The Tucker Carlson Show - Steve Witkoff’s Critical Role in Negotiating Global Peace, and the Warmongers Trying to Stop Him

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00:00:15.480 Steve, thank you so much for coming.

00:00:17.600 So I think you've had one of the most, maybe the most remarkable life trajectories of anyone I've ever met.

00:00:23.980 And you wind up close to Trump.

00:00:27.260 You campaigned with Trump.

00:00:28.240 I mean, you're an intimate friend of the president's and you could have had any job.

00:00:32.320 You don't want any job because you're doing your own thing.

00:00:34.860 And then he taps you as a diplomat, as a negotiator on behalf of him.

00:00:41.300 And you wind up becoming probably the most effective negotiator in my lifetime.

00:00:47.180 And you have, you know, you speak for the president.

00:00:49.320 I think everyone acknowledges that you're honest and people like you personally.

00:00:54.100 So those are obviously the foundations of effective diplomacy.

00:00:57.300 But what have you learned about negotiating at a, you know, on behalf of a country in the last couple months?

00:01:06.760 Well, first of all, I think President Trump sets the table for all of us.

00:01:33.360 He really does.

00:01:34.680 This whole peace through strength thing, it's not just a slogan.

00:01:39.120 It actually works.

00:01:40.640 And so when he dispatches you to go to the Middle East, people are almost a little bit intimidated before you get there.

00:01:49.520 And this goes for me and, you know, other people who are doing similar jobs.

00:01:53.720 So he sets the table in a pretty powerful way.

00:01:57.360 But negotiating is being outcome oriented.

00:02:00.600 I talk about this a lot.

00:02:01.980 It's figuring out where you want to get to.

00:02:04.140 That's Trump's game plan all the time.

00:02:06.040 I sit with the president and we talk often about what the end game is.

00:02:12.260 Where does he want to get to?

00:02:13.500 And once you decide where you want to get to, then it's all about tactically figuring out what that pathway is.

00:02:19.640 With the Middle Eastern, you know, Tucker, when I first got in and I was talking to Brett McGurk, who was the envoy on behalf of Biden, he was a smart guy.

00:02:31.500 Yes.

00:02:31.980 He just didn't have a great boss giving him direction.

00:02:34.460 So he couldn't really speak on behalf of of Biden.

00:02:38.320 I was able to speak on behalf of Trump because we talked about it.

00:02:42.320 We had a great conversation about it.

00:02:44.440 He said to me, this is where I want to get to, Steve.

00:02:47.100 And so when I went in there, I went in with the imprimatur of the president and it became a, you know, that's the difference maker.

00:02:54.600 But I mean, clearly and no one doubts that you speak for the president, that you know what the president wants because, you know, the president, you talk, you actually talk to him.

00:03:03.820 You're not some guy he just hired.

00:03:06.560 And that makes a huge difference.

00:03:08.320 But it also seems like you think through where the whoever you're negotiating with is coming from.

00:03:13.620 Like, what do they want?

00:03:15.280 Well, there's no doubt.

00:03:16.080 I'm always trying to put myself in the shoes of the other person because a good deal has to work for everybody.

00:03:22.860 But I want to just say this.

00:03:24.540 When I say I speak for the president, it's not because I presume what he what he what he's thinking.

00:03:30.500 Yes.

00:03:30.680 It's because I ask what he's thinking.

00:03:32.640 He is the president.

00:03:33.540 I'm in my job only because of him.

00:03:36.500 And to me, I give him the respect of ask of always asking the question, where do you want to get to, Mr. President?

00:03:43.960 And so that's that's critical.

00:03:46.140 So now I know where he stands.

00:03:48.180 And now it's about tactics from the as you talk about from the other side standpoint.

00:03:53.980 It's important for me to know or to have a feeling of where the Israelis want to get to.

00:03:58.980 What about the Qataris?

00:04:00.060 They're the mediators at the table.

00:04:01.440 What what do they want to accomplish here?

00:04:03.800 What about Hamas?

00:04:05.200 Where are they?

00:04:05.940 Will they really demilitarize?

00:04:07.520 Is that something they'll do?

00:04:08.940 Will they take the Golden Bridge out of Gaza? 0.97

00:04:11.860 All of these are considerations.

00:04:15.020 But first, I have to find out where the boss wants to end up.

00:04:18.480 And the boss is President Trump.

00:04:21.400 It almost feels forbidden for you to say what you just said.

00:04:25.700 So what does Israel want?

00:04:27.220 Obviously, a critical of the key question.

00:04:29.700 But there are other players.

00:04:31.320 And what do they want?

00:04:32.700 Mm hmm.

00:04:32.940 And I don't know that I've heard anybody say that out loud ever.

00:04:38.060 Any American say that out loud.

00:04:39.820 And I think you've been criticized for saying that out loud.

00:04:42.440 Well, I think it's important to recognize that that that everybody may want something.

00:04:46.960 I think in the case of the Qataris, they're criticized for not being well motivated.

00:04:53.180 It's preposterous.

00:04:54.460 They are well motivated.

00:04:55.680 They're good, decent people.

00:04:57.100 What they want is a mediation that's effective, that gets to a peace goal.

00:05:01.360 And why?

00:05:01.880 Because they're a small nation.

00:05:03.240 And they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker.

00:05:05.940 And I think the president realizes that.

00:05:08.360 And I realize that today.

00:05:10.060 But we have to know that.

00:05:11.200 If they had a different agenda, it would be important for us to know that different agenda.

00:05:14.640 I think if they had a different agenda, it would be fine.

00:05:18.120 As long as we weren't operating blind.

00:05:20.400 And operating blind is really the problem in a negotiation like this.

00:05:24.120 You have to know where everybody stands.

00:05:27.000 Just laughing because what you're saying is so obviously true.

00:05:30.620 It's prerequisite to getting a deal.

00:05:33.280 And yet it is so different from the posture that the last couple of generations of diplomats have taken.

00:05:41.740 Which is like, here's what we want, shut up and do it.

00:05:45.760 And I just don't think, leaving aside moral considerations, I don't think that's been very effective.

00:05:50.500 Well, you know, here's an example.

00:05:52.800 Gaza.

00:05:53.460 And what the president set forth is what he wanted to do with Gaza.

00:05:57.740 I came back from my first trip.

00:05:59.860 This is before he was inaugurated.

00:06:01.640 Where we had permission from the Biden administration to collaborate with them.

00:06:06.020 Yes.

00:06:06.280 And the president said, when do you think Gaza can be reconstructed?

00:06:11.360 Fifteen years was my answer.

00:06:13.180 Maybe 20.

00:06:14.420 And he said, why?

00:06:15.280 I said, I gave him the battlefield conditions.

00:06:17.600 I was in Gaza, actually.

00:06:19.500 That it's been decimated.

00:06:21.000 It's been destroyed.

00:06:22.320 There are tunnels underneath.

00:06:23.520 So think Swiss cheese underneath.

00:06:25.280 And then they got hit with bunker buster bombs.

00:06:27.720 So there's no rock there anymore.

00:06:30.380 Right.

00:06:30.540 There's no place to put footings if you're going to build buildings.

00:06:33.980 And yet the whole world thought that this was a five-year reconstruction plan.

00:06:38.200 And why?

00:06:38.900 Because the Biden May 27th protocol, which is the operating agreement pursuant to which

00:06:44.480 the negotiation between Hamas and the U.S. government and Israel happen, talks about a

00:06:50.880 five-year plan.

00:06:52.100 But that's a false set of facts.

00:06:55.220 Level setting the facts, you have to acknowledge that it's a 15 to 20-year plan.

00:07:00.200 When we first started talking 15 to 20 years, everyone said that we didn't know what we

00:07:05.540 were talking about until the journal wrote an article and said 15 to 20 years.

00:07:10.220 So the president's plan about Gaza was all about how do we put people back in a battle

00:07:19.480 zone where there are munitions all over the field or where there are these latent conditions

00:07:24.840 so that a kid could fall into a hole and go 40, 50, 60 feet down.

00:07:29.980 And you'd never know that he was there.

00:07:32.320 Who would do such a thing?

00:07:33.880 If we had buildings in those conditions in New York, there would be yellow tape all around

00:07:38.700 and no one would be allowed in.

00:07:41.000 So, and then of course he got criticized for that as if he was looking to create a beachside

00:07:45.500 community with gleaming towers and casinos.

00:07:49.360 It was preposterous.

00:07:50.540 He was being realistic about what Gaza, how you needed to consider Gaza.

00:07:56.060 So I think it's really important that when you're making these decisions that you level

00:08:00.660 set the facts.

00:08:01.500 And that was my instructions from President Trump.

00:08:03.720 Go out there, level set the facts, figure out what it is, and then we'll make decisions

00:08:07.520 about where we want to see Gaza going to.

00:08:10.620 And I think we've got a better, we got, that's a better program.

00:08:13.820 It's definitely a better program.

00:08:15.060 I mean, operating on the basis of honesty works.

00:08:18.520 So, okay, can, I think the president's goal is pretty clear.

00:08:24.560 He said it many times, he campaigned on, he was elected on it, which is we want stability

00:08:28.600 and peace in the world.

00:08:30.360 It's not good for anybody when we don't have that.

00:08:33.340 But to the extent that you understand it, and since you're one of the few people who seems

00:08:37.560 willing to say it out loud, can you just describe the three players in the current conflict,

00:08:43.240 the Middle East, the big ones, can you go through and tell us what you think each one

00:08:47.220 wants?

00:08:47.800 What's their goal?

00:08:49.220 So Israel?

00:08:50.420 Yes.

00:08:51.040 Hamas? 0.90

00:08:51.700 Yes.

00:08:52.520 And Qatar?

00:08:53.600 And Qatar.

00:08:54.780 So I think Qatar is a small nation, probably has the highest GDP per capita, per person,

00:09:02.960 right, of anyone in the world, huge, huge reserves.

00:09:06.000 I think they want stability.

00:09:08.000 I think they want a peace treaty from the United States.

00:09:10.540 Why?

00:09:11.620 Because, and all the Middle East, all the GCC countries want that, by the way.

00:09:15.320 This is an interesting point.

00:09:16.600 Everybody thinks the peace treaty is about physical defense.

00:09:20.040 What it's really about is the United States providing a security wrapper so that they're

00:09:24.740 all financeable.

00:09:26.400 Today, you can't borrow money in those countries.

00:09:28.860 So if you want to go do a deal in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE, JP Morgan, if they are the hypothetical

00:09:36.380 bank, has to underwrite war risk.

00:09:38.280 They have to underwrite, will the Houthis in Saudi Arabia fire in a hypersonic missile 0.54

00:09:43.560 and destroy that AI data center that you just bought for $200 billion?

00:09:47.820 That's a real problem.

00:09:49.100 So a lot of these countries want defense treaties so that they're not just building out of their

00:09:53.600 pocket.

00:09:54.080 They're taking their oil money and they're actually leveraging it and creating a better

00:09:58.080 economy long term.

00:09:59.740 So I think the Qataris want stability and they don't get enough credit for that motivation.

00:10:06.100 It's a good motivation for their people.

00:10:07.900 Amen.

00:10:08.300 But they're often accused, almost universally accused in the U.S. media of being agents of

00:10:15.020 Iran.

00:10:15.840 Yeah. 0.92

00:10:16.280 It's preposterous.

00:10:18.000 Look, they're a Muslim nation.

00:10:20.620 In the past, they've had some views that are a little bit more radical from an Islamist

00:10:28.920 standpoint than they are today.

00:10:30.260 But it's moderated quite a bit.

00:10:32.040 Yeah.

00:10:32.520 There's no doubt that they're an ally of the United States.

00:10:36.360 There's no doubt about that.

00:10:37.580 They have a huge air base there.

00:10:39.100 I mean, U.S.

00:10:39.620 By the way, and they pay for every dollar of it.

00:10:41.840 They don't have their hand out for a thing.

00:10:44.180 There is nothing that the United States has to fund with regard to that air base.

00:10:48.120 That's pretty unusual.

00:10:49.240 That's amazing.

00:10:49.880 Right?

00:10:50.100 So they fund everything.

00:10:51.760 They don't ask for much.

00:10:53.740 I think I had a conversation with General Carrilla, Eric Carrilla, who runs CENCOM, an

00:10:58.400 amazing man.

00:10:59.240 And I said to him, what do you think of the Qataris?

00:11:01.140 He says, they're special people.

00:11:02.700 So the people in the know know that they're good, decent people.

00:11:07.100 What does Hamas want?

00:11:08.600 Well, I think they want to stay there till the end of time and they want to rule Gaza. 1.00

00:11:11.800 Yes.

00:11:12.140 And that's unacceptable.

00:11:13.660 So we have to know that.

00:11:15.060 We had to know what they wanted.

