The Tucker Carlson Show

00:00:00.000 yesterday the pentagon announced that three u.s troops had been killed and dozens injured after

00:00:15.900 a drone loaded with explosives struck them at a base in jordan near the syrian border now none of

00:00:22.520 that can be confirmed the details anyway the location of the attack and there's some question

00:00:27.940 about whether that's true but there is no question that american troops were killed yesterday and the

00:00:32.260 reaction to that mixed with sadness was highly political in fact even strategic within moments

00:00:39.180 of this news breaking lindsey graham the republican senator from south carolina called for blood quote

00:00:45.300 hit iran now hit them hard he tweeted nikki haley of course piled on here's what she posted to x quote

00:00:52.140 as a military spouse my heart breaks for the families who lost loved ones this shows the

00:00:58.160 barbaric nature of our enemies in iran and it shows that they would not be attacking our troops if joe

00:01:02.940 biden weren't so weak in his treatment of iran we should retaliate with full force the full force of

00:01:08.300 american strength it's the only way to prevent further war if we do not these attacks will continue

00:01:14.580 interesting all of this came immediately they were joined by wes clark the former presidential

00:01:22.340 candidate and commander of nato and buffoons like john cornyn who apparently is a senator from texas

00:01:27.980 et cetera all saying the same thing let's go to war with iran they all said this in both sides here's

00:01:33.560 nancy pelosi on cnn telling you yesterday that anyone who is not for this who would like say a

00:01:39.500 ceasefire between israel and hermas is working for vladimir putin for them to call for a ceasefire

00:01:46.120 is mr putin's message mr putin's message make no mistake this is directly connected to what he would

00:01:54.580 like to see same thing with ukraine it's about putin's message i think some of these some of these

00:02:02.280 protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere some i think are connected uh to russia and i say

00:02:09.440 that having looked at this for a long time now as you think some of these protests are russian plants

00:02:15.900 i say they're plants i think some financing should be investigated and i want to ask the the fbi to

00:02:23.720 investigate that it's hard for most people to believe that a person in his or her 80s could be

00:02:29.240 evil but she is evil and she's speaking lies what you heard is totally dishonest but there's a point to

00:02:35.580 the dishonesty and that is a war with iran which people in washington have been agitating for for

00:02:40.780 more than 20 years so are we going to war with iran are we already in a war with iran and if so

00:02:46.540 what are the consequences most americans have no idea it's not even something they're thinking about

00:02:51.380 but they should be joe kent is a former green beret he's a combat veteran who lost his wife in one of

00:02:57.620 these wars he's running for congress in washington state in the third congressional district and he has an

00:03:02.780 interesting and highly informed perspective on this and we're honored to have him join us now

00:03:06.540 joe kent thank you so much for coming on today so when you see all of this and you know you hate to

00:03:12.580 be cynical but you really can't be too cynical uh when you're dealing with the war party in washington

00:03:17.320 it did seem like a coordinated response very quickly moments after the announcement of the

00:03:23.060 of the tragic death of these american servicemen um what do you make of the response from both

00:03:28.000 parties in washington to the deaths yesterday i mean this whole thing we've seen it coming tucker

00:03:35.640 we left our troops in these vulnerable locations like on the jordanian syrian and iraqi border

00:03:41.520 our troops have been attacked we think at least 150 times since the october 7th incident began and so

00:03:49.640 we've seen this coming this was an inevitable conclusion so by leaving our troops in these locations

00:03:54.680 undefended essentially we left them there as bait because so many people in washington dc want to go

00:04:01.480 to war with iran they want to go to a war with iran so badly that we will prop up the government of

00:04:08.140 iraq while the government of iraq is completely controlled by iran we spend billions of dollars

00:04:12.960 every single year funding arming trading and equipping the iraqi government so they can turn around

00:04:18.040 and support the exact same militias that just killed our troops biden said himself in his statement he

00:04:24.240 accused iranian backed militants operating in iraq in syria of conducting this attack that killed the

