 political realignment within, within the individual, it always seems to go in one direction. Meaning

00:54:36.700 I start off as a progressive liberal when I'm young. And as I age, I become more conservative.

00:54:44.020 I've seldom if ever, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong. I've never heard of someone who starts

00:54:48.820 off being conservative and then in their forties and fifties decides let's color that hair blue 0.99

00:54:56.060 and, you know, put on the Antifa flag. Uh, first of all, is that, is that also your experience

00:55:02.860 that it always goes in one direction within an individual?

00:55:06.520 Uh, I would say generally speaking, but it certainly has happened the way you described

00:55:10.780 before. And, um, I, every time I've seen it happen, um, personally, it's been, it's every

00:55:17.320 single time it's been a, uh, like a straight white guy who is grew up conservative, has always been

00:55:23.220 conservative. And then the woman made him shift the other direction. Um, it's happened in my family

00:55:30.400 with a, with a woman who was always a Republican. I love her. Um, she's great. My aunt, but now she's

00:55:35.420 very liberal and it was her daughter that was like, you have to be a Bernie Sanders supporter

00:55:39.620 and here's why. And that was weird, but I can tell that she's still like, let me guess the

00:55:45.300 daughter went to Wellesley or Oberlin. Am I getting that right? No, because we don't come from a very

00:55:50.940 wealthy family. So no, she didn't actually. I don't even know why the daughter went so crazy. I don't

00:55:54.340 even think she went to college to be honest, which is an anomaly in itself in the South, uh, that someone,

00:55:59.700 a woman who didn't go to college would be so liberal. Um, but, but she doesn't, she's not hateful 1.00

00:56:04.040 liberal because again, they're Southern. So they're, they're better behaved and nicer people.

00:56:08.160 Um, but, uh, you're right that it seems to always go in that direction. I think publicly

00:56:12.780 the only one I can think of would be, um, who's that guy in the young Turks? Wasn't he always 0.98

00:56:16.860 conservative or whatever? Yeah. Chunk Uyghur? Uyghur. Yeah. Yeah. I think he, do you know this? 1.00

00:56:25.180 Do you know this apparatus, which I just happened to have, do you know what this is?

00:56:29.180 No, what is that? This is, well, I mean, literally it is a toy from,

00:56:33.440 from my children from many years ago, but now it's, I guess the battery is not working.

00:56:38.800 So I created a whole skit called the Aslan Uyghur Decoder 5000, whereby, you know, if I

00:56:48.540 open it up, it will, oh, it's now it's working. Look at that. It's doing it. It's, it's immortal,

00:56:55.040 this thing. And so the Aslan Uyghur Decoder 5000 became a very famous prop that I use to mock 0.95

00:57:01.580 progressives. So for example, you know, I might say, you know, who, who is the most dangerous

00:57:06.820 person in the world? And then they'll come out, Tucker Carlson. Right. So, but I, but I have to

00:57:12.600 engage the Aslan Uyghur Decoder 5000 to get the right progressive answer. So, but I didn't think

00:57:18.160 that, did he start off conservative and became a rabid progressive?

00:57:21.560 Yeah, but it seems, and I don't follow him closely, but it seems like he wasn't, you know,

00:57:27.200 it seems like he was kind of neo Connie, you know, like maybe like a Liz Cheney. And then

00:57:31.860 now he's just gone full. Yeah. I don't think he was like a, you know, I don't think it was

00:57:34.900 like an anti-war conservative or anything like that.

00:57:38.720 Right. Got you. Okay. Last question. And then of course I could keep you here for an hour

00:57:43.840 more, but the wife and kids, both of whom don't have school because in socialist Quebec,

00:57:50.300 our teachers are on strike and we're heading off for some Peruvian chicken, which is by the

00:57:57.800 way, one of the ways that I lost a lot of weight, because when you eat a lot of protein

00:58:01.580 and nothing else, you lose a lot of weight. So there you go. Any predictions that you're

00:58:07.500 willing to make about what is going to happen to our, I'm in Canada. So our Southern cousins

00:58:13.540 means United States 2024. Who's going to win it, Chadwick?

