The Tucker Carlson Show - America’s Place in the World Is About to Change in a Big Way. Tucker Responds.

00:00:00.000 When you let aero truffle bubbles melt, everything takes on a creamy, delicious, chocolatey glow.

00:00:06.300 Like that pile of laundry.

00:00:07.800 You didn't forget to fold it.

00:00:09.220 Nah, it's a new trend.

00:00:10.720 Wrinkled chic.

00:00:12.100 Feel the aero bubbles melt.

00:00:13.900 It's mind bubbling.

00:00:19.220 So the three headlines from the president's speech last night, at least in the short term, are no ground troops, didn't mention ground troops.

00:00:26.900 yes we are getting out in some number of weeks by the end of april and there's not going to be

00:00:34.540 regime change regime change as he said explicitly is not our goal so are those true well of course 0.91

00:00:43.200 you can't tell you can't know at this point as trump himself said this has been a very short

00:00:49.880 engagement relative to say the first or second world war or vietnam but all of those wars began

00:00:58.280 with similar promises this won't last long back by fall all the kind of famous slogans that

00:01:03.700 we chuckle about ironically decades later they had no idea what they were getting into and that

00:01:10.040 is true again for every conflict the second people start dying you really don't know where it's going

00:01:14.480 to end and that goes for this conflict too and all kinds of things could happen between right now

00:01:22.140 and resolution and some of them are awful and there are also by the way signs that there is

00:01:29.880 as there always is quite a distance between what politicians tell us and what they're actually

00:01:34.280 planning to do or what they may do so for example in the question of ground troops

00:01:38.220 the president didn't mention them last night but they are apparently on the way so american troops

00:01:46.080 are on the way to the persian gulf including portions of the nevada national guard for some

00:01:52.120 reason so either that's a statement of intent the administration does plan to put boots on the

00:02:00.120 ground or it's an option they want to keep open but either way that very much could happen

00:02:06.220 particularly if the U.S. decides we need actual regime change.

00:02:11.420 We need to subdue the country, completely change its leadership, demand unconditional surrender.

00:02:19.360 None of those things can be achieved.

00:02:21.200 It is pretty much believed by air power alone.

00:02:26.680 So that could happen and it could accelerate in other ways too,

00:02:30.400 probably too horrible even to think about including the use of non-conventional weapons,

00:02:34.660 nuclear weapons of some kind and the effects of that would be what we don't know because those

00:02:39.220 weapons have never been used the kind of nuclear weapons that modern nations possess are not even

00:02:46.720 that closely related to the only ones that have ever been used 80 years ago in japan so what

00:02:52.800 would happen next again we can only guess but it would be awful so those questions were partly

00:03:01.260 answered last night, but they're not really the right questions that we should be asking because

00:03:07.660 this is not just a war in Iran. It is, well, really it's a pivot in history. What we're watching is a

00:03:16.040 change of power globally. And so the questions we really should be thinking about and that we're

00:03:24.240 going to get the answer to fairly soon would include who runs the world? Who's in charge of

00:03:31.100 the world? Where are the real power centers? What is the nature of power? What does it mean to have

00:03:36.120 power? How do you know if a country is powerful? Where does our power derive? Why is the United

00:03:44.440 States a power exactly? And finally, what is the United States? Who are we? How do we understand

00:03:51.080 ourselves? What do we stand for? What's our national character? Is there one? What are we

00:03:56.660 defending when we go to war so those are the questions that whether we want to ask or not

00:04:05.140 and they're almost never discussed in public for some reason that we're going to get the answers

00:04:09.220 to very soon because conflict forces an answer to these questions and this conflict in particular

00:04:15.480 this is a world war which is to say the world every nation the world while not obviously

00:04:23.260 directly engaged in it has a stake in the outcome and the future of every country will be determined

00:04:31.680 in part by what happens in iran so to answer or try to answer the first question who controls

00:04:40.180 the world well how do you know well you know because in terms of this specific conflict

00:04:48.700 the nation that controls the world will be the one that opens the Strait of Hormuz. 0.96

00:04:55.600 Now, what is the Strait of Hormuz?

00:04:57.760 Well, it's the choke point at the eastern end of the Persian Gulf,

00:05:04.040 which is the source of a fifth of the world's energy, probably 30% of the world's fertilizer,

00:05:11.920 a whole bunch of other vital elements that the world needs to run, that the global economy

00:05:19.380 needs to operate. And you can't get any of those out of that region except through that strait.

00:05:28.440 And it's about 100 miles long. It's 25-odd miles wide at its shortest width. It is basically

00:05:38.400 the source of Iran's power. It turns out one of the things we've learned is that Iran is not a

00:05:47.180 military power. The president and many other leaders bragged about destroying its navy and

00:05:53.300 its air force and reducing its capacity to build missiles and ending its nuclear program.

00:06:00.800 And that's relevant, certainly tactically it's relevant. But long term, its military,

00:06:07.420 even its nuclear program, is not why Iran is powerful. Iran is powerful because of its geography,

00:06:12.300 and that's true for all countries. Geography is the single most important fact of a country.

00:06:18.080 Where are you on the globe, and what does that mean? And in Iran's case, its power is inherent 0.98

00:06:24.100 because it is on the other side, the northern side of the Strait of Hormuz. So if you want

00:06:33.440 the global economy to function, and it is globalized, every country is connected to

00:06:37.260 every other country by commerce, you have to be able to get through that strait, and Iran 0.98

00:06:44.820 is in charge of that decision, which is to say Iran can stop you from doing that.

