Tucker Carlson on Interviewing Fuentes, America First, and Demons and UFOs - "Megyn Kelly Live" From New York | Ep. 1188

23:53One thing you could never accuse Tucker of is being rote and repetitive of what you hear everywhere else. And so for me, as an anchor at Fox News at the time, I think I was still doing America's Newsroom with Bill Hemmer. He caught my attention immediately. And then I had an afternoon show. I was pregnant with my daughter, Yardley, at the time. And Tucker would come on. And then in 2013, he got hired as a weekend host at Fox & Friends. And that is when I launched in the primetime with The Kelly File, that same year. And I started having Tucker on. He was always great. He was always funny. He's so affable and such like a kind, happy warrior.

24:31He's always been that way. no matter how much crap rains down on Tucker, he never loses his sense of humor or his general sense of just being a good, happy person to have around. He walks into the room, the energy improves immediately. So we had that back then. And listen, those were not great years. Those were the Obama years. Like the news was boring. Obama was boring, but we knew we didn't like him. And Tucker was always super entertaining. So I started to fall in love with this guy in the air. You know, I just thought he was really special. And then as our careers kept going, Donald Trump came on the scene.

25:01And people don't know this about Tucker, but from the moment Trump came out politically in 2015 forward, Tucker was a Trump whisperer. He didn't bill himself as that. People didn't fully understand that's what he was, but I saw it. And he saw the magic of Trump before anybody else did. There were very few who could actually see it and articulate it. and the ones who could and did are the ones who would drive that Trump wave to superstardom. Very few. It could have been superstardom in the political field or in the media field, and that was Tucker Carlson. Every time I had him on, and I never knew whether he loved Trump or didn't love Trump.

25:41I just knew he got Trump. He was a Trump whisperer in a way very few were when Trump was being universally dismissed, including by me. And so he helped me. I listened to him and I learned. And what he taught me night after night, coming on the show, talking about Trump, was right. And when Trump won and then became our president and then slowly but surely over the next 10 years would build this massive support, it wasn't a surprise to me because of Tucker Carlson, because I listened to somebody who was saying something very different from what everybody else was saying. And he did not mislead me.

26:19He was right. And the thing about Tucker is he's been right about so much. We could be here all night, but another one that we have to mention is COVID, right? He was early, early on the train of this is wrong. This is authoritarian. This is evil what they're doing to us. How are they closing the beaches? How are they cutting down the basketball hoops? Not that many people were saying that, a couple, even on Fox, but Tucker was. And he was in that role. And he was in that primetime role because I left Fox, as you know, in January of 17. Let's not even talk about what happened right after that.

26:58I left Fox and Tucker and I had become friends. And Lachlan Murdoch asked me, who do you think should take your spot? And I said, it absolutely has to be Tucker Carlson. And he said, really? And I said, absolutely, 100%. I said, he's literally the only person who could do it. And Tucker and I had a great talk. I was in the hair salon. I remember leaving Fox and getting my color done. And he thanked me. And I was like, of course, you don't have to thank me. You earned it. You're the obvious choice. This is before his career completely went juggernaut. And we went on. My career then hit the skids massively.

27:34Tucker's completely reached lunar levels. And then when the shit hit the fan for me at NBC, and I was the scourge of the nation, being called a racist in every newspaper in America, all over online, to the point where it was like active tears in my home every day. But I said, Doug, you'll be fine. No, no, it wasn't Doug. Remember the Presbyterian, stuff it down. No, it was me. There were almost no media figures who would stand up for me. They didn't want to touch me with a 10-foot pole because I was totally toxic. Now, I had friends in my life who were in media who were completely supportive. Melissa Francis, I see you out there.

28:14She's a dear friend and she had my back. But on the air, almost no one, literally almost no one, except for Tucker Carlson, who got out there and kicked some NBC ass viciously like a boss. And I have to tell you, when you're down on the mat, you know, bleeding, and you have somebody do that for you, the gratitude is overwhelming. And so I've had Tucker's back and he's had my back. And these are just a few of the reasons why I love Tucker Carlson. Love. I don't care what anybody says about him. I will always have his back. He's controversial, so am I. So are most people in media who take risks and do big swings for the fences.

29:09Do we always hit the ball perfectly? No, we don't. But when you know a man's character, you know a man's character. And Tucker is a great man. Medicare's annual enrollment period is here. And let's be honest, it's more confusing than ever. Out-of-pocket costs going up for a lot of seniors and over a million people are on plans that are simply going away in January. It might be tempting to ignore the flood of Medicare ads and mailers, but doing nothing could mean that come next year, the doctors you trust and the prescriptions you count on are no longer covered. This is why you need to know about Chapter.

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30:34Stand firmly. Do not waver on the truth. Next stop, White Plains, Jacksonville, Miami, and Atlanta. So go get your tickets right now before they sell out. MeganKelley.com. Presented by Y Refi and SiriusXM.

30:51All right, I'm going to bring them out in one minute, but first, enjoy this.

30:59Hi, Tucker. This is kind of surreal because I remember watching you in 2004. on CNN. What? I never worked at CNN. There is no religious movement that threatens peaceful civilizations more than this cult within Islam. You're rid of AI, dude. I'm Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. I never did that. That's totally, that's AI, man. Rachel Maddow joining us from New York. Hi, Tucker. Nice to see you. Great to see you. I've done a lot of shameful things. I'm not going to pretend. Dancing the cha-cha-cha, Tucker Carlson and his partner Elena Grinenko. I can't believe I just did that. Joining me now with more, Tucker Carlson.

31:44I had a great time in cable news. I really enjoyed it. People who are affecting your lives ought to have to answer pretty straightforward questions about what they're doing. What country is this? Well, it's a country in a lockdown. The whims of our political leaders are now unquestioned law. Dissent has been banned. Would you like me to read your quote? The people who disagree with you ought to potentially go to jail? You said that. Yes, I'm a specious. Okay. You got me. What are you? The capital. Can you just do that again? I think you perfected it.

32:18I liked everyone I worked for, including the people who fired me, which was everybody I worked for. Like, on what grounds could I be mad? I don't know. Like, some corporate person didn't like me? Well, I don't like corporate people, so we're even. It's just nice not to have anybody telling you what you can say. The creation of COVID was probably not what they told us. This question appears to be subtle. It is quite pesky. I'm asking at the behest of his family. And they think it was a murder. I think now, you know, there's a need for people who are honest. What motivates you to keep going? Who the hell knows?

32:55I don't know. The audience can tell if you're trying to tell the truth. and that's kind of the main thing they want, I think. Don't patronize me and lie to me. Just be straightforward. Devil without a cause And I'm back with the beaver Hats and back Derry Slash and 30-mile strong Step back up Unknown Rogaine in the pro-bank Yeah

33:22Yeah

33:27Thank you Woo-hoo! I'm so happy we are having this moment. Well, I'm so grateful to be here. I didn't think I'd ever leave my house again. We had Nazi week this week, and I turned off my phone. I have Nazi week about once a year for like 30 years, and now I'm just like, I can't. You have any big interviews lately? How's everything going? I literally went on a hunting trip, and my wife had put Starlink in her hunting camp, which I was totally opposed to, but there was a sense that I needed to be in touch. And my phone went off. We're on the Canadian border and hunting with my college roommates and all of a sudden I check my phone and you have 400 texts and they're like, Nazi!

34:09And I was like, turning this off. I still haven't replied yet. Unsubscribed. No, I've been through this before. Yes, of course you have. I mean, everybody has. As I was just recounting, I was a racist in literally every newspaper in the country. It's like this is what they say. They go to the worst possible place to paint anything you do as an attempt, I think, to delegitimize you. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about why Nick Fuentes. I interviewed Fuentes. Well, I should just give the publicly available information on this, which is that I was in an extremely personal and bitter war with Fuentes like three weeks ago.

34:46It mostly wasn't public, but Fuentes was attacking my father, a subject I have literally no sense of here. where my father passed in March and was really kind of the patriarch, not kind of, he was the patriarch in our family and a hero to every person in our family. And some of what Fuentes was saying about my dad was true, okay, which made it worse. But I was just so offended by that. I couldn't deal with it. And my son and my wife. So I was really mad at Fuentes and then I did an interview and just out of the way, I was so mad. It popped out and I attacked Nick Fuentes. in this interview. This was last month, I think, ish.