00:04:30.300 three americans and wounded nearly 30 more that is nothing short of saying the pop the popular

00:04:36.380 mobilization forces which is part of the iraqi military that we support so if you look at just

00:04:42.040 the full scope of the way that we have arranged ourselves in the middle east who we're supporting and

00:04:47.660 where our troops are there's no other logical conclusion other than the fact that we have left them

00:04:52.940 there as bait to be killed by iranians at the time and place of their choosing so that we can continue

00:04:59.760 to escalate towards a conflict with iran and like you said there was a very coordinated series of

00:05:05.080 talking points that came out almost immediately that we need to go and and strike back against iran and

00:05:09.700 look we do need to strike back we can't just let this go unanswered but if we start taking strikes

00:05:14.780 inside of iran itself that is exactly what the iranian regime wants they will benefit from that if we

00:05:21.400 start attacking iran the way that we attacked iraq the way we attacked afghanistan then the iranian

00:05:27.040 government the iranian mullahs the ayatollah the people will rally around them in support we should

00:05:32.820 be taking calculated strikes back at iranian proxy groups for self-defense and then we should

00:05:38.200 immediately get our troops out of these foolish locations before we lose more blood and treasure for

00:05:44.320 absolutely nothing in the middle east and before we're sucked further into a regional war

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00:07:29.140 so if we could just go back to something you said at the beginning which i think is demonstrably true

00:07:37.500 that american policymakers have left american citizens in these countries in order to be killed

00:07:43.760 so they can justify killing more american citizens in a broader war against a very well-armed country

00:07:50.140 iran if that is true that's evil that's a crime and by the way i should say because you almost never say

00:07:57.320 that your wife was killed in one of those countries as one of those people you ran for congress you

00:08:02.300 almost never mentioned it perhaps it's too painful and i'm sorry to bring it up now but i mean you have

00:08:06.620 lived this so how is that not a crime

00:08:09.120 it's 100 percent a crime tucker look i lost my wife a month after trump gave the order for our troops to be

00:08:17.460 withdrawn from syria because trump ran on defeating the islamic caliphate isis and that needed to be done

00:08:23.020 unfortunately isis was a byproduct of the iraq war the invasion and all the blunders that we made

00:08:28.960 there but trump inherited that problem we had to deal with it we had to go take out the caliphate

00:08:33.100 we did that in very short order trump gave the order to withdraw and that's when the dc war machine

00:08:39.200 which unfortunately is controlled by republicans and democrats and even more powerful unelected

00:08:45.180 bureaucrats turned against trump to leave our troops there and she was killed on a lot of the

00:08:49.540 justification for leaving our troops in syria and in iraq has been to prevent so-called iranian

00:08:55.800 influence malign iranian influence to counter russia uh that is nothing more than us baiting a trap for

00:09:01.980 ourselves to get our troops killed to encourage and then really to justify a further war against

00:09:09.280 iran it's absolute insanity and we have to ask ourselves as american citizens what do we gain from

00:09:15.060 this if we're going to deploy our troops and we're going to lose our best and our brightest

00:09:19.460 and we're going to spend trillions of dollars what do we the american people gain at the same time we

00:09:24.140 just lost three americans defending the jordanian syrian border our border is wide open fentanyl is

00:09:30.440 killing over 118 000 of our citizens 10 million illegal invaders have come into our country so where are the

00:09:36.880 priorities of our ruling class and i think it's absolutely evil i think it's completely and totally

00:09:41.800 treasonous and we need to get these people out of office as soon as possible well and it's it's also

00:09:47.600 there's something bigger it seems to me i have no evidence but just watching there's like a spirit

00:09:52.420 of insanity or delusion that's descended on washington it's almost like ergotism or something

00:09:57.720 you read about in the middle ages where the whole village goes crazy and commits cannibalism i mean here

00:10:01.440 you have for just one example john cornyn who's a senator from texas whose state is being invaded by

00:10:07.740 millions of people you can't get your child into the nicu in texas hospitals you can't use the emergency