00:06:52.260 And for many decades now, Iran has threatened to do that. This is not the first time we've had 0.99

00:06:57.160 a debate over the strait of Hormuz, or it's been in the news, because in every single conflict

00:07:03.200 with Iran, open conflict, diplomatic conflict, beginning with the hostage crisis in 1979,

00:07:09.600 extending through the war between Iran and Iraq, in which we took sides, Iran has said,

00:07:15.220 hey, we will close the strait. And American policymakers have understood that is ultimately

00:07:23.540 why Iran is a nation that you have to reckon with, that you have to take seriously whether

00:07:27.960 you like them or not, even if you hate them, maybe especially if you hate them.

00:07:30.540 so iran is not a military power fundamentally iran is an economic power and previous leaders

00:07:38.820 have understood that our current leadership doesn't really seem to understand that or has

00:07:42.760 not said that in public but iran's power derives from its fat its ability to shut down or at least

00:07:48.920 gravely damage the global economy so the only question that matters long term is who reopens

00:07:58.780 that's straight. And it seems obviously at this point that the United States went into the

00:08:03.840 conflict with the mistaken belief that it could, we could, somebody could reopen that straight by

00:08:13.020 force. It's hard to understand how anyone who thought about it for 10 minutes, five minutes,

00:08:19.880 two minutes could have reached that conclusion. How do you open it by force? Well, you could just

00:08:25.640 blow up iran you could end its regime you could kill its ayatollah you could take out its 0.97

00:08:30.580 leadership but does that open the strait think about what it takes to close the strait not much 0.87

00:08:35.640 in fact almost nothing mines the threat of mines boats with explosives on them drones

00:08:44.120 it's extremely easy to prevent commerce it's very difficult to assure it it's asymmetrical

00:08:54.420 And so it's impossible to imagine how an outside power could keep the strait open without the consent, not just of the Iranian government, which you could destroy conceivably, you could just nuke it, but without the consent of the people who live in Iran.

00:09:14.940 Another way to put it is, game it out. You blow up Iran or you destroy any controlling authority 0.99

00:09:25.120 within Iran and Iran collapses. Does that open the strait? Well, of course not. It allows any 1.00

00:09:32.900 armed group to control the strait and then to collect taxes, levies, tolls for all shipping

00:09:39.340 that goes through it allows pirates to take control of the strait and that doesn't necessarily 0.65

00:09:48.000 make commerce impossible but it massively increases the cost and it discourages

00:09:53.920 normal flows of energy because who's going to do that who's going to ensure a ship

00:10:01.860 when no government can protect it or assure its protection as it passes through the straits

00:10:09.320 So, again, even if you reduced Iran to the state of permanent civil war, ethnic conflict, even if you killed 90 percent of the people in Iran or 99 percent or 100 percent, you would still be unable to promise shipping companies and oil producers and oil buyers that their oil or their liquefied natural gas or their fertilizer or their sulfur or anything else they need from the Persian Gulf.

00:10:38.960 would actually be able to go through that strait into the Indian Ocean and out to the rest of the

00:10:45.240 world. So that's not a solution. There's no military solution. That's not a peacenik position.

00:10:53.480 War is bad. That's a practical observation that reflects reality. You cannot bomb your way 0.61

00:11:01.640 to an open strait.

00:11:06.900 So if you're thinking about how to resolve this through war,

00:11:10.040 you have to somehow use force, killing, bombing 0.54

00:11:14.120 to convince the Iranian government.

00:11:17.500 You have to weaken it to the point where you convince them

00:11:19.640 it's in their interest to keep the strait open.

00:11:22.560 But you can't bomb them to the point they collapse

00:11:25.280 because then there will be no controlling authority

00:11:27.880 to keep it open.

00:11:28.840 So you need a government, but the government has to, like you, the government has to be weak enough to agree to your demands, but strong enough to keep control over its territory and that waterway.

00:11:41.900 Pretty delicate operation.

00:11:44.200 And at the end of it, you need consent.

00:11:49.560 And this sort of explains what power really is.

00:11:54.080 Power is not the ability to destroy.

00:11:57.480 Destroying is easy.

00:11:58.680 Killing is easy. 0.87

00:12:00.640 You can take life very simply. 0.61

00:12:02.800 Not hard at all. 1.00

00:12:03.940 Dumb people do it all the time. 1.00

00:12:06.660 Creating life is impossible. 1.00

00:12:08.900 No human being can do that.

00:12:10.080 That's the difference between man and God.

00:12:12.700 Man can destroy, but he cannot create.

00:12:15.920 So in human terms, power is the ability not to create chaos or destruction, but to restore order.

00:12:23.140 power is the ability to restore order the most powerful person the most powerful force

00:12:29.360 is the one that restores conditions to order and you see that in your life your kids get in a fight

00:12:37.340 that's easy they're kids they can beat each other up but who's in charge well the parent

00:12:44.700 restores order dad comes home knock it off dad's in charge we know that because he got the fighting

00:12:50.280 to stop. And that's true of nations as well. The nation that restores order is the nation

00:12:58.540 in charge. The nation that forces the peace is the nation in charge. And in global terms,

00:13:05.160 the country that forces order on the Persian Gulf that opens the Strait of Hormuz

00:13:13.260 is the nation that runs the world by definition so for decades certainly since the second world war

00:13:24.180 the rest of the world has assumed that that country is the united states

00:13:29.760 and again and again as noted various iranian leaders have threatened to close the strait

00:13:37.460 and in every single case, the rest of the region has looked to the United States to make sure that

