Rod Blagojevich: Kamala’s Corruption, & the Real Cause of the Democrat Party’s Spiral Into Insanity

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tucker Carlson Show - "Rod Blagojevich: Kamala’s Corruption, & the Real Cause of the Democrat Party’s Spiral Into Insanity"

In this compelling episode of The Tucker Carlson Show, host Tucker Carlson interviews former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich delves into his tumultuous political career, extensive prison experience, and his critical views on the current state of the Democratic Party. The conversation touches on themes of political corruption, media manipulation, and the evolving dynamics within American politics.

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1. Rod Blagojevich’s Prison Experience

Surviving Incarceration: Blagojevich begins by recounting his time in prison, highlighting the harsh conditions and the diverse, often dangerous inmate population he encountered.

• Quote: “For my first three years, I lived in a six foot by eight foot prison cell, a far cry from the 50,000 square foot Governor's mansion.” ([00:20])

Mental Resilience: Carlson praises Blagojevich's mental and emotional toughness, noting his ability to emerge from prison stronger and more focused.

• Quote: “What's so obvious is that you survived it mentally, not just intact, but stronger.” ([00:37])

Personal Growth: Blagojevich shares how his faith and readings, including Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and the Bible, played a pivotal role in maintaining his resilience.

• Quote: “Faith, hope, and love is what got me home.” ([02:21])

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2. Critique of the Democratic Party’s Transformation

Shift to Radicalization: Upon his release, Blagojevich observes a significant shift in the Democratic Party towards what he terms "wokeness" and "cancel culture," leading to poor governance and increased societal intolerance.

• Quote: “I noticed the intolerance of the far left of the Democrat party.” ([06:08])

Decline of Traditional Values: Blagojevich laments the erosion of traditional Democratic values such as faith, family, and patriotism, arguing that the party has abandoned its foundational principles.

• Quote: “Love of country or faith? Family love of country. And this Democrat Party is none of those three.” ([09:12])

Failure in Governance: He criticizes the current Democratic leadership for mishandling critical issues like education and public safety, particularly in Chicago.

• Quote: “They talk the big game about being the side of the black people, but they won't even give a black mother a choice or a chance to maybe try another school.” ([08:28])

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3. The Role of Barack Obama in Blagojevich’s Downfall

Political Dealings: Blagojevich discusses his relationship with Barack Obama, suggesting that Obama played a role in his political troubles by leveraging their connections for personal gain.

• Quote: “He started the whole thing. It was about fundraising, and Tony was part of that.” ([21:39])

Appointment Controversies: He recounts an incident where he assisted Michelle Obama in securing a high-paying job at the University of Chicago Hospitals, implying quid pro quo involved in political appointments.

• Quote: “Michelle Obama... ended up working there. Almost certain $300,000 a year.” ([24:25])

Media Manipulation: Blagojevich accuses David Axelrod and other Obama allies of manipulating the media to target him more aggressively than Obama.

• Quote: “They were influencing the media to pretty much lay Tony me up more than Obama.” ([27:23])

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4. Views on Media and Legal System Corruption

Media Bias: He strongly criticizes mainstream media for prioritizing sensationalism over truth, perpetuating a propaganda spiral that damages public discourse.

• Quote: “The media just conveniently ignored Gresko's relationship to Obama. They give it very little coverage, and it was all about me and Tony.” ([28:06])

Legal Manipulation: Blagojevich condemns the legal system, particularly U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, for abusing power and using fabricated laws to convict him unfairly.

• Quote: “He destroyed Arthur Anderson with fake law. They just make it up.” ([14:51])

Government Overreach: He likens current federal investigations to a "KGB, Soviet-style police state," asserting that prosecutors wield unchecked power to manipulate elections and suppress political dissent.

• Quote: “Politicians, they're trying to literally destroy him and his family and all that wealth that he created.” ([91:59])

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5. Perspectives on Donald Trump and Future Elections

Support for Trump: Blagojevich expresses optimism about Donald Trump's presidency, viewing Trump as a figure who stands up against political corruption and is more aligned with traditional American values.

• Quote: “Trump would be the instrument... He was so good to me on that show.” ([45:44])

Election Integrity Concerns: He voices skepticism about the fairness of elections, citing issues like electronic voting machines and absentee ballot harvesting as potential avenues for fraud.

• Quote: “They’re more interested in the storyline than the truth.” ([55:36])

Prediction of Political Realignment: Blagojevich predicts a significant realignment in American politics, with Trump successfully galvanizing the working-class voters and marginalized communities against the radical left.

• Quote: “We’re going through a historic political realignment.” ([93:56])

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6. Foreign Policy and Its Implications

Criticism of NATO Interventions: Blagojevich criticizes U.S. foreign interventions, particularly the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, arguing it resulted in unnecessary loss of life and was driven by political motives rather than genuine humanitarian concerns.

• Quote: “They decided to bomb Serbia... it was extortion at the highest level.” ([76:27])

Impact on Personal Life: He shares a personal anecdote about attempting to negotiate the release of U.S. soldiers, highlighting the complexities and challenges of U.S. foreign policy actions.

• Quote: “I suggested that the bombing of Serbia should stop.” ([86:03])

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7. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Blagojevich wraps up the discussion by reiterating his belief in the necessity of electing leaders who prioritize American freedoms and resist governmental overreach. He credits Tucker Carlson and the show for providing a platform to voice these concerns and stresses the importance of maintaining a free press that challenges power structures rather than serving as their mouthpiece.

• Quote: “They’re corporate media. They’ve been so corrupted and so co-opted.” ([68:19])

• Quote: “That’s why the work that you do, Tucker... you're fighting for freedom.” ([54:16])

Blagojevich emphasizes the peril he perceives in losing democratic freedoms, drawing parallels to authoritarian regimes and warning of a potential "new dark age" if current trends continue unchecked.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

1. On Prison Conditions:

   • Blagojevich: “For my first three years, I lived in a six foot by eight foot prison cell, a far cry from the 50,000 square foot Governor's mansion.” ([00:20])

2. On Democratic Party’s Radicalization:

   • Blagojevich: “I noticed the intolerance of the far left of the Democrat party.” ([06:08])

3. On Media Bias:

   • Blagojevich: “The media just conveniently ignored Gresko's relationship to Obama. They give it very little coverage, and it was all about me and Tony.” ([28:06])

4. On Legal System Corruption:

   • Blagojevich: “He destroyed Arthur Anderson with fake law. They just make it up.” ([14:51])

5. On Trump’s Influence:

   • Blagojevich: “Trump would be the instrument... He was so good to me on that show.” ([45:44])

6. On NATO Interventions:

   • Blagojevich: “They decided to bomb Serbia... it was extortion at the highest level.” ([76:27])

7. Final Warning:

   • Blagojevich: “Our country is on the crossroads, on the threshold.” ([49:14])

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Key Takeaways

• Political Corruption: Blagojevich attributes his downfall to corrupt practices within the Democratic Party, facilitated by media manipulation and legal overreach.

• Media’s Role: He criticizes mainstream media for prioritizing sensational stories over factual reporting, thereby fueling political propaganda.

• Support for Traditional Values: Emphasizes the loss of traditional Democratic values like faith, family, and patriotism, advocating for a political realignment towards these principles.

• Optimism for Trump: Views Donald Trump as a potential savior against political corruption and media bias, predicting his success in upcoming elections if fairness is maintained.

• Warning Against Authoritarianism: Warns of the erosion of democratic freedoms, drawing parallels to authoritarian regimes and stressing the importance of resisting governmental overreach.

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This episode offers a deep dive into Rod Blagojevich’s perspectives on American politics, providing listeners with a critical view of the Democratic Party’s transformation and the broader implications for the nation’s political landscape.

Transcript

[Rod Blagojevich]

I'll tell you, this is a long way from being inmate number 408-92424.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, you're. I must say, your prison story. I've heard a lot of prison stories. One of the most incredible I've ever heard.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, I'm writing a book about it.

[Tucker Carlson]

You should.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And it's an unusual story. It's a story that starts with one. President Obama. He started the whole thing because he sent someone to me to make a political deal for the senator. Ends with Trump. Okay. And in the.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And most of it's about a governed prison with Crips and Bloods, gangster disciples, Sinaloa cartel drug dealers who look up to El Chapo like my daughters look up to Taylor Swift. Murderers were in there. For my first three years, I lived in a six foot by eight foot prison cell, a far cry from the 50,000 square foot Governor's mansion.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, it's incredible, but what's incredible to me was the fact that you survived it mentally, not just intact, but stronger. And I just find that, I mean, if you had killed 10 people, it's not even about. I mean, I think you got screwed, as you know.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Thank you.

[Tucker Carlson]

But even if you hadn't gotten screwed, I would still be in awe of your toughness. Emotional, spiritual toughness. To come out positive, focused, not bitter. I mean, that's remarkable to me.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Thank you. Thanks for saying that.

[Tucker Carlson]

No, I mean it. What's so obvious if I had. How long were you away?

[Rod Blagojevich]

2,896 days. One month short of eight years. Not that I was counting. I'm sorry to laugh.

[Unknown]

For your personal sentence.

[Tucker Carlson]

No, but it's just, it's remarkable.

[Unknown]

Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show. We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else. And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers. We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to.

[Tucker Carlson]

Know and do it honestly.

[Unknown]

Check out all of our [e-mail] here's the episode.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Three years in that six foot by eight foot prison cell, you know, in the higher prison where they were squeezing me, you know, with the gang bangers, murderers, bank robbers, pedophiles, transgender people who were half woman, half man, funded by you, the taxpayer.