00:10:11.820 room in texas hospitals because they're full of people breaking our laws from foreign countries so texas is

00:10:17.600 the weight of this and john cornyn's entire day is spent worrying about the territorial integrity of

00:10:23.420 foreign countries like how do you how do you explain that it can't just be payoffs from lockheed or maybe

00:10:28.520 it is i don't know what do you think i mean i think a lot of it is this deeply entrenched mentality in

00:10:36.440 washington dc which most certainly has financial interests assigned to it however i do think there is

00:10:41.720 a lot of people and a lot of them like you pointed out like nancy pelosi are in their 80s and

00:10:46.540 they've always thought this way this with us or against us mentality that says like hey you're either for

00:10:52.440 the next war the most current war in the current thing or you're with the terrorists you just uh are

00:10:58.960 kowtowing to vladimir putin it's the exact same mentality that got us into the iraq war you're either with

00:11:04.360 us or you're with the terrorists and look tucker i would love to come on here and defend

00:11:08.680 neoconservatism as someone who you know lost my late wife in these wars as somebody who lost

00:11:13.920 countless friends as somebody who fought myself 11 combat deployments i spent most my 20s and 30s

00:11:18.880 in iraq i would love to tell you it had worked but it simply did not and that's a very hard thing to

00:11:24.700 admit i get into arguments all the time uh with fellow veterans about this exact same topic so i

00:11:29.380 think a lot of this is literally the gambler's fallacy there's a lot of people who think hey if we

00:11:34.860 just keep trying if we keep attempting to spread freedom through the barrel of a gun and trillions of u.s

00:11:40.060 dollars this time it's gonna work let's just double down and this is well how really nice casinos are

00:11:45.400 built in las vegas off of this exact same mentality so i think that combined with the financial interest

00:11:50.900 from lockheed martin and every single defense contractor and you know putting uh someone like

00:11:56.560 lloyd austin as the secretary of defense who's still on the board at raytheon i think those that

00:12:01.320 factor with that mentality and people not being able to admit that we got this wrong and then making

00:12:06.840 adjustments to our policy i think that gets us in this current situation because it's actually

00:12:12.380 challenging to thread the needle like where do we go from here we can't just let the iranians attack

00:12:16.780 and kill our people right but at the same time we know if we go to war if iran this is going to be a

00:12:21.900 disaster there's no data that says like hey maybe if we just go to our war if iran this time it's going

00:12:26.600 to work out great we've actually got to assess the past mistakes that we made make adjustments

00:12:32.000 and then chart a more pragmatic way forward but at the same time not lose sight of what's happening

00:12:38.320 in our own country i don't go anywhere in my district in washington state without someone

00:12:43.720 telling me a personal story about how the fentanyl crisis has affected them how the wide open southern

00:12:48.000 border is literally killing members of their family so we need to prioritize this whole idea that we can be

00:12:54.500 at war with the entire world is absolutely absurd while at the same time not prioritizing our own

00:13:02.140 nation we've got to get our priorities in order i i've always wondered how someone like you must feel

00:13:07.560 who as you just said spent a good part of your life on 11 combat deployments and lost your own wife

00:13:12.840 in these wars when you're denounced as a tool of vladimir putin or in the last race you ran neocons

00:13:20.300 subverted your message by claiming you were a cia operative when you were arguing against the cia's

00:13:26.580 paramilitary involvement in these countries i mean it was the whole thing was so dishonest but how does

00:13:30.900 it make you feel i don't think you need to prove your loyalty to this country you already have

00:13:34.660 to be denounced in public as a traitor to your country

00:13:39.420 you know uh when it happens the first somewhere around the first 10 to 100 times it hurts and it makes

00:13:48.120 you really mad and then you get in this effort to prove why you're not what they say you are i'm not

00:13:53.360 a nazi because i'm not a vladimir putin puppet because but then you know what actually uh or

00:13:58.440 somewhere around the 101st time in the 1000th time you can only laugh at it because it's so

00:14:04.160 preposterous the people that are arguing that we should forfeit our own territorial integrity for the