35:28And then I got all these calls from people saying, do you know anything about, I don't know anything really about Nick Fuentes other than he's attacking my dad, my wife, and my son. And it was like, actually, Nick Fuentes is the single most influential commentator among young men. Like, period. He's got five million subscribers on Rumble. It's bonkers. And I didn't know any of, I mean, I'm 56, so I'll just, like, state the obvious, you know? He's not our demo. My oldest child is 31. like much older than Nick Fuentes. So I kind of missed a lot of this stuff. I pride myself on not missing things.

35:58I totally missed that. Really? And then it turns out that, you know, he has no advertisers. They've been trying to cancel him since freshman year in college. Ben Shapiro actually tried to shut him down freshman year in college and it didn't work. In fact, it had the opposite effect. So I was like, hmm. And so I talked to a million people I know, like, maybe I should interview Nick Fuentes to hear what, like, what is this actually? and so I decided to do it and I thought it would be controversial I didn't think it would become what it's become I'm not going to offer any defense other than you know it's kind of interesting I've literally I mean I've interviewed anybody I'm doing this for 34 years so I've interviewed everybody most of them bad people to be honest right I interviewed Liberian militia leaders during the Liberian civil war all cannibals every single one of them it tasted human flesh And first of all, I kind of like them.

36:50I'm just being honest because I like people. Don't agree with cannibalism. Pretty opposed. For the record. But I'm just that way. I just like people. And the closer, if you can like smell someone and talk to them, like it's hard to not see the human in the person, even if he's a cannibal. Did the Liberian cannibal smell good? Kind of rank, to be honest. Actually, during the interview, this is, I'll never forget this. I was in Africa for, to cover the Civil War. And I'm interviewing this guy. And he was like, you know, commander butt naked. or it wasn't actually Commander Butt Naked who was a famous militia leader during that war who fought, needless to say, Butt Naked.

37:22But I'm interviewing this guy and his cell phone goes off and it's the Woody Woodpecker theme song. Da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da. And I was like, oh my gosh, you're human. It was like hilarious. Anyway, the point is, none of those were controversial. Like I interview people who are hated and in some cases like demonstrably evil and I ask them, why did you do that? And what, you know, what's your account of yourself? Like tell me who you are. What do you believe? And I wanted to, that was the first thing I wanted to achieve with Nick Fuentes. Like, what is this? Tell me. You know, I'll give you two hours.

37:53I have only watched your clips for like a minute long. I want to hear, like, why don't you describe what you think? Because I think that's the small role that I play, which is to get documentary evidence of people describing what they think. I did it with Putin. I'll probably do it with every other bad person in the world because I'm interested. Not because I agree with him, because I think it's interesting. And second, I wanted to say something very specific to Nick Fuentes. and it's this and I said it which is I think it's totally legitimate to criticize any foreign country from Belgium to Congo to Israel because they're foreign countries yes and I'll never give up that right in fact it's an obligation I would say and to be reasonable about it and not you know but what's in America's interest totally legitimate it is totally illegitimate and very specifically un-Christian to attack people for their DNA.

38:43Like, I hate this group. You wanted him to hear that. He has, we all have to hear that. And because that is the basis of Western civilization. Western civilization is derived from the New Testament. It is based on Christian ethics. And the core difference between the West and the rest of the world, not just Israel, but every other country, is that we don't believe in collective punishment because we don't believe in blood guilt. We don't believe that you were born guilty, and we also don't believe that you were born virtuous. We believe that God created every person as an individual. God did not create communities.

39:18Every woman gives birth to a human being, and every person has the spark of God inside him. I mean, that's what we believe as Christians, and every person has the possibility of redemption. And in my religion, the great human hero in Christianity, Jesus is God in human form, But the great human hero in the New Testament is its primary author, Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus, who was the primary persecutor as a Pharisee of Christians. He was murdering Christians. He was Jewish, by the way, like everyone in the New Testament, but he was on the way to go murder more Christians than he met Jesus, and then he became the great evangelist of our faith and wrote the majority of the New Testament.

39:54So, like, he's my personal hero, but he's also living testament to the truth about people, which is each one of us was born as an individual, and we will face God alone at the end to account for our lives. And along the way, there is always the possibility that no matter what your genes are, what you look like, or what your religion is, that you can change and that you can be saved by Jesus. That is Christianity in three sentences. And so that is reflected, even for people who aren't Christians, that is reflected in an ethical framework and a legal code that is the only truly unusual and great thing about the West, which is we do not punish the innocent.

40:36We only punish the guilty. You commit a crime, we don't throw your kids in jail. We don't execute your cousins. We don't commit genocide against your whole tribe. We punish you because you did it. We treat each person as an individual. That is Western civilization. That's a Christian understanding. It does not derive from any other religion, Christianity alone, alone, unique, makes that claim. And that's the base of our justice system, which, again, even non-Christians appreciate that's why they move here, because it's self-evidently more humane. That's where the idea of human rights come from.

41:10They're not collective rights. It's not that your tribe has rights and his tribe does, and it's you as an individual have rights. And that idea is not only being challenged in our country, it's being disregarded. It's disregarded in DEI. It's disregarded in affirmative action. Identity politics is a refutation of that idea. We are awarding some people something because of how they were born and hurting others for the same reason. That is anti-Western. It's evil. And it leads, in the end, inexorably to genocide. That is the root idea behind what happened in Europe in the 40s under the Nazis. It's the root idea behind what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

41:54It's the root idea, just saying, behind what's happening in Gaza right now, where it's like, we're going to kill the kids too. We don't care. And we're going to, by the way, move everyone out because they're a people that is fundamentally opposed to us. Yeah, well, I'm not for that. Sorry, because that's not the Western understanding of justice. We punish the guilty alone, we do not punish the innocent. Period. And that's not racism. And in fact, it's the answer to racism. It's the answer to anti-Semitism. It's why anti-Semitism is wrong. It's why racism is wrong. No, you're not better than me.

42:31No, you're not worse than me because of how you were born. You're the same as me because we were both created by God. Period. So the whole idea of thinking of people as members of tribes, any tribe, including my tribe, is prima facie immoral. And yet, it is the operating idea behind so much of our politics. And I reject it. I reject it when it manifests as anti-Semitism. I reject it when it manifests as anti-white racism, which has been pretty common. I know we're not supposed to say it, but it's real. But I'm not mad about that just because my kids are white, which they are. I'm mad about that because the idea is immoral.

43:09It's anti-Christian, and that is the destruction of the West. And so when I see these people, we're defending Western, when Mark Levin's like, we're defending Western civilization, or Randy Fine, who's like, yeah, we just have to kill every Palestinian because they're Palestinian so we can defend Western civilization. I'm like, no, no, no, you're the enemy of Western civilization because collective punishment is the enemy of Western civilization, period. Wow. That's what I wanted to say, and I said it, and they called me a Nazi, and I'm like, actually, I hate the Nazis for that specific reason.

43:42But wait, what I hear you saying, sort of, is that you wanted to reach him. You wanted him... Of course I want to reach him and everyone watching. But were you trying to help him in a way? I want to tell the truth as I understand it with the ever-present knowledge that I'm kind of a buffoon and I'm often wrong. I supported the Iraq War. I remind myself of that every single day. I've made a ton of mistakes, a ton of errors, and judgments. I've been carried away by enthusiasm and particularly by anger many times in my life. So with that knowledge, knowing that I am imperfect and I don't always possess the truth, okay, you always have to remember that because I'm not God, I still want to tell the truth as clearly and completely as I can in every venue, in every conversation, as fearlessly and without shame as I possibly can.

44:28And that's why Nazi Week doesn't bother me anymore because I'm not a Nazi. I'm a Christian. Of course. So what about, I don't want to spend the whole time on this, but I am curious. The main criticism, as I understand it, has been, well, yes, platforming. They say that. I don't accept platforming as a valid objection. What is that a verb, by the way? You take a noun and you make it into a verb and nobody says anything? As a former editor, I say no. Yeah, agreed. Honestly, but as far as I know, Nick Fuentes hasn't eaten anyone. Jeffrey Dahmer ate people and he was platformed by Diane Soar. We have a member, a sitting member of Congress.