[Tucker Carlson]

Mermaids.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And you can't call them a woman or they'll throw you in the shoe. Solitary confinement. They take away your good time. So I know what it's like to live in a society that's imposing, what you can even say, you know, having been there for that time. But no, you know what it was.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, that's such a smart point. I mean, they're basically trying to turn the country into an open air prison where they control your behavior, your language, your thought.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, well said. Faith, hope and love is what got me home. Faith, hope and love. You know, and you know, you get those moments when you're. You find yourself in deep despair and you feel like there's no chance. The system is so rigged you can't get justice. You can't even get mercy because you fought back. No one even said I took a penny. It was all politics. Requests for campaign contributions, no quid pro quo. We knew where the lines were. Tried me twice. And then you put your faith in the appellate court. And then they, you know, they can't uphold the so called sale of the Senate seat because if they allow that standard, government shuts down. Because that's all horse trading. And that's what they called it. And they were right. So they eventually reversed that. But I'm known for this. The other ones were three fundraising requests made by third parties, not even by me. And they knew not to make any promises or threats, and they criminalized it by using a standard that the Supreme Court said wasn't the law, and it was whitewashed by the appellate court to protect them. And you get those moments. But then you say to yourself, it ain't about you anymore. It's about your daughters. They were little girls when I left home. And your wife. You got to be strong for them. And as long as you have purpose in life, you can survive anything. And Viktor Frankl wrote that book, Man's Search for Meaning. Holocaust survivor. I mean, million times worse than anything we went through. But his point was, the last of the human freedoms is our freedom to choose our own attitude in any given set of circumstances. It was very helpful. And I gotta tell you, and this is not baloney. Am I on right now? Yeah, yeah. The Bible. I mean, I was so alone in the beginning, and I reached for that Bible in a way I never did before. I wasn't gonna bother with Genesis or Leviticus or Deuteronomy, get caught up in who's begetting who, because that would always slow me down when I try to read it in the real world. I went right to the right, right to the Psalms and got inspiration. And then I moved on and went to Isaiah and Jeremiah. Then I went to the Gospels, Paul, of course, and, well, all of them.

[Tucker Carlson]

Speaking in prison terms.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Exactly.

[Tucker Carlson]

In Rome, Paul did a lot of time.

[Rod Blagojevich]

He sure did. And it just gave me strength and drew me closer to God. I'm not running for anything, so I'm not giving any BS to your listeners. It was just real. And in some respects, I'm not saying it was good, but I'd have moments over the years where I would actually feel, you know, some sort of real unique connection to God. And it was somewhat like what Solzhenitsyn had written when he was in Siberia and he had talked about. He had said something like, thank you, prison, for what you did for me, because. But for what you did, I would not feel as close to God as I do now.

[Tucker Carlson]

Boy, that's just such a remarkable perspective, Such a non American perspective. Thank you for prisoners.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, that's what he said. Yeah, that's what he wrote. I'm not quite going that far, no.

[Tucker Carlson]

But I think what you're saying is that suffering turned you into a different man, a better man.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, I think, yes. And I think a greater appreciation for the things that really matter most in life, you know, like the people in your life that you love and the appreciation for the simple things that maybe you were, you know, a little bit less aware of because you were so busy in the race of life to get ahead. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

No iPhone. Must have been nice.

[Rod Blagojevich]

There was no iPhone in the world at that time. When I left home, when I got home eight years later, what is this thing? Right? Wow. World changes. And that's another thing. It's humbling. Is it okay if I keep talking like this?

[Tucker Carlson]

I hope you will.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. It's like, you ain't so good. You ain't so great, man. It ain't like the world waits for you. It just keeps spinning around, man. Huh? That is the truth.

[Tucker Carlson]

In the end, all graves go unvisited that you see on everybody's refrigerator. Wow. Your party changed very much. Gone to how? What did you notice when you got back?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, I noticed this whole new thing called wokeness and cancel culture, which I wasn't aware of before I left. I noticed the intolerance of the far left of the Democrat party. I noticed that my daughters, my little girls grew up and became vegans. Not that they're, you know, far left, but that was weird.

[Tucker Carlson]

I'm sorry. I think that's it. There's nothing, you know, I'm not against, you know, whatever.

[Unknown]

Eat whatever you want or whatever you.

[Tucker Carlson]

You know, don't eat what you don't want to eat. On the other hand, that's. That's like the fear of every father that your Girls are going to become vegans because it feels like it represents something else.

[Rod Blagojevich]

But it has nothing to do with diet. It's that they, you know, they feel like it's wrong to, you know, eat meat, to, you know, kill an animal. And it's a very sweet, kind thing on their point of view. Oh, it is.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I agree.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And then, you know, I came home to a, you know, working class neighborhood in Chicago. I mean, we lived in a nice little neighborhood, but where the local Democrat party began to turn socialist. And you know, the local city council people, we call them aldermen in Chicago, I think in 2019, my sister in law was the alderman in our ward. She had inherited that seat from her father, had been there for a long, long time.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And she got beat by a socialist, lost by 12 votes by a socialist. That was like shocking to me. And then some of the other long standing members of the city council were defeated by socialists. And so suddenly that was this new realization that the Democrat party at the grassroots level was radicalized.

[Tucker Carlson]

Were they good at governing, the socialists?

[Rod Blagojevich]

No, they're terrible at governing. And now we're going to get a major property tax increase in Chicago. The mayor, Brandon Johnson, just announced that. And as I read that this morning, I was thinking, driving here, geez, I wonder if we're gonna, we have any risk of getting carjacked up here in Bethel, Maine. Right. Because in Chicago you gotta think about those things.

[Unknown]

It's just funny. I mean it's, you know, people have.

[Tucker Carlson]

All these ideologies and I'm a this or I'm a that, I believe, you know, here's my, my worldview. But I don't know, on some level it's kind of about do you make the town, the state, the country better to live in or not? And you're saying that the people who took over Chicago did not improve life?

[Rod Blagojevich]

No, they've made it more unsafe. They're unwilling to have any kind of open minded discussion about the fact that the schools have been failing for generations and most of the kids that are suffering are the black kids.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, for sure.

[Rod Blagojevich]

They talk the big game about being the side of the black people, but they won't even give a black mother a choice or a chance to maybe try another school because the public schools are so locked in to what the teachers unions want. And I'm not here to say that I wasn't exactly part of that Democrat party. And the unions and the teachers unions.

[Unknown]

You were part of it.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's why it's so interesting. Well, yeah. You're a part of. Product of.

[Unknown]

You're the governor of the state.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right. And you came out of that world. I did so well, that's why it's worth asking you about this, because you've seen, you've seen the whole scope of it.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's right.

[Tucker Carlson]

From the daily years to present.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's right. And you know, the Democrat Party that I was in, the party of the second Mayor Daley. The party, the first Mayor Daley. Practical, you know, practical governance. Just make people's lives better.

[Tucker Carlson]

The best snow plowing in the United States.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's it.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's when it snowed. Chicago got plowed before the suburbs. It was. I saw it. It was amazing.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yes, that's right. And not too stuck on ideology, but there were certain values that were fundamental to traditional Democrats. What were they? Love of country or faith? Family love of country. And this Democrat Party is none of those three. And there is an assault on faith in America by these Democrats, by the more radical Democrats. And it's something that has grown over the last couple of decades. Something I saw when I was a Democratic member of Congress. I hope I don't turn your listeners off, but I supported Pelosi to be the Democrat leader when I was there. I saw even the beginnings of that when they were trying to take God out of the, you know, the, the in God we trust her.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, she was a Catholic girl from Baltimore. Son of the mayor. Yeah, she was very. I mean, she was the son of Baltimore's Mayor Daly. Like an old school machine Democrat.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Right, that's right. But. But she changed because she's a practical politician. And so she's gravitated towards that energy in the Democrat Party today, which is that far le. Far left socialist Democrat Party that wants to. And you say this, and I'll repeat what you say, and that is to force us and make us to try to believe things we know they're just not true.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Right. And that's this dictatorial Democrat Party.

[Tucker Carlson]

But you saw hostility to Christianity when you were there.

[Rod Blagojevich]

I did.

[Tucker Carlson]

Growing.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. In the late 90s, I did. You know, there'd be once in a while there'd be congressional resolutions to take God out of the chamber, the House chamber. And then there was the judge in Alabama, Roy Moore. I'm proud to say that back in the late 90s, as a Democrat congressman from the city of Chicago, I supported that judge. Why can't he put the Ten Commandments up there in his courthouse? What's wrong with the Ten Commandments? That's the foundation of our laws. It's the foundation of our values. So I suppose that's literally true.

[Tucker Carlson]

It is the foundation of.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Sure is. Yeah. Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So why were people so hysterical about Judge Roy Moore? I mean, they destroyed Judge Roy Moore.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. I know. As a person, I saw that from afar in the deep, dark valley. I watched all that because there's a. You know, there's an element in America, and it's found a home of the Democrat Party that's all about science and absolutely nothing about religion. I think that part of the coalition is the Democrat Party, and I've been supportive of LGBTQ issues, but I think they feel threatened by Judeo Christian values. And so they've become, in many respects, antagonistic to those traditional values. And these are some of the practical considerations that are part of why a lot of these Democrats have left the traditional Democrat, you know, working person's view of God and have become more apt to embrace science. And, you know, one of the. I'm not saying there's any advantages to being in prison for a long time.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

But when you got all that time and you gotta kill it, you either try to use it constructively or it'll kill you.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And it's a good place to catch up on your reading.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And I used to read a lot of the sermons from Martin Luther King, and one of his sermons was really powerful, and he talked about what science can do, the good things. But it's God that provides the conscience to guide science. And science creates the medicines that cure people, which is great. Also created the nuclear weapons that can destroy the world. What is it that's going to guide that? Are we going to trust in people? I know how people can be. I know how wicked they can be. The best and brightest can be corrupt because I know what they did to me and to my family. It was shocking to me that US Attorneys could be so dishonest and corrupt and that the judge would be in them and just go along with it. And so my faith's not in people.

[Tucker Carlson]

So you were shocked. I mean, obviously you're distressed it happened to you, but you were shocked that it happens.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yes, I thought they were the good. I was a Cook county prosecutor when I started out in a low level.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Daily. The second Mayor Daley at the time was the elected Cook County State's attorney, and he was my boss, so he's way up high. And I'm a traffic court. Right. Just starting out. There were 800 of us assistants. Big, you know, big office. I ended up in the misdemeanor branch courts. And then I went into private practice. So I never met him. When I worked for him, it was only until I became an elected official. And then in 10 short years, I became the governor. He was the mayor. He still thought I worked for him, by the way.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, but that's a fraught relationship always between Chicago mayor and Illinois governor anyway, isn't it?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, I think so, but I think that he's practical. And, you know, these Democrats, you know, have programs and stuff that they want to pay for, and, you know, bloated budgets are not a priority. And even the old school Democrats, that's not a priority. It's, you know, jobs and, you know, opportunities for people who've helped and that kind of thing. But the point I wanted to make about Daley was when I worked in that state's attorney's office, you know, I. I learned a lot about how, you know, prosecutors operated, and they were all right, mostly good. But I imagine that the federal U.S. attorneys who went to the better schools, you know, I could never have a chance to be one of them. Right. Grades. I was a gentleman C scholar in law school. That these people had to be really smart, really bright, and they had to be super honest compared to the local Democratic prosecutors.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Many of whom, you know, had some political backing to get their jobs. And I discovered they are, in my case anyway. And I don't want to speak generally about everybody, but they're so corrupt. You can't get a fair trial if they're.