00:13:43.700 doesn't happen. And the assumption that if there was ever a problem, the U.S. could fix it has

00:13:52.380 remained up until February 28th when this war began. And that was the day that the rest of

00:13:58.960 the world realized that the United States was unable to restore order. And this was a shock,

00:14:04.860 particularly for the six Gulf states, who, along with Iran and Iraq, are the energy-producing

00:14:12.660 states around the Persian Gulf. But those six states, the GCC, the Gulf monarchies,

00:14:18.720 our closest allies in the region, our most important allies in the world,

00:14:23.560 had lived for many years with the assumption that if there was ever a problem, the United

00:14:29.320 States could fix it. And they found out in very short order that that was untrue. And they found

00:14:33.560 it the hard way when hours after this war started, Iran started attacking them. And the United States

00:14:41.840 either wouldn't or couldn't stop that destruction. And the destruction is profound.

00:14:48.260 Profound. UAE, United Arab Emirates, location of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, two of the most famous

00:14:57.680 cities in the world, two of the nicest cities in the world, by the way, one of the richest

00:15:01.580 countries in the world, has taken over 2,000 missiles and drone attacks in the past months,

00:15:08.720 2,000, both against energy infrastructure, economic targets, but also against hotels

00:15:15.340 in downtown Dubai, the airports, the busiest, most important airports in the region, maybe

00:15:21.900 in the world, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the nicest airports in the world, attacked, and the United

00:15:28.880 States couldn't or wouldn't defend them. Qatar, same thing. Saudi, to some extent, same thing.

00:15:38.260 Now, these are countries that, partly in exchange for the defense guarantee they thought they had,

00:15:44.960 have been the largest, and especially in recent years, investors in the United States.

00:15:51.680 So their sovereign wealth funds, some of the biggest in the world, have poured trillions

00:15:55.540 of foreign direct investment into the U.S.,

00:15:58.940 literally trillions of dollars.

00:16:01.840 And the effects going forward are unknown,

00:16:05.220 but it looks like, I mean,

00:16:06.560 someone's going to have to rebuild these countries.

00:16:08.340 They're going to have to pay for it themselves, most likely.

00:16:11.580 And so it looks like some of that investment,

00:16:14.920 maybe a lot of that investment,

00:16:16.040 will either stop,

00:16:17.460 and maybe some of it under force majeure will be pulled back.

00:16:21.020 So it's a massive loss for them.

00:16:23.280 it's a huge loss for the United States but more than anything it's a reshuffling of expectations

00:16:31.800 and yes of power now all of those countries are focused single-mindedly on reopening the strait

00:16:39.680 because that's the key to their economies and of course they live directly across the water from

00:16:43.560 Iran and all of them have an interest in the United States doing that and some of them are

00:16:50.340 pushing the united states to do that probably every bit as enthusiastically as the israeli

00:16:56.220 government has to be totally honest and you can understand that it's not an attack on them

00:17:00.240 from their perspective just make it stop open the strait and there are a lot of practical reasons

00:17:05.260 why that needs to happen one of them is oil and gas come out of the ground and you have to put

00:17:10.740 it somewhere and if it's not going on ships you have to put it in some sort of storage facility

00:17:14.380 and those are limited in size and if you don't have a place to put the oil and gas then you have

00:17:21.040 to shut down the well and that's a that's a big operation and it can take a long time to restart

00:17:26.200 it you basically shut down your entire economy so there's a clock ticking for these countries you've

00:17:31.000 got to get the energy out of out of the region onto ships and out and you need the revenue from

00:17:37.080 selling it so they want the united states to stop this immediately and by stop it it means open that

00:17:43.420 straight. And their view is, will you just crush the Iranian regime? It's understandable why they 0.93

00:17:51.080 feel that way. It's hard in practical terms to understand how you do that. You really can't.

00:17:58.080 You need someone in Iran to agree to this, someone who has the power to control the country. 1.00

00:18:05.500 And for the Gulf states, and for a lot of countries around the world, that is a nightmare 0.98

00:18:10.400 scenario because that leaves the iranians in control so you go to all the trouble to have this 0.81

00:18:16.460 war and you have some version of the same regime still in charge and from the perspective of our

00:18:24.180 allies in the middle east that is the last thing they want because these are their enemies they're 1.00

00:18:29.620 literally the iranians are bombing their countries they don't want iran in charge

00:18:33.600 when all of this is over but last night the president seemed to indicate in fact didn't

00:18:41.720 he just said Iran's going to be in charge at the end he said that when he made the point that well 1.00

00:18:51.860 the straits going to reopen because Iran's going to need the money from oil sales that's another

00:18:57.460 way of saying some kind of iranian regime that we didn't choose is going to be in power when this

00:19:04.860 is all over so that that statement alone is hugely significant for the rest of the world

00:19:11.880 the president united states just said we're not going to be in charge of who runs iran when this

00:19:19.820 war ends but the most significant thing the president said was about the strait and who

00:19:29.200 opens it and again before we play this clip keep in mind that the rest of the world including our

00:19:34.320 adversaries but especially our allies always assumed it would be the united states who if

00:19:41.060 it ever came to it would reopen that critical waterway that key to the globalized economy

00:19:48.500 which it is. If there's any one geographic spot on the globe that's the key to a global economy,

00:19:55.540 to an interconnected economy, it's the Strait of Hormuz. Here's what the president said last night.

00:20:03.960 The countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of

00:20:09.700 that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They can do it easily.