45:02I spoke to the Speaker of the House about this today. We have a sitting member of Congress from Florida called Randy Fine, who was literally texted or put on Twitter, we should kill them all. Every single one. Someone texted a picture of literally of a dead baby and he laughs at it. And it's like, this guy's a lawmaker who's appropriating money to a military committing genocide and that's cool? It's not cool. And let's just be honest, that is much worse than anything Nick Fuentes has said. Period. So the main pushback has been when you had Jeffrey Dahmer or the Ku Klux Klan, etc., these journalists went after them.

45:41Like, exposed the terrible things. And Nick Fuentes has said a long list of very vile things. Big time. Including attacking my dad, which was the most vile of all, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, I personally have watched videos of him questioning the Holocaust, likening it to baking cookies in the oven, and there's no way you could have gotten to six million, seems to be his theory. He seems to think that we've way overstated the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He's ripped on poor Usha Vance in the most offensive terms. So what do you say to those people? Why didn't you raise any of that?

46:15You know, do your own interview the way that you want to do it. You're not my editor. Buzz off. I mean, I don't know. You want to go yell at Nick Fuentes? I'll give you a cell. Call him. And go sit and yell at him and feel virtuous or whatever. that's up to you. I got the same thing with Putin. Why aren't you yelling at him? Okay, why? So I can show that I'm a good person? I care about what my wife thinks, my children think, and God thinks, and that's it. I don't need to prove that I'm a good person to you. You may think I'm a terrible person. Okay, I'm just doing my thing, which is I want to understand what people think, and I'm committed to that, and if you don't like it, don't watch.

46:51That's my view, but that doesn't mean that I share the views. I'm not telling Nazi jokes, obviously, or Holocaust jokes. I mean, please. And I don't, you know, I'm not telling them even in private because I'm not into that at all. But I will say, just since you brought it up, one thing that did bother me was the Usha Vance thing. And I did actually, I generally make it a practice not to be like, you said this, and da-da-da-da-da, and the internet tells me, or, you know, the ADL says, you said this. It's like, why don't you just tell me what you do think? Like, why don't you speak for yourself because we're adults.

47:23That is my approach with everybody, whether I like him or don't like him. But the Usha Vance thing did upset me because I know Usha Vance and I love Usha Vance and I was really offended by that just personally because I know her, right? And in a normal way. And I did think about that. Like, that pissed me off. And I'm just being as honest as I can be. I didn't want to repeat it. Yeah, no, you're always in that position. Actually, you know. As a journalist, you're always there like, do I repeat it? Well, if you know the person. And spread it? Kind of. And it's like so wounding. And he attacked my wife, as I said.

47:55So I don't know. I'm sensitive on this. So let me ask you this. Maybe I made the wrong call, by the way, probably. So now having done it, what do you think of him? About Fuentes? Yeah. I think it's so funny. I did not make Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes is just enormously gifted as a broadcaster. It's unbelievable. His talent is... I mean, I have done that job. Not the Holocaust jokes, obviously, but I've sat in front of a camera and talked. He's really good at it. He has not been canceled. He can't be canceled. So I kind of think of Fuentes in terms of what place does he occupy? What does he say about our society?

48:42And I'm not making excuses for anybody else's views. I'm just saying as a factual matter, if this is the most popular person among young men, young white men, then we need to start thinking about why that is. And we need to reflect on what we have collectively done to young men, which is destroy them, actually. And no one wants to say that because no one wants to take any responsibility at all for anything ever. No one ever wants to repent. They all want to cast stones. They don't see the plank in their own eye. This is including me. It's just humans are like this. and they want to be like Nazi and it's like oh yeah okay great but like how did this happen why are they listening to him kind of and part of the reason is because the Republican Party completely betrayed its voters by obsessing over Israel that's just a fact like what is this it's a country of 9 million people I'm not against Israel I visited on vacation I've always liked Jerusalem is my favorite city in the world I'm not against Israel but like why is that the center of our conversation It's 9 million people, no resources The only strategic value Israel has Is the extent to which we have to defend Israel But take that out And there's no value at all I'm not against it, I'm just saying We're a country of 350 million people We're the most important country in the world And our politics is Practically every member of Congress Spends all day talking about Israel And if you're a normal person You're like, I don't hate Israel I certainly don't hate Jews But what the hell is this?

50:09And then it's like, shut up, you can't talk about it Why? clarify what you mean because when you were winding up on the Republican party has abandoned young men, I was with you, both parties have abandoned young men, especially the Democrats though for so many other reasons, but why Israel? You're saying the focus is over there. Because all the energy, yeah, I mean look Trump is elected, I campaign for him and I love Trump, I just want to say that and I talked to him the other day and I love Trump. And I've known him for 25 years and I could write many books on Trump and they would be positive basically but the second he gets elected, who's the first person to visit?

50:44Bibi. Then he comes again. Then he comes again. And it's like the energy of the administration and of the entire U.S. government is all of a sudden about Iran. A war with Iran? Really? How many people do you know who've been killed by Iran in the United States in your lifetime? Zero, because that's the number. How many people do you know who've died of a drug OD? Some. Maybe you have a nephew who did. So, like, what is this? I know you want to have regime change in Iran. I'm not mad at Israel at all. it doesn't, I'm not actually mad at Israel. I'm mad at our leaders for spending their time and my money focusing on someone else's country.

51:18And then I'm doubly mad because that's a total betrayal of the promise, which is your government works for you because you own the government because it's a democratic republic. Like what the hell is going on? And then if you say anything about it, it's like, you're a Nazi, you're an anti-Semite. Well, actually I'm not. And I'm in a really great place to say that because I actually, I'm really, I'm not. And no matter how many times they say that, it like doesn't bother me because it's, I think it's, in fact, by the way, I think they are attacking me because I'm pretty reasonable. Like who, who would disagree with what I'm saying?

51:52I'm just, maybe you do. Okay. You do, but you do, you disagree with what I'm saying, but like, what is the answer? Why would the U S government spend all this time? No, I'm sincere question. why is the overwhelming majority of the U.S. Congress taking money from a foreign unregistered lobby? Like what? Like what is the answer? Why is that okay? And they want to prevent you from asking that question because there really isn't a good answer other than shut up. And if that's the only answer, I just, by my temperament and my age, I'm just not going to shut up because that's not hate, it's sincere.

52:33What is that? What do you make of the folks who say Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East. They're in a very tough neighborhood. They have our shared Western values. They have our back. We have their back. And that we have much more in common with the people in Israel than we do with some of these surrounding countries. I would say, what are you talking about? Pushing things like Sharia law, which I heard you comment on too. What's happening in Gaza, which is the killing of civilians because they are related to terrorists. They've said that too. This is not a left-wing talking point.

53:06Have you read what Israeli... You guys are fiery tonight. It's just a fact. Read Ben-Gavir, Smotrich, on this. These are sitting cabinet ministers in the current government saying, starve them out, kill them, kill their children. This is like a cabinet secretary in the current government in Israel saying this out loud. That is not Western. That's Eastern. That is totally incompatible with Western civilization. We don't punish the innocent, period. under any circumstances or else we're as bad as the people we're fighting. And that, by the way, the U.S. government has done the same, and I've complained about it a lot.

53:43And no one has ever called me names for criticizing my own government, so why is it verboten to criticize somebody else's government thousands of miles away? What the hell are you talking about? That is a great question. I just believe in the principle. And second, tell me why they're our most important ally. Right down the road, you've got countries that have, like, the bulk of the world's energy supply. That's not an important ally? What? If you're looking at foreign policy through the lens of what's good for America, you don't want to make unnecessary enemies. I like Israel for the eighth time.

54:14How many people have been there on vacation just because they like it? I have. I took my kids. I'm not against it. I don't want it to get hurt. But from a geostrategic point of view, your duty, if you're running the State Department or running the White House or a member of Congress, is to serve the people who elected you in your country. So you need to think seriously as you do with your own children, what's good for them? And one thing that's good for them is being allies with countries that have a lot of energy because it makes civilization run. That's why. Et cetera, et cetera. So like that doesn't even make any sense.

54:46Okay. I think we've covered the Israel thing. I mean, those are not Nazi views. This is why they hated Trump from day one. When he said America first, a lot of smart people thought, whoa, if you put America first, then you're going to put Israel second. And that's why they hated Trump. That's why they hate me. But most people in both parties, at least conceptually, will agree with that because there's no real argument against putting your own country first because that's the purpose of your government. But here's my own view. So here we are. We're 20 minutes in. And we've already devoted a lot of time to the topic of Israel and whether somebody's an anti-Semite and all that.