[Tucker Carlson]

Look at Andrew Weissman, you know, at the very top was a truly evil man.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Evil.

[Tucker Carlson]

And, you know, Weisman, I'm sure, was smart, clever, anyway, and certainly, well credentialed and has almost unchecked power. I mean, it's crazy that that exists.

[Rod Blagojevich]

So he destroyed Arthur Anderson with fake law. That's what they did to me. Fake law. They just make it up. They just move lines to get the convictions. Supreme Court took the case. And Weissman's standard that used to destroy Arthur Anderson and cost all those people jobs, nine to nothing. The Supreme Court ruled he was wrong. That wasn't the law.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

So he destroyed the. And what does he get for that? He gets rewarded by being some big commentator on cnn. And people listen to this guy like he's, like, he's honest.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's disgusting.

[Rod Blagojevich]

It is disgusting.

[Tucker Carlson]

So what? Not to get sidetracked. What are the. What is the Daily Fam. I think Rich Daly's still alive, right?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yes, yes.

[Tucker Carlson]

What do they think of the modern Democratic Party. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, like, what do they think of that?

[Rod Blagojevich]

So Bill Daly.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Ran for mayor of Chicago while I was in prison.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And shockingly, got his ass kicked in the new Chicago. And that's when Lori Lightfoot was elected the new kind of mayor in Chicago. Right. She was a big failure and she got defeated soundly. But the fact that a Daly could lose in Chicago was another reminder that, boy, times have changed.

[Tucker Carlson]

Different population in Chicago, very different demographic.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Now, the city that used to be, you know, diverse racially, you know, very strong still, you know, black population still in the poor, bad, rough neighborhoods, a big Latino population, but it was a city of white working class, white ethnics.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah. Central Eastern European people.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's right. Large Polish population, Slavs. That's right. That element is gone now. You know, they two, three generations, they worked hard to build better lives for themselves. They're taking advantage, like our friend Philip over here, working hard to make the American dream. They've moved upward out of the city and into, you know, more affluent suburbs.

[Tucker Carlson]

But they were the basis of the city.

[Rod Blagojevich]

They sure were. And they've been replaced by these young, you know, young new generation, not very politically aware, you know, probably driven by the social issues more than anything else. You know, a woman's right to choose those kinds of issues. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

So they've been replaced by affluent, white, inherited money kids.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's right.

[Tucker Carlson]

And illegal aliens, generally speaking.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's exactly right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right. So that's. That's always the model. It's rich white women and illegal aliens working in tandem to destroy civilization. It is in cities across the country that is the model. The unhappiest people and the most, you know, the people with the least power who just can be used as cannon fodder for the program of the unhappiest people. So. But do you know what the dailies think of this? Like watching their city become a joke.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, look, yeah, I know that I know Rich Daly better than Bill Daly. I know him both. And then there's John Daley, the younger one and the father. I mean, this is not their Democratic Party.

[Tucker Carlson]

No.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And Mayor Daley, who's In his early 80s now, he hosts a Christmas party every year, and I get invited. I get to see him, and he's had a couple of strokes, and then he hosts a St. Patrick's Day party, as you can imagine. I think he's quietly going to vote for Trump.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I'm sure.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. And I. Bill Daly, maybe not, because he's Sort of, you know, he was more like Bill Daly. Didn't win elected office. He was more an appointed guy, you know.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, he worked for Bill Clinton. That's still.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's right. And, well, I don't want to demean him, but he doesn't have the same kind of testicular virility. You got to have to be in the arena and be good at it. You know what I'm saying?

[Tucker Carlson]

Run Chicago is not an easy thing, as the current mayor is proving.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, that's right.

[Tucker Carlson]

No.

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[Tucker Carlson]

So what role did Obama play? What did. I mean, I think most people thought Obama was like a sign that America was getting healthier, healing from past trauma and all, that he was a sign of hope. And then it just got super evil. But when did you realize that Obama was not what he seemed to be? And what role did he play in the disaster in your life?

[Rod Blagojevich]

He started the whole thing. You know, my story that the book that I'm writing is a story that started with him on election night in 2008. It was magical. You know, first black person, half black, and mom from Kansas, dad from Kenya, elected president. I've known him since 1995. We both came up together in politics, had good relationships. I was introduced to him by a guy by the name of Tony Resco. I think that name is familiar to you, who's not nearly the guy who's been portrayed. I mean, businessman, very practical, extremely generous to Obama and good to Obama, helpful to both of us, raising money and things like that. And when I was elected governor, he would come to me with requests from Obama, and a lot of it were appointments to high positions in state government. I was two years ahead of Obama in terms of going to the next level because I was the first Democrat governor elected in Illinois in 2002. And with this long and hard to pronounce last name, which was kind of cutting edge at the time because for the most part, Illinois was electing guys with Anglo names or Irish names. You know, we had Thompson, we had Edgar, and we had Ryan before me.

[Tucker Carlson]

All those guys went to prison.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, Ryan did. Yeah. Thompson put Governor Kerner in prison. That's another story. But. And then I won.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's like being a first lieutenant in Vietnam. The odds are bad, right?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Exactly right. The death rate. But I think in some respects I'm, you know, I should apologize to the American people because I might have had something to do with Obama's success, because I think he saw that I, if I won And I could win downstate in the rural areas and, you know, deep southern Illinois, which is the American South. A guy like me from Chicago, he could do it. And with a name, you can't say his name, he could do it. And two years later, he did. And he got the opportunity to give that speech in Boston, which was his William Jennings Bryant moment, right? Oh, yeah, he electrified the crowd with that speech.

[Tucker Carlson]

I was there.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, so was I. I turned to Bobby Rush, the congressman, former Black Panther. I said, bobby, just think about that. As soon as you get down with that speech, you're the only guy who's ever beaten that guy in an election because Obama challenged him in 1988. But no, I thought Obama was all right, you know, kind of cold and impersonal, but okay. And I was happy to be helpful, but he's one of the more selfish people in politics on a one. On one level. And he's not pure like the driven snow in the sense of his ethics for morality. And, you know, Tony Resko is the guy who bought this lot next to Obama's home. And one of the things I write about in my book is that when I was governor first and then Barack won in 2004, I was asked to make a phone call on behalf of Michelle Obama, because as soon as he won the Senate race, she wanted a job either at Northwestern University or the University of Chicago Hospitals for two to three hundred thousand dollars a year. The wife of the new senator. And I was asked, would you call?

[Tucker Carlson]

And was she specific about how much she wanted? Yeah, she's specific about salary.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. And I think to the Northwestern. We should double check this. But I think my recollection is good. I think Northwestern was willing to pay $200,000 to hire her. This is the wife of the new US Senator and federal money for Medicaid and Medicare, things like that. And then they got a better offer at the University of Chicago, which is in Hyde park, where they're from, 300,000. And she ended up working there. And I called to help, because you help people in politics. And the guy's wife wants a job. I'll make a phone call. He didn't get it. She didn't get it because of me. But it didn't help to have. Didn't hurt to have the governor call.

[Tucker Carlson]

And say, the second Obama gets elected, Michelle says, I want a job at one of two hospitals for between two and three.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's correct. Yeah. And she ended up working at the University of Chicago hospital. Almost certain $300,000 a year. And so Resco was really helpful, really helpful to Obama. And. And so when the investigations against me heated up, it had to do with fundraising, and Tony was part of that. And I got to say this, Tony suffered. He spent eight years in prison. I don't know whether those things that they said he did were even legal based on what they did to me. I'm not so sure they were illegal. It had nothing to do with my administration. There were business matters, but Obama just ran from him, did nothing to help him, and, you know, pretends like he never knew him. And yet the moment he became senator, she gets that $300,000 a year job with a little help, tiny little bit of help from me with a phone call. And then they buy this mansion in the Kenwood neighborhood, which is High Park, Chicago. Beautiful old mansions where the family of Leopold and Loeb, they lived. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

So a lot of sickos in that neighborhood going back a hundred years.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, those guys, those two boys were. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, it's a bastion of, you know, liberal America there.

[Unknown]

Dicky Loeb.

[Rod Blagojevich]

So what happened was the Obamas bought this mansion. Now he's the new senator. The first thing they do is buy a mansion. I guess he felt like I was getting a mansion because I was the governor. It wasn't mine, but I got the use of a 50,000 square foot governor's mansion. I guess they wanted their own, so they could only afford 750,000. So they purchased the lot with the house on it, the mansion on it. But they couldn't afford the adjoining lot, so they asked Resco to buy it for him, and he did. And my understanding of the federal investigations with me were also connected to Obama, that these guys were apparently looking into that and some other things along the way. The dynamic changed and Obama started moving up in the presidential race. And here again, I did something I like to take back. But I was the first governor in America to endorse him for president. We had a personal relationship. He's from Illinois and he's running against Hillary. So it wasn't hard. Yeah. But what ultimately happened was, you know, he. When he started rising Axelrod, David, who used to work for me and then went on to Obama, I knew what they were doing. They were for political reasons, they were, you know, influencing the media to pretty much lay Tony me up more than Obama. I was more Tony it up. And Tony was a supporter and a friend, and he was. And I like Tony in spite of everything that's happened to him. But Obama knew him and Loved him longer. And Tony had done more for Obama over the years than he did for me. And ultimately politically and in the media. The media just conveniently ignored Gresko's relationship to Obama. They give it very little coverage, and it was all about me and Tony.

[Tucker Carlson]

So Axelrod worked for you?

[Rod Blagojevich]

He did when I was a congressman, but I ran for Congress.

[Tucker Carlson]

What's he like?

[Rod Blagojevich]

He's very smart. You know, I like him a lot. His son was an intern for me. His son, Michael. He's a great kid. He's grown up now. No, I like David a lot, but he's a very practical guy and he's very ambitious politically. And, you know, it's a rough and tumble business and, you know, when his interests collide with yours, you know, his one out, he will exercise what's in his interests. Yeah. And I think a lot of the political consultants are that way. He denies saying this, but he did when. When Kerry had been beaten by Bush in 2004 and the Democrats all felt like Kerry was going to win. In fact, Kerry was getting some massage in Boston that night, election night. And. And what's the guy's name, used to write great speeches for Ted Kennedy.

[Tucker Carlson]

Bob Schrum.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Shrum. Shrum watched and said. He walked in and told him something like, I'd hear this stuff from the Democrat world, you know, let me be the first one to congratulate you, Mr. President. Right. Remember that. And then the next morning was finally concluded that Bush won Ohio. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

I knew them all very well. And Trump, you know, had good qualities. He was smart, but what a toady, what a professional later of politicians. It's just really disgusting.