00:20:15.480 we will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately

00:20:21.820 depend on. So to those countries that can't get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the

00:20:29.100 decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves. I have a suggestion. Number one, buy oil from the 1.00

00:20:35.520 United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And number two, build up some delayed

00:20:41.260 courage should have done it before should have done it with us as we asked go to the straight

00:20:46.620 and just take it protect it use it for yourselves iran has been essentially decimated the hard part

00:20:55.660 is done so it should be easy you want the straight open do it yourselves so what does this mean

00:21:03.720 well there are many levels uh on which you could analyze this the first is the literal

00:21:10.120 so we have enough oil we don't need the oil there if you need the oil you do it

00:21:15.880 to which a lot of people have noted well actually oil is priced on the international market

00:21:21.200 and unless you shut down american oil exports and in some basic sense nationalize the oil companies

00:21:29.000 control them use the government to control who they can sell to then what happens in the strait

00:21:37.600 affects us here in gas prices and oil prices because we don't control those.

00:21:44.560 So there's that.

00:21:47.060 But bigger picture, what the president is saying is we can't open the street.

00:21:54.220 And if it's so important to you, because we could nationalize the oil companies, actually.

00:22:01.400 If it's so important to you, you do it.

00:22:05.220 So who's he talking to exactly?

00:22:07.600 Well, this administration and previous administrations have expressed increasing, accelerating hostility toward Europe.

00:22:18.360 And, of course, Europe is who they may be talking to.

00:22:23.820 They seem to be talking to.

00:22:24.960 Europe needs Qatari LNG, which they definitely do.

00:22:27.920 since the united states blew up their pipeline from russia they're ever more dependent on

00:22:34.120 gulf oil and particularly gulf gas natural gas and so europe you do it and we asked our

00:22:42.040 european allies to get in at the very beginning and we're going to leave nato because they're

00:22:48.640 not backing us up in iran it's not really a real conversation our european allies don't

00:22:55.700 really have militaries and they don't have militaries because their countries have been

00:22:59.340 occupied to one degree or another by the u.s military since 1945 at the end of the second

00:23:04.660 world war so they've had not just a defense guarantee through nato they've had an actual

00:23:10.180 physical defense against whom russia for a lot of the time and so they don't have the capacity

00:23:19.160 to open the strait by force and of course no one really does have that capacity there's no force

00:23:25.180 that can open the strait. Only consent. But even if you believe there were some military answer to

00:23:31.220 this, France and Great Britain and Germany are going to provide that answer? Spain, Portugal,

00:23:36.520 Belgium? It's absurd. It's absurd. Of course, Trump is not speaking to Europe. Nobody expects

00:23:44.580 that Europe could or has any interest in sending troops to the Persian Gulf to open the strait.

00:23:51.900 so who's he speaking to well practically speaking there's really only one country on earth

00:23:58.720 with the power not necessarily the military power but maybe the power to open the gulf

00:24:05.220 to open the strait at the eastern end of the gulf let all that oil and gas out and that of course

00:24:11.220 is china china is who the president is speaking to and by the way the u.s president was supposed

00:24:20.020 to be in China this month, April, meeting with the Chinese president, Xi, and that's been delayed

00:24:26.560 until next month. And we'll see if that actually happens. But at the center of the conversation

00:24:32.080 will be this question. So how exactly would China open the Strait of Hormuz? Well, probably not

00:24:38.980 with aircraft carriers. In fact, you have to wonder how many aircraft carriers will be built

00:24:44.320 after this conflict because our aircraft carriers can't get very close to Iran because of the threat 0.99

00:24:52.680 of drones and missiles. So is it even useful to have aircraft carriers in this moment?

00:25:00.360 We'll have to assess that. It doesn't seem it. But it's not its military that gives

00:25:08.540 China the power to do this. It's its economic relationships, of course. So China is the

00:25:15.820 largest trading partner with every Gulf country and with Iran. In fact, China is one of the only

00:25:26.640 countries that has any kind of meaningful relationship with Iran at this point, China

00:25:32.520 and Russia, but particularly China. So China could conceivably bankrupt Iran if it wanted, 0.50

00:25:39.780 but China is also dependent on Gulf energy. All of Asia is dependent on Gulf energy. They need it.

00:25:50.640 So Asia, for example, uses about half the world's electricity, mostly for manufacturing.

00:25:56.640 Asia produces about two percent of the world's natural gas which is in most places the energy

00:26:05.480 source used to make electricity so Asia while an economic power of course is woefully 0.94

00:26:16.140 short of energy and a lot of that comes from the gulf so China needs the gulf wants the gulf now 0.94

00:26:24.420 China has very deep energy storage.

00:26:29.840 They've saved a lot of oil in their own strategic petroleum reserve.

00:26:35.560 But at a certain point, China is going to want to open that up.

00:26:39.920 And Trump seems to be saying that's inevitable.

00:26:43.340 We don't need to worry about it.

00:26:46.140 The question, though, is when.

00:26:48.200 So from the Chinese perspective, what's the hurry?

00:26:51.400 China will be hurt economically by this closure if it continues but so will the United States

00:27:00.420 but maybe more critically so will American allies in Asia so if you're China you're very focused on

00:27:09.720 the countries right around you that aren't fully under your control why wouldn't you be

00:27:15.260 every great power is concerned first and foremost about its region can i control the countries

00:27:21.320 right around me and in china's case you have taiwan you also have japan you have south korea

00:27:27.080 and you have philippines so you've got four big countries that are not directly controlled by

00:27:32.680 china but they're in asia and they were all to one extent or another closely allied with the

00:27:39.000 United States and benefit from some kind of defense guarantee, mostly implied.

