Tucker Carlson (2:11)

I'm honored to be here. Thank you.

Charlie Kirk (2:12)

So you and I were kind of talking before this about what's really happening in this country. And I think one of the most important shows you did recently was on a Friday evening about a week and a half ago, two Weeks ago, when you talked about inflation and what it means for normal people in our country. We talk about this a lot on our podcast and our program that the creation of money, it's not a mistake. It's a tactic that is actually being used to try and temporarily satisfy our addiction to debt. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tucker Carlson (2:42)

Well, it's interesting. I'm not an. Obviously, I'm a talk show host, not an economist. And so I was a little slow to pick up on this. But if you take three steps back and take the kind of big picture view, it becomes clear what's going on. So obviously, if you devalue a currency by printing too much of it, its value will fall, right? So our Fed policy abets inflation that's accelerated dramatically because of modern monetary theory, which is the idea that you can basically, with no real consequences, ignore your balance sheet and just continue to print money. And I've always thought it was a weird theory, a bizarre theory, until recently when I realized that, yes, it will cause inflation. The people pushing it know that, and they're doing it because they're going to benefit from it. So I would think of it this way. If you borrow $100,000 from the bank and you don't pay it back, they take your house away. If you borrow $100 million from the bank and you don't pay it back, they call you and say, let's have lunch. Because at that point, the balance of power has changed, right? So at a certain point. Well, that's exactly right because you take the institution with you. So under this current system, the richest people are the ones whose wealth derives from debt. And so this policy, almost by definition, is going to help them. And in fact, it is, for a very simple and obvious reason. Inflation helps people who owe, because if the value of the money falls, so does the cost of repaying it.

Charlie Kirk (4:18)

Our entire economy is basically built on debt, right?

Tucker Carlson (4:21)

So who does this screw? Who does it disadvantage? It disadvantages anybody who has followed the rules as were laid out like, you know, at the beginning of time, which is, you know, be responsible with your money, don't buy things you can't afford, save. The people who followed those instructions have been hurt by our monetary policy, and they're about to get a lot more hurt because the value of the money they saved will decline. Whereas the people who are living entirely on credit, and I don't mean the guy who bought the extra bass boat, I mean the guy, you know, who's really whose whole business is leverage, those people will benefit. And that's a small group relative to the first group. So anyone living on fixed income, anyone living on savings, those people are about to get a lot poorer. The people who are facing insurmountable debt will ultimately find it surmountable because of inflation. So like it's, it's not that complex really.

Charlie Kirk (5:12)

Well, but what I have found so interesting is that you're one of the only people talking about this and it might be one of the biggest thing actually, I think it's super interesting and it's interesting. It's also, it impacts every single, you know, kind of facet of life you have, you were warning years ago, and I didn't take this seriously, honestly, when you said this a couple years ago, that a small group of people are getting way too powerful. They're getting rich at other people's expense. And now we have seen this year Jeff Bezos is wealthier than any other person ever to exist in the history of the planet, nearing $200 billion. We have seen the billionaires have had a great year, yes, like the best year ever. And you've been warning against this. And it seems as if it's only intensified in this last calendar year and inflation actually benefits those people, of course they're only going to get wealthier. They can actually afford to buy hedges against what inflation will actually mean.

Tucker Carlson (6:04)

Right.

Charlie Kirk (6:04)

When we have 6 or 7% inflation, and I think we already have inflation. I just think the way we calculated

Tucker Carlson (6:08)

is completely, I mean the things that actually matter to you, your house, tuition for your kids, food, you know, the big expenditures, health care. Health care, and needless to say, thank you, health care, those things are becoming way more expensive, in fact, way outpacing the so called inflation rate. So yeah, it tells you, it tells you everything. I would say the theme for the year is the big have benefited, the smaller being crushed. I mean that really is true in every, on every level. From you know, the sort of micro level, you know, downtown Chicago, independent businesses are going under. You know, big national, international retailers are managing to hang in there. Amazon is thriving. Independent booksellers are gone right to all the way up to the geopolitical level. What's, you know, what nation is pulling ahead of all others? The world's biggest nation, China. So that really is kind of the lesson that in a moment of tumult and reordering, only the big are benefiting from this. And it's scary actually, you know, like what do you do in the face of that?

Charlie Kirk (7:22)

So we do have some things we can do and you, you were calling early for a breakup of the tech companies.

Tucker Carlson (7:27)

Yes.

Charlie Kirk (7:28)

And it seems as if this is actually gaining steam. Yes. Whereas a couple years ago people would say, why would we need to break up these wonderful companies that are just doing such a great job for us? And we just start with the surveillance capitalism companies. Right. Which are basically data companies who spy on all of us. And we are the product. Google and Facebook.

Tucker Carlson (7:45)

Yes.

Charlie Kirk (7:45)

And they have. They've become so incredibly wealthy and powerful that they basically are the government. They're more powerful than our own government.

Tucker Carlson (7:54)

Course they are. And they're not accountable.

Charlie Kirk (7:56)

Not at all.

Tucker Carlson (7:57)

Right. And vote them out.

Charlie Kirk (7:58)

That we don't have a Bill of rights. We don't have.

Tucker Carlson (8:00)

That's exactly right.

Charlie Kirk (8:01)

Anyway, so for example, this conversation we're having right now, and we put it on up on YouTube, if we say something wrong or so that some guy in pajamas in Menlo park doesn't like, and they just make it disappear, I have no recourse. I can take what's at all. And so you're at complete and total mercy of these tech companies. Can you talk about kind of how big of a threat they actually pose And.

Tucker Carlson (8:21)

Well, it's the most basic of all threats. I mean, you know, having control over information kind of makes the difference at every level over time. So if you don't know about something, if you don't have the capacity to understand something, even to think about something, then, you know, I can. I can control you. Right. I mean, that's why the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights protects the press, because power over information is that central. And Google is the most powerful company in the history of the world. There's never been a company as powerful.

Charlie Kirk (8:55)

Way more powerful than Standard Oil. Ever.