55:24And I just feel like this is taking over the discussion on the right. It's taking, and it shouldn't be. We have our own problems here at home. With all due respect, I care about Israel. I've given Israel a wide berth as it's conducted its response to the attack, the horrible attack that happened on 10-7. But it's been two years now. President Trump has managed to wrap this up, for the time being at least. And we really have our own problems that we need to worry about. Yes, you think? So let's talk about some of our problems. Streaming November 16th on Paramount+. Plus, it is the return of Landman, TV's biggest phenomenon from Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone.

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59:14What do you think of Zoran Mamdani? And what do you think of Jay Jones winning in Virginia, notwithstanding what he said? Well, that just kind of tells you, Jay Jones is a big Israel guy, by the way, which maybe is why he's not the subject of Nazi Week. But, I mean, of course, right? This is a guy, the new Attorney General of Virginia, the chief law enforcement officer in the Commonwealth of Virginia who fantasized, and then not only fantasized, defended the fantasies of murdering someone else's kids with a gun because the parents of those kids disagreed with him. This is the collective punishment that I'm talking about.

59:51This is the brain virus that's taking over our country, that whole groups are guilty. This is the root of, again, of anti-Semitism, of the anti-white stuff, of the tribalism that will destroy this society and every other society that falls prey to it. and he, as the chief law enforcement officer, whose core duty is to administer the law impartially, fairly, evenly to every American citizen, has already admitted that he's basically a Hutu, and no one seems to care, okay? So, that's like the scariest thing I can imagine. Honestly, that's the scariest thing. As for Mamdani, I mean, you know, there are a lot of things to say.

1:00:27I won't go on about it, but I just found it, speaking of Israel, taking over the conversation, this is a guy who said in public and then defended his statement that we're going to tax whites more because they're white? And nobody cared. They're like, oh, but he doesn't have the right views on Israel. What? Again, be quiet about Israel. I don't care. I don't have to care. I'm not bad for not caring. So, shh. What I care about is my country. I don't think he has the right views on Israel. I don't think he does have the right views on Israel, but I don't care about his views on Israel because we're not in Israel.

1:00:55We're in the United States. And he said, I'm going to tax white people more because they're white and like nobody cared. And it's like, what the hell? Bottom line, without getting all worked up, I will say it's our biggest city. It's 8 million people. Cities are incredibly complex organisms, take centuries to build. My ancestors helped build New York, by the way, but can be destroyed very, very quickly. Look at Johannesburg, 30 years, and it's a husk. It's a joke. And it was a beautiful city. Look at Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Look at almost all of our cities, Baltimore. And that could happen to New York City very soon.

1:01:30In fact, it will. I have a child who lives here. Call me today. I was like, I'm leaving. Not an ideological person. It's just like we know where this is going because it's happened in dozens and dozens. In fact, it happened to almost every single big city we have. And now it's happening to our biggest city. And it's just the greatest tragedy. And I feel like it doesn't have to happen. It doesn't have to happen. It's just like your house. if you allow, as the father, as the patriarch in your family, chaos to break out and you don't settle it down and set limits and say, I mean, I would say my family, you know, I'm all about no, that's my job.

1:02:03I don't like saying no, but that's my duty. Someone has to be like, no, we're not doing that. We're not, you know, pissing in the street. We're not having sex in an ATM vestibule. We're not pushing people in front of subway cars. We're not smoking drugs in the park. Like, how about no? And because no one is willing to say that, it just inexorably falls apart. And I think it's the saddest thing I've ever seen. How do you think, what letter grade would you give Donald Trump so far?

1:02:35Well, as always, I just give him, like, huge style points. He's just hilarious. He's just unbelievable. He's just, and he never gets credit for it. you know, people always say Trump is always seeking credit for everything. But in my view, as a middle-aged man, every middle-aged man wants to be thought of as funny. And the core unmet desire in the heart of every long married man is to have his wife laugh at his jokes. And of course, it doesn't happen. It can't happen. It's some rule of nature. It's like Sisyphus. The rock never gets to the top for some reason, but you keep pushing it. And I feel like Trump is a victim of that very, very sad, very rarely recognized syndrome.

1:03:19The unrecognized comedian syndrome. I think he's freaking hilarious. I just do. He's amazing. Yeah. I think sealing the borders is a wonderful achievement. Yep. Yes. I think, you know, you could argue both ways on sending troops to cities and how it was done and will it work or whatever, but just saying out loud that crime and disorder are the most basic enemies of civilization is so important. It's like you can say you're civilized, but if your wife is getting mugged, if your kids are afraid to go to school, you're not civilized. You're living like animals. Even animals don't live like that. So just to have him say that is hugely reassuring to me and hugely important.

1:04:07Telling the truth is often more important than really doing anything. And then I would say tariffs kind of open question. I'm certainly rooting for them. But the foreign policy stuff, it's like every president struggles with this. You just get swarmed. And it seems so important and imminent. We have to do this. And like actually I have found in life a lot of the time it's like don't just do something. Sit there. Like actually don't take action is often the wisest response to what appears to be a crisis. Just calm down. What do you think about threatening boots on the ground in Nigeria? I mean, it's like deranged, you know?

1:04:41No. Have you been to Nigeria? I have. No. Yeah, no. They're slaughtering Christians. Yeah, they are. Christians are being killed in a lot of different places, and I hate it. But boots on the ground may not be the right way to do it. I just, you know, I'm 56, so I was, you know, what, 32 or something when 9-11 happened. And I spent the next 10 years like traveling to all the places and seeing all the stuff. And I can just tell you what you already know, which is our response just was totally counterproductive in a very deep sense, counterproductive and really bad for America. I'm sad about that.

1:05:15I supported it. I'm not blaming anyone. But that's just true. So we haven't figured out how to make things better by inserting troops. You can certainly overthrow people. You can, you know, you can force Hitler to kill himself. You can make the emperor resign or whatever. You can do those things. You can do the kind of obvious things, but the fine motor skills are tough, are really tough. Like, how do you change attitudes and tribalism? I mean, I think in a specific case of Nigeria, I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in Nigeria yesterday, who said, you know, it's anti-Christian. Of course, Christians get martyred all the time, including in Azerbaijan.

1:05:56But in this case, it's primarily tribal, different tribes. But whatever, it's complex. I don't, you know, I don't know. Doesn't seem like a good morass to start. Speaking of which, Dick Cheney died. I knew him well. How do you think he'll be remembered? You know, probably. I mean, I'm just really loathed to, I have great respect for death. I've seen a lot of it, and I'm opposed to it. I will just say that. But I have reverence for it, and I just don't. If you're not back on your heels a little bit in the face of death, and just acknowledging that there are mysteries no human mind can comprehend and sort of humble in the face of it, then you're not really in touch with your best parts.

1:06:41You're not fully human. So I just don't criticize people when they die. And I will say one charitable thing, which is he's an amazing fly caster. Amazing. He could drop a dry fly in the top of a beer bottle at like 40 feet, which if you're a dry fly fisherman, and I am, is like ridiculous. Standing in a boat. And I also, I've been hunting with him. good shot when he wasn't drinking. He was, no, well, he did shoot Harry Whittington in the face. But, like, if that had been a quail and not a lawyer from Austin, I think the quail would have been dead. Harry took quite a few pellets from the 28 that day, tough man.

1:07:21By the way, lived another 20 years. But, he raised a really repulsive daughter, which I think is bad. And, just on the downside, You know, I've got a bunch of daughters They're just fine people And I'm more proud of them than of anything in my life And if I had a daughter, you know, like Liz Cheney I don't believe in suicide, but I would consider it Oh, wow Okay While we're on the subject of Republicans We talked to Trump, we talked to Cheney No, in the way that a father feels responsible For having, like, a warmonger daughter Like, your daughter worships violence? Like, what? How many daughters worship violence?

1:07:57Not a lot So if yours is you know, it's on you. J.D. Vance. Is he 48?