00:27:45.680 And so if you weaken those countries, all of whom are totally dependent on Middle Eastern

00:27:53.780 energy, and you weaken the United States by refusing to come to its aid, the Gulf stays

00:28:03.380 closed energy prices in the united states spike food prices spike political unrest deepens the

00:28:12.340 u.s gets weaker more chaotic it hurts you but it also sends a very clear message to all those other

00:28:21.380 countries in asia you would like in your sphere of influence that hey the united states is probably

00:28:27.240 not going to come to our rescue if we have some kind of conflict with china maybe we better come 0.96

00:28:31.780 to terms with china so this is not obvious to a lot of the geniuses who run our country because 0.97

00:28:41.740 they think in terms purely of military force how many how big's your army how many nukes do you

00:28:48.460 have what's your navy look like but from a chinese perspective which is longitudinal

00:28:54.520 traditional tend to think in terms of like years not just quarterly reporting periods

00:29:00.980 this is greatly to your advantage greatly to your advantage why would you want to stage a

00:29:09.740 military invasion of say taiwan the one every think tank in washington is always telling us

00:29:14.920 is coming any minute when you could just send a really clear message to the taiwanese government

00:29:22.460 that reunification with china is inevitable and let's do this the easy way the non-messy way 0.98

00:29:28.000 let's do here what we did in hong kong let's just bring all the provinces home without having to 0.91

00:29:34.200 kill anybody and by the way you have no choice because the country you thought was going to 0.83

00:29:38.620 protect you clearly isn't can't even protect qatar can't protect downtown dubai is it really 0.98

00:29:44.580 going to protect you? Does the U.S. have the physical ability to project power in the South

00:29:52.300 China Sea when it can't even keep the drug cartels in Tijuana under control? Probably not.

00:29:59.060 So stop with the pretense and let's come to terms favorable to us. Well, of course,

00:30:07.780 China thinks that way. And of course, that's in their interest. All these dumb fantasies about 0.99

00:30:13.600 a showdown in East Asia between the U.S. and China. They're nobody's interest, but only China 0.97

00:30:19.920 seems to understand that. So if you're China, maybe you don't come to the rescue right away.

00:30:26.140 Maybe you let the pain continue for a while just to make it really clear who's in charge.

00:30:34.060 And once again, you'll know who's in charge by who settles the conflict. The person or nation

00:30:41.900 that restores order is dad that's who's in charge that's the head of household that's the head of

00:30:47.500 the world so that's what's at stake who runs the world now is this good or bad from an american

00:30:59.040 perspective well that's a more complicated question short term of course it's bad

00:31:04.180 there's a humiliation coming at some point you hope it's not too profound you hope it's not

00:31:11.300 you know 10 times worse than the fall of saigon in 1975 or the retreat from kabul

00:31:17.340 just a few years ago you hope not because it's dispiriting and people will die and it's just

00:31:23.400 awful in every way but at some point it will become clear that the united states couldn't

00:31:29.160 do the thing that great powers do which is keep commerce going and so it doesn't mean the united

00:31:34.960 states is not a great power it just means it's not as great as maybe some people imagine it was

00:31:39.500 It's not as powerful as our leaders told us it was and in some cases actually thought it was.

00:31:44.560 And what that really means is the unipolar moment is over.

00:31:48.240 Now, it's been over for a while, but in the minds of your average U.S. senator from Nebraska, we're in charge of everything and everyone will just bow to our terms.

00:31:57.280 And that's not true, hasn't been true for at least 15 years.

00:32:01.900 It's definitely not true now.

00:32:03.860 And no one will be able to deny it.

00:32:05.480 So that's going to be hard for some people to accept. It could be dispiriting to us as a nation, but it reflects reality and it's not the end of American power or prosperity.

00:32:19.060 It might, in fact, be the beginning of actual power and more durable prosperity, the kind rooted in resources and production, the kind that's not necessarily dependent on finance.

00:32:36.920 So it doesn't need to be a disaster, but it's definitely going to be a global reshuffling.

00:32:43.060 reshuffling. And it revolves around the question of resources. It revolves around what President

00:32:51.700 Trump, to his credit, understands, which is ultimately power derives from prosperity.

00:32:58.980 Rich countries are powerful. Rich countries get to build powerful militaries to express

00:33:04.020 and in rare occasions exert their power.

00:33:08.860 But wealth comes from resources.

00:33:14.280 And what are resources?

00:33:15.960 Resources are food, water, and energy.

00:33:20.460 The three things necessary for life,

00:33:24.040 for growth, for civilization.

00:33:28.100 Food, water, energy.