[Rod Blagojevich]

So that was a Tuesday. Right. And of course, Wednesday, I get a phone call at about 6 in the evening. I'm at home. Election's over. David Axelrod. Now, he denies this, but it happened. And he said, you know, the Democrats, Hillary's the front runner in 2008, but too liberal, too disliked. Kerry should have won. He couldn't. We're looking for a new face, somebody from the heartland of America. That's what he called it. You need to have an open mind about thinking about running for president and challenging Hillary in 2008. Now, at that time, he had Obama. Obama was his candidate for the Senate. He had been his consultant. Obama won and he had that great speech and, you know, he was. But I think David wasn't quite sure that maybe America was ready to elect a black person. So he's in the business of being a consultant. He wants to make sure, he has. Has a horse in the race because the Clintons already have their people. He had Edwards in 2004 and didn't go well. Yeah, yeah. So he's looking for candidates for president. So Vilzack, remember that name very well. Me in Illinois and Obama, the three of us. And he was trying. He was probably positioning himself to see which one of us might have the better chance. And he picked the right horse eventually because Obama was the right one. And of course, Obama's success and my calamity parallel. Right. And so you asked me, this is a long answer to your question about 55 minutes ago, what did Obama have to do with my. My problems was election night. We're there, and a labor boss by the name of Tom Balinoff, Service Employees Union, big supporter of both of us, came up to me, the Grant park in Chicago, beautiful weather, magical, historic night. And he said, barack called me last night. He wanted me to talk to you about Valerie Jarrett. He'd like her. Very close friend of Michelle Obama, by the way. He'd like you to appoint her to the United States Senate because the governor has to appoint the senator. And he wanted me to ask you what you would want. Can I call you and come and see you and make an appointment? I said, of course. Call me tomorrow. We'll set something up this week. That's how it started. And then the next day, I got done running. I went out and ran like eight miles that day, seven miles. I'm just loosening up. I'm laying on my little family room floor, stretching on my back, and I'm talking to one of my aides. And I said, a balin off called. Apparently, Obama sent him to me. Obama sent him to me. Wants to make a deal on the Senate seat. What should we do? What should we think about getting legal stuff, not, you know, give me cash or anything, which would be illegal political horse trading, which eventually is what the Supreme Court, I mean, the appellate court said it was. And then I say, and, you know, unless I do something, you know, significant, this will be in my obituary. I said, so and so has suggested that we just kiss his ass and give him whoever he wants. But that seems like that would be political malpractice. And we have a golden opportunity. We have a real opportunity here to, you know, do something meaningful. And then I said, I know it. This is effing golden. I'm not giving enough or nothing. Right. I'm known for that.

[Tucker Carlson]

And you didn't realize this was being taped?

[Rod Blagojevich]

I didn't realize it but let me say something to your listeners when you're in Chicago. Politics and the ethics in that place and the way they do business and the way the feds, not wrongly, necessarily try to set people up to see whether or not they're. They'll take a temptation. They send people in, they give you, offer you cash and stuff like that. You'd be an idiot if you don't think they may be listening. It wasn't. I had been under federal investigation for five years. I knew it because of the Roscoe stuff and some other stuff. People who were supporters of mine and Obama. I mean, I thought it's all very possible, and everything I'm talking about doing is legal. And I was super careful because I was under such intense federal investigation at that time to make sure that anything I talked about doing, I check with my governor's lawyer and lawyers, and my lawyer was, on average, all these FBI tapes. They taped my calls. To this day, 98% of those tapes are covered up under a court seal. The judge would not allow us to talk about how my lawyer was on those calls three times a day, because at that point, you know, now, you know, they're coming. You want to be absolutely careful that whatever you do on the Senate seat is legal.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And so you're throwing out all kinds of ideas because you do have this effing golden opportunity. We talked about Oprah for a couple of days, all these crazy ideas, and everybody wanted it. Everybody wanted me to appoint them, as you can imagine. And, you know, and through third parties are suggesting deals that were political. They weren't illegal. Some had suggested money and campaign funds, which would have been illegal. And. But I would talk to my lawyer, you know, three times a day, and. And he was advising me. In fact, one call, I say something like, you know, we're discussing a creative way to create a nonprofit political action committee to help support the advancement of access to health care, which was a big issue for me when I was governor and Obama was talking about doing Obamacare and all this at the federal level. And some of the people that had put our health care plans together in Illinois went on to work for Obama. And so the question was whether or not there was something that we could do to be helpful to push it further in Illinois and do something. And can we put together a 501C3 or 501C4? Obama gets some of these big, rich Democrats who give money to him to put in our thing. And can we, you know, perhaps make the deal on the Senate seat for something like this. And so I say to the lawyer and to one of my aides, I say, I mean, how do you do a deal like that? I mean, it's got to be legal. Obviously, I'm on the tape saying that a couple of years go by, I'm at my second trial because they failed to convict me on their corrupt charges the first trial. And they're going to play that tape against me and I'll be actually charged. One of my big crimes, it was that phone call. How do you do a deal like that? I mean, it's got to be legal. Obviously, I'm asking. I don't even know if you could do it. I'm just thinking out loud. And they criminalized it, but surely I'm going to get acquitted on this. But the jury instruction was custom tailored to fit these conversations, to tell the jury that those things were criminal. And they can convict anybody if they do that. If they decide, for example, that this conversation you and I are having and they come, you know, they charge us and then they got to prove it before a jury and they got to judge us willing to do anything they want them to do. All they got to do is just write up a jury instruction. 12 laymen average, everyday, ordinary people aren't lawyers, aren't in politics. Just tell them this is against the law and they'll make the right decision. They'll convict you of this conversation because they're told by the judge and the prosecutors it's against the law.

[Tucker Carlson]

So big picture, why do you think they did this to you? The Democratic establishment did this to you.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, they were Bush prosecutors that started it. Here's what I think happened.

[Tucker Carlson]

Fitzgerald.

[Rod Blagojevich]

That's right. That guy's so dirty and rotten and corrupt.

[Tucker Carlson]

I've noticed.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, here's what they. So they came at 6:00 in the morning and arrested a sitting governor. I mean, I was Roger Stone years before Roger Stone, right? My little girls are sleeping at, you know, ready, gonna get up shortly for school. My little one at the time was five and she was in bed with us. And I got up at 6. I was going to actually go run that this winter. I was going to go run and my running clothes laid out. Phone rang and I thought it was a friend of mine. The guy says, I got a we have warrant for your arrest and agent so and so. And I had state police security all the time as the governor and I thought it was a friend of mine. I say this a lot because he's like that way and I really did. I said, come on, State Senator Jimmy Dalio. And I said, come on, Jimmy, stop effing around. Six o'clock in the morning. But it wasn't him. It was really the FBI with a warrant. I think they got me handcuffed me, drove me to their facility. By four hours later, by 10 o'clock, they were good cop and they had me in. And you're not a bad guy. We listened to all your tapes. You're just a product of Chicago politics. They wanted me to cooperate. I believed. My interpretation was they wanted me to talk about Obama. I don't think they were ever going to go after Obama at that point, first black president. But I think they wanted to see whether or not I would. Here's a prison term. Snitch on the president elect and then go back to him and say that they probably told him that anyway because they lie. In any event, I said, there's, you know, I was never involved in any wrongdoing with him. I don't know whether he, he's involved in anything of that sort. I can tell you I'm not. And I got nothing to talk about. Whatever I discussed was politics. And then they got it. They changed their attitude. They shipped me to another facility, the court building, and put me in a small little cell. And they had me next to this really angry guy, all caught up on pcp, you know, screaming and mf, and he had no clue that he was right next to the governor. You know, I'm doing push ups in there because I'm thinking, this is really good. This is really a bad day and this is going to be really bad. And may, but maybe at some point I want to be able to say that while I was in the heat of the moment, I still was strong enough to do some pushups in my cell. So I did push ups in there so I can say that I did it right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Plus, if you're going to join a gang, you need to be buff.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, there's some truth to that. Yeah. Anyway, so I think. And then they went to Obama the next day and they did. They interviewed him. They call him 302s, FBI 302s. Every criminal defendant is entitled under the Constitution to have evidence that could exonerate him or her. And Obama's 302s are relevant, directly relevant to my case to this day. They won't give it to us what Obama said. And he publicly contradicted what the labor boss, Balanov, had said that he had come to me the night before because it all Started that way. And Balinov had testified under oath twice in two trials that he said that Obama had called him and sent him over to me. And it was about talking about a political deal. And Obama publicly said no. What he said in those FBI 302s might contradict that. I don't know. If you lie to the FBI, it's a crime. So I think what happened was because it's unusual. And you know this. The new president doesn't keep the U.S. attorney from the previous president, especially if it's the other party, of course. But suddenly, now they made a deal with Obama. We'll leave you alone. You keep us here until we get him. And it wasn't until they got me at the second trial years later that they all went into private practice and became partners of big firms making millions of dollars. One lady, one of them became a judge. But Fitzgerald's a partner in a big law firm, the lead prosecutor partner in a big law firm. And the moment that they got their convictions against me in the second trial, that's where they went. And I think the reason Obama did nothing to be helpful while I'm in there. And after being in prison for, well, five and a half, six, six and a half years, I was unusual. Unlike the 151,000 federal inmates, I was probably the only guy who was able to get. This is the vernacular prison. My paperwork in front of two presidents. Axrod was getting my request for a commutation from Obama on Obama's desk. He gave him letters from, you know, my two daughters, my young daughters to the president. Obama's daughters are. Is the same age as mine. And I done already six and a half years asking for clemency. And we recognized the politics of him and, you know, his image and walking out of the White House in January 20, 2017. So we're not even going to have it be where someone might have a, you know, the screenshot of him leaving the White House and me leaving the big house at the same time because we were connected to the case. But why don't you just cut my sentence in half from 14 years I never took a penny was request for campaign contributions and a political deal you wanted to make. Right? Just cut my sentence from 14 years to 7, which would be higher than anybody governor's ever gotten from Illinois who's been in prison probably maybe the longest actual time served of any governor. And I'll limp out of prison in October of 2017. And it sure looked promising in the days leading up to that, because a few Days before that, he had provided, released from prison, a member of the faln, the Puerto Rican terrorist group that was blowing up federal bills.

[Tucker Carlson]

So you should have been a Puerto Rican terrorist.