00:14:09.800 territorial integrity of i don't know ukraine or the jordanian border those are the people that will

00:14:16.040 call us traitors especially when the vast majority of them arguing for this have never had any skin

00:14:21.720 in the game as a matter of fact i think the vast majority of them don't know anyone personally who

00:14:26.580 went over and fought these wars so it's there's something liberating and being called that repeatedly

00:14:31.680 over and over again because then you can truly see things for the way that they are that this is

00:14:37.100 literally just propaganda to attempt to intimidate people to shut them up and i'm glad that you're doing

00:14:43.400 what you're doing and you give us a platform where we can actually speak truth to power and show people

00:14:48.580 what's actually happening in this country and how our foreign policy establishment is absolutely just

00:14:54.460 really destroying the united states of america they're attempting to make us sacrifice our republic

00:14:59.780 for an empire that does nothing for the american people amen so nicely put it i would recommend you know

00:15:05.640 the famous eisenhower speech at the end of his term around 1960 uh or 61 the military industrial

00:15:12.860 complex speech is worth watching um somebody's asking you one last question because he you know

00:15:17.060 he called it 60 years ago um you referred to what a war with iran would do to the united states

00:15:23.620 and i don't know that a lot of people in this country fully understand what iran is as a nation

00:15:30.600 state it's it's not afghanistan what do you think the immediate and then longer term effects of a war

00:15:36.620 with iran would be on the united states immediately it would be very bloody i have no doubt that we

00:15:44.020 could probably defeat some of their air defense and go in there and have another shock and awe

00:15:48.360 campaign but again like we saw how the shock and awe campaign in iraq really didn't actually work in

00:15:53.100 the long run so i have no doubt that we'd have some immediate results that people would cheer about

00:15:57.460 here in the united states but iran persia has always been an empire it's been around longer than any of

00:16:03.620 the other players in the modern middle east right now and they are not going anywhere and right now

00:16:08.300 iran has a lot of internal problem they have a lot of internal strife with the ayatollah and that

00:16:12.520 that government it's only been in power since 1979 but again if we start conducting strikes in iran

00:16:17.440 everyone in iran will rally around their leader and they will become even more revolutionary and then

00:16:23.760 we will have iranian proxies throughout the entire region that will be conducting attacks just like we had

00:16:28.460 uh in jordan and really in the long term tucker the axis that has been built uh really since

00:16:34.160 putin invaded russia and we decided that since putin invaded ukraine and we decided we were going

00:16:38.540 to throw this massive sanctions package at them china has come in as a major player and we are deeply

00:16:44.140 compromised by china they control a lot of our economy they control uh global manufacturing they're

00:16:49.980 deeply embedded in wall in wall street and they've also made deals with the iranians they want access to

00:16:55.440 iranian petro not to mention the fact that biden killed off u.s energy independence and now he's

00:17:00.040 going after lng and the world's biggest lng exporters are iran russia and qatar so this axis would become

00:17:06.780 very powerful if we get deeply involved and deeply entangled with iran we are we are playing right into

00:17:13.660 china's hands because china would like nothing more than for us to be committing our military industrial

00:17:19.360 base to a war in eastern europe in ukraine and then to be committing our conventional military power

00:17:24.860 our blood and our treasure back in the middle east that will make the pacific our actual border

00:17:30.240 extremely vulnerable to chinese aggression or china will simply just watch us bleed out economically

00:17:37.260 as we bleed out on the battlefield on these couple different theaters it's absolute insanity it's opening

00:17:43.240 up pandora's box and again for what gain to the american people i i mean i think that's the most

00:17:49.420 reasonable common sense based factual assessment i've seen of this from anyone and the fact that

00:17:56.600 you're not in congress tells you a lot about the forces you're up against but godspeed joe kent thank

00:18:02.220 you for summing it up for us today i appreciate it thank you so much tucker i really appreciate it thank you

00:18:07.900 thank you

00:18:25.220 you

The Tucker Carlson Show - January 29, 2024

Joe Kent

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