Tucker Carlson (8:56)

Way more powerful than the US government. So, yeah, look, we should declare war on bigness without getting into the rat hole of the details where I spend my life, but I would say we should be philosophically opposed to concentrations of wealth and power this profound. The fact that Google is as big and powerful as it is, same with Facebook, is itself an argument against Google and Facebook. Like, it's just. It's just too much. We should be against big countries. This country is 350 million people. It shouldn't get any bigger. Right. I mean, and at the same time, we should turn our attention to what really matters, which are the small things like your own life, which we've all put on hold for the sake of these macro questions. I mean, one of the problems with an election year is everyone thinks in national or global terms, like in terms of trends and whatever. And it's very easy to forget that what actually matters and what you will contemplate on your deathbed is how you ordered your own life. Are you married? Do you have descendants? Does anyone care that you're dying? Like, these are the most basic questions, and they've been completely ignored. So my advice to anybody, to my own, I have a ton of children. And I always tell them this. All that matters is whether you get married, have a successful marriage, and have children and behave honorably, like that's it, that's all that matters. That's the most kind of micro concern you can have, and yet it's the most profound. So I think if you're a. Whatever it is, you know, whatever the category is conservative, you know, traditional, liberal, libertarian, or anybody who's not fully with the current program, your main concern ought to be, you know, do I have a happy personal life? Am I connected to someone for life? Am I having children? Do I have any sense of what happens when I die? Like, don't neglect those things.

Charlie Kirk (10:43)

And so do you think? I completely agree, but it seems that the Republican Party is doing their best not to embrace that. And so.

Tucker Carlson (10:49)

Well, they're just pure corporate shills. I mean, their values are the values of corporate America. I mean, one of the. My challenges, I hope in 2021, is to clean up my vocabulary, sweep away the words that are not precisely descriptive and in fact, counterproductive. And one of them is left and liberal, right and conservative. I mean, those terms just. They had a great deal of meaning when I was growing up during the Cold War.

Charlie Kirk (11:13)

It was a war between left and

Tucker Carlson (11:14)

right, collectivist versus freedom, you know, market capitalism versus communism. No, what we're fighting now is man versus the behemoth. It's the individual versus corporate power, period. And almost everything that I find repulsive about modern American society, starting and beginning with the pollution and distortion of gender roles and abortion, which are the things I find most destructive because it's tampering with the very formula, with the recipe for a successful civilization. Where does that come from? It doesn't come from the left. It doesn't come from. Who's that guy they're always quoting who wrote the book Rules for Radicalski, Saulinsky, whatever.

Charlie Kirk (11:49)

He.

Tucker Carlson (11:50)

He didn't think this up. This is being promoted by big corporations who see human beings as widgets and see human relationships as impediment to corporate success. So, like, why do you think big business funds BLM and Planned Parenthood BLM calling for the destruction of the nuclear family. What's that about? What does that have to do with black empowerment? Actually, it doesn't empower any individual family is the definition of empowerment. When things go, where do you go, your family? I have got my kids living with me right now because American society's collapsing. It's like the greatest thing that's ever happened. They all come home. The family is the fortress against the world. That's true. So if you want to empower people, you strengthen their families, why are they trying to disempower our families? Because families get in the way of obedience to the corporation. So a lot of big corporations are offering for free to freeze the eggs of their female employees. What does that tell you? Is that compassion? No, what they're saying is, give up your childbearing years, free for us. By the way, we have no loyalty, we don't care about you at all. In exchange for the promise that maybe someday you can have a personal life. It's so dystopian. It's so grotesque. Saul Linsky didn't think that up. Apple did. Do you see what I'm saying? So the real threat that we face now, I mean, the left, I'm not, you know, I don't like the left. And I've spent my whole life arguing against the left. But I know the left. I know, you know, because I grew up with them. They don't make their beds, okay? They're disorganized people. They couldn't pull off a five year old's birthday party. Corporate America is pretty efficient. Like efficiency.

Charlie Kirk (13:28)

They work weekends.

Tucker Carlson (13:29)

Is it. They work weekends. Efficiency is its core value. And it's efficiency, corporate efficiency, that we should be afraid of.

Charlie Kirk (13:37)

And so what I think, if I could just ask you.

Tucker Carlson (13:40)

You got me so fucked up.

Charlie Kirk (13:41)

I mean, it's phenomenal. But this is the struggle right now on the right or whatever, the conservative America. And what I found is that the people that would oppose you in what you're saying, which in a different time I might have because I was completely steeped in Hayek and Milton Friedman, who I still have appreciation for me too. And I think they had some of the lot, they say, tons of insights. But there was almost a dogmatic quasi religious undertone in the conservative movement. Thou shall never speak ill of anything ever in the economy, if it has to do with the corporation or free market capitalism. Like that was one of the commandments of the conservative movement. And if you said it amazing, instantaneously, you're a Marxist. Well, no, actually, I can make some points about being a Marxist, and I think you pioneered that in a lot of different ways. But anyone who would disagree with what you're saying, I question how could they come to that conclusion? Is it because they're being funded or is it because, well, they maybe haven't

Tucker Carlson (14:40)

thought about it or they don't have. I mean. I mean, look, I can't. You know, other people's motives are very hard to assess. I can describe my own, and they're very simple. Anybody who threatens my family or the structure from which I've derived the overwhelming majority of the satisfaction and joy in my life, that's my family, my wife and children. I would include my dogs. Anybody who threatens that or makes it harder for my children to form something like that is my enemy. And I mean enemy. I really mean that. That is the most basic threat. You can increase my tax rate from 50% to 60. I won't like it. But if you make it impossible for my kids to get married, I'm at war with you because you're threatening. Well, first of all, my ability to pass on my genes, like, this is the most basic. This is the most basic human drive is to pass on your genes, is to have grandchildren and great grandchildren. I would just say one thing. I've been so obsessed with this, and I've actually been meaning to write a book on it, but I just. I've been too scattered to do it. But what you're really seeing is a war against nature. The things that you are forbidden to say are almost always the most basic and obvious things connected to the natural order. In other words, rules that we didn't make but that we encountered when we arrived here on Earth. Okay, like biological sex or, you know, pick one. They hate the acknowledgment that there are forces larger than their own authority because it diminishes their authority. They can't. That's why they can't stand when you're like, well, that's just the way it naturally is. That's how we were born. What? No, we control that. And yet, if you start ignoring the natural order, nature itself, if you hate nature, you can't win in the end. It's a Tower of Babel situation. Do you know what I mean? You can't actually beat reality ultimately. And yet that's the basis of everything for them. So why is it so offensive to say out loud, like, oh, I don't know, like, before you destroy the patriarchy, tell me why. It existed since the beginning of Recorded time. Was there some reason for that? Was it just pure meanness? Did every society, like in the history of man decide to come up with the same structure just to like oppress people? Because they got off on oppressing people. I mean, maybe. Kind of hard to believe that they, you know, sprouted all over the earth in pretty much the same way with some exceptions, but not really many. Maybe there's something innate about that and maybe before we destroy it, we should consider the consequences of destroying it. And of course, the consequences are on display right now, which is like total atomization, alienation, spike in suicide rate, drug addiction, no one gets married. It's like super depressing and dystopian. Who's the beneficiary of that? Anyone who seeks to control you. It's very hard to control people who have a loyalty that's greater to something than you. When you have a family, your loyalty is not even in question. My loyalty is to my family, period. That's so much bigger than any idea, any ideology, like, you screw with my kids, I'll shoot you, period. Every parent feels that way, so they have to destroy that in order to make certain that you're an obedient little worker serf. Which is exactly the plan. Now, if I sound crazy, it's only because.