00:33:30.040 food by and large comes from energy by the way huge percentage of fertilizer comes from natural

00:33:37.800 gas but it takes energy to make food of course but a country's resources its physical resources

00:33:46.620 the things it finds in the ground are essential to that country's prosperity

00:33:54.060 so physical reality matters and that's harder and harder to keep in mind when our day-to-day

00:34:01.060 realities are determined by things that are not real electrical impulses ones and zeros the

00:34:05.860 digital world but the digital world has limits and those limits arrive at say lunchtime when

00:34:12.980 you're hungry you can't eat instagram you have to eat food and that's produced by people

00:34:21.040 grown in the ground watered with water so physical reality intrudes and trump because he is in the

00:34:33.800 best way at his best a primitive person understands the primitive reality which is we need these

00:34:40.780 things so if you look at the world that way what are the rich countries what are the rich hemispheres

00:34:46.760 well again asia has relatively speaking very little energy a lot of highly productive countries

00:34:57.200 starting with japan and china are totally dependent on other countries for resources and

00:35:05.120 of course if you paid any attention to what happened in the last century you know imperial

00:35:10.560 japan became imperial because it didn't have enough resources and that's why it went into

00:35:14.180 china and that's why it invaded a bunch of its neighbors and that's how we went up in a in a war 1.00

00:35:18.840 with it so this question doesn't go away and if you look at the world through that lens you see

00:35:27.920 that we're in a pretty good spot because the united states as the president never tires of saying

00:35:33.920 has deep resources land water and lots of energy now in this specific question of oil it's a little

00:35:43.340 bit more complicated than you have heard the u.s does actually import quite a bit of oil

00:35:47.440 what we have is a massive abundance of natural gas which 25 years ago was considered kind of

00:35:56.940 marginally significant now it's understood to be a critical resource from which all kinds of

00:36:04.300 different products that you use every day and pharmaceuticals and as noted fertilizer and

00:36:09.200 electricity all come the united states has huge reserves of natural gas but our region north

00:36:18.060 america south america the caribbean the western hemisphere has massive reserves of energy

00:36:27.560 has huge amounts of water fresh water which matters and has the world's best farmland

00:36:38.420 so we are in a very rich hemisphere and we haven't really internalized that so actually

00:36:50.920 if the world cleaves in two if china 1.00

00:36:54.980 fully controls the east mostly controls the east and we mostly control the west

00:37:03.180 probably something we could live with probably not a terrible thing

00:37:07.460 for the united states but it would require a totally different way of thinking it would require

00:37:17.520 the u.s government the pentagon the state department the white house all the academics

00:37:25.780 that feeded information and deep thoughts about what the empire should be it would require all of

00:37:30.760 them to change the way they think about the united states and its place in the world so all of a

00:37:36.220 sudden what happens in brazil which has massive reserves of freshwater farmland and energy

00:37:43.340 would be way more important than what happens in saudi arabia and that's not a bad thing

00:37:51.080 because we have a lot in common with brazil it's a christian country with a romance language

00:37:57.580 in our hemisphere right there directly beneath us it's a country almost the size of the continental

00:38:04.140 United States. It's a huge country. It's a beautiful country, by the way. And Saudi Arabia is

00:38:10.560 on the other side of the world. So why wouldn't you spend a lot more time thinking about what

00:38:18.740 happens in Brazil, trying to improve Brazil, make it more stable, make it more pro-American,

00:38:23.960 not rolling and steal its oil, its resources, but bring it into your sphere of influence? Well,

00:38:33.000 you know a country that was thinking clearly would do that and would have been doing that

00:38:38.380 for like the past 200 years and not just in a marshall monroe doctrine way we're not going

00:38:44.280 to tolerate this tolerate that but actually try to integrate your economies a little bit more

00:38:50.140 again have positive influence some sway over brazil and then you think well if brazil's

00:38:57.020 important. What about Canada and Mexico, which are literally on our borders,

00:39:04.320 which are huge energy producers? Canada has far more oil than the United States,

00:39:10.900 far more fresh water than the United States. Canada has the fourth biggest oil reserves in

00:39:16.160 the world. How much do Americans know about Canada? Well, Canada happens to be falling apart

00:39:22.160 as a nation completely falling apart it's in a state of domestic chaos it's become a police

00:39:30.140 state under the influence of china canada the country with which we share the longest border

00:39:34.500 our most critical ally on the globe is canada the country we ignore how many americans know

00:39:41.540 what its capital is or how to pronounce it probably under half canada is the single most

00:39:48.600 important relationship that we have it has always been our largest trading partner

00:39:52.580 but going forward as american influence recedes to our hemisphere what happens in canada matters

00:40:04.500 more than anything else maybe we should think about that maybe we should try to exert some

00:40:11.840 influence on canada not necessarily by force though by force if necessary you could certainly

00:40:15.980 make a regime change argument about canada talk about a country that's oppressing its own citizens

00:40:22.880 killed almost a hundred thousand of them through its state-sponsored killing program maids 0.95

00:40:29.300 you could make a human rights case to invade canada not that we should

00:40:35.500 but if ever there was a people that needed liberation from a government that hates them

00:40:40.180 it's the canadians of course but you could make a case based on self-interest and regional

00:40:45.820 interest, even on decency, to have a lot more positive influence on the internal affairs of

00:40:53.120 Canada than we currently do. Canada's not a sovereign country. It never has been, ever.

00:40:59.680 It's part of the British Commonwealth. Now it's some sort of colony of India and China.