00:11:16.520 What they want is unacceptable.

00:11:18.420 What's acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize.

00:11:21.380 Then maybe they could stay there a little bit, right?

00:11:23.500 Be involved politically.

00:11:24.640 But they can't be involved.

00:11:25.920 We can't have a terrorist organization running Gaza because that won't be acceptable to Israel.

00:11:31.700 Then we'll just have the same exact experiences.

00:11:35.620 Every 5, 10, 15 years, we're going to have an October 27th.

00:11:39.800 Yes.

00:11:40.220 October 7th, pardon me.

00:11:41.420 So that's what Hamas wants. 0.95

00:11:44.340 That's not possible.

00:11:45.600 What do they like to deal with?

00:11:46.640 I've never really, I've never been in the same room as them, which is a little bit weird, wouldn't you say?

00:11:55.300 Like a negotiation where you don't have the other party.

00:11:58.060 Like you don't even know if the guy behind the wall is the Wizard of Oz or he's not the Wizard of Oz, right?

00:12:03.820 So how do you, I mean, without, you know, giving away anything that you can't play.

00:12:08.400 I think you have to, we trust the Qataris.

00:12:10.280 If I didn't trust the Qataris, then that would be really problematic, not meeting with Hamas. 0.89

00:12:15.920 And of course, you know, we read.

00:12:17.240 So you can communicate with Hamas through the Qataris. 0.85

00:12:20.660 Right.

00:12:20.880 And Sheikh Mohammed, the prime minister of Qatar, is a good man.

00:12:24.200 He's really.

00:12:24.600 He certainly is.

00:12:25.340 He's a special guy.

00:12:26.360 He really is.

00:12:27.040 And he cares.

00:12:27.760 And I've spent a lot of time with him and broken bread with him.

00:12:30.940 And he's just a good, decent human being who wants what's best for his people.

00:12:36.280 But also, like what you were alluding to before, he's able to put himself in the shoes of the Israelis, of the United States, and I think explain to the Qataris, excuse me, explain to Hamas where they're going to have to get to to make a deal. 0.64

00:12:53.560 And, I mean, from an American perspective, like it's just hard to even understand what Hamas is thinking or do you, but it's essential to understand.

00:13:04.000 I mean, just as a procedural matter, we need to know.

00:13:06.400 Correct.

00:13:06.860 So is it hard for you to understand?

00:13:10.420 Like, do you feel like you can effectively communicate with them even through proxy and understand what they want and what their, you know, what their red lines are or whatever?

00:13:20.160 Can you negotiate with them?

00:13:22.220 Well, it's hard.

00:13:23.200 You know, I'll give you an example of what makes it hard.

00:13:26.620 I went to Gaza and then I had this fabulous lunch with CENTCOM people, military guys.

00:13:32.980 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:33.380 I shook hands of everybody I met because who doesn't want to shake the hand of these guys who are out in the field?

00:13:38.820 You know, they protect our country.

00:13:41.620 I'm talking about all military guys.

00:13:44.420 And then they showed me, this is Southern Command of Israel, then showed me a film of what happened on October 7th.

00:13:50.360 Yeah.

00:13:51.080 And the film is horrific.

00:13:52.420 Yes.

00:13:52.900 It is about mass rapes.

00:13:56.680 Yeah. 0.88

00:13:56.900 There's pictures of Hamas people cutting the head off of an Israeli soldier.

00:14:02.880 I watched them saw the head off.

00:14:05.060 I mean, it's really terrible stuff and it's beyond what I've ever seen.

00:14:10.620 And it can taint you, right?

00:14:12.620 It can taint the way you're going to, you know, the way you're going to feel about these people.

00:14:19.800 And I think sometimes as a negotiator, you have to be dispassionate.

00:14:26.240 Yes.

00:14:26.680 It's not easy to make decisions if you're going to.

00:14:32.080 But I had to see that film, Tucker.

00:14:34.060 I mean, that film is a reality.

00:14:35.460 I mean, we can't ignore the reality of what happened on October 7th.

00:14:38.980 Now, they would tell you that they've got justification, but there's no justification for what happened that day.

00:14:44.420 There just isn't.

00:14:45.720 And unfortunately, there were security lapses that day that shouldn't have happened, that accentuated what happened that day, which shouldn't have happened.

00:14:53.860 Do we understand that?

00:14:56.760 I think we understand that there were security lapses, that there were some mistakes that were made.

00:15:01.020 Yes.

00:15:01.480 But we're humans.

00:15:02.980 We're not robots.

00:15:03.900 Oh, I agree.

00:15:04.360 We're not completely overwhelmed by AI right now.

00:15:08.420 So people will make mistakes.

00:15:10.320 There were intelligence mistakes.

00:15:11.880 But there's some really good people who were involved here.

00:15:16.600 You know, I met some exceptional people in Israel.

00:15:19.860 I mean, really some exceptional people who.

00:15:21.700 Yes.

00:15:22.160 And it's a difficult situation.

00:15:23.860 But I think you have to know what Hamas wants, just to go back to your question. 0.58

00:15:30.020 And then you've got to figure out what you can give them that allows them to walk out.

00:15:36.360 Because that's what's needed here.

00:15:37.740 You know, what we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological.

00:15:42.160 They're prepared to die.

00:15:43.880 For a whole variety of reasons, I personally, and I talked to the president about this.

00:15:49.160 There's nothing I don't talk to the president about before we're going to make a decision.

00:15:52.880 Because he is the guy.

00:15:55.560 Yes.

00:15:55.800 He was elected.

00:15:56.560 I was not.

00:15:57.220 None of the other people were.

00:15:58.220 He was elected.

00:15:58.800 And I think that's how we have to function.

00:16:01.440 With that said, I said to him, I don't think that they are as ideologically locked in.

00:16:08.480 They're not ideologically intractable.

00:16:11.280 I never believe that, by the way.

00:16:13.560 I believe they strap on the suicide vests onto young kids who don't know what they're doing.

00:16:18.740 Right?

00:16:18.960 And they tell them a story.

00:16:20.340 And once you understand that, once you understand that they wanted to live,

00:16:24.580 then you were able to talk to them in a more effective way.

00:16:26.880 Smart, smart.

00:16:28.360 That is smart.

00:16:30.680 But how hard was it to come to that conclusion?

00:16:35.920 You know what?

00:16:36.840 I get a lot of intelligence reports, so I'm able to read things.

00:16:41.120 And it just felt to me that the rhythm and the cadence of the negotiation,

00:16:46.820 that's part of it too, right?

00:16:48.700 If I'm not there all the time, I'm getting secondhand information.

00:16:52.200 I had to feel it for myself.

00:16:53.640 I had to be able to sort of live it in real time.

00:17:00.080 And that's when I sort of came to the conclusion that they wanted alternatives.

00:17:04.940 We're in a negotiation right now to maybe stop some of these Israeli strikes

00:17:09.440 and maybe finish this conflict with dialogue.

00:17:12.240 And if I don't have a feeling that we can accomplish that, why would I waste my time?

00:17:19.880 Or the United States time?

00:17:21.840 And worse yet, why would I come to the president,

00:17:26.340 recommend to him that we could finish something with dialogue,

00:17:29.420 and then we can't be that effective?

00:17:32.100 That's a bad policy prescription if I'm not in this thing,

00:17:37.400 making those sort of assessments and being able to come back to the president and say,

00:17:41.560 I think we can finish it with dialogue or not.

00:17:45.540 And those, by the way, those calculations are going to be the same with the Iranians, 0.71

00:17:50.920 and they're going to be the same with the Russians and the Ukrainians,

00:17:54.080 and they're going to be the same with Azerbaijan and Armenia.

00:17:56.980 So those principles apply to all of these conflicts that we're going to maybe talk about today.

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00:19:26.180 Tucker says it best.

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00:20:54.300 I'm just going to say this for a third time.

00:20:57.460 I won't keep repeating myself, but that's just such a different way of looking at the conflict,

00:21:02.760 not just in Gaza, but in all the places you just mentioned.

00:21:07.860 Acknowledging that, you know, we're sympathetic to one side, but both sides have an interest.

00:21:13.880 And, like, reason can still play a role in this.

00:21:17.440 Negotiation can play a role.

00:21:18.660 Dialogue can play a role.

00:21:20.480 I just, I haven't heard anybody say that in so long.

00:21:23.820 And you've taken an enormous amount of abuse.

00:21:27.680 I don't even know if you're aware of it because you're always on an airplane.

00:21:29.760 But, like, in U.S. media and social media,

00:21:33.520 attacking you is, like, an agent of all kinds of different foreign powers.

00:21:37.740 You know, he's working for Hamas. 0.94

00:21:39.060 He's working for the Qataris.

00:21:39.880 Like, does that penetrate at all?

00:21:42.300 You know, in the beginning, I didn't like it.

00:21:44.240 Yeah, I bet.

00:21:46.080 But one night I was reflecting on what someone told me after my son Andrew died.

00:21:52.640 And they said to me,

00:21:53.620 you're never going to have a bigger hit than that in your life, losing a child.

00:21:57.260 It's a bad club to be a member of.

00:21:59.140 Oh, there's nothing.

00:21:59.740 Nothing worse.

00:22:00.340 Nothing worse.

00:22:00.900 And then I began to get like President Trump, not caring what people said.

00:22:06.700 I'd wake up in the morning, read the paper.

00:22:09.640 I'd read some sort of explanation about why I said something or did something.

00:22:14.820 And it was preposterous, Tucker.

00:22:16.420 Just preposterous.

00:22:17.500 So, one day, what's that movie?

00:22:19.840 There was some movie where they won the Academy.

00:22:23.020 I can't remember the name.

00:22:24.180 I Just Stop Caring.

00:22:25.800 Yes.

00:22:26.140 I Just Stop Caring about what the news media said about me.

00:22:29.920 So, I've experienced a little bit of this myself.

00:22:32.720 Nothing compared to what you've just experienced.

00:22:34.240 But it does seem like some of these criticisms of you are not actually sincere.

00:22:38.900 Nobody really thinks you're like pro-Hamas or working for the Qataris.

00:22:44.260 But the point is to throw you off balance and to sort of put a leash around your neck and control you.

00:22:51.160 No doubt.

00:22:52.260 Right?

00:22:52.640 That's the agenda.

00:22:53.500 That's the agenda.

00:22:54.200 No doubt.

00:22:54.580 And it seems to have had no effect.

00:22:56.500 From all sides.

00:22:57.800 From all sides.

00:22:58.460 Of course.

00:22:59.000 Oh, absolutely.

00:23:00.240 I had a couple of experiences where first I was attacked as being pro-Qatari sympathizer.

00:23:08.600 By the way, Qatar is a mediator here.

00:23:10.460 Yes.

00:23:11.200 They're not a party to the conflict.

00:23:12.880 They're a mediator.

00:23:13.500 And by the way, they've mediated all over the world.

00:23:15.700 No different than the Swiss and the Norwegians.

00:23:17.900 They've mediated in Russia.

00:23:20.280 They've mediated in Afghanistan.

00:23:22.300 And God bless them.

00:23:22.900 I know.

00:23:23.260 And they've done an effective job.

00:23:24.320 They're good at it.

00:23:26.400 So I am – how could I not collaborate with the mediator and be – if I'm not collaborating with the mediator, I'm bound to be ineffective.

00:23:37.200 It's not even possible that I could do the job.

00:23:40.740 I had to know everything that they knew.

00:23:42.600 So that means collaboration.

00:23:44.600 And that's how President Trump operates too.

00:23:47.300 You know, I learned the business from him.

00:23:50.400 I went into the business because of him, the real estate business.

00:23:53.620 And this is his ethos.

00:23:54.940 This is how he operates.

00:23:56.060 And so I'm really following him in a certain respect.

00:23:59.720 I didn't realize you went into – that's so – I didn't know.

00:24:02.080 I knew you'd known him forever.

00:24:03.220 I didn't know that.

00:24:04.160 Oh, no.

00:24:04.420 I wanted to be him.

00:24:06.040 By the way, everybody wanted to be him.

00:24:08.720 He'd come to 101 Park Avenue where I was a lawyer.

00:24:11.980 He had this swashbuckling style.

00:24:15.020 I used to see him come in and I used to say, God, I want to be him.

00:24:19.060 I don't want to be – I don't want to be the lawyer.

00:24:21.720 I don't want to be the scrivener.

00:24:23.060 I want to be that man.

00:24:25.180 Yeah.

00:24:26.000 I can remember saying that.

00:24:27.480 Yeah.

00:24:27.640 He was like the Michael Jordan to me, you know, of the real estate business.

00:24:31.920 It's incredible the turns your life has taken.

00:24:34.200 It's just incredible.

00:24:35.240 When you have a chance to sort it out when all this is over, I think you're going to look at your own life and say, well, that was amazing.