Charlie Kirk (17:43)

Well, no, you're actually.

Tucker Carlson (17:44)

Maybe I am crazy.

Charlie Kirk (17:45)

No, you're making sense.

Tucker Carlson (17:45)

But that's true.

Charlie Kirk (17:46)

But you're making sense. What I find interesting is that we're entering this post political moment where you mentioned this when we were kind of chatting earlier, the Glenn Greenwald and myself and you, we're all kind of agreeing on the same sort of problems all the time.

Tucker Carlson (18:01)

Yeah.

Charlie Kirk (18:02)

Where if you actually believe in freedom of speech, family formation, Western civilization you could call it, then we're all allies against this kind of corporatist America that we're all living in. Yes, that's global too. But. And here's where I think the conservative movement went wrong is for the last decade especially is. And you saw this in kind of what Mitt Romney said in 2012 when he's running for president when he said, corporations are people, my friend. Almost this kind of corporate idolatry that existed, that the corporate masters are on our team and they're always going to be kind of looking out for us.

Tucker Carlson (18:35)

Oh, the Boston Consulting Group guy said that?

Charlie Kirk (18:37)

Yeah. The Bain Capital.

Tucker Carlson (18:38)

Oh, Bain Capital.

Charlie Kirk (18:39)

Yeah.

Tucker Carlson (18:40)

Sorry, I thought it was McKinsey. You know, they all kind of.

Charlie Kirk (18:42)

They kind of all blend together. They've all been to Wuhan many times. The shipping Our jobs and many other things overseas. But the, the issue, what you're talking about is, is a return to actual conservatism, which is faith first, then family, duty to country, and not necessarily this kind of overindulgent. Like we need more piles of plastic from China of stuff we're never going to use, we're gonna put in our garage to get people to take away and put in these storage units. Mentality that has infected us the last couple decades.

Tucker Carlson (19:14)

Make you happy? It doesn't make you happy. What makes you happy are your relationships. It's really simple. There's actually a lot of social science in this. People have studied what makes people happy. And it's worth listening to people who've lived longer lives, like, what made you happy? You know, you're really successful. I know a lot of successful people. I've never met one who said, you know, getting super rich made me happy. I'm not against being super rich, but I've never met one person who said that brought joy to my life. Not one. Not one. And I know a ton. No, what makes you happy is the familiar things. Your family, a place. I mean, that's something else that we have lost is a sense of place. Like I'm from here, you know, these are my people. That's where my parents are buried. Like that's a basic human desire. I've spent my whole life in this little town in Maine in the summertime, and I've watched the economy go from sort of teetering to non existent. And I've seen all the attendant social ills that follow right when men don't have jobs, specifically men, people don't get married and the social fabric unravels. What's been so interesting is coming from a city to this place every year for 50 years, I used to think, well, why don't they move? Like, there's no opportunity here. And I remember asking someone, a good friend of mine who I grew up with there, like, why don't people move? He's like, well, because they're from here. This is where they're from. I don't know. Your family's been here for 300 years. You know, the cemetery's got all your relatives in it. Like, what do you mean, why don't they move? Where would they? This is where they're from. And I was like, yeah, but I don't know, aren't you supposed to sort of be flexible with the movement of global capital? And they're like, well, yeah, but I'm from here. Thinking that's not a very articulate answer, but it doesn't make it a less true answer. In fact, it makes it a more profound answer. It speaks to what people really want, which is to be from somewhere that rootedness is a real thing. It's the real things that we're ignoring. None of the real things ever get airtime. It's so interesting, the addiction thing. I mean, don't even get me going. But like, as someone who, you know is now sober, I've thought a lot about it personally. But you watch the whole country get addicted to things. Like, real things too. Not just nicotine, which I'm still proudly addicted to, but like opioids or something where there's no kind of happy end game. And this happens on a mass scale and hundreds of thousands of people die and nobody says anything about it. Not just like, well, why did the Sacklers pump this garbage into West Virginia? But the more basic question, why do the people of West Virginia take it? Who's getting on opioids? Like, there's no kind of success story you can look at and be like, you know, my neighbor did opioids and it really improved his life. No, he died. So they're doing it anyway. Why are they doing that? And it's because their most basic needs, which are not food and shelter, but like some deeper needs, are being not just unmet, but completely ignored. So once you start meditating on that for a moment, you're like, the way we structured this whole deal is off. It's not actually helping anyone at all.

Charlie Kirk (22:09)

And I think one of the main drivers, and you mentioned this is the hyper feminization of our country. And someone who wrote a great book about this is Elizabeth Warren. I can't believe I'm saying this.

Tucker Carlson (22:17)

Two Income trap.