00:41:05.980 It's never been sovereign, and there's no reason that it should be. It should be decent and well

00:41:12.640 run for the benefit of its own citizens. And you can say the same for Mexico. Mexico has

00:41:20.640 brought benefits to the United States. A lot of decent people have come from Mexico. There's a 1.00

00:41:27.240 lot of American manufacturing in Mexico, a lot of great vacation spots in Mexico, a lot of great

00:41:32.800 Mexicans. But overall, Mexico has been a massive problem for the United States, both because of 1.00

00:41:40.800 mass migration from Mexico because of the ongoing drug war in Mexico, which has now moved into the

00:41:48.620 United States. There's massive cartel influence in the United States. There are politicians in

00:41:54.740 the United States taking money from the cartels. America is, with every passing day, becoming more

00:41:59.700 like Mexico and not in a good way. Mexico has harmed the United States in a lot of ways, real

00:42:06.640 ways measurable ways the migrant crisis all those illegals biden let in they all mostly came through 0.99

00:42:13.380 mexico with the knowledge in some cases the cooperation of the mexican government that's

00:42:18.060 the behavior of an enemy nation they don't need to be an enemy but fixing that will require paying

00:42:25.780 some attention to what happens in mexico that's not bad that's good that'll be good for mexico

00:42:32.040 and it's necessary for the united states so why is all this relevant now because

00:42:38.400 what's happening in iran is the end of american empire as we understand it and that's sad boo

00:42:46.920 who empire's dying but it's not the end of the united states it's not the end of our influence

00:42:52.780 on other nations hopefully positive influence it's not the end of our economy it's the beginning of

00:42:57.880 a very rough time in our economy, of course, but it's hardly the end of it. What we've been doing

00:43:05.220 for likely your lifetime if you're under 80 is, well, it's not working anymore. It hasn't actually

00:43:13.300 helped the United States long term. Your grandkids at this point don't have the promise of a better

00:43:19.000 life than you had. So it's not actually a successful experiment. And now it's ending

00:43:25.140 because we've reached the limits of our demonstrated power.

00:43:27.840 We can't open the Straits of Hormuz.

00:43:30.420 The President of the United States said that last night.

00:43:32.020 Someone else do it.

00:43:33.680 So we're done.

00:43:35.720 That's okay.

00:43:37.260 It was always going to end.

00:43:39.520 Hopefully we can get out without a nuclear exchange.

00:43:42.000 But now it is ending.

00:43:44.960 And there's going to be a lot of suffering and sadness

00:43:48.080 as a result of that end.

00:43:49.140 But there will also be, there is an awful lot of promise.

00:43:55.140 promise that the united states can act in its own interest that it can be reasonable that it will

00:44:00.920 not be governed by deranged people seized by hubris or get way out over their skis and get

00:44:05.980 a ton of people killed you don't have to occupy countries you've never been to can't identify in

00:44:10.580 a map i mean what we're doing doesn't work whether you approve of it morally or not

00:44:18.640 and we're going to do something else and that something else is starting right now

00:44:26.440 so the only point is you could with wise leadership turn this to the advantage of

00:44:33.840 the united states and the western hemisphere very very easily and there's one other advantage to

00:44:40.620 this moment which is that it has been clarifying all of a sudden we know what everybody in

00:44:47.100 authority thinks because they've been saying it because under pressure people confess

00:44:51.020 the pressure of course is this war which a lot of people in our commentariat a lot of people

00:44:59.800 in our government certainly in our congress a lot of people in israel wanted they all wanted this

00:45:07.240 and it didn't work the way they said it would and even now it could go really really wrong and lots

00:45:14.100 of americans could die relatively speaking a lot have died oh the casualty numbers are so low okay

00:45:19.600 how about if that was your son would you feel they were low americans have died

00:45:26.120 for this at the instigation of israel to no material benefit to our country and everyone

00:45:33.960 knows that there's no denying it that's not a conspiracy theory it's just a fact

00:45:36.940 And now it's completely out in the open. So those ideas, neoconservatism, the preservation of empire, the idea that you take orders from a tiny country far away, all of those things have risen right to the surface, no longer whispered about.

00:45:58.200 we can just say it openly because no one's hiding it anymore and we can all say they're destructive 0.98

00:46:04.280 stupid and bad for the united states so those debates are over we now know what's going on 0.99

00:46:13.880 and now we can change it the other thing we've learned is that huge parts of protestant 1.00

00:46:22.460 Christianity in the United States, the leadership, totally corrupt. And not just corrupt on an 0.97

00:46:29.280 obvious level like, oh, the preacher's having an affair or they're taking money from whomever.

00:46:34.720 They're shaking down the congregation for, you know, 20% tithes. No, corrupt on the level that

00:46:43.260 matters most, which is spiritually corrupt. They're not preaching Christianity, not just because of 0.99

00:46:50.080 their fealty to Israel, which is bizarre and kind of hard to understand, but on an even deeper level

00:46:55.820 than that, there are many Protestant American church leaders who are preaching a religion that

00:47:07.560 bears no resemblance to Christianity. So that's the core problem right there. Who knows what this 0.94

00:47:13.220 is it's not christianity it's not what the gospels describe yesterday at the white house they all

00:47:21.280 show up middle of christian holy week four days before easter and not just the the fringe christian

00:47:29.200 zionist john haegee or these strange people but but the but the big guys franklin graham son of

00:47:36.740 billy graham shows up at the white house yesterday to pray over the president so he will have wisdom

00:47:42.860 and restraint? No. To endorse the murder of civilians, which is a war crime, but more

00:47:54.080 important, it's a moral crime. You can't kill people who have committed no crime, who did

00:47:59.960 nothing wrong. You can't murder the innocent. You can't kill kids and women. And yet Franklin

00:48:06.820 graham is up there standing at the podium praying for that now how do you do that well by quoting

00:48:15.140 something called the book of esther which is in the christian old testament a controversial book

00:48:24.940 for a long time martin luther thought it shouldn't have been there but it is there and it's the story

00:48:30.340 among other things, of a genocide of Persians. Oh yeah, 75,000 Persians.

00:48:37.660 Not just people who committed crimes, but people who are Persian, and that's why they were killed. 1.00

00:48:44.140 And it's in the book of Esther, which you should read because it's interesting.