00:58:19.320 I don't know. Well, I've, I've predicted wrongly for every single presidential election. So I'm

00:58:24.480 a really terrible person to ask about this. I just, I don't know. I mean, if Trump wins,

00:58:32.340 I think it would be, it would just put so much faith. It would reinsert so much faith into my

00:58:39.120 fellow American, not that like, oh, they're all MAGA, you know, but, but so much faith that they,

00:58:45.400 if he does win, it'll be for one reason. It'll be, it'll be that, I mean, Biden's a terrible

00:58:49.700 president, but I think it'll be people looking at the situation and saying, this is wrong. We are

00:58:55.520 going to vote against our government, persecuting legally their political opponents and using law

00:59:01.820 fair to take down the leader of the opposition party. I think, you know, the Democrats may have way

00:59:06.880 overplayed their hand if Trump wins. So, you know, of course I hope he does. And I don't know how much

00:59:13.300 I believe these polls coming out. They, they seem too good to be true for a lot, for people who like

00:59:16.720 Trump, like I do. So if he does, it'll just be such a wonderful testament to the American people

00:59:23.840 who might say, I really don't like this man, but what's happening is wrong and we have to reject it.

00:59:29.320 And so what about Sam Harris, who says that if Trump were to win,

00:59:33.420 there'd be a nuclear holocaust, sex would be outlawed, there'd be famine in the street, 0.77

00:59:40.340 there'd be martial law. Don't you agree with Sam Harris that all those things would happen if

00:59:44.780 Trump were to be inaugurated again? I haven't thought about that peanut brain in so long. 1.00

00:59:51.620 People used to like him, didn't they, on the right? I used to like him. We knew each other.

00:59:57.800 Yeah. Oh, really? Wait, so wait, are you like, did you have a falling out? Is he friends? Not

01:00:03.160 anymore? Well, we, I mean, we weren't best of friends, but we were always, you know,

01:00:08.380 cordial with each other. We'd communicated many times. I went on his show in 2016. We had a nice

01:00:16.180 conversation. And then I kind of kept quiet for the next four or five years as he went completely

01:00:21.120 hysterical on Trump. But then I faced, speaking about an earlier point about authenticity,

01:00:26.000 I faced an internal dilemma, which is, do I remain quiet out of the value of you don't go after

01:00:34.860 someone you know, because you want to be respectful of your relationship. But then if I do that,

01:00:39.960 I'm being inauthentic to the truth. I need to be able to speak up. Why is it that I'm completely

01:00:44.840 irreverent on all sorts of issues and attack all sorts of people for their ideas, but yet I'm not 0.81

01:00:50.060 going to attack this guy when he's being completely insane. So I started going after him, but I thought in

01:00:54.440 a playful, kind of jovial way and so on, where I was kind of criticizing some of his insanity. So he

01:01:00.440 ended up unfollowing me, then blocking me, and I'm just a joker and so on. So I said, okay, well, the

01:01:05.720 gloves are off. Let's have at it. So regrettably, there's been a bit of a falling out. Yes.

01:01:11.020 Well, also back to authenticity, it's not just you being authentic. There's something that, and I don't

01:01:14.700 really follow him, but I'm just sort of see clips and I'm aware of what he kind of used to be. There seems

01:01:19.200 to be something fundamentally inauthentic about his TDS in that, you know, is he one of these people

01:01:24.300 that's like, oh no, I had my, you know, I sold a bunch of books to conservatives, but that's drying

01:01:29.380 up. Now I need to get back into the good graces of the liberal establishment. So I better go in hard

01:01:34.160 on Trump and present myself as this very, you know, principled person, which could be likely. I don't

01:01:41.300 know. I've never met the guy, but that's sort of how a lot of those people operate, you know,

01:01:44.640 slime in the media and slime into public so-called intellectuals. I wouldn't be surprised.