Charlie Kirk (22:18)

Yeah, and it was. She was talking about how sending both the mother and the father by almost mandatory decree into the workforce is going to actually make people less free and

Tucker Carlson (22:31)

poorer, by the way, and more worried about money. So you get on. I mean, I grew up in a world, again, I'm 51, so I'm not, you know, 81, but I grew up in a country where it was very normal for people, middle class, not just rich people, middle class people to raise their own children. Like, you didn't axiomatically automatically hire someone from a third world country to raise your children like you did it yourself. And it was overwhelmingly women who did it, because most cases, not all, but most cases, they kind of wanted to, by the way. They still want to. And if you Ask. There are a ton of surveys on this. Would you prefer to raise your own kids maybe not through high school or something. At some point they go to school and you don't need to, you know, wipe their butts or whatever. But like when you know from birth to four, do you want to be there for your own kids? Like the overwhelming majority of women want that. They actually want that. That's what they really want. That's what they told not to go

Charlie Kirk (23:19)

work to be a partner at some law firm in Manhattan or.

Tucker Carlson (23:22)

But America tells my daughters, I have three daughters. Like the highest level of attainment, not just materially but spiritually, is to work at some creepy investment bank that doesn't know your last name or care if you die. That's the most important thing you could do to serve global capital. In fact, I believe Sheryl Sandberg wrote a whole book on this called Lean In. The most important thing you can do to self actualize is to work for some creepy multinational doing something pointless. And if you do that and give up the promise and your biological imperatives, the promise of a family and children, I don't know. You win. And every living human being knows that's not a win, it's a loss. And if that happened to your kids, you would weep. And so would they by the way. And yet no one ever challenges it. And I, and I don't know why, and I'm by the way, just to be totally clear, I'm not even an evangelical. I'm like a lapsed Episcopalian, so I'm not, and I'm very pro evangelical, but I'm not coming at it. I didn't grow up in a cult. I grew up in La Jolla, California in a non church going Episcopalian family. So like I'm coming at this from just a secular, just like look around, you know what's going on. Point of view, even though I am, you know, a Christian. But I. Anyway, that's the point. You don't need to be from some, you know, out of step sect to believe this. You just have to be human and acknowledge what people actually want as opposed to what a very small group of super unhappy people are telling you you should want.

Charlie Kirk (24:41)

What I think the danger is though is now the multi trillion dollar corporations have found a partner that they've been looking for for many decades, which is the social woke activists. And they both want the same thing and they didn't realize it till recently. So the multitrillion dollar corporations used to do deals with the Republicans. The problem with the Republicans is they actually represent all the family people.

Tucker Carlson (25:01)

Right.

Charlie Kirk (25:01)

And so there was always kind of incongruency with the multitrillion dollar corporations and the Republicans because the corporations were kind of saying, wait, why is it that all of your daughters are getting married when they're 23? Why don't they come work for us? And there was always this kind of. It kind of just buttressed up against that and it was never really sorted out because of Trump. Largely, by the way, because of the reaction to Trump. All of a sudden there's been this realignment politically where the SJW kind of social disintegrationist nihilists, if you will, who have theological beliefs towards the world, that's for sure. They have found these corporations that actually have shared interests.

Tucker Carlson (25:39)

Well, for sure. And one fuels the other. I mean, they're in symbiosis. And again, I'm not a super genius at all. You know, I probably have 110 IQ or 105 or something. I'm like, it takes me a while to figure stuff out, but I'm paid to watch. So I started to notice like, okay, there's all these angry leftists in the street. What do we know about leftists? Well, they hate capitalism, we hate capitalism, we're socialists. Okay, okay, that's a perspective. So obviously you're gonna attack the capitalists, right? Who are the capitalists? Well, they're the big companies. They're literally controlling capital and yet they got a pass. Huh, that's kind of weird. If. Why are you blowing up the liquor store on your street or the pizza shop? Why aren't you going after the Apple store and Apple itself and Jeff Bezos? They're the capital. No, didn't touch them. Then they're like, oh, we're against law enforcement. Okay, then I'm sure you're gonna go after the FBI, aren't you? Because it's the biggest law enforcement agency in the United States and by the way, commit a lot of abuses. No, we're going after some working class guy making 55 grand to walk through poor neighborhoods and risk his life. He's the villain. Really? Aren't you kind of missing the point there a little bit? Like I could actually get on board with like, let's pull back from law enforcement a little bit. I don't think the post office needs a million rounds of nine millimeter every year. Okay. Like I can kind of get on board with that. No, it was after the little guy, the beat cop. So then I'm Thinking, well wait a second, you're missing, you're missing it. If you want to attack capitalism, go after Apple. And they're like, I can't hear you. The real problem is restaurants. And you're like, huh, Maybe what's actually going on bears no resemblance to what they say is going on. Maybe this is a power grab by the most powerful using the disaffected and the losers in antifa. I mean they're all sort of demonstrably losers, but who cares about them? It's not about them. It's not about some unhappy girl with blue hair who's smashing car windows. It's about the people paying for her to do it. And they're the people she claims to hate but is in fact allied with

Charlie Kirk (27:30)

because they have shared objectives and.

Tucker Carlson (27:32)

Bingo.

Charlie Kirk (27:33)

And shared hatred of traditional America.

Tucker Carlson (27:35)

Yeah, I mean they're just basically they're just the shock troops for global capital. God, I sound crazy, but I mean it.

Charlie Kirk (27:41)

No, you're making sense. So I guess where President Trump, who I consider to be a friend, he didn't actually capitalize on this strongly enough. And I sent endless memos to the White House into the campaign, you know, people that I knew, as many that would listen to me. Is Joe Biden is the corporate candidate.

Tucker Carlson (28:02)

Yes.

Charlie Kirk (28:02)

You have an opportunity to be the not corporate candidate. And I don't think that framing was actually ever successfully made. I don't think that argument was ever made where he is funded by the most wealthy people on the planet. He's gonna go win the wealthiest counties. I'm actually representing normal people. I think that even with all the fraud and all that, we can get into it. I think that that would have been a multi point boost for him even with his amazing support that he already was able to have.