1:08:09So a lot of the Nazi week was really about attacking J.D. Like, how could you... I'm not an advisor to J.D. Vance, by the way. I'm a podcaster, just to be clear. I'm the least Bengali-like person you've ever met. I can't plan a birthday dinner. I'm not strategic in my thinking. I'm the last person you would go to. Like, what do we do? I don't know. So I'm not... No, it's true. And so I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. So no one asked me for my strategic advice ever, and no one should, including JD. So I have no role in that. But I love JD as a man, and I find it amazing the guilt by association.

1:08:46Like, you know Tucker Carlson, therefore you're a Nazi too. It's like, again, that's going back for the eighth time to the kind of thinking that will wreck this country and that is not Western, which is collective guilt. J.D. didn't do anything. J.D. is the opposite of a Nazi. J.D. is a wonderful, humane person and a wise person and above all, a normal person who understands what's the country. And I hate politicians. You're never going to hear me say that about any politician, probably, other than him. And I've known them all well. And he's an amazing person. So I grieve to think that he is being tarred by guilt by association because I know him.

1:09:22Of course, I hesitate even to say it because I don't want to hurt him, but we already heard what I said about him. So I think he's done such an amazing job for Trump. How'd you like to be vice president? Yeah. Tough. Is there anybody else who could do it besides J.D.? You know, I don't really know. I think there's a mad scramble. It's never what they say it's about. I think there's a huge scramble, I don't think I know because I'm in the middle of it, to define what the Republican Party is after Trump. That's what it is. Trump is not ideological. So there's, you know, what does MAGA mean, actually?

1:09:57Well, MAGA means America first, is what it means. And so, but is this going to be an America first party? Or will the Republican Party devolve into, revert to what it was before Trump, which is, you know, libertarian economics, neoconservative foreign policy, pro-censorship. And the pro-censorship people are out in force this week. Like, platform, you can't, you, dinner with the person, never speak again. Like, how is that different from the woke stuff? It's exactly the same. Totally agree. It's embarrassing. Oh, my gosh. It is. No, it's woke on the right. And then they actually want you to say the thing.

1:10:30I mean, they're doing it to me just because we're friends. I can't imagine what they're doing to JD. It's ridiculous. Are you watching what they did to Kevin Roberts at Heritage? Oh, my God. Because he defended free speech? Kevin Roberts, do you guys know this piece of the story? Kevin Roberts at the Heritage Foundation came out and defended Tucker because there was a rumor, there was an untrue report that Heritage was piling on Tucker after his interview of Nick Fuentes and was like canceling Tucker, was going to pull down the Tucker pictures at the Heritage Foundation. So the head of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, went on and did a video and said that none of that's true.

1:11:00We love Tucker and we're going to continue to support Tucker. And we don't really believe in cancel culture and kind of get off our back. That's a Democrat thing. All hell broke loose at the Heritage Foundation. And they basically forced him to go on sort of an apology tour in the days thereafter. And people are leaving the Heritage Foundation. Now people are like judging you on whether you're leaving the foundation or you're staying there. It's like, all he did was say, I'm not going to disavow Tucker. I'm not canceling Tucker. I love Tucker, and I believe in free speech, and I don't think we should cancel.

1:11:29This isn't cancellation. It's disavowal. It's, you know, you're normalizing Tucker. Hello, Tucker's been normalized. He's good. He is normal. He's got his own views on these matters that are very controversial that a lot of people disagree about. Doesn't make them bad people, and they're now dragging him like in Game of Thrones, you know, shame, shame style. They're also scaring the crap out of people. I mean, people I really love and know well have called me and be like, you're a Nazi, or I'm never talking to you again. And it's, I'm not even really stung by it. I'm saddened by it. Like you, it's very easy to scare people.

1:12:04Very, very easy. I had it tonight. Someone came up to me and people are calling you a Nazi and I'm Jewish and I didn't, you know, my friends are saying, how can you meet him? And I'm like, oh, I felt so bad. Because these are sincere people who are not trying to make some political point about the Republican Party, they're like, they have been told that there is someone who's going to hurt them, and it scares the crap out of people. I mean it. Like, I think that's evil. And by the way, I've thought a lot about this because I was a TV show host my whole life, and you can scare the crap out of people on TV.

1:12:32And I've done it, by the way, and I'm ashamed of it. You get out there and you're like, oh, they're coming for you. And like, are they really coming for you? If they're not, don't say that, because you have the ability to really whip people into a frenzy and it hurts them. It makes them unreasonable. Actually, it makes them hateful. Everything about it is bad. And they're doing that in a huge way. I mean, they, some group like is now demanding that Heritage have mandatory Shabbat dinners for every Heritage employee because... Does that stop one from becoming an anti-Semite? No, it creates it. I mean, what?

1:13:05And then one kid was like, well, I don't know. I'm not, I'm Catholic. I have a religious observance on Friday night. And they're like, you're an anti-Semite. It's like, dude, you are really playing with fire. This stuff is so bad. It makes people dislike each other. And don't do that. Why are we doing that? Look, in all seriousness, like the challah bread, that's enough to make you convert. Honestly. I've eaten so much of it in my life. The brisket and the challah. I had to buy new pants. I used to go over all the time for Shabbat dinner with my Jewish friends in my old building, and it was amazing.

1:13:37I'm not against it. I'm just saying. I'm joking. Emphasizing our differences, telling people that everyone hates you. You've seen this happen on the left. That's what identity politics is. It's telling a group, everybody hates you, therefore you have to support us. And by the way, the more they look at you and say that over and over and over and over and over again, the more you have to feel they're trying to make you become the thing. Well, yeah, and by the way, luckily I'm not a paranoid person or afraid for my safety just by my temperament. I'm not, but they are calling for violence, actually.

1:14:10against me. And what, I mean, Charlie Kirk was just martyred, like stop. And censorship calls for violence are exactly what we said we were against like last month. Okay. Let me ask you what is going on. Let's talk just for one minute about Ben Shapiro, because he too is under threat. You, I know you both very well. And I also really care about Ben and he's, you cannot see Ben without six armed guards. He said on the daily wire not long ago, and I think it was a great line. He said, if they kill Matt Walsh, God forbid, everybody will know who did it, some crazed leftist. He said, if they kill me, it'll be like an Agatha Christie novel, like a mystery, where they won't know.

1:14:49It could be alt-right, could be far left. He's got a lot of haters. And so there was this one brief shining moment after Charlie died where you guys kind of buried the hatchet and you... I called him. I called him and Mark Levin, who I know well. He's obviously a lunatic, but he's a person. And I didn't want to fight. Well, he obviously is, but I didn't want to fight with him at all. And I said to both of them, I called him the day after or two days after Charlie was killed from my backyard because I was really thinking about it and praying about it. And I was like, we agree on a lot, like a lot, actually.

1:15:22And I'm not that interested in the topic of Israel. I'd be so glad never to hear the name again. I mean, I would be so glad I would never mention it again. Let's just, I'm not for more forever wars. Let's just stop that pressure and I'll never mention it again. I'll never think about it again. You obviously care about it much more than you. That's fine. but take that off the table and we agree on a lot so let's you know not attack each other and they didn't abide by those terms but that's fine they were under no obligation. Mark Levin was literally attacking you within days of that. I remember when you had that conversation we talked about it.

1:15:51No I know. That's fine. Within days. That's fine. I don't care what Mark. He's also out there calling me an anti-Semite. I don't even know what I know at least what the accusations against you are I have no idea what I did. Is anyone thinking through the damage this is doing like downstream I don't think that Levin, again, there are things that Levin says that I agree with completely. I don't hate Mark Levin. Enough about him. Mark Levin, you're like, oh, Mark Levin's angry again. What a shock. But is there any way that you and Ben Shapiro can actually find your way to detente? I'm not against Ben Shapiro.

1:16:23He did like a 40-minute thing yesterday calling me dangerous and all this stuff. It's like, I didn't watch it because, why? But I got a lot of texts about it and it's like, I'm not, I don't think Ben Shapiro is driving a lot of this stuff. I don't consider him the world's greatest force for evil. I don't feel that way at all. I don't actually think about him ever. I'm not attacking him. I saw him at Charlie's memorial service backstage. It was totally nice. He looked a little uncomfortable, but I wasn't uncomfortable. I'm like a lunatic. I was prattling on and telling obscene jokes and all this stuff.