00:24:40.840 Well, I've been blessed.

00:24:41.720 I mean, it used to be that I couldn't use the word blessing because of my boy, of his death.

00:24:47.160 But now I can say I was blessed but for this overwhelming tragedy.

00:24:52.640 And I think my son, Tucker, allows me to be – to have this sense of – I relate to a lot of the hostage families.

00:25:00.980 You know, many of these families are never going to get their children back.

00:25:03.840 Their children have either been killed or may in fact get killed if we don't successfully get to a peace program in Gaza.

00:25:12.980 So, I think that this sense of sensitivity or empathy that I have, I can relate to them.

00:25:21.680 They all have my telephone numbers.

00:25:23.640 I talk to them on a daily basis.

00:25:26.300 And I think that's been a big – it's been a big help for them.

00:25:29.220 But interestingly enough, it's been a big help for me.

00:25:31.280 I believe that.

00:25:32.120 And I talked to the president about this.

00:25:33.900 I had hostage families in the Oval Office the other day.

00:25:38.240 The president was tired and he said to me – he knew they were at my office and he said, bring them up.

00:25:44.820 Let me, you know, at least say hello to them and get connected to them.

00:25:49.720 But let them know I only have a couple of minutes because it was a hectic day.

00:25:53.140 He spent an hour and a half with them.

00:25:55.000 Talked to every one of them.

00:25:56.720 Gave them his challenge coin, every one of them.

00:25:59.200 Listened to their stories.

00:26:00.360 People who talked about children who might not come home, many of these people were captives themselves, hostages.

00:26:10.120 You know, it's a very real experience when you sit there and you listen to what it was like.

00:26:16.000 Some of these people lived in cages, were chained 24 hours a day.

00:26:20.700 We had – you know, we talked about what it was like to find a bathroom, right, or what it was like to live in the dark or to be starving to death, you know, as some of them were, or to have watched people be murdered.

00:26:33.820 And the president, as a president, he doesn't have to do that if he doesn't want to.

00:26:38.560 He could sort of get the information just from me.

00:26:41.340 But he's – it's up close and personal for him.

00:26:44.460 And that way of doing things guides people like me who work for him.

00:26:49.820 Now, I want to get up close and personal.

00:26:52.340 That's why I went to Gaza.

00:26:53.380 I was the first U.S. official to go to Gaza in 22 years.

00:26:56.920 But how would you implement a peace deal if you didn't go to the place where the peace deal was being implemented?

00:27:02.580 I mean, it's curious, right?

00:27:03.880 Like who would not – who would try to get – who would try to get a peace deal done?

00:27:08.000 And then the – it's all in the implementation.

00:27:09.740 So what the contract says, what the writing says.

00:27:11.960 Because now we have to figure out the battlefield conditions.

00:27:15.560 Nobody had been there.

00:27:17.340 It's kind of crazy.

00:27:19.040 Well, it is crazy.

00:27:19.860 And it's connected to what you've been saying for the last 20 minutes, which is you have to understand all sides if you want to affect the outcome that you've decided you want.

00:27:28.780 Correct.

00:27:29.240 Yes.

00:27:30.140 Again, that's a revolutionary development in American diplomacy.

00:27:34.520 And I just am thrilled to see it.

00:27:36.620 So finally, the biggest player in all of this, of course, is the government of Israel.

00:27:40.200 What do they want?

00:27:42.960 What is the government of Israel – leaving aside the population of Israel, I have no idea.

00:27:46.700 But what does the government making these decisions want?

00:27:49.880 Well, I think that's complicated.

00:27:51.920 I think they're well-motivated.

00:27:53.960 I think they – there are things that they're trying to get done.

00:27:57.540 You know, as an example, we would not be as effective in what we're doing there if Bibi did not get Nasrallah out of the picture in Lebanon. 0.84

00:28:07.980 If he did not decapitate – because he's effectively decapitated Hezbollah. 0.87

00:28:12.180 If he did not do what he did with Hamas, he's decapitated Hamas. 0.65

00:28:17.640 Hamas is nowhere close to the terrorist organization that they were beforehand.

00:28:22.700 Both of those events inform on his relationship with Iran and Iran using – continuing to use proxies and so forth.

00:28:33.800 They're less prone to do those sorts of things today, right?

00:28:37.520 And so that sort of Iranian crescent or that Islamist crescent that everybody thought was going to be effective, it's been largely eliminated. 1.00

00:28:48.540 So he's done an exceptional job with that.

00:28:50.860 But, of course, the rap he gets is that he's more concerned about the fight than he is about the hostages.

00:28:55.920 I think in some respects – I understand how people make that assessment, but I don't necessarily agree with it.

00:29:03.880 I think that he does want to get hostages home if he can, but he believes that pressuring Hamas is the only way to do it. 0.74

00:29:15.560 I think in some respects he's right.

00:29:17.080 Look, the nuances here, the changes that happen there on a day-to-day basis, we were at the Arab summit a week and a half ago.

00:29:27.760 We made a proposal to Hamas. 1.00

00:29:30.960 They considered it.

00:29:31.860 They rejected it the next day.

00:29:33.280 We thought it was unacceptable that they rejected it.

00:29:35.760 Three days later, the Israelis went in. 0.93

00:29:37.680 Guess what?

00:29:38.120 They're talking again.

00:29:39.820 Stuff changes there, Tucker.

00:29:42.740 Hour to hour, you really have to stay on top of it.

00:29:46.360 I think Bibi feels that he's doing the right thing.

00:29:50.960 I think he goes up against public opinion because public opinion there wants those hostages home.

00:29:57.020 That's what they –

00:29:57.400 Public opinion in Israel.

00:29:58.300 In Israel.

00:29:58.960 Yeah, you don't get that sense, I don't think, from American media, but Israel has always been – there's been a robust debate since I started going to Israel.

00:30:09.240 They have a very vigorous debate internally about their government.

00:30:13.220 Like, it's – you know, people feel free to say.

00:30:16.320 I went to hostage square, and I went with a detail, and my guys were afraid for me to get out.

00:30:26.120 There were, I don't know, 4,000 or 5,000 people there, and we were passing by, and I said, let's stop.

00:30:33.700 You know, it was – there was no plan to go there.

00:30:35.780 Let's stop.

00:30:36.340 We didn't have a lot of security with us.

00:30:39.200 I knew it was going to be fine.

00:30:40.760 I knew it.

00:30:42.380 I came in there.

00:30:43.340 I spent almost an hour there.

00:30:45.160 It was spiritual.

00:30:47.060 All the families were there.

00:30:48.980 Postages who had been released were there.

00:30:50.920 People were crying.

00:30:52.520 Look, getting the – this has infected Israel. 0.97

00:30:57.900 It's fractured Israel. 0.95

00:30:59.820 It's like a seam cutting right through the soul of the country.

00:31:04.380 We've got to get these people back.

00:31:06.280 I talked to – by the way, I talked to Bibi about it.

00:31:08.420 I talked to Derma about it.

00:31:09.760 But, you know, they also have a view strategically about Hamas, how they have to be dealt with.

00:31:16.280 I'm not sure I – in some respects, there are times that we agree with each other.

00:31:20.440 There are times we slightly disagree.

00:31:22.820 But I think they're well-motivated is my point.

00:31:26.180 And our policy is that Hamas cannot continue to exist here. 0.93

00:31:30.820 That's the president's policy.

00:31:32.880 And I'm a – you know, I'm someone who follows the president because he's the one who got elected.

00:31:40.960 And I believe in his policy.

00:31:42.420 And he got elected on, I think, a pretty clear vision of how he wanted to manage the world to the extent that we can.

00:31:49.580 And, again, it was, you know, no more chaos.

00:31:53.280 And to the extent you can avoid it, no more wars.

00:31:55.960 And Americans really responded to that.

00:31:59.400 And the world understands that.

00:32:00.880 Like everyone kind of knows that's the agenda.

00:32:02.600 And you've said many times, we talk through what we want the outcome to be before we begin the tactical considerations.

00:32:10.800 I – just in my traveling, there are a lot of Gulf countries that are, you know, have extensive, very – much more than people understand relations with Israel.

00:32:23.540 Some have signed the accord.

00:32:25.320 Others haven't.

00:32:25.880 But they all deal with the Israelis all the time. 0.99

00:32:28.000 They're not hostile to the Israelis.

00:32:29.880 But not one person I've spoken to understands what the long-term vision is.

00:32:34.980 Like what's the plan here?

00:32:35.960 What are we – you know, if you get everything you want, what does it look like?

00:32:39.020 Right.

00:32:39.780 Do you understand it?

00:32:41.600 Well, I understand we have to have that notion.

00:32:44.160 I understand that we have to be outcome-oriented.

00:32:46.380 What would be – how we're operating myopically if we're not outcome-oriented.

00:32:51.360 If we don't – I mean, peace, stability, the Gulf Coast could be one of the most undervalued opportunities if we get peace and stability throughout the region.

00:33:02.260 If we solve Iran and you can finance in that market, the Israelis are brilliant from a technological standpoint. 0.97

00:33:09.540 They've got a huge technological base there.

00:33:15.300 Yes.

00:33:15.560 They're in AI, robotics, blockchain.

00:33:18.280 That's where the UAE is today. 0.99

00:33:20.180 I know.

00:33:20.480 That's where Saudi Arabia is today.

00:33:22.220 That's where Qatar is today. 0.71

00:33:23.920 Can you imagine all these countries working collaboratively together and creating that type of market?

00:33:29.140 It could be much bigger than Europe.

00:33:30.780 Europe is dysfunctional today.

00:33:32.660 Imagine if they became functional and everybody's a business guy there.

00:33:36.520 It could be amazing.

00:33:37.400 I completely agree.

00:33:38.840 I think the core question is the map.

00:33:41.920 You know, for thousands of years, it's been about the land.

00:33:44.440 What does the map look like?

00:33:45.340 Who controls what?

00:33:46.900 And it's clearly had a destabilizing effect on some of the poor, more populated countries.

00:33:53.620 No doubt.

00:33:54.280 Specifically Jordan and Egypt.

00:33:56.380 A hundred million people in Egypt.

00:33:59.100 I think it might be helpful for everybody if there was just a clear picture of when this is all done, here's what we want the map to be, and then we can debate that.

00:34:05.740 Do you have any sense of what the map would look like from Israel's perspective?

00:34:09.700 When you say the map, you mean what?

00:34:11.580 What countries?

00:34:13.020 Well, what?

00:34:13.820 Okay, so Israel's moved into Lebanon and Syria.

00:34:17.400 They're not part of Israel, but they control them. 1.00

00:34:20.540 So when all this is over, what does the Israeli government hope to control?

00:34:25.140 And then if that were clear, then I think people would say, you know, they could either live with it or they can't.

00:34:31.100 But it would have a calming effect if people knew what the goal was.

00:34:36.760 So I would say the goal begins with how do we deal with Iran? 1.00

00:34:41.860 That's the biggie.

00:34:43.200 Yeah.

00:34:43.300 So the first is nuclear.

00:34:45.200 We cannot have that.

00:34:46.740 Right.

00:34:46.940 And we can talk about it in this session, how bold it was for the president to send that letter.

00:34:54.760 Because many would not, and that's an important thing, but I'll leave it to the end.

00:34:59.160 So it begins with Iranian nuclear, but most importantly, because Iranian nuclear, if they were to have a bomb, that would create North Korea in the GCC. 0.83

00:35:09.940 Right.

00:35:10.040 They cannot have that.

00:35:11.300 North Korea, where they are, has outsized influence as a very small nation.

00:35:15.460 We can never allow someone to have a nuclear weapon and have outsized influence.

00:35:21.580 That doesn't work.

00:35:23.280 So if we can solve for that, which I'm hopeful that we can, and we can talk about that too.

00:35:29.380 The next thing we need to deal with Iran is that they're being a benefactor of these proxy armies. 0.96

00:35:35.080 Right.

00:35:35.280 Because we've proven that that's not existential.

00:35:38.140 We, they, for all intents and purposes, destroyed Hezbollah. 0.96

00:35:42.580 So they're not really an existential risk.

00:35:45.660 Hamas, same thing. 0.86

00:35:47.280 The Houthis, we're having, you know, we're in a conflict with them today.

00:35:51.320 I think we'll prove that they won't be an existential risk either.

00:35:55.460 But if we can get these terrorist organizations eliminated as risks, not existential, but still risk.

00:36:03.040 They're destabilizing risks.

00:36:04.620 Then we'll normalize everywhere.

00:36:07.240 I think Lebanon could normalize with Israel, literally.

00:36:11.280 Normalize meaning a peace treaty with the two countries.

00:36:14.000 That's really possible.

00:36:16.220 Syria too.

00:36:17.560 The indications are that Jelani is a different person than he once was.

00:36:21.880 And people do change.

00:36:23.500 You at 55 are completely different than when, than how you were at 35.

00:36:28.500 That's for sure.

00:36:29.180 And I, and I say to myself, I'm a different person today at 68 years old.

00:36:33.280 I'm, I'm not the person I knew 30 years ago.

00:36:36.780 So maybe Jelani in Syria is a different guy.

00:36:40.600 They've driven Iran out. 1.00

00:36:42.400 Imagine if Lebanon normalizes, Syria normalizes, and the Saudis sign a normalization treaty with Israel 0.70

00:36:51.180 because there's a peace in Gaza, they must have that as a, as a, as a, as a prerequisite.

00:36:56.460 That's a condition precedent to Saudi normalizing. 0.86

00:37:00.060 But now you'd begin to have a GCC that all work together.

00:37:04.260 I mean, that would be, it would be epic.

00:37:07.500 It would be.

00:37:07.960 And I think it'd be good for the world.

00:37:09.980 For sure.

00:37:10.920 It would be good for the world because Europe is dying, unfortunately.

00:37:14.780 And so the United States needs allies abroad.

00:37:18.100 And those are, those are all potential allies.

00:37:20.180 Well, they are allies already.

00:37:22.160 I couldn't agree with you more.

00:37:23.500 And remember, Tucker, one more thing as a, as a condition in that region, you have young leadership.

00:37:31.940 You have young leadership in MBS.

00:37:34.600 You have relatively young leadership in the UAE.

00:37:37.840 You have relatively young leadership, new leadership in Qatar.

00:37:42.180 People who don't have the old sensibilities, people who want to have, want to do business,

00:37:48.360 who realizes, like Trump's way is people vote their pocketbook, right?

00:37:53.540 So he wants to bring the bacon home to the United States.

00:37:56.300 I think everybody's bought into that over in the GCC.

00:37:59.280 I agree.

00:37:59.760 I mean, we're reverting to like human nature.

00:38:01.720 People want stability and prosperity for sure.

00:38:04.020 Correct.

00:38:04.620 But looming over all of these countries and their remarkable success, both economically

00:38:09.540 and socially, there's like great countries, in my opinion, is this, is, you know, is the

00:38:16.640 conflict in Gaza and not just Gaza, but the idea that, wow, this could all blow up tomorrow

00:38:21.060 because we don't know what the Israeli plan is.

00:38:24.260 And even people who should know don't seem to know.

00:38:27.180 And do you think at some point they will articulate, like, here's our plan?

00:38:33.200 I think so.

00:38:33.920 First of all, I think that the president, President Trump's approach to Gaza has engendered a lot of

00:38:41.220 lively discussion about different ways to deal with Gaza.

00:38:46.700 We're now seeing an Egyptian plan.

00:38:48.560 We're seeing us, the Saudis put together a white paper.

00:38:51.600 So I think what we're going to do with Gaza is going to become much more apparent over

00:38:56.880 the next six to 12 months.

00:39:00.060 But Gaza is a flashpoint and we've got to figure that out.

00:39:03.140 And I agree with the president when he said the old plans don't work.

00:39:07.380 The old plans, the last 40, 50 years of policy prescription in Gaza meant war, rebuild, more

00:39:16.340 war, more rebuilding.

00:39:17.980 It just, that's not something that made any sense, which is why the president began to

00:39:23.560 say, maybe we need to think about it in a different way.

00:39:26.060 Now he got criticized for it because that's what happens when you begin to go up against,

00:39:31.440 you know, the old way of thinking and you want to sort of introduce a new way of thinking.

00:39:36.620 Well, a new way of thinking is definitely needed.

00:39:38.460 I think everybody realizes that.

00:39:40.480 So we're not positive that cryptocurrency is the future of finance, but we do know that what

00:39:44.120 we have now is broken and dangerous.

00:39:46.520 Debt has never been higher in this country.

00:39:48.740 Many of our so-called leaders are getting rich, serving you.

00:39:52.100 It's a scam.

00:39:53.420 So where does it go?

00:39:54.280 Well, thankfully, there are options.

00:39:56.580 Donald Trump has said repeatedly he wants the United States to be the crypto capital of

00:39:59.920 the world.

00:40:00.700 He's already created the Crypto Advisory Council and recently signed an executive order to

00:40:04.720 establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

00:40:06.660 This could give normal people an alternative to the government's failing system and frankly,

00:40:11.880 to the U.S. dollar.

00:40:13.080 I'm not saying put all your money outside the U.S. dollar, but like, don't be crazy. 1.00

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00:41:59.940 I've got to say, almost everyone on our team looks suspiciously well-rested every morning.

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00:42:39.020 One question.

00:42:39.760 I don't know if it's answerable.

00:42:40.840 I've just noticed it.

00:42:41.660 I was talking to some Israeli government people yesterday.

00:42:46.800 And so here you have, you know, October 7th, obviously traumatic to Israel.

00:42:53.540 But you get the destruction of the leadership of Hamas.

00:42:56.740 You expelled.

00:42:57.740 You broke Hezbollah. 0.97

00:42:59.380 Nasrallah's dead. 1.00

00:43:00.200 No one ever.

00:43:00.640 I was there for the 2006 war.

00:43:02.160 No one ever thought that was going to happen.

00:43:03.420 I didn't anyway.

00:43:04.520 That happened.

00:43:05.880 And Bashar al-Assad's gone from Syria.

00:43:08.140 And there's a more kind of pro-Israel Jelani leader in Syria.

00:43:12.940 So that seems, like from an Israeli perspective, those seem like massive wins that nobody thought were possible.

00:43:18.820 And yet I detect in the people I know in Israel a feeling like they feel more under threat almost.

00:43:26.220 Do you feel that?

00:43:28.140 Well, I think, you know, I go to Israel quite often.

00:43:30.900 And I think there's a feeling of, with some, when does the violence end?

00:43:37.280 At what point have we had enough of it?

00:43:39.940 And I think that's the issue.

00:43:42.060 And, you know, maybe the Israeli government needs to do – look, I understand where they're coming from.

00:43:49.840 Their central premise or thesis is that Hamas cannot be allowed to live on. 0.77

00:43:59.280 And I think we're talking about now demilitarizing.

00:44:03.680 That's the big thing.

00:44:05.260 I don't think anyone has a feeling that you can just sort of kill off Hamas.

00:44:12.500 It's an idea, right?

00:44:13.780 That's what Hamas is about. 0.98

00:44:15.200 It's an ideological idea.

00:44:17.280 But they can't be allowed to ever again foment alongside of the Muslim Brotherhood, alongside of Islamic Jihad. 0.84

00:44:27.600 These are all groups that are operating in Gaza today.

00:44:29.660 We just can't have an October 7th ever again.

00:44:32.400 Now, October 7th was like 9-11.

00:44:35.080 What 9-11 was in the United States, October 7th was the Israeli's version of – 0.75

00:44:39.440 But what's interesting is it happened at exactly the moment that it felt like things were on track to get better.

00:44:44.940 I mean, Abraham Accords have been signed. 0.85

00:44:46.400 And Saudi didn't sign.

00:44:48.080 But, you know, there was some thought that they might, I think.

00:44:51.340 I mean, it was.

00:44:52.560 And so, like, the trajectory was like that.

00:44:55.140 And all of a sudden, it just went in the opposite direction.

00:44:59.620 And so then the question becomes, well, like, how do you ensure –

00:45:04.400 how do you build a framework where there's, like, enduring peace and everyone can just go on with living their lives and building their businesses and all that?

00:45:11.000 Well, we're going to need a very good plan on Gaza.

00:45:13.940 That's – it's going to begin with that.

00:45:15.420 We're going to need stability on Gaza. 0.57

00:45:18.600 Stability on Gaza could mean some people come back.

00:45:21.700 It could mean some people don't come back.

00:45:23.900 But I believe we have to get to a place where people can live a better life in Gaza.

00:45:28.840 And we have to have a plan for that.

00:45:30.840 That involves housing.

00:45:32.300 But it also involves these people's aspirations.

00:45:36.260 Where are they – what is going to happen for their children?

00:45:38.940 Are their children like our children?

00:45:42.040 You want better for your kids.

00:45:43.440 I want better for my kids.

00:45:44.480 I want them to have – to go and get an education, to be self-sufficient.

00:45:50.280 I don't think Gazan people have ever really feel that way about – we have – feel that way.

00:45:56.080 No.

00:45:56.260 They don't have that opportunity for their families.

00:45:59.260 We have to give them that opportunity or find pathways for them to pursue those opportunities.

00:46:04.480 That's what President Trump was talking about when he talked about a new way of thinking about Gaza.

00:46:08.600 So – and we're going to attempt to ascertain different development plans for Gaza could involve the word two-state, could not involve the word two-state.

00:46:21.040 What about that?

00:46:21.580 You don't hear that anymore.

00:46:22.880 I mean for my whole life, the stated aspiration was a Palestinian state, like an actual state.

00:46:30.080 And then the debate was over what it would look like and who controls the utilities and airports and all that stuff.

00:46:34.300 But lots of details to hammer out.

00:46:36.080 But, man, I haven't in the past five or six, ten years heard anybody in authority even mention it.

00:46:44.860 Because when you use those words, it's like a flashpoint, right?

00:46:49.580 So I use the word.

00:46:51.040 I could be attacked for it.

00:46:52.440 To me, it's just a word, right?

00:46:54.600 What two-state to me means is how do we have a better living prescription for Palestinians who are living in Gaza?

00:47:03.560 Let's get to that place.

00:47:06.300 But it's not just about housing.

00:47:07.820 Maybe it's about AI coming there.

00:47:10.140 Maybe it's about hyperscale data centers being seeded into that area because we need to have that.

00:47:17.140 And these people can now take advantage and we can create jobs for them there.

00:47:21.020 Maybe it's about blockchain and robotics coming there.

00:47:23.660 Maybe it's about pharmaceutical manufacturing coming there.

00:47:26.860 We need, we can't rebuild Gaza and it be based on a welfare system. 1.00

00:47:33.540 We have to give people prospects, economic and financial prospects.

00:47:37.500 That's exactly right.

00:47:38.360 You have to treat them like human beings, adults, you know?

00:47:40.640 Where they have nothing.

00:47:43.000 Interesting.

00:47:43.440 So you think by saying two-state, I mean, that's a controversial thing to say now.

00:47:50.080 Yeah.

00:47:52.820 But obviously you don't care.

00:47:55.000 So do you think the ceasefire that you, on the president's behalf, got the ceasefire?

00:48:00.340 I mean, that was my read anyway.

00:48:01.620 You went to Israel and said the president wants this and you got it.

00:48:06.580 But then it ended.

00:48:08.840 What are the prospects now?

00:48:09.900 What do you think happens next?

00:48:11.280 Well, let me say this.

00:48:12.320 We got it because they didn't want to defy him.

00:48:16.260 He's a bad guy to defy.

00:48:17.900 The Israelis. 0.50

00:48:18.660 No, President Trump.

00:48:19.960 No, but the Israelis did not want to defy Trump.

00:48:22.060 But not just the Israelis.

00:48:23.560 It was the Israelis. 0.73

00:48:24.740 It was Hamas. 0.88

00:48:25.580 It was Qatar wanting, you know, everybody had to know that we needed to pull in the, 1.00

00:48:33.460 right, to pull in the same way.

00:48:35.500 And we got, there's a lot of miscommunication in that deal.

00:48:38.360 Lots.

00:48:39.400 We cleaned up the miscommunication.

00:48:41.320 That was the game plan.

00:48:42.760 And, but it was the president's, his sort of overarching personality.

00:48:48.620 And letting everybody know that success was not an option.

00:48:55.620 It had to be.

00:48:56.380 It was a mandate.

00:48:57.640 And that's, that's how we got to that place.

00:48:59.680 I mean, it would take me a 10 hour interview to explain to you the ins and outs of how we

00:49:04.740 actually got there.

00:49:05.900 I can't even imagine.

00:49:06.980 But the story was that you just kind of rolled in and said, here's what we're doing.

00:49:11.380 This is what the president wants.

00:49:12.340 Well, that's what he would do.

00:49:14.200 Yeah.

00:49:14.700 So that's what I did.

00:49:16.480 Because that's what he would do.

00:49:18.100 He would roll in and say, this is unacceptable.

00:49:20.800 This is what we need to have happen.

00:49:23.300 And that's effectively what I did.

00:49:24.760 I, by the way, why not?

00:49:27.500 Why reinvent the wheel?

00:49:29.120 Why not copy the master?

00:49:30.620 He's the master.

00:49:31.620 Yeah.

00:49:31.800 So why not copy the strategy?

00:49:33.360 It's worked effectively.

00:49:34.700 When I saw you do that on his behalf, my first thought was, why didn't the Biden people do

00:49:38.820 this?

00:49:39.040 I mean, they, they lost for a lot of reasons.

00:49:41.440 But one of the reasons they lost was the ongoing Gaza conflict.

00:49:45.620 And that alienated a ton of their voters.

00:49:47.980 I mean, that was a crisis for them.

00:49:50.140 You know, Muslims in Southeast Michigan voted for Trump in part because of that.

00:49:55.040 Yeah.

00:49:55.720 And like a lot of them did.

00:49:57.340 Never thought I'd live to see that.

00:49:59.160 And Orthodox Jews voted for him too, which was like amazing.

00:50:02.420 So why didn't, and they knew it was hurting them.

00:50:05.540 Why didn't they do that?

00:50:07.200 Because Joe Biden is not Donald Trump.

00:50:10.140 It's as simple as that.

00:50:11.780 So you think about it when his policymakers walked into the Oval Office, were they going

00:50:17.840 to get that sort of direct mandate from him?

00:50:22.500 And my, I was not there.

00:50:23.840 So, so this is just a thesis.

00:50:25.980 My bet is not.

00:50:27.040 I walk into the Oval Office, Tucker, it's purposeful.

00:50:32.500 That's what it feels like.

00:50:34.140 We're there to get solutions, to agree on solutions, and then to decide on how tactically we're going

00:50:42.420 to get to that place.

00:50:43.900 That's what we do.

00:50:44.860 We sit in the Oval Office.

00:50:46.740 I could be sitting there with Susie Wiles, John Radcliffe, Mike Waltz, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

00:50:56.320 I mean, exceptional human beings, Tulsi Gabbard.

00:51:00.320 And yeah, we have some fun together because it's a very tight knit team.

00:51:05.160 I mean, he's got, he's got a great team this year, you know, that he's put into place this

00:51:09.100 year.

00:51:09.320 And hopefully they'll all be there for the entire term.

00:51:12.560 But we're there to be solution-based.

00:51:16.700 And it's a collaborative conversation with, with the president leading the conversation.

00:51:21.020 He's interested in a lot of different opinions, which I think is the, you know, underscores

00:51:25.820 what a great leader he is.

00:51:27.000 He's not, he's not stuck on a view.

00:51:29.800 He's prepared to consider different things.

00:51:32.460 I think that makes him a great leader.

00:51:34.140 I think people have that misconception about him that, you know, he wakes up in the morning

00:51:37.700 and, you know, this is the way it's going to be.

00:51:39.600 No, he listens.

00:51:41.500 He's intent on understanding different viewpoints.

00:51:44.960 That's for sure.

00:51:45.520 He's prepared to be flexible in his thinking.

00:51:48.020 I think that's what comes from a lifetime of experience.

00:51:51.140 And I think it's a great example to all of us who work for him because we go out with

00:51:55.800 that way of thinking too, for the most part.

00:51:59.320 Do you, do you think there's a hope for a cessation of violence in Gaza like soon?

00:52:07.240 I do.

00:52:08.360 I do.

00:52:09.100 I mean, I'm not at liberty at this moment to talk about.

00:52:11.520 I bet you're not.

00:52:13.480 But I think there have been signs.

00:52:17.000 I think the Israelis going in is in some respects unfortunate and in some respects falls into the 1.00

00:52:26.240 had to be bucket. 0.85

00:52:30.800 It kind of had to be.

00:52:33.240 Hamas was not responding.

00:52:36.160 They were not.

00:52:36.720 And what, and their responses were unreasonable.

00:52:39.380 And I, you know, look, I warned, I warned everybody at the Arab summit.

00:52:46.560 We, we, we presented a proposal at the Arab summit 10 days ago or two weeks ago.

00:52:51.720 That was reasonable.

00:52:52.580 That was a bridge to get to a peace deal.

00:52:55.300 A bridge to get to demilitarization of Hamas and a discussion about an enduring truce.

00:53:04.140 That's what I was presenting 10 days ago.

00:53:06.720 And Hamas, their, their reaction was completely inappropriate.

00:53:14.160 That's inappropriate is probably a light word.

00:53:16.620 But I warned everybody that this was going to, this was going to result in some sort of military action.

00:53:24.260 Not because I know, I did not know before the Israelis went in. 0.62

00:53:27.860 I just sensed that that was going to be the only alternative based on Hamas's reaction. 0.85

00:53:32.300 Now, that may not, we may be able to reverse things or we may use this.

00:53:37.500 We may be able to use this to get Hamas to be a whole lot more reasonable because they have a lot of sway there. 0.97

00:53:42.960 And they impose that sway at the point of a gun, which is why we have to demilitarize them.

00:53:49.140 We need real elections in, in, in Gaza.

00:53:51.940 There has to be a whole new way of thinking.

00:53:53.740 We need a real security force there to ensure to Israel that they're not going to have a problem with them long term.

00:54:01.100 If Israel thinks they're going to have a problem in Gaza because Hamas is going to be there long term, this is never going to end. 0.68

00:54:06.020 So the only way to deal with this conflict is to make sure that we satisfy everybody, that we're not going to have, we're not, we're never going to have an October 7th ever again.

00:54:18.720 There is huge concern, as I know, you know, from a lot of the neighboring countries that the conflict in Gaza, which is, of course, streamed in everyone's iPhone, a lot of people will be killed in Gaza, a lot of kids.

00:54:31.640 And that's inflaming the populations of some of these countries, again, specifically Egypt and Jordan, to such a point that those governments could fall and cause like massive chaos, including in Europe.

00:54:44.360 Is that a factor as that, that worry?

00:54:48.060 Is that a factor?

00:54:49.180 Huge factor.

00:54:50.160 It's a huge factor.

00:54:51.180 I think King Abdullah in Jordan has done an amazing job, amazing job of figuring out how to, how to deal with that instability.

00:55:05.720 But, you know, in some respects, he's been lucky.

00:55:08.900 I think Egypt is a flashpoint.

00:55:11.080 All the good that happened in the Ayun election because of Nasrallah and Sinwar being eliminated, 0.89

00:55:17.920 that could all be reversed if we lose Egypt.

00:55:22.860 What happened in Syria was a huge, was a huge data point for the region.

00:55:27.920 I mean, getting him out, Assad, was a big deal and no one ever expected it. 0.94

00:55:34.780 But Egypt has a very restive, I want to say the stats in Egypt are huge unemployment among, you know, under 25, like 45% unemployment.

00:55:47.920 A country can't exist like that.

00:55:50.100 They're largely broke.

00:55:51.480 They need a lot of help.

00:55:53.280 If we have a bad event in Egypt, it could be, it could take us back.

00:55:59.220 And Saudi Arabia, also large, you know, I mean, he's an amazing leader, MBS.

00:56:04.640 But people are worried about his young population and how they're looking at this whole thing, which is why we've got to solve Gaza. 0.98

00:56:13.480 Because if we solve Gaza, which is the conditioned precedent to Saudi normalizing, then Saudi can normalize. 0.97

00:56:20.520 And if they normalize, we're building on the framework of the Abraham Peace Accords, which, of course, is the president's creation. 0.68

00:56:32.640 He wants the Abraham Peace Accords to be augmented.

00:56:37.460 And we're in the process of doing it.

00:56:39.320 We think we're going to be announcing several new countries who are joining.

00:56:42.840 So would it's it feels like I don't know, I'm not there, but it feels like there's some significant unrest in Turkey.

00:56:51.380 Yeah.

00:56:52.300 And this being driven by this being driven by what's happening in Syria, which, of course, Turkey participated in the Erdogan is seen by some in his country as a tool of Israel.

00:57:02.020 Or what I mean, if if you had like real problems in Turkey, that would be like a global disaster, of course, because they've got this massive military.

00:57:11.860 Is there a lot of concern about that?

00:57:14.180 Well, I think there was.

00:57:15.440 But I think the president had a great conversation with Erdogan a couple of days ago.

00:57:21.260 Really transformational, I would describe it.

00:57:23.280 I mean, it's I think it's gone.

00:57:24.560 I think it's been underreported, to tell you the truth.

00:57:26.920 And I think it's underreported because of the Houthis, because of what happened with Israel and because of what's going on with Russia, Ukraine.

00:57:35.820 It's not really, you know, a headline.

00:57:38.000 But I think Tom Barrack, who's the ambassador there, has done and will do an exceptional job.

00:57:43.040 I think the president has a relationship with Erdogan and that's going to be important.

00:57:47.120 And I think that there's there's there's some good coming.

00:57:52.340 There's some just a lot of good, positive news coming out of Turkey right now as a result of that conversation.

00:57:57.820 So I think you'll see that in the reporting in the coming days.

00:58:01.520 Good.

00:58:02.420 So if you don't mind, I'd love to.

00:58:04.340 So here's the timeline, as I understand it, as an observer.

00:58:07.320 So you go over, you deliver the president's message.

00:58:11.980 There is a ceasefire in Gaza, which, as you've said five times, is a prerequisite to a lot of other things.

00:58:16.700 Like it's hard to do anything with this open wound.

00:58:20.240 So you do that.

00:58:21.040 And the president says, wow, Steve Witkoff, my friend from the real estate business, like you're really good at this.

00:58:28.040 Sends you to Russia.

00:58:30.220 Is that fair?

00:58:32.660 It's not so far from the truth.

00:58:35.200 It's like I'm watching this because I knew you before.

00:58:37.780 And I was like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

00:58:40.320 I'm cheering you, by the way.

00:58:41.980 Um, where are we there with that conflict, would you say?

00:58:47.020 I think we've made more progress.

00:58:50.280 Again, by the way, look, I could, Tucker, I'm not just saying it.

00:58:54.960 Every solution comes as a result of President Trump.

00:58:59.240 And, and, and I don't get paid to say that.

00:59:01.960 I say it because it is the absolute truth.

00:59:05.360 Putin's got a huge respect for the president.

00:59:07.700 And, you know, you saw what happened in the Oval Office with Zelensky and the president.

00:59:11.980 Right?

00:59:12.440 Yes.

00:59:12.700 I mean, just like disrespecting him is, uh, is, is not a, uh, is not a healthy way to, uh, have, to have a good relationship.

00:59:22.180 The arrogance of small countries.

00:59:23.820 It's like, get some perspective.

00:59:25.080 I mean, come on.

00:59:25.820 How can you imagine acting like that?

00:59:27.700 And, and, and they're dependent on us.

00:59:29.920 Oh, I know.

00:59:30.400 And, and, and we've been so good to them.

00:59:32.440 I know.

00:59:33.060 And I think that's, but, but look, that's been corrected.

00:59:35.300 And that's a, that's a really good thing.

00:59:37.200 It got corrected.

00:59:38.480 And hopefully we'll chalk it up to a misunderstanding and we'll get to the, and we'll get to a peace solution here.

00:59:44.260 But I believe that we have made more progress in Russia, in the last, in Russia, in this Russian-Ukraine conflict in the last eight weeks than anyone thought we could, we would ever make.

00:59:56.000 I hear people describe this last conversation that the president had with, uh, with, uh, President Putin as, uh, you know, unsuccessful.

01:00:05.540 It's preposterous, by the way.

01:00:07.040 We talked throughout a two-hour conversation about an ultimate ceasefire.

01:00:11.820 And there are conditions that the Russians will need for an ultimate ceasefire because an ultimate ceasefire is complicated.

01:00:19.920 A, there's Kursk, where Ukrainian troops are surrounded.

01:00:24.700 Fact, and the Russians- 0.64

01:00:27.480 Kursk is within Russia.

01:00:28.520 Kursk is within Russia.

01:00:29.820 The Russians have taken it back. 0.99

01:00:31.280 Yeah.

01:00:31.560 And they've got people trapped there and the president doesn't want to see everybody getting killed.

01:00:36.180 That's a, that's a significant battlefield condition that has to be dealt with.

01:00:40.380 But on top of that-

01:00:41.480 Is that acknowledged?

01:00:42.220 Like, I don't know if the New York Times is writing that story right now.

01:00:45.760 I, I, I think it gets lost a little bit.

01:00:48.760 First of all, I think a lot of these newspaper stories are, they're agenda driven.

01:00:53.260 Yes.

01:00:53.460 People start out saying, I, I support the Ukrainians, so I'm going to write the article in a certain way.

01:00:59.980 Look, we want to, I, I want to see Ukraine come out of this okay. 1.00

01:01:04.720 I want to see Russia come out of it okay. 0.96

01:01:06.320 Again, we're outcome oriented in this circumstance means that we need a deal that the Ukrainian people can live with. 0.98

01:01:13.880 We have to sell it.

01:01:14.560 There's going to be various Senate approvals that may, that may, that we may need here.

01:01:19.980 And I mean, that's the political system we're in.

01:01:22.000 That we're going to want everybody to be in some respect satisfied.

01:01:27.060 So we're going to want the Russians to be satisfied in some respect. 0.79

01:01:30.400 We're going to want the Ukrainians to be satisfied in some respect.

01:01:32.940 We're talking to the Europeans.

01:01:34.360 When I say satisfied, feeling that we came out of this thing, okay, with a deal that everybody can live with.

01:01:39.340 I think that we have moved, move Russia in ways that no one thought was possible. 0.82

01:01:45.420 So in the last conversation, they agreed to a, an energy infrastructure ceasefire, which means Russia is not going to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

01:01:57.340 And Ukraine will not target Russia's energy infrastructure.

01:02:01.260 They've never talked about that before.

01:02:02.880 Here we are talking about that.

01:02:04.900 They've never talked about reinstituting the Black Sea moratorium on maritime hits.

01:02:12.520 Ukrainian firing, Ukraine firing on Russian ships, Russia firing on Ukrainian ships.

01:02:19.120 Now we're down to, and that's going to be implemented over the next week or so.

01:02:24.020 There's some details that need to be discussed, but that was, that became a part of that conversation.

01:02:29.540 That's big stuff, really big stuff.

01:02:32.780 What do, what's the ultimate goal?

01:02:35.460 The ultimate goal is a 30-day ceasefire during which time we discuss a permanent ceasefire.

01:02:41.680 We're not far away from that, but a 30-day ceasefire is something where we have to figure out what all the battlefield conditions are, which is why I began with Kursk.

01:02:51.020 But Kursk is just the beginning of it because there's this 2,000 kilometer, that's 1,200 miles, this 2,000 kilometer border between Ukraine and Russia, where the Russian and Ukrainian troops are involved in, I don't know, 50, 60, 70, maybe 80 firefights throughout this border with all kinds of different conditions.

01:03:14.780 Putin asked me in the meeting, what should I do in a particular area where we have people surrounded and they don't want to give up?

01:03:23.180 Do I kill them?

01:03:24.740 How do I get them to give up? 0.99

01:03:26.240 I'm happy not to kill everybody.

01:03:28.500 I'm happy to get people to wave the white flag if I can get them to wave the white flag.

01:03:35.720 And that one situation, Steve, this is Putin talking to me, is just one example of 70, 80, 90 different situations out there along this border, each one having different battlefield conditions, each one needing a separate conversation.

01:03:54.000 That's what has to happen for a ceasefire, and yet we're talking about it.

01:03:57.740 That's a big, big deal.

01:04:00.600 Our technical teams are going to be meeting in Jeddah beginning Monday.

01:04:05.000 That's a big deal.

01:04:06.540 There's all kinds of good, positive talk coming out of Russia about their willingness to consider all of these different things.

01:04:14.620 And Zelensky had a wonderful conversation with the president after the President Putin's conversation the next day.

01:04:21.740 And I think that indicates that they've got some degree of flexibility in the way that they've been thinking about finishing up this conflict.

01:04:30.000 So I am not to sound like a forever optimist, but I am very, very optimistic that we're going to be able to bring the two sides together.

01:04:39.620 We have narrowed the issues so considerably.

01:04:42.960 So I'm optimistic.

01:04:44.380 Time for another True Life Alp story.

01:04:46.080 I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday, honestly, true story, who said his girlfriend had just broken up with him over Alp.

01:04:53.020 He wouldn't stop.

01:04:54.020 And I thought to myself, that's kind of sad.

01:04:55.280 And he said, no, it's not sad.

01:04:57.720 Imagine if I'd married her. 0.98

01:05:00.480 Now I know.

01:05:01.560 I was saved.

01:05:02.920 Then the next day, this same friend is driving at twice the speed limit through a major American city, pulled over by a cop in a speed trap.

01:05:09.020 Cop takes his license registration, goes back to the patrol car, runs him, comes back, looks in the window, and sees a tin of Alp on the dashboard.

01:05:16.000 Pauses.

01:05:17.200 Stunned.

01:05:17.640 Says to my friend, you use Alp?

01:05:19.760 Yeah, I do, says my friend.

01:05:21.180 So do I, says the cop.

01:05:22.180 We all do.

01:05:23.160 He looks at my friend thoughtfully and goes, drive safely, sir, and hands back his license and registration.

01:05:27.520 No ticket.

01:05:29.280 So in two days, he's saved from a tragic marriage to a girl who doesn't like Alp and a speeding ticket.

01:05:35.160 All true.

01:05:36.180 It's more than a nicotine marriage.

01:05:38.920 In an age of 350 million people, we're guessing there are about 350 million Alp stories.

01:05:43.440 Email us yours.

01:05:44.660 We want to know, and read it on the air.

01:05:47.420 Email tellall at alppouch.com.

01:05:50.740 Tellall at alppouch.com.

01:05:53.480 Give us your Alp story.

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01:06:56.140 So, Russia, Putin, who's been in power 25 years, has been consistent for the whole duration of his presidency in one demand,

01:07:05.120 which is that NATO stop encroaching on its borders, and specifically that Ukraine, which is the largest country that borders Russia, not be in NATO.

01:07:13.780 And that is my understanding, my certainty, is that that still remains the central demand, period.

01:07:18.800 No Ukraine and NATO can't have peace without that, in the same way that Israel doesn't want Hamas and its border. 0.97

01:07:26.540 They don't want that.

01:07:28.960 I, what, can the U.S. deliver that?

01:07:33.220 Well, first of all, I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions,

01:07:41.240 Donbass, Crimea, you know, the names, Lugansk, and there's two others.

01:07:50.120 They're Russian-speaking.

01:07:51.800 Yep.

01:07:52.060 There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.

01:07:59.040 Yes.

01:07:59.360 I think that's the key issue in the conflict.

01:08:02.320 So, that's the first thing.

01:08:03.700 When that gets settled, and we're having very, very positive conversation around that.

01:08:08.840 And Russia controls that.

01:08:10.100 In fact, some of those territories are now, from the Russian perspective, part of Russia.

01:08:13.980 Correct.

01:08:14.600 That's correct.

01:08:15.380 But this has always been the issue.

01:08:16.960 Right.

01:08:17.280 And it's sort of no one wants to talk about it.

01:08:19.800 That's the elephant in the room.

01:08:21.780 The elephant in the room is there are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory.

01:08:31.480 The Russians are de facto in control of these territories.

01:08:34.820 Yes.

01:08:35.060 The question is, will they be – will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?

01:08:42.840 Will it end up – can Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this?

01:08:49.020 This is the central issue in the conflict.

01:08:52.520 Absolutely that.

01:08:53.420 But on NATO, I think that Zelensky, and he's got a right-hand guy, Jermak, I think that they've largely conceded that they are not going to be a member of NATO.

01:09:05.100 There's been all kinds of talk about whether they could still have, quote-unquote, what is called Article 5 protection.

01:09:12.620 Right.

01:09:13.060 Which gives every NATO country has this Article 5 protection.

01:09:18.880 Yes.

01:09:19.080 Whether Ukraine could have that in some respect from the United States or European nations without being a member of NATO.

01:09:26.300 And I think that's open for discussion.

01:09:28.660 But I think it's accepted that Ukraine, if there's going – and Russia, if there's going to be a peace deal, Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO.

01:09:37.560 I think that's largely accepted.

01:09:39.160 So you spent – sort of an amazing story that got downplayed in the media.

01:09:43.640 But you go to Moscow and then you wind up meeting directly with Putin for a long time.

01:09:51.260 Long time.

01:09:51.720 Which is kind of remarkable, I think, considering you're the president's envoy, but you're not –

01:09:59.380 I'm not the president.

01:10:00.440 You're not the president.

01:10:01.360 Right.

01:10:01.640 Exactly right.

01:10:02.680 So the Russians are very formal, as you know.

01:10:05.000 In every regard, they're very formal.

01:10:07.200 And so you can imagine a scenario where it's like, well, it's not the president, so our president's not going to meet with him.

01:10:11.580 But he did meet with you for a long time.

01:10:14.020 What did you think of him?

01:10:16.140 I liked him.

01:10:17.340 Yep.

01:10:17.820 I thought he was straight up with me.

01:10:19.480 Of course, by the way, I've said that, and you can imagine, by the way.

01:10:23.300 I say that, I get pilloried.

01:10:24.700 Oh, my gosh.

01:10:25.980 You're actually saying that you like the guy.

01:10:27.400 Every American president until Biden has said that.

01:10:30.280 Every single one.

01:10:31.480 Bill Clinton said that.

01:10:32.600 George W. Bush said that.

01:10:33.880 Barack Obama said that.

01:10:35.200 Every president around the world I've ever spoken to is like – they may disagree with what Russia's doing or whatever, but they're like, you know, Putin's a straightforward guy.

01:10:40.660 First of all, I thought it was gracious of him to accept me.

01:10:46.220 Yeah.

01:10:46.720 To see me.

01:10:48.500 Why would I interpret it any other way but that was gracious?

01:10:52.320 Now, I'm an emissary of the president.

01:10:54.300 Yes.

01:10:54.520 And the president had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin in his first term.

01:10:59.360 So I think Vladimir Putin knew that it was going to be hard for the president at this time to come over to Russia.

01:11:05.720 I think they're going to meet in the coming months.

01:11:08.540 But I think it was enormously gracious for him to accept me, and I need to acknowledge that. 0.61

01:11:15.860 It takes balls to say that. 0.72

01:11:18.640 I know. 0.55

01:11:19.020 But by the way, that's the same way that I said that Sheikh Mohammed is a good guy.

01:11:23.840 And, you know, because that's not –

01:11:25.560 Well, he is a good guy.

01:11:26.540 Yeah.

01:11:26.960 I mean, if you don't – you know, in our country, if you don't act like a lemming and just walk off the cliff like everybody else, then, you know, you get attacked. 1.00

01:11:36.180 It's – by the way, how would we settle a conflict with a guy – with someone who is the head of a major nuclear power?

01:11:45.700 Yeah.

01:11:46.120 Unless we establish trust and good feelings with one another.

01:11:50.800 I don't know how you would do such a thing.

01:11:52.800 And President Putin said to me in the first meeting I had, he said, Steve, do you know that I didn't talk to Joe Biden for three and a half years?

01:12:01.860 It's craziness.

01:12:03.160 How would you resolve that?

01:12:04.460 I'm talking – can you imagine me and you having a conflict for – I don't know what it was.

01:12:09.500 You live in this house.

01:12:10.720 I live in that house.

01:12:11.800 Okay.

01:12:12.020 I think you've encroached on my land.

01:12:13.540 And we never have a conversation about it.

01:12:15.760 I mean, who – how do you resolve things?

01:12:18.080 That's why I went over there last year because I thought we're moving toward a nuclear war.

01:12:21.020 And I just feel like if no one's talking to Putin, like someone should at least broadcast his views to the world because we could have a war otherwise.

01:12:30.220 That was my thinking anyway.

01:12:31.500 When I came back after – before the first meeting with President Putin when President Trump said to me, go over and have that conversation.

01:12:40.420 I think we're going to have a good, healthy conversation.

01:12:43.160 Before that conversation, there was no talk about a Black Sea moratorium.

01:12:46.900 There was no conversation about an energy infrastructure moratorium on hits, you know, between the two countries.

01:12:53.940 We were not talking about prisoner exchanges and all kinds of other stuff.

01:12:58.300 After one meeting, and I am saying to you, not because of me, because this was President Trump sending a signal to President Putin that he wanted to resume his relationship together and that they were going to be two great leaders figuring out this conflict.

01:13:13.960 That's – that was the message.

01:13:16.480 That was me coming there.

01:13:18.160 That was my message to President Putin.

01:13:20.860 I was directed by President Trump to deliver that message that we were here to begin a real discussion, a productive discussion about how to end this conflict.

01:13:32.200 And President Putin, to his credit, sent all kinds of signals back to the president that this is the path that he wanted to be on, including statements that he made.

01:13:42.560 In the second visit that I had, it got personal.

01:13:47.120 The president – President Putin had commissioned a beautiful portrait of President Trump from the leading Russian artist and actually gave it to me and asked me to take it home to President Trump, which I brought home and delivered to him.

01:14:01.080 It's been reported in the paper, but it was such a gracious moment and told me a story, Tucker, about how when the president was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the president.

01:14:15.220 And not because he was the president of the United – he could become the president of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend.

01:14:24.600 It was – I mean, can you imagine sitting there and listening to these kind of conversations?

01:14:27.880 And I came home and delivered that message to our president and delivered the painting and he was clearly touched by it.

01:14:38.560 So this is the kind of connection that we've been able to reestablish through, by the way, a simple word called communication, which many people would say, you know, I shouldn't have had because Putin is a bad guy.

01:14:53.660 I don't regard Putin as a bad guy.

01:14:56.300 That is a complicated situation, that war and all the ingredients that led up to it.

01:15:02.140 It's – you know, it's never just one person, right?

01:15:04.660 So we're going to – I think we're going to figure it out.

01:15:07.220 It's like a marriage.

01:15:08.000 I mean, you know, you can blame the other person all you want, but you're implicated in it too.

01:15:12.180 So that's just a – that's just – it's human nature.

01:15:15.560 So it does raise the question.

01:15:16.660 Everything you've said, I don't think any fair person – everything you've just said about Russia, Ukraine, any fair person would acknowledge, yeah, that's true. 0.99

01:15:26.420 But why – there has to be some reason that none of this has been acknowledged for three and a half years.

01:15:31.960 Like why the effort to prevent Americans from hearing the other side, from understanding the conflict in its totality, not just parts of it, but the whole thing.

01:15:40.260 Like why – why the censorship designed to keep us from knowing what's actually happening?

01:15:46.120 Because that's what we've been enduring.

01:15:48.240 Oh, I know.

01:15:49.200 Censorship.

01:15:50.000 Yes.

01:15:50.380 We've been enduring a media that, you know, they all march together.

01:15:56.740 I mean, I told you the story.

01:15:58.080 I give interviews about President Trump and I – guess what?

01:16:01.740 All the nice things I have to say about him because I believe in that, that sort of gets excised out of the – you know, out of my interviews.

01:16:09.620 Not with you, I know, but – because you're a fan too.

01:16:13.360 I'm a great fan of his, you know, so you hear it.

01:16:15.720 But guess what?

01:16:16.640 Trump derangement syndrome still exists out there today.

01:16:20.500 I don't – you know, he said it at the State of the Union.

01:16:23.260 If I came here and he was looking at the Democrats, if I came here, I had the cure for cancer and I could – and I had a magic pill that would cure all conflicts all over the world, nobody would cheer for me on your side.

01:16:35.720 That's true.

01:16:36.260 It really is true, by the way.

01:16:38.560 Look at how all the different things he's involved in now.

01:16:42.040 I mean, we are out there curing and solving conflicts all over the world.

01:16:47.420 It's unbelievable.

01:16:48.680 No one's ever seen this sort of progress before.

01:16:50.700 And the Russians want to engage with us once again because we have a real decision maker.

01:16:56.500 Iran is now responding to the letter.

01:16:59.060 Hopefully, we can solve that.

01:17:01.120 Gaza, Turkey.

01:17:04.360 It's – we've got real leadership.

01:17:06.320 And the world needed leadership.

01:17:08.100 And we were bereft of that leadership.

01:17:11.000 We didn't have it.

01:17:12.540 And the Trump administration is moving forward with strong leadership.

01:17:18.260 It's a big deal.

01:17:19.480 Do you think – Zelensky, the question of Zelensky, I think there are good things to say about Zelensky.

01:17:28.560 I think he's got a kind of bravery, which I admire.

01:17:30.300 I think the Ukrainian military is legit brave, doomed, because they're just fighting a much bigger country.

01:17:36.520 You know, he's not going to win.

01:17:37.880 But I think they've behaved with, you know, valiance.

01:17:43.540 But the Russian position is he's not elected, and so we can't sign any kind of treaty with him.

01:17:50.400 Do you think there will be elections in Ukraine?

01:17:52.680 Yes.

01:17:53.420 You do.

01:17:54.000 There will be.

01:17:54.620 Yeah, they've agreed to it.

01:17:56.160 There will be elections in Ukraine.

01:17:58.320 And I agree with you.

01:17:59.340 I think Zelensky is trying his best.

01:18:03.140 I think he's in a very, very difficult position.

01:18:06.900 But he's up against a nuclear nation.

01:18:09.500 Yes.

01:18:09.720 And he's also up against a nation that has four times the population that he has.

01:18:14.900 And so he's got to know that he's going to get ground down.

01:18:19.360 Now is the best time for him to get a deal done.

01:18:22.280 President Trump can deliver him the best possible deal he's ever going to get.

01:18:25.480 Who's giving him, like, the – I mean, you know, I blame Zelensky. 0.51

01:18:29.340 The man for his behavior in Washington a few weeks ago.

01:18:32.980 But I also blame whoever briefed him before he went into the Oval with the president and vice president.

01:18:38.300 Whoever told him to act that way, and it's clear people did, whether it was Samantha Power or whoever it was.

01:18:43.340 Those people, I mean, that was criminally bad advice.

01:18:47.080 Do you think he's speaking to realistic, clear-eyed people who can – you know, who have the welfare of Ukraine in mind?

01:18:55.240 So without getting into names, I've talked to multiple European leaders, and I've said to them, the more you encourage him not to be proactive at the peace table, the more you suggest that aid will continue without any conditions attached to it.

01:19:17.100 No one says that we shouldn't aid Ukraine today or in the – and in the reconstruction later on.

01:19:24.200 But it's got to come with certain conditions.

01:19:28.740 If we're going to give a lot of money to Ukraine, we want to hear the business plan of how this is going to get resolved.

01:19:34.240 Because it's an unsustainable business plan if they don't have a plan for how it gets resolved.

01:19:40.960 We just can't forever give money for – because they'll get ground down.

01:19:47.580 And ultimately – and this is – you know, me and – we've discussed this in the administration.

01:19:52.000 Ultimately, what you can't have here is risk of any kind of nuclear action, even the tactical nuclear action.

01:19:58.100 I mean, even if it's not a big bomb explosion, just a tactical nuke would take stock markets down all over the world.

01:20:05.520 Well, they haven't been used in 80 years.

01:20:06.940 They've been used exactly twice in human history.

01:20:09.260 You can't allow it to happen.

01:20:10.160 It's not a precedent you want at all.

01:20:12.260 And while I think we have to get a fair deal for Ukraine, we cannot allow that country to drag us into World War III. 1.00

01:20:21.340 And that's not what I'm – that's not my policy.

01:20:24.040 That's President Trump's policy.

01:20:25.320 Then what is – if I can just say, like, what the hell is going on with your opinion?

01:20:30.460 Keir Starmer is saying we're going to send British troops.

01:20:32.960 Their entire military is smaller than the U.S. Marine Corps.

01:20:35.360 The country is dying economically.

01:20:37.140 All those countries are dying economically.

01:20:39.020 Like, what are they thinking?

01:20:40.120 What is that?

01:20:40.680 Is that a posture?

01:20:41.660 Is it a pose?

01:20:42.700 Well, I think it's a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic.

01:20:49.440 I think there's this, you know, this sort of notion of we've all got to be like Winston Churchill.

01:20:55.800 The Russians are going to march across Europe. 1.00

01:20:57.620 I think that's preposterous, by the way.

01:20:59.520 We have something called NATO that we did not have in World War II.

01:21:03.520 Do you think the Russians want to march across Europe? 1.00

01:21:05.380 A hundred percent not.

01:21:07.040 I think –

01:21:07.240 Right.

01:21:07.920 I feel like why would they want that?

01:21:09.820 I wouldn't want those countries.

01:21:11.520 Like, why would they?

01:21:12.340 First of all, why would they want to absorb Ukraine? 0.97

01:21:14.560 For what purpose?

01:21:15.520 Exactly.

01:21:15.960 They don't need to absorb Ukraine.

01:21:17.380 That would be like occupying Gaza. 0.91

01:21:20.200 Why do the Israelis really want to occupy Gaza for the rest of their lives? 0.91

01:21:23.620 They don't.

01:21:24.060 They want stability there.

01:21:25.440 They don't want to deal with that.

01:21:27.240 But the Russians also have what they want.

01:21:29.580 They've gotten – they've reclaimed these five regions.

01:21:33.300 They have Crimea.

01:21:34.400 And they've gotten what they want.

01:21:35.620 So why do they need more?

01:21:36.860 He said – Putin is a very smart guy.

01:21:38.940 You know, someone said to me that someone – I was talking to someone in the administration.

01:21:44.020 And they said, well, you've got to watch it because he's an ex-KGB guy.

01:21:47.420 So I said, okay.

01:21:48.980 What's the inference?

01:21:50.840 Well, he's an ex-KGB guy.

01:21:52.260 He could be looking to manipulate you.

01:21:54.840 Says the ex-CIA guy to you.

01:21:57.420 Sorry.

01:21:58.240 This was not an ex-CIA guy.

01:21:59.480 Well, they all are.

01:22:00.420 But effectively – and I said, look, here's how I see it.

01:22:05.080 In the old days, the only people who went into the KGB were the smartest people in the nation.

01:22:10.140 That's who went into the KGB. 0.52

01:22:11.760 He's a super smart guy, okay?

01:22:14.520 You don't want to give him the credit for it.

01:22:15.960 That's okay.

01:22:16.380 I give him the credit for it.

01:22:17.480 They must hate you for saying stuff like that.

01:22:19.800 But he is.

01:22:21.060 I know.

01:22:22.080 I'm very aware.

01:22:23.380 So should we ignore it?

01:22:24.880 I mean – and this is what I talk about with level setting the facts.

01:22:28.620 Like are we now – like Trump was elected.

01:22:31.780 We're now allowed to speak freely.

01:22:33.620 We were not – you know, we were muzzled, Tucker.

01:22:36.180 No one was allowed to say what they really wanted to say.

01:22:38.260 Oh, I'm very aware.

01:22:39.060 I mean we just came out of a world where a judge who was not even an elected judge could tell a man that he was going to spend 10 years in prison, you know, and he had 80 million votes in this country.

01:22:50.140 Guess what?

01:22:50.680 That's gone.

01:22:51.540 Okay.

01:22:51.800 So, you know, listen, we can breathe again.

01:22:54.800 Yes.

01:22:55.200 That's amazing.

01:22:59.240 So there is – okay.

01:23:01.100 So there's the negotiation that's going on in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine, which you're obviously at the center of.

01:23:08.980 But there's also an informal negotiation going on back in Washington where you have a lot of people with, you know, economic interests in this war.

01:23:19.040 I mean let's just be honest.

01:23:20.040 Certainly ideological interests and all of Washington has been mobilized to fight Russia.

01:23:25.800 We are at war with Russia through our proxy Ukraine. 0.95

01:23:28.500 Right.

01:23:28.600 And the President Trump shows up and is like, oh, you know, applies the brakes.

01:23:32.680 Like it stands on the brakes.

01:23:35.100 But is that going to get resolved?

01:23:37.360 I think so.

01:23:38.100 You do?

01:23:38.540 I think so.

01:23:39.260 Yeah.

01:23:39.700 It's one thing to deal with the Russians, but to deal with the permanent bureaucracy, that's really tough.

01:23:43.280 But who doesn't want to have a world where Russia and the United States are doing collaboratively good things together?

01:23:52.560 Exactly.

01:23:52.980 Thinking about how to integrate their energy policies in the Arctic.

01:23:57.220 Exactly.

01:23:57.840 Share sea lanes.

01:23:59.460 Maybe send LNG gas into Europe together.

01:24:05.060 Maybe collaborate on AI together if we can get past, you know, technology migration.

01:24:11.460 Who doesn't want to see a world like that?

01:24:14.180 What about the presidents being able to talk to one another about Iran, where Russia has some degree of influence?

01:24:22.120 I mean, who doesn't want to see a world like that?

01:24:24.120 To me, it's so logical.

01:24:26.100 I passionately want to see a world like that.

01:24:27.780 Not for any weird agenda other than that sounds great.

01:24:30.420 Like why wouldn't you want that?

01:24:31.600 Exactly.

01:24:32.160 But nobody wants that in Washington.

01:24:34.100 Well, I think this is the thing.

01:24:35.460 People get wedded, you know, to a prescription because that was what they endorsed before, and it's hard for them to back off of it.

01:24:42.520 Yes, it is.

01:24:43.120 Yeah. 0.99

01:24:44.120 But you seem confident that the entire permanent establishment in D.C., and they're not all stupid, by the way. 0.85

01:24:50.420 Some of them are very smart and highly motivated. 0.70

01:24:52.880 They can be brought around to that view.

01:24:55.440 Well, look at the progress that we've made in Russia.

01:24:58.420 We've made tremendous progress.

01:25:00.020 It's nothing short of enormous.

01:25:02.040 How in the world is that Putin looking to manipulate people like me or other people who may be negotiating with him?

01:25:09.740 That's Putin actually reaching across the table and saying to President Trump, I'm prepared to do these things.

01:25:17.500 And now the president is accepting that, and he's saying, let me tell you what I'm prepared to do.

01:25:22.720 And he's prepared to bring Zelensky into the conversation.

01:25:25.260 And he talks to Macron, and he talks to Starmer, and he talks to the Norwegians and the Finnish.

01:25:31.580 I think none of these people have been talking together before.

01:25:35.480 Can you imagine a war that's been going on for three and a half years?