Tucker Carlson (28:29)

Because it's true and it helps when you tell the truth. It's just like right there are a lot of. I couldn't agree with that analysis more. There were people on the campaign who decided Joe Biden is ahead in the polls cuz he's got control of the critical retired rap star vote and we need to win as many retired rap stars as we possibly can and do pressers with them. Okay, fine. By the way, I'm not against winning over retired rap stars or whatever, but they missed thematically the whole point of it. There's been this massive realignment. Middle class people now after 100 years of being represented by one party, have no home. Why don't you take them and put them under your wing and protect them from the forces who seek to destroy them. It's not hard. Offer your voters something real, which is protection, protection from the bad guys. And it's not hard to identify them. And they will be so excited that you will win. And one of the things that normal people really appreciate, normal people being a euphemism for those who can't afford bodyguards, is the ability to go to the grocery store without getting raped. They're into it. Okay, let me just say that the biggest landslide in American history was 1972. Richard Nixon, a guy who had a fraction of the charm of Donald Trump, who had a fraction of the intuitive understanding of voters of Donald Trump. And he still won more electoral votes than anybody has ever won. And he had only one real issue, which is law and order. The crazies are trying to make the world dangerous. I'm gonna protect you. It's not hard. You had a year where the crazies were making measurably America more dangerous, which means a crappier place to live for normal people. And you didn't run on that because you had people in your campaign who were, like, so guilty about their own pampered upbringings and how they got into prestigious colleges fraudulently or whatever. They were working out their own interior guilt trips on the country, because that's what they do. They feel bad about their unearned privilege. So they're like, oh, we can't say anything about the destruction of American society. Because I feel guilty that, you know, whatever my dad paid to get me to Ivy League school, so you just can't say anything. And it's like, no, reframe your head a little bit. You're here to represent actual people who have real concerns, not bs, you know, symbolic concerns. It's nothing symbolic about what's happening right now. There is an actual measurable degradation of the quality of life for middle class people. It's measurable and like, fix that and you win. And I think Trump understood that, and I think that he was undercut at every turn by people who didn't.

Charlie Kirk (30:53)

And I think the framing very well could have been, Joe Biden is the representation of every institution that has betrayed you and funded by this. And he did that kind of brilliantly in 2016 with Hillary Clinton.

Tucker Carlson (31:06)

Yes.

Charlie Kirk (31:06)

And Joe Biden was actually a bolder manifestation of that. I mean, Joe Biden didn't even pretend to be supported by grassroots Americans or by middle income earners. It was, I'm gonna take as much money as I possibly can raise in my Zoom fundraisers, and we're gonna lock the country down again.

Tucker Carlson (31:23)

And. Well, yeah, he ran a campaign through a Chinese software product that's being used. I mean, like, it was a zoom campaign. That's like a metaphor for everything. And there is no Joe Biden. I mean, Joe Biden doesn't sort of exist as an independent force. He's just purely a puppet for larger forces. Obviously, he's despised by a lot of the people around him. It was just so clear what was going on and so dark, so cynical and dystopian and scary, you know, makes the hair on your arms go up just to. Just to describe it. And nobody was willing to really say what was going on. Part of the sad thing for me, I think there. I think there was voter fraud. I think Macro. There was massive voter fraud in that the tech companies shut down one side completely. I mean, that's putting a thumb on the scale. If they're. I mean, that's fraud. They rigged the election. But out in the open. And I'm willing to entertain any other possibilities. But I do think the sad thing about that conversation, which is an important conversation, is that to some extent, it does distract us from what we are arguing. Like, what do we believe? Like, what's the point of having a political party? You've got the Republican Party. What does it stand for? For, let's have that conversation, shall we? And we haven't, because the very people who would like to keep the party unchanged are distracting us with things that are relevant, but they're not. The whole conversation. Like, why didn't anybody in the Republican Party go after Google? It's a serious question. Like, you can't have a democracy where a company that's wholly aligned with one side is shutting down conversation in the middle of a presidential campaign. You can't have a democracy under the those circumstances. The Republicans were being disadvantaged by it. Why aren't they saying that? And they're not saying it. They're like three of them are saying it. Like, that's kind of a mystery to me. And I would like to have that conversation.

Charlie Kirk (33:13)

Well, netpack, which is Google's pac, has funded a lot of Republicans.

Tucker Carlson (33:16)

Oh, I know.

Charlie Kirk (33:16)

Throughout the years.

Tucker Carlson (33:17)

Oh, I'm very aware. And you see it in the behavior.

Charlie Kirk (33:20)

And the chamber is very powerful.

Tucker Carlson (33:21)

Well, yeah. The chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, who's a senator who shall remain nameless from Utah, Mike Lee, basically. And he didn't do it alone, but he did it with others for sure. But made certain he protected Google, basically, for the past four years, when you know, that's in. That's basically a direct attack on the interests of his voters. And I don't know how he's been allowed to get away with that. I've mentioned it a couple times. He doesn't like it when I do. He's complained about it. I think he's a nice person. I think he's right about a lot of other things. Michael. He's very smart, definitely smarter than I am. But on that one issue, which is not a small issue, it's the central issue, he betrayed his voters, in my opinion.

Charlie Kirk (34:01)

Do you think it's. He was resorting to ideology over what was right for his voters?

Tucker Carlson (34:05)

You know, it's such a great question. I do think that, and I've heard a lot of people say so. I know a lot of people who share my view, of course, because they text me all the time and they're like, mike Lee's been bought off by Google. I don't think that's right.

Charlie Kirk (34:15)

I don't think that's right.

Tucker Carlson (34:16)

I think Mike Lee is an honest

Charlie Kirk (34:17)

guy, actually, and I know Mike, and I don't agree with him on this issue.

Tucker Carlson (34:20)

He's very smart and he's extremely principled, and I hope he hears me say that because I mean it. He's really smart. Like he'd be a good Supreme Court justice, I think. But he is a libertarian on this question. And in his view, the most dangerous thing you can do is interfere in the workings of a market. Now, I would argue this isn't really a market in the sense that market capitalism was explained to me as a child, or Hayek wrote about it. This isn't a free market. It's. It's a. It's a corporate controlled market and they

Charlie Kirk (34:49)

don't believe in markets anyway.

Tucker Carlson (34:50)

It's a monopoly. It's antithetical to markets. It's the opposite of a market. It's shutting down a market for the benefit of one company.

Charlie Kirk (34:56)

You think Sergey Brin is reading FA Hayek, like in pursuit of markets at night? You think these guys are like capitalists?

Tucker Carlson (35:02)

They don't have a market, they have a monopoly. Market capitalists hate monopolies because they make market capitalism impossible. Right. Of course. I think with respect to Mike Lee, who I do think should answer for the crimes he's committed. But I do think that he did that because he sincerely believes the greatest. I mean, I just think he's got a philosophical difference.