1:17:01He was totally nice. A little appalled, but nice. And so I don't want to have a war with Ben Shapiro. I don't know if, does he really think that me doing an interview in which I explained that antisemitism is wrong to one of the lead purveyors of antisemitism, that that somehow makes me a Nazi? Like, what is the argument here? I'm going to ask him tomorrow night. No, but I don't even understand what the argument is. All I know is that the right, and I've been on the right since before Ben was born, is acting like the left in such an amazingly precise way that I'm like, what the hell is going on?

1:17:33And I tell you this, I'm against that. I was against it when the left did it. I'm against censorship. I'm against identity politics, no matter who does it, period, because that violates my principles. And I'll never be on board with that. I don't care if my own kids run for office, if they engage in censorship and identity politics, I'm out. If it's all about their tribe, If this is about who's ever tribe, we're done. This has to be about our common Americanness. We're all American citizens. And if our politics is not about that, it can't continue. Period. One of the things I know about you is in the last few years, you've really leaned into your Christianity.

1:18:14And you've been reading the Bible, and you've been studying it, and you've been getting more and more faithful. So how did that happen? And was it related to, in a weird way, this is kind of a weird left term, but was it all related to leaving Fox and becoming an independent in the journalism world? I wonder if those two things dovetail. I don't know. I always feel guilty talking about Christianity because I'm such a bad Christian that it's like, oh gosh, I don't want to discredit what I believe in by somehow purporting to speak on behalf of it. So with that caveat, no, it was before I left Fox and really what happened, I mean, I've been a baptized Christian my whole life, but I lived in a very secular world my whole life and had very secular attitudes, and I still do in some ways.

1:19:02I'm trying to get rid of them. It's hard. but it was watching it was while I was still at Fox and it was watching the nature of politics and I always thought politics was I covered it my whole life I thought it was about what's best for the country or best for people we have different visions of what's best right? left has one, right has another all of a sudden people were proposing things that under no circumstances could ever be good for people ever it was abortion really used to be people would be like well abortion is sad but there are cases where are you really going to try and force a 13-year-old to have a baby?

1:19:36And I'd be like, I get it. I get it. All of a sudden people were like, no, abortion is just good. It's just good to have an abortion. Shout your abortion. We're going to bring an abortion truck to the Democratic National Convention because more abortion is just good. And I'm like, that's not really politics, actually. That's a kind of religion. That's human sacrifice, actually. You're telling me that it's just good to have an abortion? And I saw that. It didn't make, and I was trying to understand it in secular terms. Like, who's for that? Even people who are super pro-choice are like, I wouldn't want my, you know, it's sad.

1:20:07But they were not saying that. They were extolling it. They were celebrating it. And I was like, wow, that's spiritual. And there were a lot of issues. The trans issue. I'd always been pretty liberal on that. You want to dress up like a girl? Okay. You look dumb, but I'm not mad about it. I mean, because I grew up in California around a lot of rich liberals. And there were some weird behavior. And I was like, yeah, whatever. But all of a sudden, they're like, no, we have to castrate your kids. And I was like, why would you do that? So then I just realized that their evil is real, like supernatural evil, and that this battle between light and dark that every culture has described, every religion describes in great detail, from the beginning of recorded history, is real.

1:20:45And it's only in my country, in the West, since the Second World War, that we've just decided we're God, and we don't think in those terms. And so we're blind to what's actually happening, that so much around us is a manifestation of the ongoing, ever-present, eternal spiritual war between good and evil. And everyone else in the world knows this except me. And I was like, holy smokes, it's real. And then I was like, I hate church because I don't trust any religious leaders because I know too many of them. And so I'm just going to, which is totally unfair, by the way, but that was my thought. Like, you know, I know these people, no thanks.

1:21:20And my own church had become totally pagan and crazy. So I was like, I'm just going to read the Bible at home and just like read the whole thing. Like I would read War and Peace or Anna Karenina, just like cover to cover. Took me a year and a half. And I'm going to see what's in it. And it just blew my freaking mind. I was like, wow, it's real. I can't believe this. I'd never read it. I'd never read the whole thing. I'd read like, you know, whatever the, and the greatest of these is love. And, you know, because I've been to a lot of weddings, but I'd never just like gone Genesis to Revelation.

1:21:50And that is like the central text in our civilization. And I hadn't read it. And I'm a reader. I love to read. I don't know how that happened, but that completely changed my life. And now I like send Bibles to people like some kind of street preacher. It was funny because I started... Have you read the Bible? They're like, what? Get away from me. A couple of years ago, I started, you know, the podcast Bible in a Year? Yeah. Father Mike Schmitz, love him. Susie does that. I love it. does that. It's very helpful. It's a great way to go through it. And I think he's brilliant. And you know, it starts Old Testament.

1:22:23And we were in some chapters there where the kids would walk into the room and you'd be like, follow him down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. It was worse than the datelines. I put the dateline on, they could listen to that. But some of the stuff in the Old Testament, you know, there's some stories in there that are kind of disturbing. Kind of rattled my cage. Yeah. Like I was shocked by some of that. Yeah. It was like, I needed a, a warning on the audio tape. But you had a story on somebody else's podcast that completely caught my attention, which you said you think you were attacked by a demon.

1:22:56And I have to tell you, like a lot of people mock this, they roll their eyes, but I look at like what happened to Charlie, what happened in the wake of Charlie, what happened at the Ascension School in Minneapolis where that man went in there and shot a bunch of little children praying at their church school. And I challenge anyone to tell me there aren't demons among us. I never thought there were. I thought the whole thing was, like, bizarre. So what happened? Because, like, culturally I'm just not from a world where people are attacked by demons. And, in fact, when it happened the next morning, when I saw the blood on my sheets, I was like, I actually called someone who works for me who's a very sincere, lifelong evangelical.

1:23:40And I'm like, have you ever heard of this? And she's like, oh yeah, it happens all the time. And I was like, what? Not to Episcopalians it doesn't. Stuff it down. Yeah, no, it was, well, yeah, I mean, I'm not embarrassed at all. And I don't care if I'm mocked. Don't get anything out of making this up. And I'm not making it up. But what happened? I had this crazy experience where I was in the truck with someone coming back from quail hunting. And I had, all of a sudden, this, we were talking about someone I despise. And all of a sudden I had this crazy empathy for the person, like really intense empathy, like it could understand why this person was doing these horrible things.

1:24:14And I said to the person, this is a family dispute, right? So I said to the person, maybe my brother, and I said, I think I know what's happening here. This person feels this way, that way, this way. And my brother goes, how did you know that? I said, I don't know. And my brother goes, I think God is speaking through you or something. And I felt total true empathy for this person I truly hate. It was like the craziest thing that's ever happened to me. I have no idea where it came from. My brother's like, I think that's from God. Like, there's no way you can, it's like, well, that's kind of wild.

1:24:43So then I get home. We have this huge dinner party, which we always have dinner parties. And I forget about it. And I'm telling you this because they're twinned. The one leads to the other. I had this profound experience with God, like profound and beautiful and unexpected. And then I go to bed with my wife and four dogs who sleep in the bed. My wife said, four children, my dogs are hunting dogs. All five of them wake up like that. Like, you know, we have no home invaders in my house. I wake up at 2.30 in the morning. I check my, and I couldn't breathe at all. My throat was closed. It wasn't like I was apnea or I was strong, because I couldn't breathe.

1:25:19So I get up, I stand in the doorway of our bedroom, and I'm like, wow, I'm dying. I can feel myself starting to gray out. And then I started walking in the backyard, and then it slowly came back. like my throat kind of opened up a little bit. I was like really weirded out. I walk back in and my wife wakes up. She goes, what is going on? I said, I don't know. I can't breathe. I feel better now. And all of a sudden I had this horrible pain underneath my arms, like on the side of my chest, like bad. I thought I'd been like ripped with a knife or something. It just was very intense. So I go into the bathroom, I flip on the light and I have claw marks on both sides, on right and left side on my ribs, and they're bleeding.

1:26:02And they're literally claw marks, four on either side. I put my fingers in them, don't fit my fingers, and I sleep on my side. So how could… And by the way, no one woke up. So I show my wife and she's like, oh, my gosh. And then I have this like crazy intense desire to read the Bible. So I read the Bible and I pass out in like two minutes and I wake up the next morning. I thought, man, did I have a wild dream? And then I see blood in my sheets and I go in the bathroom and I have these bloody marks. And my wife goes, I think you were attacked by some supernatural being. And I was like trying to be logical about it.