01:01:51.760 Yeah. Well, I mean, I didn't want to end it on Sam Harris, but we're on it. So let's wrap up that

01:01:57.760 conversation. I argued in the parasitic mind that the reason why folks like Sam Harris and are, you

01:02:05.740 know, the anointed progressive folks with the progressive list, why they hate him so much is I

01:02:12.760 argued that he is, he meaning Trump is an aesthetic injury to them. Right. So the idea is that, you

01:02:20.220 know, I belong to the progressive Malibu, you know, ivory tower class. And therefore there's a certain

01:02:27.060 way by which I should conduct myself and how I should speak. And I, I should speak with a lisp.

01:02:32.060 You see the, my progressive list. And so, because I'm, I'm intellectual, right. And here comes this

01:02:37.400 brash, cantankerous, obnoxious bully who speaks like a, you know, Queens guy. If he ascends to the 1.00

01:02:45.560 highest echelon of our society, that invalidates me. So as an ego defensive strategy, I have to hate

01:02:54.020 this guy because he is an, an existential aesthetic injury. So my thinking is that that's probably the 0.56

01:03:01.980 primary reason why Sam and his friends hate Trump so much. He, he, they, Trump invalidates how they've

01:03:10.640 ascended to their throne. Oh, definitely. And it's not even, uh, it's also, you know, it's the hair,

01:03:17.140 it's the suits, it's the, it's the gold toilet, it's the eating at McDonald's and he knows what

01:03:22.740 he's doing. Um, and, and, and it also reminds me of, uh, old school Al Sharpton because old school

01:03:29.100 Al Sharpton with, he was with his hair, that Jerry curl and his, uh, speaking like a big Southern

01:03:35.680 preacher. He did that to Al Sharpton's credit. I think now he's, but to his credit, then he was

01:03:41.440 doing that to troll white liberals. Cause he did not like white liberals back then. Now, of course, 0.95

01:03:45.700 that's his bread and butter, but he was doing that to be like the blackest caricature because he knew 0.87

01:03:51.100 it would make white liberals so uncomfortable. And to his credit, that was pretty cool. Um, Trump sort

01:03:56.580 of similar in that way. Uh, and, and, and that's wonderful. And, um, but also, you know,

01:04:01.220 as you said, it's an assault on their aesthetic sensibility. It's also an assault on the sense

01:04:06.040 that they own, uh, the cultural aesthetic because he became such a figure of, of internet culture

01:04:12.500 and among the youth, especially in 2016 and become a cultural figure that a Republican

01:04:16.780 presidential candidate has not been in living memory and a youth figure, which I think is also

01:04:21.500 another reason why they hate Tucker so much because it's stealing the culture from them because

01:04:24.580 he's funnier than they are. And he's having a better time, much like Trump. These people can't

01:04:28.980 be making better content than us where we are the avant-garde and the comedians. Uh, and it's a

01:04:34.560 great insult to these extremely, uh, brittle, um, spiritually vacuous people who have really

01:04:41.280 nothing else to live for, except for believing they are, uh, in control of aesthetics and culture.

01:04:48.300 Mic drop moment. No need to say anymore guys go out and get Tucker by Chadwick Moore.

01:04:54.260 What a delight it is to finally meet you Chadwick. Please come back whenever your next project

01:04:59.000 is released. A real pleasure talking to you. Stay on the line so we could say goodbye offline.

01:05:03.820 Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Such a pleasure. Likewise.

01:05:07.160 Bye-bye.

01:05:12.720 Bye-bye.

01:05:14.720 Bye-bye.

01:05:15.840 Bye-bye.

01:05:18.220 Bye-bye.

01:05:19.140 Bye-bye.

01:05:22.180 Bye-bye.

01:05:24.220 Bye-bye.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - December 08, 2023

My Chat with Chadwick Moore, Biographer of Tucker Carlson (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_629)

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