Charlie Kirk (35:23)

Yeah. And I think, though, that if I were to explain it for him, which I wouldn't agree with this. I think he would say it's my ideology.

Tucker Carlson (35:30)

Yes, I agree.

Charlie Kirk (35:31)

And I think it's really dangerous too,

Tucker Carlson (35:32)

though it's both admirable because I don't think he's sleazy. I don't think he's like getting paid under the table or whatever. And a couple of his staff went to work at Google and all these people were telling me, oh, it's an interview. It's like, I know Mike Lee.

Charlie Kirk (35:43)

I don't think that doesn't strike me.

Tucker Carlson (35:45)

I agree. No, I think he's got a sincere ideological difference. And I just sincerely disagree. And that's kind of how.

Charlie Kirk (35:52)

But I think that if you allow ideology to be the only kind of compass of which you navigate public policy, then we're no different than leftists, then,

Tucker Carlson (36:04)

well, try to raise your kids like that. I mean, life is impossible to predict. It's impossible to fully understand. My father always say, when I was little, I grew up with my dad and my, my brother, he would always say, he's a very wise man. He said, the root of all wisdom is knowing what you are. Meditate on that. Meditate on your shortcomings, your failings, your inability to perceive what's going to happen next, your lack of wisdom. The more cognizant of that you are, the wiser you will be always factoring the unknown into all of your decisions, the rule of unintended consequences. I mean, this is what every parent, I hope would tell a kid. Ideology doesn't allow room for that because it has the answers already. So in real life, you know, you get leukemia and die and you don't kind of expect to, and you forgot to buy insurance or, you know, one of your kids gets addicted to drugs and like, I don't know, what's the, what's the kind of roadmap for that? Well, there isn't one. You have to kind of take it on a case by case basis and hopefully you're informed by your deeper values, which should be deeper than ideology. Like love, compassion, and like, I love this child. Like, what's the best thing to do? I don't know. No book can tell me that.

Charlie Kirk (37:07)

You know well and precisely. Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously said towards the end of the Gulag Archipelago, all of this was thanks to ideology.

Tucker Carlson (37:16)

Yes.

Charlie Kirk (37:16)

And if you only allow ideology to steer you in a certain direction, then we know where that. I mean, we know the body.

Tucker Carlson (37:23)

I completely agree with that. I completely. And I believe principles are essential and I try to have them and I Try not to violate them. But I also think you should. You just need to approach, approach life with humility. You'll get it in the end anyway, you know, when you're suffocating on your own, you know what I mean? Like you're probably going to die terrified and alone and at that point, you know, all your arrogance will have drained away. But in the meantime, it's just so important to remember how much you don't know. It's important to be in awe of the world around you, which you did not create. And that's why I think nature is so essential. Nature is basically God giving the finger to ideology. You know, it's like you think you know how it works. I don't think you do because you didn't create the Sawtooth Mountains or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Like, this is so much bigger than you stare at the night sky. And ideology is basically a lie that tells you it's the theory of everything you come up with when you're getting high. Freshman year in college, you missed all that? I did, but most people are like, yeah, we figured it out. We got the whole idea. Like only children believe that adults come to understand. Like I don't really know. And when someone tells me I don't really know, but I want to do the right thing, that's the guy I trust.

Charlie Kirk (38:37)

Yes. And Trump was so unbelievably successful because he was inherently an anti ideological candidate.

Tucker Carlson (38:44)

Oh gosh, yes. I was slow to get that cuz I was very ideological. I still am, I always have been.

Charlie Kirk (38:49)

No, I was too. Oh totally. I grew up in the conservative movement that in some ways you were kind of creating and part of.

Tucker Carlson (38:56)

Well, so did I. I grew up in it too. I grew up. My dad worked for the government during the Cold War.

Charlie Kirk (39:00)

I mean that was all ideology.

Tucker Carlson (39:02)

Totally. I mean I was a Russian studies major. I mean to extent I studied, but I was really super interested. I read the Gulag Archipelago and I did it because I had an ideology and I wanted to understand the other, its competing ideology. And I am by my nature ideological and in my head and all this stuff. So it was a huge change for me and I'm just so grateful for it. You should measure. This is a biblical principle. Measure ideas and intentions by their results, by their fruit. Like that's the whole thing. Does it work or not? I don't know. Are your kids happy? And if they're not, like maybe it didn't work well.

Charlie Kirk (39:39)

And that's one of the main issues is that you have an entire political party that is hiding behind ideology, Republicans. And there are some things that aren't going well. And they say, but no, but the principle free trade works. Don't you understand? It's so amazing. And that's one of the problems that we have with our country is totally right.

Tucker Carlson (39:56)

It's totally right. People are interchangeable widgets. And it doesn't matter whether the person is male or female or intersex or, you know, one of the other 72 gender categories. They're all the same. And that is such a violation of what is true, fundamentally a truth that we didn't create and can't change, that it will never work. And so one of the. The things that reassures me as I look at a society that's gone completely off the rails is that it can't endure because nothing that's this untrue can persist. Like, ultimately it will collapse. And I don't root for the collapse of anything or any society. I'm a preserver, not a destroyer, I hope. But I just. It makes me feel better when I. When Facebook tells me there's 72 gender categories, I'm like, it doesn't bother me that much because it's like there actually aren't there too. And ultimately nature is going to win because you can't beat nature. You just can't, period. Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to get hurt along the way to finding that out.

Charlie Kirk (40:56)

It is a. It is doctrinaire kind of social reconstructionism to try to redefine nature, but it doesn't work.

Tucker Carlson (41:02)

I mean, the Soviets tried it, Robespierre tried it. I mean, every revolution.

Charlie Kirk (41:06)

You know how smart the people in Menlo Parko are, right? Like, they really. They think they've gotten it figured out, but they're not.

Tucker Carlson (41:12)

Because, I mean, I think they're also better than I am in like an

Charlie Kirk (41:16)

abstract way, but facetiously, of course.

Tucker Carlson (41:17)

But like this, every revolution is the same, you know. Well, whatever. Don't even get me going. But the point is that fighting against natural imperatives, things that are true, whether you want them to be true or not. And there are a lot of things that are true that I wish were not true. I mean, I love drinking. I wish I could drink. I can't. So I don't. I do think there's something inherent about that. People who can't drink or generally, it's a genetic thing. I think it is in my case. I wish I could change that, but I can't. And that's just that's just I wish, do you know what I mean? I wasn't left handed or not dyslexic or a lot of things about myself. I was born with that. I can't change. And like, okay, but I don't spend any time worrying about it because you just roll with it. You have to accept reality as it is. You can't change the weather. There's something very deep going on with the climate stuff, which I find hilarious, but also threatening.

Charlie Kirk (42:07)

Like earth worship.

Tucker Carlson (42:08)

Yeah, no, but I, I'm more of an earth worship. Like I actually love nature. I spend, I try to, I live, I mean, I'm outside all day long. That's, I've organized my life to be outside. Okay. That's how strongly I feel about nature. I love trees. You know, I have all these weird tics about nature. They're the opposite. They think they're in charge of nature. So actually we have climate cycles that not only are they well known, they formed the Earth. I live in a place in Maine on a glacial lake. A glacier is a chunk of ice formed by climate change that cut a trench through the mountains, in fact created the mountains in a lot of cases, into which water flowed when it melted. And now that's the lake I live on. So that's climate change. There's a physical, there's physical evidence of its existence going back to the cooling of the earth. It's clearly happening again now. But we imagine A, where responsible for it and B, we can control it. You really have to be some sort of like crazed narcissist to believe that it's like, yeah, climate always changes. Like, what do you think we had

Charlie Kirk (43:10)

an ice age, buddy, that's such a good point.

Tucker Carlson (43:12)

It's such a good point. But these people who really do think the galaxy, you know, centers on them, that they're the sun in our solar system, like they're like, oh no, we did this.

Charlie Kirk (43:22)

Yes.

Tucker Carlson (43:23)

Really? It's just, it tells you so much. Like in the end, it's about narcissism, it's about, I'm the center of the universe, there is no God. I am God. And anything that suggests I'm not must be squelched immediately.

Charlie Kirk (43:36)

So I kind of want to end on that note. And this is something you've said before in your speeches that I've heard you say, which is the true framing of what we're going through in our countries. A theological debate, a worship of God or worship of man, who's actually in charge.

Tucker Carlson (43:48)

Yeah.

Charlie Kirk (43:48)

And can you talk about your Faith how important it is to you. And because what we have in our country more than anything else is people that have been told almost evangelistically, to believe in secular, nihilistic, hedonistic self indulgence. And by the time they get 19 or 20, they are the most miserable generation in American history.

Tucker Carlson (44:07)

Yeah.

Charlie Kirk (44:07)

Can you talk about your. Your own personal faith and also what

Tucker Carlson (44:11)

the implications are to me that I am an episcopalian? Actually, after 51 years, I switched and became a Methodist two months ago. So I'm not sure how different it is, but at least not the Episcopal Church, which I've really come to despise, the church of my ancestors, but I hate it anyway. So I am the last person you want to have a theological discussion with. I'm not deeply grounded in theology. I've read the New Testament and the Old Testament in their entirety, but I'm not a theologian at all. And in fact, the older I get, the less interested in theology I am and the more interested I am in the basics. And the basics to me are these ones. You're not in control. You can't. You didn't control when you're born, you're not going to control when you die. You can't extend your life a single day. That was true when Jesus said it. It's true now. So recognizing the limits of your own control is the essence of everything. Okay? That's the. It is the essence of wisdom. That's the first thing. The second thing is if you don't recognize that and you imagine that you're in charge of everything, you will be humiliated, proved wrong, and super unhappy in the meantime. And the third thing is the only unchanging fact of life is its end is death. And I just think it's amazing. We've constructed this entire society, you know, that considers everything fair inquiry or did until recently. And that's the one topic nobody ever talks about. Everybody on earth will die. No one acknowledges that. And increasingly, you're not even really allowed to talk about what might happen after. Now, I don't have a super clear sight picture of what happens after. I believe in God. I think there. I'm positive there is an afterlife. Its nature is murky to me, but I believe that it's clearly true. But I just, I can't believe that you could have a society, the west more broadly, that's at its core secular, which is another way of saying, ignores the key fact of life, which is death. Like, and then thinking, well, how can that work? How can you have a study like that? Well, we've never had one. That's the truth. There's never been a secular society at scale in human history till after the Second World War. And that's only been 80 years. You never had it. And maybe the reason you've never had it is because it absolutely doesn't work. And this is not a pitch for the Episcopal Church or the Methodist Church or even Christianity. It's an acknowledgement that you need to have meaning. And meaning is not vacation. And it's not, do you know what I mean, like truffle pasta. Much as I love it, meaning isn't the answer to the most basic question. What happens when you die? That's it. It's right there. That's the question. And if you don't even bring that question up, you can't persist. People will go insane and they'll become incredibly neurotic. And that's what I noticed, how neurotic everybody is. People are totally free. Last thing I'll say, I was a fearful flyer from. I grew up in California, went to boarding school on the east coast, so I had to fly all the time across the country. And I started to get freaked out by flying. I was on a couple of bad flights, whatever that was 1983, almost 20 years, I was really afraid of flying. I used to get super loaded on planes, just really drunk on planes. And I would always smoke back when you could smoke on planes, even as a child. And then 2001, 9, 11 happens. I go over, I'm in the news business. I go over to the Middle East, I'm in a commercial air, air crash. The plane I was in crashed and it crashed in a kind of slow motion way where we knew it was crashing for like, I don't know, 20 minutes. So it was like the most terrifying possible experience of your flyer could have. It was like ridiculous. Pakistan International Airways. And anyway, whatever, I survived, obviously. But that changed my life. I came home, I quit drinking, I had a fourth child. My life just totally changed because of that one event. But the main thing that happened in addition to those two things was I stopped being afraid to fly. And the reason I stopped being afraid to fly was I had been forced to face for 20 minutes, like the thought, really the certainty I was going to die. Like I thought we were going to die. Everyone the plane thought we're going to die. It was like, you can imagine. And I didn't die. And then I realized what I was afraid about on the plane was dying. It wasn't the turbulence or whatever, being trapped in this aluminum tube, it was the idea of dying. And once that was clarified for me and I focused on it directly, what I'm really afraid of is dying. And all neurosis comes from that fear. Of course that's. That's what it is, the fear of dying. Once I focused on that directly, it went away. And I would just get on planes and be like, am I ready to die? I don't want to die. I've got all these kids and I really like my life and all this stuff. But like, at some point I will. And once I address that directly in my head every time I get in a fight, am I ready to go? And even now, like text all four kids, text my wife, can't text the dogs, but I would. And it just goes away. I'm like, I'm ready. I am, I'm ready to die. So in a small, very small bore way, that's what's going on with society at large. If you have hundreds of millions of people who've never addressed directly the core fact of their life, which is imminent and fast approaching death, of course they're completely freaked out and superstitious and neurotic and weird and irrational and just like hopped up, right?

Charlie Kirk (49:24)

And it's the opposite. They tell people, young people at age 15, there is no God, don't even try to pursue him. There's no beauty, no truth. All there is is a power struggle that's going to create a pretty screwed up generation very quickly for sure.

Tucker Carlson (49:37)

But it's also pretending that their core fear isn't real or displacing that with like fake fears. No, all of your fears come from, in the end, the certain knowledge that all of us is born with, that we're going to die, that there's a time limit on this, on this adventure. So just address that directly. You're going to die. I will say I have all these children and one of them was like born feeling that way. It's just so interesting. When she turned like five, she said to me, I'm so sad I turned five. I was like, why are you sad? You're five. Like, who doesn't want to be five? That's like, that's the best. Are you kidding? No mortgage, get to play all day, endless fig newtons. Like, that's just a good thing. 5. And she goes, because I don't want it to end. And I was like, want what? Freaky, deep, spiritual child. And she goes, my life every birthday means I'm closer to the end. And I'm like, whoa, man, I don't know whose kid this is. But. But that child, in a way, has always been the calmest. Because she, like, acknowledges that that's the fear. Probably shouldn't be saying this out loud, but I just have been thinking about it.

Charlie Kirk (50:40)

We can.

Tucker Carlson (50:41)

No, no, I don't care.

Charlie Kirk (50:42)

I don't care.

Tucker Carlson (50:43)

I hope she's not watching.

Charlie Kirk (50:44)

But that. That. That is really the true root of everything we're going through in this country.

Tucker Carlson (50:48)

It's the root of all fear. I mean, what the basic things are, the only things that matter. Are you in an intimate relationship with another person? Do you have love in your life? Is there some measure of stability? Have you reckoned with the unchangeable facts of life and the most basic is death? Have you reckoned with that at all? Or are you anesthetized to the point where you don't think of it? Are you distracted by the digital garbage to the point it never enters your mind? I mean, that's the state for most people. It's certainly been the case for me for a lot of my life. I'm not judging or anything. I'm just saying it doesn't work because at some level, you know, it's true. It's like a horror movie. You know, he's waiting in the closet for you. Just know. So you don't want to go back into the house, but you have to. And that makes you super neurotic. Like, this is Freud in a sentence. You're going to die. You're upset about it. Proceed from there. I swear I should be a therapist, because all the conversations would be like, what do you think happens when you die? What? People are so fun. In the town that I grew up in, which is an affluent beach town, you could do anything. You could say anything. This was like the liberal 70s. If you wanted to become, like, a transgender nun or marry one or, you know, I mean, we had some weird stuff going on in my town. It was totally cool. Nobody judge. But if you were gonna die, well, that's disgusting, and that's offensive, and we don't talk about that here. You just. No one died. You just got in your 450 SLC and drove to Palm Springs, and, like, no one saw you again, and no one ever talked about it. Death was, like, the one taboo. And I remember even noticing as a kid, like, nobody ever dies in La Jolla, and. And I do think again, over time, that makes you unwise and unhappy.

Charlie Kirk (52:20)

And you tried to do things while you live that would not be good. For future generations or rooted in morality?

Tucker Carlson (52:26)

Well, sure. I mean, that's a whole separate conversation. What if you have a place run by people who don't have their own children? Like, you get a different time horizon. You know, there are a lot of things that I do or wouldn't do that I would change very much if I didn't have kids. I mean, honestly, I'm just being. I'm just being honest. I've got all these kids. Like, they're going to long outlive me, I hope. And so that that adds a completely different perspective. And I hope that you are fruitful and multiply and you'll see. But it's like, it's crazy. It just changes your perspective, like, completely. Like, completely. I mean, I'm still a selfish jerk, but, I mean, oh, my gosh, before I had children, it was, like, insane.

Charlie Kirk (53:02)

Well, Tucker, you got to go address all of our thousands of students. Last piece of advice for young people. Get married.

Tucker Carlson (53:09)

Get married and have a ton of kids. I mean, get married when you're too young. Have more kids than you can afford. Take a job you're not qualified for. Live boldly. Stop getting high. Stop doing anything that blurs your vision or makes time go faster. You're going to die before you know it. Don't waste a second. That's the sin is living thoughtlessly and wasting time. It's the one thing you can't get back. I've wasted a lot of money in my life. Oh, my gosh. I don't care. I don't regret any of it. Every room service meal was worth it. It was fine. But any time that I wasted is really bitter for me because it's finite. And so live as fully as you can. And you can't control all this stuff that's going on. You can't control what Google does. And honestly, they're going to win. Like, the powers that be will win, at least in the short term. Ultimately, they'll all blow up, but, like, we're powerless and hated. I think this myself. Are they going to crush me? Oh, yeah. Okay. But in the meantime, you know, I want to experience my life as fully as I possibly can. And I think that starts with having, like, a ton of kids. Like, way more than, like, Mormon levels of kids.

Charlie Kirk (54:16)

I mean, that Tucker Carlson wisdom, everybody.

Tucker Carlson (54:20)

Tucker, thank you.

Charlie Kirk (54:21)

Don't give up.

Tucker Carlson (54:21)

Barn burner.

Charlie Kirk (54:22)

Thanks so much. Thanks.

Tucker Carlson (54:24)

Thank you.

Charlie Kirk (54:28)

Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your Questions as always, freedomarliekirk.com if you guys want to get in the running to win a signed copy of the MAGA Doctrine, type in Charlie Kirk show to your podcast provider, hit subscribe, screenshot it and email it to us directly. Freedomarliekirk.com and thank you for supporting us@charliekirk.com support. More big episodes coming soon. Thanks so much.