1:26:37I was like, yeah, I definitely was. And then I called one of my producers. He's like, oh yeah, that's pretty common. I was like, what? And I've had a couple other experiences, not that crazy, but where you really feel God's presence, which is marked by peace and true empathy, love for other people, which doesn't come naturally to me. I'm kind of a dick, obviously. But you know it when God is acting through you, and then they're followed by some wild attack. I've had a couple things. Anyway, I'm not an expert on this. I'm hardly a theologian, of course. I would never pretend to be an expert in anything.

1:27:19I can only say what happened to me. It was 100 % real. And it completely changed my view of the world. Well, what did you learn from your conversation with Lee Strobel, who wrote a book on the supernatural and who also wrote The Case for Christ? Many of you guys recommended that book to me, and it really was amazing. And Lee Strobel came on your show in September on his new book, which is about the supernatural. It's about miracles, It's about angels. It's about demons. It's a great read. But was there something in there that spoke to you? Everything about it. I mean, I grew up in a church, I'll just admit it, with shame, in the Episcopal Church where all the supernatural stuff was at was taken out.

1:27:57And at a certain stage in my life, I was like, why am I going to church? I love hanging in bed with my wife and dogs on Sunday morning. Like, why am I? And we wear ties to church. Like, why am I doing this? There's nothing in here that's like, be nice to your neighbor. Okay. Like, if it's not supernatural, then what's the point? And when I read the Bible, it's like it is about the supernatural. That's the whole story. It's true. It's like God intervenes supernaturally, bigger than above nature. And that's why it's different from every other book. And the New Testament especially is filled with Jesus casting out demons.

1:28:30I literally didn't know that. I knew there was the crazy guy in the cemetery who broke his chains, but I didn't really realize that not only was Jesus, but also disciples were casting out demons that were possessing people and causing them to hurt themselves. and as someone who had a drug and alcohol problem, I know kind of that weird, I've seen it a lot in others also, that weird desire to harm yourself. By the way, there's a reason they call it his demons. He's fighting his demons. It is totally real because ultimately evil, we always think of evil as something that diabolical people do to gain.

1:29:04Like, I'm screwing you, I'm killing you so I can take your gold. But what we never acknowledge is true, which is evil flows through people and destroys the people, not just the victims, but also the person through whom it flows. People who are possessed by evil are themselves destroyed every single time. And of course, I've lived a life, so I've seen a lot of that. And now, in retrospect, I understand what it was. And so much of what we experience is from outside of ourselves. We are acted upon constantly, constantly by the spiritual realm. And Lee Strobel just affirmed what I was beginning to realize, which is we are the subject of massive supernatural influence all the time.

1:29:49And every other civilization from the beginning of time has acknowledged this and written about it and left artifacts that point to that belief. And only in the last 80 years have we just foreclosed that possibility. And we've embraced the dumbest religion ever created, scientism, which is like, oh, I can't measure that. it's not real oh shut up yeah right that's like insane actually when you say it out loud but that is our state religion it's mandated by the way if you don't believe it you can't serve in high office you're mocked you're literally disqualified from professions if you don't embrace scientism which is like the fakest thing ever invented like i would always like as a kid study these weird religions i'm like that's insane nothing is as insane as scientism and so once you You discard it.

1:30:36And you're like, yeah, it's nice to measure things in a lab. Is that the sum total of truth? Obviously not. What is true? Then you realize, like, holy smokes, the spiritual battle is totally real. And we, we are the subjects of it. And that will lead us to UFOs. All right. Now, I know you're into this topic. And I know you know people who know a lot about this topic and who may not be able to provide everything they know in a public setting. so what do we know well i mean we know beyond question that there are objects and phenomena aerial and undersea that can't be explained by science and that seem to defy the laws will measurably defy the laws of physics and that are not experimental aircraft created by darpa or the DOD or by the Russians or the Chinese.

1:31:31We know that. There have been many testimonies to this effect under oath in the Congress in the last two years. So that's not even a question. Are they real? Yeah, well, obviously they're real. What are they is the question. And I've been down the rabbit hole on this and just because of my job, the one upside to having a gig like this, as you well know, is if you're curious about something, you actually have access to people who know or say they know. And you just call them up and be like, hey, come to my house. I'm working on a story about it. I've never done really a story on this because I came to a hard and fast conclusion on it, which I can't prove, but I sincerely believe it, which is that these are spiritual phenomenon, obviously.

1:32:07They've been here forever. There's a lot of evidence of that in the written record going back thousands of years. They're angels and demons, of course. And that would be obvious and was obvious to everyone else. What's so interesting, one of the reasons that this topic will drive you crazy and why I opted out and do no research and talk to no one about it, I'm out, I know what I think, I don't want to know anymore, is because there is such, and this is a matter of record, a concerted, decades-long disinformation campaign by the U.S. government to obscure what's happening. And if you look at that, and I grew up the son of a federal employee in a world where there's a lot of this stuff, so I do know a lot about this.

1:32:47And one of the ways to discredit the truth is by flooding the zone with lies. So rather than just denying UFOs are not real, well, you can't deny that anymore. They are real. What you do is you create a bunch of fake stories leading people in the wrong direction. You flood the zone. There's so many conspiracy theories that no one believes anything. But the way to know what the truth is is by figuring out what they're trying to prevent you from believing And if you look at the u.s. Government propaganda dod propaganda On the question of ufos uaps The one thread that connects all of it is that these are not supernatural These are little green men from mars their weather phenomenon their experimental aircraft The one thing that they don't want you to believe is that they are spiritual entities Why would that be so threatening to them?

1:33:37Well, that's a great question. That is the question. And there's an awful lot of thinking on this matter, and I don't know the answer. And I have theories on it. I don't have a firm belief on it. There's certainly an awful lot of highly informed speculation that there are very dark reasons that they don't want because they're participating in it. There have been technology transfers that are consistent with what we know about spiritual forces, which is always a deal. you know bow down before me and all of this will be yours i mean it's kind of the core story in the new testament and it's the template for our own lives in fact we face this all the time in our own lives you don't need to be interested in ufos to recognize that so many times you reach a juncture in your life in my life where it's like i could do this and i would get a lot out of it become more powerful get to have sex with someone i want to have sex with become richer if only I violate what I believe, if only I bow down and worship you.

1:34:34And there is a lot of informed speculation that the U.S. government has participated in this, and that defense technology, in particular nuclear technology, is the product of that. And I don't know if that's true. I will say one extremely interesting thing that no one seems to know is that it's not exactly where nuclear technology came from. But who would we be cutting a deal with in this scenario? So that's why I don't speculate about it, because I don't know the answer. Obviously, you know, what we're seeing, these phenomena, are spiritual phenomena. And one of the reasons that I came to that conclusion was because of an incredibly kooky story that's not kooky at all, it's 100 % real, which is cattle mutilations.

1:35:16And cattle mutilations are a consistent feature of life in the West, not just in the United States, but going back hundreds of years in Europe, farmers would find their cattle, their sheep, slain and dismembered in a way that no butcher could replicate and drained of all of their blood. And clearly this is a ritual sacrifice of an animal, which is described in not just the Old Testament, but many sacred texts and many religions. And it was the basis, of course, of all of the ancient human sacrifice cults, which were like in every country, not just in Latin America, but my ancestors, you know, Now, the Norse sacrificed people.

1:35:49So, like, sacrificing people or animals to please the gods is the one consistent feature of all religion going back to the beginning of recorded history. And why is that? Because there's something there. Why would people on continents separated by oceans they could not traverse reach the same conclusion about the nature of the spiritual realm, the exact same conclusion, if they weren't responding to something that was actually real? Well, of course, they were. And so there is something about Christianity is fundamentally the story of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, tortured to death, to atone for human sin.

1:36:26And of course, biblical Judaism is the story of sacrifice to do the same. So anyway, whatever. Cattle mutilations are ritual sacrifice, clearly. And what is that? Who's doing it? I did a documentary on it, and my whole staff was like, now you're freaking crazy. Cattle mutilations. Well, it turned out the FBI investigated it twice because the value of the livestock killed was so high that ranchers in Idaho complained to the FBA. We need an investigation. Senators got involved. There's a lot written on this. And it's like, well, what is that? Well, the one thing the U.S. government was absolutely intent on you not thinking was that this was some kind of ritual sacrifice.