[Rod Blagojevich]

This guy got released by Obama a few days before. I'm thinking, oh, that's a good sign for me, right? Yeah. And then a guy got 35 years in prison for treason against the United States. His name was Bradley Manning. He went, went into prison. As Bradley Manning came out of prison, Chelsea Manning, through the largesse of the taxpayers, Obama cut him, cut her loose after six years or seven years. I'm thinking I'm easy compared to these two. And I had members of Congress, Democrats, who had served with Axrod, asking him to do it, and he didn't do it. And I think it's because he made a deal with them. They were basically said, we'll leave you alone. You don't interrupt, get involved in any of this, and you don't help him. That's what I think. But here's what's interesting, and it shows a lot about the kind of person Trump is. And all through this process, these long, hard years and the years of, you know, dashed hopes and expectations because there was no way we could lose our appeal. These things are legal. Then you figure, then they. Then they reverse the Senate seat after I'm in prison for three and a half years and vacate my sentence. Now I have no sentence. So I went from 14 years to no years for a year, which was easier time to do because when you're looking, you know, you walk into prison in March of 2012, March 15, and your exit days, May 2024. Right. That's a long, hard road. So you try to break up psychologically. You try to break up that time. Right? So you say, okay, let's get from here to the first, the appeal. We're going to. You have hopes that we can win that, though. Deep down, you just know. You've seen enough of the system to know you're dead. Right. But you hold cling to that hope. They can't uphold the Senate seat. They reverse it. Now I have no sentence. I discussed with my attorney. When do we go back to recencing? They got to give you a sentence. You go back to the same judge. Let's just wait a year. I'll just stay here. I'll keep, you know, working out, reading, and just trying to grow. And then we'll go back to this judge when I will have served almost five years more than just about anybody. I mean, nobody in American history Other than me has served a single day in prison for a fundraising violation. And this wasn't even a violation. But let's assume the worst that it was. No one had did a single day. And my lawyer presented this to the judge. There's not a single case and letters. My little girls had grown up. They gave beautiful presentations in court, on video from Colorado in prison for the resentencing, August 9, 2016. Okay, so I go from no sentence. The centerpiece of the case was a big lie to begin with. It was never a crime. No sale of the senate seat, no sentence back before the judge. I've been a well behaved inmate. We submit well over 100 letters from my colleagues, guys that I helped, good guys, I'm criminals. But I learned a lot of these guys aren't bad guys. Some are really bad. Some are pretty good guys. They're just, you know, have gone the wrong way and got bad habits. We submit the letters, and there's real expectation that I'll go home. He puts me back at 14 years. And I hear my older daughter sobbing in the courtroom after they gave these beautiful presentations. I'm watching my little girls who've grown, and I'm so proud of them. And look how you know, how sweet and nice and smart they are. And boy, Patty did a great job raising them. You know, all these things I'm thinking at this resentencing. But here's where God comes in and this whole miracle of how I eventually got home and that Donald Trump would be the instrument. See, this is part of what I write about in my book. I got to know him a little bit on Celebrity Apprentice, a show I never watched. But after they took everything away from me and I had no income and I was an honest governor, didn't get rich in the business, I was getting these opportunities to do these, you know, one place that you can actually make a living when you got this. Leprosy is an entertainment. Yeah, exactly. No one wants to come near you when you got it, understandably.

[Tucker Carlson]

But you're better than Diddy, so you can still. You can still get paid. Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

So, yeah, I turned on a bunch of really bad stuff, like being a greeter at. On an HBO show called the Bunny Ranch. It's a whorehouse in Henderson, Nevada. They offered me six figures. They thought I was perfect for the role because I was such a scoundrel in the media. Right. I turned it down. The guy's name was Dennis Hoff.

[Tucker Carlson]

I knew him well.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, yeah. Nice guy.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, he was.

[Rod Blagojevich]

But I couldn't I got two little girls. I'm not doing that. Anyway. But Trump's show came calling because he saw me on television fighting back. And so I did Celebrity Apprentice. This is October 2009 that we tape it. It airs in like March 2010. My first trial is June 2010. And he was so good to me, he was so sympathetic, he was so kind. People don't realize, on a personal level, Trump's a kind hearted person, very different from most politicians, and the direct opposite of a cold, selfish, completely practical Obama, right? So when Obama passes me by, back to the resentencing on the 9th of August, the judge puts me back at 14 years. My daughter's sobbing in the courtroom. I can't see her, but I hear it. Hope is gone now, right? But here's how God works. He sends me more hope because that afternoon, Trump's given a speech in North Carolina. It's running against Hillary. And he starts talking about crooked Hillary, right? And before the audience are chanting, lock her up, lock her up, he says, and then there's this governor from Illinois, blah, blah, blah. They just gave him 14 years again. 14 years. He's a choir boy next to Hillary, Something like that. Trump's got bananas radar, right? And I'm thinking, because I believe I know politics, I think he's going to beat her. Even from a foreign prison, I felt he was going to beat her because he was different and he was standing up to stuff. He wasn't backing down like typical politicians do. And I thought, wow, so if Obama doesn't do it, who knows? And he was so good to me on that show. Well, he didn't do it. Obama. The 20th of January, one month later. Trump's been president for one month. I get called into the case manager's office and they have a form I have to sign. It's a waiver. If I agree to allow the White House pardon office to get my prison records, of course, what do I sign? Right? So I signed it. Two things. Trump's looking out. He wants to see whether or not I was a well behaved inmate. There's a way, perhaps where he can send me home. And Obama was never going to do it because they never asked for my records. And what that did for me was it gave me hope for the next couple of years. And then after the Supreme Court didn't take our case. God bless you, my friend. Me and my homies in prison are watching my wife on your show. On a Monday in the spring of 2018, Supreme Court turned me down. That Weekend, that Monday evening you had Patty, my wife Patty on.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah. I'll never forget it.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. And you were fantastic. And I'm really grateful to you.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, my gosh. Well, there's nothing more beautiful than a loyal spouse.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. She's amazing, isn't she?

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, I agree with that strongly. So when you see. Going through everything that you did, when you see the FBI raid mar a Lago in the summer of 2022, what do you think?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Deja vu all over again. These lion scumbags. Yeah, weaponized. They're politicians, they're political agents, kgb, Soviet style police state politics in America. And the Democrats have embraced it. The Bush administration started it. But this Fitzgerald is his own guy. And Comey and Fitzgerald are real close.

[Tucker Carlson]

Of course they are.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And there's no doubt in my mind that what they did to me at the AAA level, to a Democrat governor, they said, ooh, we can get away with this. Let's do it. To Trump, a Republican president at the major league level. And that's exactly what this whole Russian collusion bullshit was all about. And I'm watching this from prison and I know all of it. I recognize it. I know the tactics. I know what that stuff they say to the media, how they leak stuff and how they lie. They're political operatives. Our country is on the crossroads, on the threshold. I mean, so important to elect Trump for a thousand reasons. This might be the most important one of them, because if we lose this, the ability in America to elect our leaders without the intervention of prosecutors criminalizing things that aren't crimes for politics, the voters don't have any choices. Free and fair elections don't matter. It's all rigged like they do in, like the old Soviet Union. What did barriers say? Show me the man, I'll show you the crime.

[Tucker Carlson]

Exactly.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

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[Tucker Carlson]

So I mean, we have a media protected, you know, first line item in the Bill of Rights, as you know, in order to push back against the abuse of power by the government. And they don't seem to be playing that role, their assigned role. They're, you know, they're the role that duty would compel them to play. They seem to be like covering for the people in power.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Oh, man. Duty would compel them to play. Yeah, the Fourth Estate, a free press and a free society. You don't have that to check power. Yeah, we're dead, right? So that's kind of what I naively thought when I'm sitting in the back seat of the FBI vehicle handcuffed behind my hands. I'm the governor of Illinois. It's the fifth largest state in America right now. They got me. And I said, well, what's this about? And the guy said, the sale of the Senate seat. I said, what? First of all, you gotta be a horse's ass to think that you can get away with something like that. I'm gonna steal, I'm gonna sell Obama any president, but Obama at that time was a demigod elevated by the media, okay? All superficial bullshit about how great he is. But I'm gonna be that stupid where I'm gonna actually try to sell his Senate seat. And I'm already under intense federal investigation for Briscoe and some of these other guys and, you know, activists and politics and stuff. And they're trying to find crimes. They can't find it for five years. So now this, I'm thinking the media, and not so great. But the media is certainly going to laugh them out of court before they get into court. Who'd be so stupid to do something like that? And the reality was they were all over it because it was just too super sensational to pass up. It sold newspapers, it was good for ratings. So they're more interested in the storyline than the truth. Abrogating their responsibility to all of us as citizens to keep an eye on the power. The government has no power. These federal prosecutors have all the power. Unchecked power not foreseen by our founding fathers. When they divided our government, they didn't know that there'd be a branch out of the executive part of the government, an agency out of the executive branch that would grow like a cancer there. Originally going after the Al Capones of the world and now taking that power to all kinds of levels to turn it into a political.

[Tucker Carlson]

And it becomes the secret police.

[Rod Blagojevich]

There you go. Yeah. This is why the work that you do, Tucker. And I mean, you're so nice to me, but I'm grateful to you for what you do and others like you are fighting for, you know, freedom and Elon Musk and these guys, which is so corrupt.

[Tucker Carlson]

I mean, and I think it's important to say out loud what it is. Which, again, is corrupt and evil.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Corrupt and evil, yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So does. I mean, does Trump have a. Well, in a fair election, do you think Trump will win?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Oh, yeah. If. Fair election. He wins every one of those battleground states with some cushion. It's another thing I want to say to your listeners. They should listen to me on this sort of stuff, you know, in a fair election. One thing I've been good at in life is winning elections. I run 14 of them. Seven or eight were really hard primaries, really hard against other Democrats. You know, running against Republicans for governor in Illinois, being the first Democrat to win after 26 years. Those are really competitive races. So I'm giving me high marks. I'm an expert witness when it comes to politics. Understanding the mood of the voters, sensing them. Not just what the polling says, actually, it's more instinctive. What you saw at Madison Square Garden when you gave that great speech. I saw the crowds there. They're not Nazis. You know what they are? They're white people and they're black people.

[Tucker Carlson]

Exactly.