00:48:47.620 It also happens to be, maybe not coincidentally, the only book in the Christian Bible, Old and New

00:48:55.200 Testaments, that doesn't mention God. There's no mention of God in the book of Esther.

00:49:00.340 Now, there are all kinds of theologians, and this has been a debate for 2,000 years, and there are people who argue that the book of Esther implies the presence of God, God's plan unfolds in the book of Esther. Fine. Hardly a theologian, not going to debate it.

00:49:16.740 but if you're a christian clergyman or call yourself one and you're giving spiritual

00:49:25.220 counsel to a head of state it really matters and there's no reference whatsoever to jesus

00:49:32.260 you're not preaching the gospel you're not speaking actual truth to actual power you're

00:49:40.040 doing something else now why is there no mention of jesus why would franklin graham refer to the

00:49:46.460 book of Esther, the only book in the Bible that doesn't mention God, when he talks about

00:49:51.200 Christianity with the President of the United States. Because you can't mention Jesus, that's why. 0.79

00:50:00.560 Because there's no evidence that Jesus was for genocide,

00:50:06.040 killing civilians, murdering the innocent, murder at all. This is God come to earth,

00:50:13.160 the christian messiah who allows himself to be tortured to death by pagans he knows it's coming

00:50:23.280 that's the story of holy week jesus enters jerusalem on a donkey not on a stallion he's

00:50:29.760 not coming to overthrow the oppressor by force he's coming in in total humility and accepting

00:50:38.080 degradation and mocking and physical torture getting spit in the face by soldiers whipped

00:50:45.500 he's allowing this to happen 0.95

00:50:48.300 because he's saying the real victory is bigger than any victory achieved by killing people

00:50:59.000 it's a victory over death itself that's the christian message

00:51:03.380 that's the opposite of the message you heard from christian leaders at the white house

00:51:09.920 on the eve of the president's speech about the war yesterday 0.98

00:51:14.040 what does that tell you the point is not that they're bad or silly or practicing another 0.86

00:51:23.320 religion other than christianity all that's true but the point is not to beat up on poor franklin

00:51:30.560 graham the point is that it's the end of something whatever that religion is is not going to continue

00:51:40.680 it just won't because it's a lie and so it will end as all lies do it will be revealed as a lie

00:51:50.320 as all lies are and so you're watching

00:51:54.320 the end of the global american empire the unipolar world that was great by the way well

00:52:04.260 it lasted but it's over and you're watching the end of whatever american protestant christianity

00:52:13.740 one of the greatest and most positive forces in the history of this world whatever it became

00:52:18.020 after the second world war which is something unrecognizable the people who built national

00:52:25.320 cathedral on the highest point in washington dc one of the most beautiful buildings in the

00:52:30.140 united states were episcopalians they built that that cathedral and it was the nation's cathedral

00:52:38.420 was also above all a tribute to god and you can tell by its beauty that it was

00:52:45.220 and now it's populated by people who share almost nothing in common with the people who built it

00:52:54.060 and that's the story of all human institutions and all human schemes they all come to an end 0.97

00:53:00.140 of course because they're devised by people who are silly and venal and lack foresight and they're

00:53:05.120 just limited because we all are much more than we imagine and so all of that dies at some point 0.96

00:53:11.920 and we just happen to have the misfortune or the great luck to be living in the middle

00:53:20.300 of the moment where these great institutions and the expectations that come along with them are

00:53:28.360 dying right in front of us right now and that's sad it's hard to watch it'll affect your sleep if

00:53:35.380 you think about it too much, but it's also a prerequisite, it is a necessary step, and this

00:53:42.020 is something that all Christians are thinking about in Holy Week, to rebirth.

00:53:49.120 The seed doesn't produce the tree until it dies.

00:53:52.500 and so the death of the unipolar moment and of the institutions within

00:54:03.580 the evangelical movement american protestant christianity are going away but they will be

00:54:12.620 replaced by something better and pure, more true-to-itself, constructive, unifying, healing

00:54:23.980 institutions that build and don't just destroy.

00:54:31.280 That's going to happen, and God willing, we will live to see it.

00:54:37.240 So rejoice in that, as sad as this is.

00:54:39.980 and happy Easter.

00:54:47.240 So if you're following the war with Iran,

00:54:49.080 you probably noticed something strange.

00:54:50.340 The coverage is everywhere,

00:54:51.200 but the facts are hard to find.

00:54:53.240 They're not actually telling you anything.

00:54:54.860 How many people have been killed?

00:54:55.840 What are the actual stakes for this country,

00:54:58.700 your country, our country, the United States?

00:55:00.760 The basic questions, the ones that matter.

00:55:02.680 You can't actually find out

00:55:04.860 because this is a censored moment.

00:55:08.280 You're not learning the truth.

00:55:09.980 and that's not accidental. If you want to learn the truth, you need to stand up for the First

00:55:15.040 Amendment, which is your birthright as an American. We've set up our company, TCN,

00:55:20.880 the Tucker Carlson Network, to make it possible for you to participate in the long American

00:55:24.660 tradition of freedom. And the core of freedom is the right to know the truth and say the truth.

00:55:30.400 That's God-given right. God gave that to you. We're free to do that because we are totally

00:55:34.920 independent. We have zero investors, no corporate owners. We are supported by our members, the

00:55:40.600 people who watch. So we hope you will consider joining us. Visit tuckercarlson.com slash join.

The Tucker Carlson Show - April 02, 2026

America’s Place in the World Is About to Change in a Big Way. Tucker Responds.

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript