In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into Tucker Carlson’s recent controversial takes — from praising Sharia-governed societies and Middle Eastern cities over declining Western ones, to his glowing comments on Moscow, Dubai, and even Venezuela under Maduro. They explore whether Tucker’s shift stems from boomer goggles, elite social circles, agreeableness and exposure to foreign elites, a quest for controversy/views, or something more concerning like foreign influence incentives.

The Collins also contrast Tucker with Candace Owens’ more unhinged conspiracies and dissect Nick Fuentes‘ coherent (but hostile) agenda, revealing why he’s a bigger threat to mainstream MAGA/America First conservatism than many realize. Expect sharp analysis on urban monoculture vs. traditional Western values, the illusion of “diversity” in places like Dubai, why Tucker seems unable to distinguish the urban monoculture from broader Western civilization, and what this means for the right in the era of the Iran conflict and beyond.

If you’ve been confused by Tucker’s evolution from sharp conservative thinker to sounding “off his rocker,” this episode models his worldview and offers a grounded, pro-civilization counterpoint. Subscribe for more unfiltered cultural anthropology and future-oriented takes.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the increasing craziness that’s coming from Tucker Carlson, which I find really fascinating because if you look at the leading voices on the right that are mad about the war in Iran some are just like, you could see our episode on Candace Owens psychosis.

Maxing was Candace Owens, but like, she’s just like a crazy person, right? Like just an actual crazy person.

Speaker 2: one you were telling me this morning and I was like, what the, she thought that Charlie Kirk was trained at a school like for gifted children, like in the X-Men with special telepathic power.

Well, first, the

Speaker: first thing that like really caught my attention was that she, she claimed that Charlie Kirk was a time traveler based on basically a, a joking flirty text that he sent to her where she texted him, I’m an alien frowny face. And he responded, I think I’m a time traveler. This is my home, but I think you found [00:01:00] me.

And time traveled with me. And she took that and just ran with it.

Malcolm Collins: So that’s, that’s an example of one like just not, not like normal conspiracy theories, like, just like actual crazy town stuff.

And then you have people like Nick Fuentes. Right. But Nick Fuentes has his own agenda, and we’ll go into him more later in this because

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: I’m glad. Interestingly, I used to believe about Nick Fuentes that he was just sort of a shock jock who was choosing whatever was the most shocking thing to say.

Simone Collins: And you

Malcolm Collins: don’t anymore. No, I think the war has elucidated his actual coherent agenda. Ooh. More clearly than it was historically. And that has been very interesting to me. ‘cause then I’m like, oh, now I get what he’s actually attempting to do. And it is, it, it, what it means is that he is more of a direct enemy of any mainstream maga America first conservative than I originally realized.

Simone Collins: Really? Oh,

Malcolm Collins: okay. Because I, I just didn’t get it before and now. And what I’ve realized, he [00:02:00] tells you and his audience what his real goals are. He just leaves out a few steps in between. But. To the next point. Tucker’s different. Tucker is somebody who seems to be broadly saying he is somebody who I really enjoyed and watched his content historically, right?

Like, and

Simone Collins: he’s been around for a long time. Like this is one of a, one of those lifetime media figures that at least if you’re a millennial in the United States, has just been part of the media landscape, right?

Malcolm Collins: The end of his run with Fox, which by the way, people may not know this, Colin’s family lore. But we were supposed to be on his show.

We were in talks with his booking team. I forgot about that the last Friday that he held the show. But because it was his last show, they changed the scheduling. And that was brought on him all of a sudden out of nowhere. But we were in talks with his booking team which is really sad because we have never been able to get back in talks with him after that, like the team split up.

But anyway, during that period, he was, I think, sort of like the [00:03:00] key intellectual based voice. I like the leading thinker in that degree. This was in the, like it was post Jordan Peterson at that period. And he had really, I think, sharp and interesting takes. So I hear some of his takes now. And.

I just am trying to model how he came to an understanding of reality that is so divergent from anything that, that I believe when I, when I saw him before and I, I, I think I’ve come to it Simone helped me by being like, you need to remember, he’s a boomer. Okay. He’s seen the world through boomer goggles.

He’s not gonna see the world the way you do. But my favorite, and this is one, one of the quotes that really inspired this for me was there’s been multiple quotes from him recently. A lot of people have heard the one, he said, any Middle Eastern city is better than any American City know.

Speaker 6: And I travel so much that I see it. There’s not a single Western city [00:04:00] that’s thriving and they’re all degrading in exactly the same way. There’s a lot of it just a moral decay or is it actually true from everything? It’s self, it’s a lot of things, but it’s self hatred. Every city. It’s crazy. Every European city, every American city. So you and, and you I notice it because I travel outside the western world, the white world. I’ll just be honest. The white world, right. I travel a lot in the Middle East. It’s amazing. Mm-hmm. And it’s incredible to be in a place that has pride in itself, that believes in its religion and culture that thinks we’re on, we’re onto something and this is great. Look at what we’re doing. We’re really proud of this.

Malcolm Collins: But he, he also had one where he was talking about how a, a Moscow was better than American cities.

Speaker 9: What was radicalizing very shocking and very disturbing for me was the city of Moscow where I’d never been the biggest city in Europe. 13 million people, and it is so much nicer than any city in my country. I had no idea. It is so much cleaner and safer and prettier.

Aesthetically, than any country city in the United [00:05:00] States that you have to, and this is non ideological.

Simone Collins: Well that was it, but that was a separate stage. Like there are these various. Points in recent history where Tucker Carlson has done something that makes him seem like a foreign agent, like going to Moscow and, and walking through the grocery stores and being like, oh my gosh, this is so much better than America.

And now he’s just doing it with Middle East. This is like Middle East edition.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So first of all, a lot of people are like, oh, he can’t be a foreign agent because he’s super rich, which is not true. It is true that his stepmother owned a, a family fortune from some food production company that was bought by Campbell like 40 years ago.

Mm-hmm. But not anymore. Like the, the, the money from what we can tell from records didn’t pass to him. Mm-hmm. So he actually might be up for money. And if you look at the amount of money he has, it’s that sweet spot that comes from it’s estimated around 50 million, which is that sweet spot of like, I’m taking bribes, but I’m not stupidly wealthy from the bribes.

That bribes don’t make sense anymore. So that, wait,

Simone Collins: you think. [00:06:00] Well wait, you’re, you’re trying to argue that someone with $50 million feels like they need more money?

Malcolm Collins: 50 million is the amount of money I typically expect an extremely corrupt person to be. If I was a corrupt official in the Middle East, I would expect them to have around $50 million.

If I was a corrupt Russian, I’d expect them to have, earn $50 million. If I was somebody taking, it’s the amount that you can earn from bribes. Oh, where you still want more bribes. Like if he had like a billion dollars, I wouldn’t think that Russia or a Qatar could bribe him. I, I

Simone Collins: also, I think maybe there’s the point to be made too, that wealthy people aren’t above loving a good deal or free things.

In fact, many people who have worked for high net worth individuals have commented that there is no one more like. What’s the word? Miserly. Miserly. Yeah. No one more miserly than really rich people who are like, well, I’m not gonna pay it.

Like, $2 and 50 cents is a [00:07:00] convenience fee for this. You need to walk five blocks to, you know, that kind of thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the, the, the point being he, he’s, he’s gone pretty far and put a lot of effort into debasing himself. It, it seems that there’s some motivation for this, and that’s what I want to dig into.

No.

Simone Collins: Okay. Just immediate counterpoint. What if saying these things and garnering the controversy, which we are now participating in, drives views, which is...