[Rod Blagojevich]

They're Hispanics and they're Asian. They're old and they're young. They're good, decent Hard working, forgotten Americans.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And there's more of them that aren't. And they've learned to know what's being done to them and how our country is setting the priorities that go against their interests. Now, so blatantly for those who don't legally come to the United States, they're not stupid. And I believe if this election is run fairly, it's going to be a 19 or a 2024 version of 1980. When the country made its choice between Reagan and Carter by the first or second week of October and started shifting and going towards Reagan, ended up winning, you know, maybe 49 states or something. That won't happen now because the demographic in America is different. The ball games, those battleground states. But if I'm right about this, Trump will sweep all of them and might be competitive in states like Virginia maybe, or Minnesota even. Keep an eye on that. We'll see. But I'm very hopeful and as Reagan used to say, cautiously optimistic.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, it does seem. I mean, I'd bet my house on the proposition that Trump is more popular than Kamala Harris, and more people in those seven states will vote for Trump than Kamala Harris. But that doesn't mean that he's going to be president. What do you think will actually happen?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, that's a good question. I couldn't imagine what happened in 2020. And you can't really talk about it, but I have tremendous skepticism about all of that. I was asked after that election about, you know.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, you literally can't talk about it. And if we talk about that, well, this will be taken off YouTube.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

Why do you think that is? Why do you. I mean, if somebody says, you know, we can talk about anything you want except this one thing.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

What does that tell you?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Well, you look at those FBI tapes, I want to play 98% of them. Right. They wouldn't let. They wouldn't let me play them in court even to prove my innocence.

[Tucker Carlson]

So if you're hiding something, there's a reason. Right.

[Rod Blagojevich]

They're the ones that are lying. Yeah, of course they're the ones who did it. But I think that. I think that so much. I think there's such a movement for Trump right now. I think there's such a movement against what's happening. And I think the testicular virility, that great courage Trump showed at that moment when he got shot.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Butler elevated him to a very different place. He's no longer your typical politician.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right.

[Rod Blagojevich]

I think he represents something that's really powerful. And you can just see all the things that are unfolding. And here's another reason why I feel very good about this election. The public polls, whatever they are, I never relied on those. We had our polling, and it guided how we ran the race and what the strategy was to run and win. And you know that the other side has their polling, too, and in all likelihood, it's probably as good as yours. So they know what you know, they're seeing, what you're seeing. And so if you really want to know how the campaigns are going, just watch the candidates, where they go, what they say, what they do and what they're running on. And Trump's running on a message on things that he wants to do for the American people. You might disagree with those things, but this is what he's saying he's going to do. It's about you, the people. What's she saying? He's a Nazi. Now they're in the last late stages and making these outrageous accusations and calling people names whenever that would happen to me. They weren't calling me a Nazi, but I was. You know, you get nasty stuff thrown at you when you're ahead. You love it because you know you're winning. Yeah, Right. So he's winning. And if it's fair and honest, he'll win comfortably in those seven states.

[Tucker Carlson]

So if they come to us the day after the election, and by day, I mean Morning Joe and the rest of the sycophants in the media and tell us that Kamala Harris turns out to be just incredibly popular. Incredibly popular. And her compelling vision got her across the finish line with a massive margin, and she got, you know, 84 million votes, and she's the winner. And if you disagree, you know, you're a criminal. Will people accept that? Let me say, I will not accept that. But will others accept that?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Like, what happens then in Nazi Germany? They held a plebiscite. Hitler wanted to confirm some of what he was doing, and it was like 99%. Yeah, that's how you say yes in Germany. Right. I think that's the only way they could even remotely.

[Tucker Carlson]

But I mean, shouldn't. Look, I don't want to be an election denier or denier of anything. That's true. I always want to acknowledge what's true, period. But I also don't think that any of us are under the obligation to accept them at face value, at their word. I think they've kind of tried the limits of good faith. And aren't we allowed to say, look, you say Kamala Harris won. Great. Show us the books.

[Rod Blagojevich]

No doubt about it. Well, we know them to be liars. They've been lying through the years and they've just recently been lying about, well, what? The cognitive capabilities of the President. Exactly. Throw him out of office and you know, hijack him from office and put her there and, you know, lying about her record. She didn't work at McDonald's even. They lie about everything, right? No, we can't believe that. That's going to be really hard to believe.

[Tucker Carlson]

Why do we have electronic voting machines? I thought the idea, I was never against them. I never thought about it, but I, I assumed that they were more efficient, that you got the results faster and that they were more accurate. And they're not more accurate than hand counting paper ballots and they're certainly not faster. You know, the results in countries that don't have electronic voting machines are reliable and they're in long before our results are. So what is the reason that we have electronic voting machines?

[Rod Blagojevich]

So among the different people I write about in my book is Walter Hill. Black guy from East St. Louis, Illinois.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And when I first got to prison, he embraced me. He was, you know, you my governor. Right. And he told me about a time that we had met. He, he had lost some weight, but he had been a big guy. And when he told me about having met him once down in the metro east area of Illinois, down southwestern Illinois in East St. Louis, I, I kind of remembered him. And he was like some liquor license commissioner. And I don't think he'd mind me saying this colorful figure and a good guy. But he was wrong what he did.

[Tucker Carlson]

I like him already.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. But he said to me, and he was sympathetic to me because he's up in politics, couldn't believe I'm in prison for what. But he said to me, you know, I voted for you two times, right. In East St. Louis. And I said, oh, wow, thanks. How many times you voted for Obama? 9. He said, you're a racist man. For both Democrats, you vote for the black guy nine times. Me only two. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's why I don't remember Obama running for president nine times. How did Mr. Hill pull that off?

[Rod Blagojevich]

No, then that first election, because this is the first election I met him in 2012 before the reelection. So this would have been the 2008 election. And I frankly believe he was telling me the truth. But that's the answer to your question about those electric, those machines. You know what gives me hope too about this election is those among the ways Democratic precinct Workers. And Obama and I know this. We would, we were, you know, high up. But you kind of know, these activists are doing whatever they're doing in, in, in the polling places that are controlled by Democrats, largely in the inner city, in the poor neighborhoods, is through the, what's called the absentee ballots. And they gather them up and harvest them. And what happened in 2020 was that on steroids with the COVID situation and the mail in ballots. And that's among the reasons why I have a, you know, I believe honest skepticism about the result of that. Don't know that Trump even had a fair chance to get in the court on any of that stuff. And again, I know from my experience how the courts can, you know, be dishonest. There's got to be so many reforms that have to happen. God willing, Trump wins to clean up that justice system. And I think there has to be. Nobody should be unchecked. I think that's the lesson from my hard experience. Human nature, even good people can get tempted to do the bad things and wrong things. Another reason why. Thank you scientists for your great intelligence and the great contributions you make. But unless we guide you through conscience, which comes from God. Exactly. You're going to destroy the world. So answer your question. I think the, the Bodhi system is the way it is today because of political priorities that are above and beyond what's fundamentally right for our country. And what really makes me angry at my party, is nothing sacred to these people anymore that they would weaponize the law and the justice system to destroy Trump? Because they know that if they, if they destroy Trump, nothing's going to stop them from destroying our freedoms. And little by little, this I know, too. Having lost mine, I see the steady erosion of freedom in America. And it's so much like countries that, like my father came from after World War II, Serbia, he didn't want to live in a communist country. And, you know, they saw, they know how those rights and freedoms are taken away. And here's this, what Lincoln called the last best hope on earth. If we lose freedom here, you forget about it all over the world. I think we're going to start seeing the beginning of a new dark age where tyrants and totalitarian governments are the rule and democracy is dead. That's what I think.

[Unknown]

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[Rod Blagojevich]

It's easy.

[Unknown]

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[Tucker Carlson]

It does seem. Look, if Kamala Harris wins fair and square.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Blessings to her. And I hope she fixes the country that she helped destroy. But I really do fervently hope that. And I mean it. Yes. And I will support any effort to do that. But if she declares victory without proving that she actually won fairly, I think it is the duty of the rest of us to resist that. You're not allowed to steal elections. That's the end of democracy.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. That's right out of the Old Testament.

[Tucker Carlson]

I feel that.

[Rod Blagojevich]

No doubt about it. Look, we're in this historic state of Maine where you have this wonderful studio. I mean, think about the patriots in America who began our country and resisted the tyranny from England and created this unique place. I wasn't setting the world on fire in school. I went to not so good schools in Chicago. Public schools. My parents were little working people, five room apartment. My father spoke broken English and my mom worked for the public transit system passing out transfers. We didn't know anybody in politics or anything. We were just working people. I became the governor of Illinois. Anything's possible in this country if we lose this. It's why everybody wants to come here. But just follow the law, right? And they're destroying the law and the idea of sanctuary cities. I'm sitting in prison watching The Democrats with these sanctuary cities, that was unthinkable.

[Tucker Carlson]

How's that not insurrection?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Correct.

[Tucker Carlson]

Against the federal government. Yes. I mean, what happened in Fort Sumter in 1861 was less radical than sanctuary cities. We're saying that we're ignoring federal immigration laws. How are we not breaking away from the rest of the United States?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

How's that, that secession? I don't, I don't get it.

[Rod Blagojevich]

I hear you.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's crazy. And, but again, the media just made it seem like an exercise in compassion.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. Here again, thank you for what you do and thank you for a lot of the other, you know, services that are out there who are providing alternative views from what the mainstream media has become. You're, I mean, when you guys talk about mainstream media, you're right. They've been so corrupted and so co opted. They're corporate media.

[Tucker Carlson]

Have you talked to Obama since you got out?

[Rod Blagojevich]

No.

[Tucker Carlson]

He never called you?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Oh, no. Oh God, no.

[Tucker Carlson]

What's he mad at you about? What'd you do wrong?

[Rod Blagojevich]

No, I don't think he's, I don't think he's mad. He's just like, that guy can only hurt me. And you know, of course they're living the good life. You know, you think about Obama, he's close to being a billionaire. Those Obamas have monetized like the Clintons did their time in the White Oval Office and in the White House.

[Tucker Carlson]

I think about Trump, Howie, how Obama gets so rich.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Right. Well, I mean, he's, you know, he's got that whole establishment stuff that, you know, overpay them for things. I think got a deal for like a, a book deal that was like $60 million or something in advance. And I don't know what the other things he's doing, but I think there's like documentaries he supposedly makes for Netflix. They paid him $100 million or something. But I think about that and I think, and I know, you know, them and the moment they won for the, for the Senate and you know, they.

[Tucker Carlson]

Wanted a mansion first thing and she.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Wanted, she wanted a job. Yeah. There's other things about him that I've been told by Tony that I don't think I should say just because, boy, they're terrible. Of true. And I tend to believe they are.

[Tucker Carlson]

About his personal behavior, about, about the.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Desire to have upward mobility.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And you know, and where he was in the late 90s and he's a money worshiper. Yeah. And I think, I see, I compare that and I think about Trump, who's made all that money and built it up in business and then decided to lead that good life, to go and put himself through this, in this rotten, nasty business. And he gets treated like that, where they're trying to literally destroy him and his family and all that wealth that he created. And the juxtaposition between that where he wants to serve and Obama, how they catapulted to that level after the presidency by just playing the inside game and being part of the establishment. It's a dramatic.