01:25:38.340 No one was talking?

01:25:39.800 This is what went on.

01:25:40.940 It's insanity.

01:25:41.780 I know.

01:25:42.320 And by the way, it was inexorably marching toward nuclear conflict.

01:25:46.780 Had to be.

01:25:47.860 Had to be.

01:25:48.600 That's exactly right.

01:25:49.200 Or the Russians would have just ground them down conventionally.

01:25:52.200 Either way is a bad outcome for Ukraine.

01:25:55.040 That makes no sense either.

01:25:57.200 The Russians outstripped them four to one in population.

01:26:00.660 They either would have ground them down over time, or God forbid, you could have had some

01:26:06.160 kind of tactical nuclear issue.

01:26:08.400 Yes.

01:26:08.960 Which would have been a disaster for the world.

01:26:11.060 Because as you say, we haven't had one for 80 years.

01:26:14.980 It's so, I can't tell you, I'm not sucking up, I mean this.

01:26:18.160 I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see someone, hear someone tell the truth, obvious

01:26:22.980 truths, and I do think it makes a huge difference to say the truth out loud.

01:26:26.820 Well, I think it's important to say the truth out loud.

01:26:29.920 That's what we weren't allowed to say.

01:26:33.480 Yeah.

01:26:34.040 When I went to court with the president, I went to his criminal trial quite often.

01:26:38.040 You would, I would walk out of the criminal trial, you would see all the reporters from

01:26:43.900 MSNBC, CNN, sort of like glaring at me, Tucker, almost as if to say, why would you come here?

01:26:50.960 I mean, can you just imagine?

01:26:53.280 We were living in a society of, you're innocent until proven guilty, but the president had been

01:26:58.840 convicted already.

01:27:00.220 Well, you know what?

01:27:02.020 That wasn't good enough for me.

01:27:04.240 I spoke about the president, how I felt about him, my friendship with him, how I thought that

01:27:09.800 trial was unfair.

01:27:11.040 I testified for him in the AG trial.

01:27:14.600 I led an amicus curie brief.

01:27:17.400 Nobody was doing it in those days.

01:27:19.040 Everybody was afraid.

01:27:20.040 I just think we need to level set the facts and understand what the true conditions are

01:27:25.400 out there.

01:27:26.400 The true conditions in Russia is that it's complicated and Ukraine, it's a complicated

01:27:32.380 conflict.

01:27:33.020 They've been at each other since World War II.

01:27:36.040 There's a sensibility in Russia that Ukraine is a false country, that they just patch together

01:27:42.600 in this sort of mosaic, these regions and that's what, that's the root cause.

01:27:50.040 In my opinion of this war, that Russia regards those five regions as rightfully theirs since 0.69

01:27:56.160 World War II.

01:27:57.540 And that's something that nobody wants to talk about.

01:27:59.980 Well, I say it out loud.

01:28:01.120 How are we going to solve this thing unless we solve the central issue that underpins the

01:28:05.840 conflict?

01:28:06.280 That Khrushchev kind of just made those part of Ukraine.

01:28:09.320 Correct.

01:28:09.840 Yeah.

01:28:10.640 I think Khrushchev was Ukrainian.

01:28:13.600 Amazing.

01:28:14.640 I just have to ask you this just, so you were with the then candidate Trump at the trials,

01:28:21.960 then you're on the road with him.

01:28:22.880 I saw you, you traveling with him everywhere during the campaign and you're a very old

01:28:27.580 friend of his and he trusts and he also likes you.

01:28:30.680 So at that point you can kind of have any job you want.

01:28:34.400 That's the way it works.

01:28:35.900 But you didn't want any job.

01:28:39.080 Well, it would be arrogant for me to say that I could have any job I wanted.

01:28:43.580 Well, but, okay, but you're well, you're better positioned than anyone else I'm aware

01:28:46.980 of to get a job at the administration, but you weren't there scrambling to get one.

01:28:50.900 Well, I wanted, if I, you know, the president, there's a lot of people who did good things

01:28:57.940 for him during the campaign, but that doesn't necessarily mean that doing those good things

01:29:02.900 transfers over to you being able to be a part of an administration and govern.

01:29:07.380 So I never wanted to presume that I could have any job that I wanted.

01:29:12.080 I think that would almost be disrespectful to my friendship.

01:29:14.920 That's my outside assessment.

01:29:16.260 Yeah.

01:29:16.660 Yeah.

01:29:17.220 No, no, no.

01:29:18.460 Listen, I know you're a very good friend of the president's too.

01:29:20.640 So you understand.

01:29:21.560 You didn't seem anxious to be secretary of whatever.

01:29:24.140 I guess that's my point.

01:29:25.280 No, I didn't want to do those jobs, actually.

01:29:26.980 I wanted to do something that felt worthy to me, that felt like I was going to help

01:29:34.200 to either save lives, solve a crisis.

01:29:37.160 I talked to Jared at great length, you know, about what it was like for him to work in the

01:29:40.700 Mideast.

01:29:41.700 I just began to feel that that would be something very worthy for me to do.

01:29:46.340 Now, I underestimated the complications in the job.

01:29:51.680 That's for sure.

01:29:52.780 I think I was a little bit quixotic in the way that I thought about it.

01:29:58.760 Like, I'm going to roll in there on a white horse.

01:30:01.320 And no, it was anything but that, you know.

01:30:04.440 But I'm so glad he gave me this opportunity.

01:30:07.580 Yeah.

01:30:07.740 I think I tell him, I think he's sort of like, he gets embarrassed when I tell him this, Tucker.

01:30:13.600 I say to him all the time, you blessed me when you gave me this job.

01:30:17.600 He did.

01:30:18.240 I think he blessed me.

01:30:19.480 I get to feel like my life has consequence now.

01:30:22.660 It's, I get to do things on behalf of other people, something bigger than just doing something

01:30:28.540 on behalf of myself.

01:30:30.640 So, it's really a big deal.

01:30:32.440 Not many people get that chance over 60.

01:30:34.100 That's pretty unusual.

01:30:35.460 I don't know if many people get that chance at all.

01:30:37.560 No, you're right.

01:30:38.800 And I'm so lucky, you know.

01:30:40.360 So, before the end of my life to be able to do this, I'm so grateful to him.

01:30:45.200 So, one last question, area, which is Iran, which unfortunately I sidetracked around it.

01:30:51.180 But you said, when I asked, what is the government of Israel's plan for the region?

01:30:56.740 What are the borders it hopes to solidify at some point?

01:30:59.560 Like, what are the boundaries of the country, et cetera, et cetera?

01:31:02.040 You said your first response was, it's, we need to solve for Iran. 0.99

01:31:07.080 Like, that's the issue that overhangs everything.

01:31:10.880 There's enormous pressure on the U.S., on the Trump administration from within and from

01:31:16.840 outside to have a military conflict with Iran.

01:31:19.940 Like, I know that.

01:31:21.180 The president seemed, that's not his first, this is my read, if he wanted that, we'd already

01:31:29.580 have it.

01:31:30.440 He seems to want a diplomatic solution first.

01:31:33.200 He wants to try that first.

01:31:34.340 Yes.

01:31:35.040 That's fair?

01:31:35.960 That's fair.

01:31:37.120 Do you think that that's achievable?

01:31:40.780 Yes.

01:31:41.920 I do.

01:31:43.000 I do.

01:31:44.460 Look, he sent a letter to the Iranians.

01:31:47.480 Usually, it would be the Iranians sending a letter to him. 0.88

01:31:51.880 Remember, the Iranians' air defenses have been eviscerated in that attack from Israel.

01:31:56.560 They're open to attack today.

01:32:00.420 Yeah.

01:32:02.100 They're a small country compared to ours.

01:32:05.640 We could, I think we would, if we used overwhelming force, it would be very, very bad for them.

01:32:11.980 And so you wouldn't, and this is not a threat.

01:32:13.680 I'm not threatening.

01:32:14.260 That's, so if the Iranians ever listened to this broadcast, this is not me issuing a threat.

01:32:20.040 It's the president who has that authority.

01:32:21.920 He would issue the threat.

01:32:22.620 But you're describing the reality as you understand it.

01:32:24.900 Correct.

01:32:25.460 Yeah.

01:32:26.280 So under those circumstances, it would be natural for the Iranians to reach out to the president

01:32:31.680 to say, I want to diplomatically solve this.

01:32:34.380 Instead, it's him doing that.

01:32:35.640 Now, I can tell you that he's not reaching out because he's weak, because he is not a

01:32:41.140 weak man.

01:32:42.080 He is a strong man, maybe one of the strongest men I've ever met in my life, maybe the strongest

01:32:47.220 man I've ever met in my life.

01:32:48.640 Actually, I think at that point, I think he is that person that whatever you think of Donald

01:32:52.480 Trump, even Trump haters would have to acknowledge.

01:32:54.580 That's kind of indisputable at this point.

01:32:56.180 Yeah, he's he is a strong man.

01:32:58.020 And I'm going to say this, the strongest man I've ever met.

01:33:00.960 But so with that all said, he wrote that letter.

01:33:05.220 And why did he write that letter?

01:33:07.120 For people who aren't aware of that, can you roughly describe what it said?

01:33:10.740 It roughly said, I'm a president of peace.

01:33:15.620 That's what I want.

01:33:17.100 There's no reason for us to do this militarily.

01:33:21.220 We should talk.

01:33:22.640 We should get we should clear up the misconceptions.

01:33:25.000 We should create a verification program so that nobody worries about weaponization of your

01:33:32.740 nuclear material.

01:33:34.640 And I'd like to get us to that place because the alternative is not a very good alternative.

01:33:39.580 It's that's a rough encapsulation of what was said roughly.

01:33:44.600 And the president has said that he's he's he's said that.

01:33:48.140 So I'm not telling you anything top secret or anything of that sort.

01:33:50.960 But the Iranians have reached back out.

01:33:55.340 And I'm not at liberty to talk about the specifics, but clearly through, you know, back

01:34:00.000 channels through multiple countries and multiple conduits, they've reached back out.

01:34:04.320 I think that it has a real possibility of being solved diplomatically, not because I've talked

01:34:10.000 to anybody in Iran, but just because I think logically it makes sense that it ought to be solved

01:34:14.440 diplomatically.

01:34:15.180 It should be.

01:34:15.780 I think the president has acknowledged that Iran, that he's open to an opportunity to

01:34:22.520 clean it all up with Iran, where they come back to the world and be a great nation once 1.00

01:34:30.360 again and not have to be sanctioned and being and being able to grow their economy, their

01:34:37.680 economy.

01:34:38.120 I mean, these are very smart people.

01:34:39.740 Their economy was once it was once a wonderful economy.

01:34:43.420 It's they're being strangled and suffocated today.

01:34:45.780 There's no need for that to happen.

01:34:47.520 They can join the League of Nations and we can have a better relationship and grow that

01:34:52.160 relationship.

01:34:52.920 And that's what he's presenting.

01:34:55.040 That's the alternative he's presenting.

01:34:57.100 I think he wants to deal with Iran with respect.

01:35:01.580 He wants to build trust with them if it's possible.

01:35:05.700 And that's his directive to his administration.

01:35:08.840 And hopefully that will be met positively by the Iranians. 0.86

01:35:13.340 I'm certainly hopeful for it.

01:35:14.680 I think anything can be solved with dialogue by clearing up misconception and miscommunication

01:35:21.680 and disconnects between people.

01:35:23.240 I believe that, by the way.

01:35:25.140 And yet, and the president is a president who doesn't want to go to war and he'll use 0.58

01:35:31.500 military action to stop a war.

01:35:33.600 That's when he actually wants to use military action.

01:35:36.200 In this particular case, hopefully it won't be necessary.

01:35:39.220 Hopefully we can we can do it at the negotiating table.

01:35:42.000 Well, I hope for our sake, you wind up in Tehran. 1.00

01:35:45.640 I hope I do, too, or someone or someone else from the administration.

01:35:50.460 This is a little bit more complicated, this one, because it's nuclear and we're going to

01:35:53.780 need some real technical, you know, it's it's just a little bit more complicated.

01:35:57.600 But I think it'll begin with it'll begin with the president, with with someone from the

01:36:06.500 president's team.

01:36:07.240 It could be me.

01:36:07.900 It could be me and other people.

01:36:09.680 It could not be me and somebody else.

01:36:12.520 But I am going to welcome that that opportunity if it if I'm involved.

01:36:19.040 Amazing.

01:36:20.080 Steve Wyckoff, Godspeed.

01:36:21.620 Thank you.

01:36:22.240 Thank you, Tucker.

01:36:22.880 Thanks for having me.

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The Tucker Carlson Show - March 21, 2025

Steve Witkoff’s Critical Role in Negotiating Global Peace, and the Warmongers Trying to Stop Him

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