[Tucker Carlson]

Do you see when you keep hearing these whispers, a lot of them are just like nonsense on the Internet. But then you do hear from Democrats, I don't know if it's true, but that Obama would like to see his wife run after Kamala Harris loses. Do you think there's any truth to any of that?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yes, I think that's not unlikely. I don't know that she wants to do it, though, but I.

[Tucker Carlson]

It doesn't seem like she does. But what do I know? I'm not.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, I know. I'm the same way. Sure, I can see that. I can see the possibility of that.

[Tucker Carlson]

How much control does Obama have over the modern Democratic Party?

[Rod Blagojevich]

It's a good question. He's the most influential person in the Democratic Party today, but I would say that his influence wanes as the years go by. He's not as influential now as he was four years ago or eight years ago. You know, times change, new people come in. I do think that the socialists, the Democrats, the AOC types are further left than Obama, and that's a tiger that he can't hold by the tail that are kind of pushing him and others that way. I don't know that he's comfortable doing that. The thing about him is he's got a fundamental left wing ideology, but he's a lot more practical than that. He's all about just winning for himself. And I think about when he ran For President in 2008, he supported a border wall.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Rod Blagojevich]

It was practical politics at that time. He was willing to ditch that right away. And so I would say as time goes by, his influence will wane, continue to wane, but probably four years from now, he'll probably still be, God willing, Trump's the president, the most influential Democrat.

[Tucker Carlson]

Boy, he was pretty cold with Joe Biden, who was always kind of running around pathetically bragging about how close he was to Obama. And they were buddies. And Bombinus knifed him twice. One in 2016 supporting Hillary for the nomination and again this summer with, you know, leading the Coup against him. What's that?

[Rod Blagojevich]

It's Machiavelli. Yeah, he went to Harvard. He was probably reading the law and reading the Prince, right? No, he's cold hearted, very Machiavellian. Look, it's a tough business and I don't want to be a whiner, a complainer and like, oh, woe was me. Look what happened.

[Tucker Carlson]

It is, it is a tough business.

[Rod Blagojevich]

It's a rough business. And you know, you're in a rough business like that. Harry Truman said, if you want friend in Washington, get a dog. Right? A lot of truth to that. But within the spectrum of these practical people, in a business of bullshitters and duplicitous phonies who almost embrace their hypocrisy as if it's like some sort of skill or talent that they have. In other words, Michael Jordan, you know, his game got better as he got greater, right? He became a much better shooter. I'm from Chicago, six championships. We love Jordan, right? But Jordan wasn't as good a shooter when he first came out of college. As he became, his game got better. And so you embrace that. He go, he can move, go to the left a little bit better than he did when he first started. You embrace the improvement of his skills in sports. These politicians, what they do is like the Chuck Schumer's of the world. They laugh at their duplicity and their hypocrisy. It isn't that they're being phony or fake. They feel good because they're getting away with it and the people are buying it. Right? And at some level, including me, there's a level of that, that's part of that business. But there is a difference between a lot of the people in politics that aren't like that. And in spite of what everybody, well, the establishment's been saying about Trump, he is probably the least political of the people I've known in politics. And I've known a lot. I mean, I knew Biden when he was a senator and I was in Congress. I knew Bill Clinton. He was actually a very nice guy. That's my Bill Clinton personalization. I really liked him. Right. Defended him and that was a hard thing to defend. I mean, what are you doing with an intern, man? Come on, right? Anyway, Obama I knew since 1995.

[Tucker Carlson]

Was that Monica Lewinsky thing, some sort of op from a foreign country to control Clinton? You ever heard anybody say that?

[Rod Blagojevich]

No, I haven't actually. No.

[Tucker Carlson]

You do wonder, do you think? Yeah, I don't know. Gosh, I don't Know. No, I think. Well, I think it was. I think it was real.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Oh, totally.

[Tucker Carlson]

But you do, you know, you just sort of wonder. What? Do you ever talk to Clinton? Is he still around? You never. You hear he's not well, but I don't know.

[Rod Blagojevich]

No, I haven't seen him since before prison.

[Tucker Carlson]

Is he still a force in the party?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Less so.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, he's. He less. Obama's eclipsed him.

[Tucker Carlson]

You said that it was. If it was a choice between Obama and Hillary, it wasn't a tough one for you. You obviously know Hillary. Why, why weren't you eager to support her?

[Rod Blagojevich]

The reason Bill Clinton won and the reason she lost is the reason you talked about Trump at the Madison Square Garden. Trump likes people.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Clinton likes people.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, sure he does.

[Rod Blagojevich]

She has contempt for people, you know, that basket of deplorables.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

I think she feels that way about all the people, you know, everyday people. She just so focused and guided a political animal. Whatever she stands for is driven by focus groups and polls. She has no, like, feel for anything. I really believe that about her. I mean, she's, you know, personal level, you meet her, I mean, you know, no surprise she didn't win. Right. Really?

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

No.

[Tucker Carlson]

Not a warm person.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Oh, not at all. Very cold, Very cold hearted. Very ambitious. Very dishonest. Very dishonest. She had what? Her best friend worked for me in my administration. I hired this woman. I can't remember her name, but she was a nice woman. She was competent, but not like she ever told me anything bad about Hillary. It's just that I'd been around Hillary enough, not a lot, but enough, and Bill Clinton too, to see a very big difference between the two people. You just naturally like Clinton, I think. I'll tell you a quick story. You want to hear this very much. Yeah. So I'm a congressman. It's 1999. The United States and NATO, not with, without UN approval, are doing to my father Serbia, what Russia is doing to Ukraine now.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I noticed.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Right. We decided to bomb a sovereign country, forcing them to give up a part of their country.

[Unknown]

Thank you.

[Tucker Carlson]

Can I ask you to pause it? Because I want to thank you for bringing that up. Oh, it's one of the worst things that this country has done in a long time and it's been completely forgotten. It was not talked about then.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

And so I hope people aren't familiar with what you're talking about. Will, listen carefully.

[Rod Blagojevich]

It was 1999. It was the Balkans and Serbia and the United States and NATO decided to bomb Serbia over Kosovo, which is part of Serbia. And basically it was whether or not the Serbs would accept an agreement that was made in France. Rambouillet, that basically said, this part of your country has to be submitted to a referendum where the Muslims outnumber the Christian community by like 10 to 1. And if you don't submit this to a vote, which obviously is going to go for separation, secession, we're going to bomb you. Extortion at the highest level.

[Tucker Carlson]

But what was the motive there? Why would we want to get involved in the internal affairs of Serbia? I don't under. Like, why would we kill all those people to achieve that result? Do you have any idea?

[Rod Blagojevich]

I do. I have different ideas. I think a lot of it has to do with the politics in the Middle east and having a Muslim country or two in Europe itself, because before that was the war in Bosnia, where it was divided up three ways and the Muslims have a section of Bosnia, and to the east is the republic of Srpska, where the Serbs and the Croatians are to the west. The Balkans have historically been, you know, very difficult places with the different peoples getting along and hence the word Balkanize. Yeah, that's exactly right. But I, you know, I learned this about politics at the high level, which was surprising to me, that a lot of our foreign policy, and this is frightening, is driven by campaign contributions and of course. Yeah, I could see all of it.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

But foreign policy, Think about that.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's what I'm saying.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

I mean, of course it is. Yeah. Oh, I see it every day.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. Well, she was running for the US Senate in New York, Hillary was, and there's a prominent Albanian community in the state of New York. How much of Clinton's desire and attention to support, you know, the Kosovar issue that the Albanians supported had something to do with his local domestic politics? Tip O'Neill said all politics is local. The Clintons are experts at that. I'm, you know, I don't know for sure that that was the motivation. I think it was my. It might have been part of it just because she was running for the Senate. However it was, they did it. And I was the only Serbian American in Congress, and I was a Democrat, and my party was doing this, but most of the Republicans went along with it as well because it was the establishment Republican Party of the Cheneys. Right. Of course.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's war.

[Unknown]

We get to kill people.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's a good thing.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, that's right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Always.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah. And so they bombed this country my father came from and it was. On a personal level, it was really hard. I think about my late father and he would tell me stories about World War II. My father spent four years in a Nazi prison war camp, and then three years in a refugee camp after the war, waiting for the US to pass a law call the Displaced Persons act, which allowed my father and millions of others like him with these million, these long and hard to pronounce last names, a chance to come to America. Freedom. My dad loved America and he just. There was no place like it. You can, if you willing to work hard, you can make it. And if you don't, your kids can do good. Like eventually what happened with my brother and me. But freedom was the thing. And I saw that David Ashwod was working for me then. And I would go to his office and I'd vent. These MFers, this MF in Clinton, where did they come up? Serbia was an ally for the United with the United States in World War II. Serbia was an ally the United States in World War I. And now they're violating international law and bombing a sovereign country to support those on the other side of the war as opposed to trying to work something out through the United Nations. You know what? It was just maddening. And I gotta support this. I gotta support my party. So anyway, and I vent. And so we're figuring out ways where I could be constructive. Now I'm an American and God forbid, you know, now we're at war with the country my father came from. My loyalties are to the United States. And there was a big vote.

[Tucker Carlson]

Bless you for saying that the war.

[Rod Blagojevich]

It was a big vote on supporting the military effort against Serbia, against my father's country was tied 212. 212. My colleague and at the time friend Jesse Jackson Jr. Voted against the war. The Black Caucus was against the war.

[Tucker Carlson]

Good for him.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Black kids go and fight these wars. I took the position. I hate this war. I spoke against it before they started it. I was one of 15 congressmen, Democrats, Kucinich, another one who votes, said, don't do this. You bombed this country. You're going to unleash the furies. Milosevic is a crazy guy. He's going to kick out innocent Kosovars out of that country. It's coming. They wanted it. It was a provocative act by NATO. No one Milosevic would do that and most people would suffer like they did. But then they put it on the Serbs, right? And demonize them worldwide. But the Black Caucus, in many ways the black community really understands abuse of Power more than any other community because they've been on the wrong end of that historically. They're not buying it. So I'm. The bombing starts on a Thursday as we all leave from Congress. They timed it. We had a two week recess for spring break. They start and I'm. Saturday, you know, I'm watching this on cnn. And anyway, long. Long story short, I'm vented to Axrod and he and I. This is making me sick. I got to do something. By then they had taken three us. Three US Soldiers had been taken prisoner by the Serbs during that war. They had stumbled into Serbia and they were taken prisoners. Nobody knew where they were. The Red Cross wasn't allowed in. Milosevic had been demonized. The president of Serbia and in many ways justifiably, but worldwide. And they were making them look. And they were calling ethnic cleansing genocide, which is also another lie. It's not good. But ethnic cleansing, you know, it's the nature of how things have happened in Europe, all over the place. 12 million Germans were ethnically cleansed from the east to the west after World War II.

[Tucker Carlson]

A lot of the murdered. Yep.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, right. So anyway, I'm frustrated. Axrod comes up with, they take the soldiers. I'm beat because I'm the only Serb. These guys from the Serbian government are reaching out to me. I don't know if they're real or not. And I see one of them on television and it with Milosevic, a guy by the name of Kadage Bogolub Kadych. Very interesting man. Long. The short of it is Axelrod. I'm meeting with him. I want to play a role. I got to do something. And he says, why don't you try to get those soldiers out? But you can't do it by yourself. Because I speak the language. That's my first language. My father, you know, my mother was American born. So how do you get there? They won't let me. I'm a junior congressman. I mean, they'll crush me. They won't let me go. State Department was against it. And then I saw that Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ramsey Clark, you know, of course, right. Reverend Jesse Jackson wanted to do what Ramsey Clark had done. He wanted to go visit the bombing sites, but that he had made a condition that he won't do it unless he can see the three soldiers. So I don't know Jesse Jackson at the time. Since then he's become kind of a friend. So I see the sun. You know, we're young congressman and I see Jesse Jr. And we vote On a Tuesday, we get done with our votes, like 11 o'clock, Washington time. We're sitting in the chamber, it's empty, it's just me and him. And I said, you know, hey, Jesse, I saw that your dad wants to go to Serbia and see those soldiers because. Yeah. And I said, I don't know if this is bullshit or not, but these guys from the government approached me because my father came from that country and I speak the language. If I could arrange for your father to go to Serbia to see those soldiers, you think he might do it? And he said, he sure would. Why don't you call the Reverend now? And I said, what? He said, call the reverend now. And I said, you call your dad Reverend, right?

[Tucker Carlson]

Not surprised, no.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And he said, you call him. I said, look, I don't know your dad. You call him, see if he's interested, then let me know and then I'll call him. So moments later, we're at our offices, he calls me. I'm in the cannon Building, right? Fifth floor. And he says, I just talked to the reverend. He's in Mississippi at a voter registration drive. Call him. He's waiting for your call. So I call him. First time I ever talked to Jesse Jackson, it's like, I don't know, spring, May of 1999 and April, May. And I said, and if you ever talk to him on the phone, he speaks very softly. He's very powerful speaker, but privately very softly. And I said, reverend Jackson, this is Congressman Lukoievich. I serve with your son, Understand? He says, I said, can I call you on a hard line? You know, you're on a cell phone. It's kind of a delicate thing. I'm talking about. I don't know if this is proper. He goes, I can't right now. I'm on a voter registration job in Mississippi. Talk to me in code. First time, I thought, I gotta go, right? Okay. I said, well, I'm calling you about over there. And he says, understand? I said, I talked to a guy in the government who says it's possible for you to go over there. Understand? I said, if you're willing to do it, he's going to talk to the big cheese today at 4:00. Understand? I said, if the answer is yes, how soon can you go? And can you go. Can you leave tomorrow? And he says, I can't. I'm here doing voter registration because it was a Tuesday, but if you make this happen, I can go on Friday and we can move on. He says to me, right.

[Tucker Carlson]

I miss people like this. Yeah, yeah.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And then I said. And then he says, and you pull this off, I'm taking you with me. I didn't say it, but I'm thinking to myself, of course. I'm Cohen, Wis. Okay. I'm putting this all together. Anyway, we got to go. He did it. The government wanted Jackson. And Jackson put together this interfaith coalition of religious leaders, left wing religious leaders from very diverse. Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, Methodist ministers. This lady named Dr. Joan Brown Campbell from the National Council of Churches. They were all part of this delegation, Jesse Jackson and me. And so we go. I speak the language. And, you know, they're very understandably mistrustful of America because we're bombing them. Bombs were falling while we were there. They wouldn't stop the bombing. The Clinton administration kept trying to squeeze us. Jackson, I guess he's able to procure things. He got, like, a plane. He got like a commercial plane. World Air, you appreciate this story. World Airways. And we're supposed to leave on Saturday. And then Friday evening, I get a phone call from his aide, and he said, we got to postpone our trip. Because I said, why? He goes, well, the CEO of World Airways called the reverend and said, they got to. Can't let us have the plane until they get war insurance on it. Okay. So the next day, my wife sees me, says, I thought you were getting ready to go to Serbia. Patty. And our baby, Amy was just. Our first one was 2 years old. And I said, no, it's been delayed. That's something about war insurance. And then it clicked. Patty said, war insurance. I said, yeah, we're flying into a war zone. They don't want us to give us a plane. And so then she quietly calls our insurance agent, neighborhood insurance agent, State Farm, says, if my husband voluntarily goes into a war zone and gets killed, do I still get his life insurance? Right. And he's. They checked. He got back to her and said, yeah, he's covered. And she said, okay, I love you. Good luck. Wish you right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Maybe. Well, I don't know the real explanation that would explain why we pushed NATO to bomb Serbia, but I do know that we killed a ton of Christians. We took the.

[Rod Blagojevich]

We in Kosovo, the Serbs. They were ethnically cleansed in Kosovo.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I'm aware.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So the U.S. but it does seem like a lot of our interventions wind up killing Christians. From the bomba Nagasaki, which was not a military significant place, but it was the center of Christianity in Japan to the war in Iraq that basically ended the Christian Population of Iraq to Syria to Gaza to Serbia. It seems like one thread that connects all of those is the killing of Christians by the US Government. Has you thought of that?

[Rod Blagojevich]

I haven't, but I didn't know that about Nagasaki, but that's really the bomb.

[Tucker Carlson]

Landed on the church. The majority of Christians in Japan lived in Nagasaki and the majority of them were killed.

[Rod Blagojevich]

If you're asking me to speculate on why that might be the case, I don't think it's so much of a desire to hurt Christians as it is. If we got to hurt anybody, we'll hurt the Christians and not the other groups because it's politically incorrect. If we hurt the other groups and.

[Tucker Carlson]

They won't complain because they're Christians.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right.

[Tucker Carlson]

But we did kill a ton of Christians in the Balkans.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Oh, there's no doubt about it. And it was really maddening because these otherwise liberal Democrats who were, it turned out, I think, right on Vietnam, that was wrong, the wrong war. And how do you get out of this? Was the issue. And I think Nixon, frankly, did the best he could under the circumstances. A war started by Johnson, but now suddenly they were all war hawks, all these liberal Democrats were war hawks against Serbia in 1999. It was sickening. And I had to work with these people, you know, and, well, that was.

[Tucker Carlson]

Just a foretaste of the world to come, wasn't it?

[Rod Blagojevich]

It really was. And, you know, so I wrote an op ed for the Washington Post at the time suggest suggesting that they should partition Kosovo then and stop the bombing, stop the killing, the bombing of a sovereign country. Partition that country. Protect the Orthodox monasteries, the Christian Orthodox monasteries that are so vital to the Serbian experience. Because Kosovo, in the Serbian history is historic. It is to Serbs like Israel is to Jews. And they had lost this battle in the 1300s against the Turks, the Ottoman Turks. 500 years of enslavement after that. You know, the Ottoman control and the battle of Kosovo is central to the Serbian history and culture. I'm American born and I didn't really understand it, but I got a much better appreciation of it during that war. And so I suggested this as the bombing was going on, and the American people really never understood why we were doing it. Clinton was losing support, and particularly with the Black Caucus being against it and leaders like Jackson speaking out against it. That's why he was so vital going there and making the deal to get the soldiers back, which we successfully got those soldiers back, Jackson and I. What happened was that they had to. They had to justify this war. So they went extremely hard in trying to demonize the Serbs without any kind of honest analysis of the complexities of those issues over there. And it's really galling. And Wesley Clark, the general was the one running.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I'm very aware of that.

[Rod Blagojevich]

And I'm told he's doing business there in Kosovo. Now if that's true, that's sickening.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, he's a sickening person. A totally hollow, clever, but not wise, ruthless human being.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So last question. Just to circle back to where we began. And that's the condition of your party. I don't think it's an overstatement to say born in the Democratic Party rose to the top of it. When you see Kamala Harris on the road campaigning with Dick Cheney's repulsive daughter. What do you think?

[Rod Blagojevich]

That ain't my Democratic Party. Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Dick Cheney is now a Democrat. I mean it's incredible.

[Rod Blagojevich]

It's sickening. That's another sickening thing. And but the good news is it just shows you how politics is being real realigned in America today. And those traditional Democrat working class voters, everyday, ordinary people, I talked about them before the silent majority, including a much larger number of black people than even the polls are reflecting. Yes. And Latinos. I predict Trump across the country will have actually win a majority of the Latino vote in this election. And the beauty about the Latino vote, they remind me so much of the immigrant back. My background, God fearing, hardworking, family oriented. Most families are like that who come here legally and those illegally, you know, come, go back and come back legally. And that's what we should all follow our rules. Especially when you first come here. Right. Don't break into our country. And the Democrats have opened the doors and Kamala Harris, all by design. But when I think about how the parties have changed those corporate, country club, warmongering, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney Republicans, I have a lot more in common with the left wing, Kamala Harris wing of the Democrat Party. Then traditional working class daily type Democrats, John F. Kennedy Democrats, Robert Kennedy Democrats have with them and they're now part of this new coalition Trump's building and this new Republican Party. And it's very exciting. I see all these history books that you have here and my reading a history and I had eight years to read a lot of it right. Is we're going through a historic political realignment. These parties are very different than this new Republican Party. Is the party the little guy truly believe that my voters, I saw that at Madison Square Garden Those were my voters that I saw there. They look just like my voters, you know, good people, working people, honest people. Not the elites.

[Tucker Carlson]

How'd they treat you?

[Rod Blagojevich]

Effing gold. They were warm and loving.

[Tucker Carlson]

I can't improve on that. Governor Rod Blagojevich, it's great to see you.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Great to see you, Tucker. Thank you. That was amazing.

[Unknown]

Thanks for listening to Tucker Carlson Show. If you enjoyed it, you can go to tuckercarlson.com to see everything that we have made, the complete library TuckerCarlson.

[Rod Blagojevich]

Combined.