1:37:06Fascinating. So I don't know. Are you in a place now where you feel free to do whatever the hell you want? Does it seem like I do? Yes, it does seem like it. I just went on about cattle mutilations without any embarrassment. I told you I got attacked by a demon. Because I did. Okay, you don't have to believe me, but that happened. Before I came out here, there's a video, like a sizzle reel of some of what I'm doing now. And you had a sizzle reel. And one of the things in that reel was me wearing this shirt that reads free, free, free. And I did put it on and took a picture of it just before I launched this show.

1:37:38And you and I had a conversation not long after I was doing this. You were still at Fox. and this is before they unceremoniously booted you out of there for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Oh, thank you, God. Exactly. But before that happened, you and I talked and I said, you got to get out of there and you got to come over to this lane. You got to come independent. You can say whatever you want and you're envisioning what life could be like then and whether you'd be happy doing something that's not live and not like you're sort of on point every night. And I look at you now, you seem happier than ever to me.

1:38:15Oh, totally. And you are such an inspiration to me. And without getting into, like, inside TV, TV's its own, like, biosphere. Like, when you work in television, like, you don't know anyone outside of television. Like, your whole world is this thing, right? And it's not hard, like, stringing electrical lines, okay, but it's a pretty all-absorbing gig, right? You're putting on a show, you're in charge of a show for an hour, five days a week, like, It's a lot. And you just lose perspective. And it was an article of faith. It was in the catechism in television that if you leave a big network, like, that's it for you.

1:38:51You're doing infomercials at best, buddy, with wife number three. Like, you're SOL. And, oh, I've known, like, only, like, 100 people that happened to. So everyone knows that's what happened. And then you had, like, the craziest career. I won't even get into it, but, like, that was, like, unbelievable. And you were such an incredible advocate for me at Fox and such a loyal friend in the way that nobody else in the whole channel ever was. So I was, of course, like very closely watching what was happening to you. And what NBC did was like one of the worst things I've ever seen them do to anybody.

1:39:23And that's saying a lot. And then you like became this like even bigger, happier, and we talked on the phone, obviously, a lot about it. And you were like, this is amazing. And you were the first person ever to kind of beat the law. Like, you didn't go away. You got bigger, and you're way happier, and you're beholden to no one. I was like, that's the most, and especially after, I'm not even going to, it's like what he said about Usha Vance. I don't even want to repeat what NBC did to you, but what they did to you was like, it was like an assault. It was insane. And you just, like, shook it off and built this thing, and I was like, man, it is possible.

1:40:02But then I couldn't get out of my contract, of course, and I was thinking about how to get out, and then God intervened and just had them fire me for no reason. And I called my wife. She was walking our many dogs and I was like, the president of Fox, I won't name her, Suzanne Scott, just called me. And she just fired me and I had the biggest show in all of cable TV. Huge. And my wife's like, why? And I said, I don't know, man, it was weird. She wouldn't tell me. And my wife goes, thank you, God. Literally, that's the first thing she said. I was like, wow. she knew she's very faithful in tune person and she knew this was the greatest blessing and it really was and within like 10 minutes I was sad about our staff but they came with me and they're ones right there and they were great people and so it was within like 10 minutes I was in a good mood and I haven't stopped even during Nazi week I was in a good mood what's the biggest difference in your life you don't like I never, like you, like you were huge at Fox, so like they weren't messing with you.

1:41:08Like you could do whatever you, I mean I'm just guessing. Well I think I know it's true. They didn't want to mess with you. And they never mess with me. Not one time did they tell me what to say. I would always say, if you don't like what I say, just fire me, okay? They exercise the option in the end. But it wasn't that. It wasn't, like I never went to any meeting. I never went to one meeting of any kind. In 15 years at Fox, no one meeting. Because I don't like meetings. You didn't get dragged into to the mandatory sexual harassment training we all had to do after Bill O 'Reilly. I worked at NBC.

1:41:37There's nothing about sexual harassment you can tell me. Like, I've seen it. At Fox, they used to joke that people were using it for tips. No, it's totally right. No, I never participated in that. I found it totally insulting. I just refused. Or the COVID, they tried to make all my staff take the COVID jab. And I was like, no. I'll quit if you do that. And so they were nice to me. they tried to one time they tried to make me denounce somebody and I was like how about no and they're like okay okay so it wasn't that they they were weak but I could still I didn't realize the degree to which I could sort of picture like some kind of like grumpy standards person standing in the control room during my show harrumphing as I said something forbidden and that does kind of like get in your head a little bit I didn't even realize I thought I was totally free but I wasn't and when I left I was like man I can say whatever I want and actually it made me feel less angry you know like less just mad I'm not I'm way less mad yes I completely relate to that I have to tell you it took me a while like I always said Fox you know it got a lot of great gifts out of Fox no question but it is like a cult and it it takes a while after leaving the cult to realize that you were in a cult and one of the first signs that you're out of the cult is you do start feeling free, free, free.

1:42:56And you are lighter in your, just in your body, in your step, in your approach to life. And before you know it, this thing creeps over you, and I think they call it happiness. It's amazing. It comes upon you, and you don't realize, because you know this very well, as well as I do, the life of a cable news primetime anchor is an embattled life. It is constant, and it is toxic. It really is a non-stop toxicity, and you do what you can to shield yourself from it, but it's just non-stop. It comes from inside the building, comes from outside the building, comes from your side, comes from the other side.

1:43:27You're not seeing your family. It requires an enormous commitment of hours. And you are winning and you're making money and you're powerful and you're miserable. And it's truly like the fact that you can now make it in this independent lane where you can have a direct relationship with the public, where you can be known, where you can have a talk like this, where you can say, I don't like being called these names. This is what I was trying to do. We can go on for an hour and a half. This is a show that we're taping right now. It's going to air tomorrow. And people will listen. They'll listen to an hour and a half of this.

1:44:01They'll listen to the stuff about the demons and the UFOs because these conversations are searching and they're earnest. There's room for thought and development and exploration and saying, wait, I think I was wrong and now you've changed my mind. Oh, great. I'm less wrong today than I was yesterday. All of that can happen in this forum and not and the other and all of it is part of being free, free, free. Totally. That is such a beautiful description of it. It is a cult. There are great things about it. I saw the world and met fascinating people and had a great time. I punched out years ago and moved to Maine and I didn't want to go to their dumb newsroom and do their dumb sexual harassment.

1:44:40I'm a unconscious racism. Yeah, I'm out. I'm such a rule follower. I went to all of them. No, I was like, no. leave me alone when they when they fired ollie north and turned his office into a muslim prayer room i was like no i i'm yeah seriously yeah and i'm moving to maine oh my god but anyway um so it wasn't that it was i really thought it was like important it's almost like when i was a kid you'd see pictures of like people like your parents in the early 70s and they had like the long freedom strips and the weird haircut and the polyester shirts with the super long collars and you'd be like, God, they look like such tools.

1:45:18Did they know how absurd they looked? Do you know what I mean? And that's how I feel about television. Like, it's so dumb. I never watched it. We never had television. We never watched television anyway at all. We were always against television, but I always thought, well, this is so impressive. And it's like, no, it's also fake. It's also stupid. No one's being fully honest. Like, also, no one's watching. Who cares what's on the cable TV? And when I left, they're like, well, you can never do cable TV again. I was like, yeah, oh, really? Damn. You know, it's like, why would I ever do that? I can't believe I spent so much time doing that.

1:45:54I felt so embarrassed. Oh, good evening. Welcome to my stupid show. It's so pompous. And I was so pompous. It does feel stupid. When you've left it, it feels a little dumb. I can't believe I did that. I tried to take the bombing of Iran and reduce it to a four-minute segment. like what a disservice that we do to the audience you end up talking about things you know nothing about that is the great joy in having the job that I have now I hope I have it forever because you choose what you talk about and I don't like talking about things I don't understand and I just don't and you in television you have no choice like this happens it's the news of the day and ultimately our show was like obviously not like other shows and it got big enough that I was just like I'm not doing the news I'm doing the news I want to do because I don't want to talk about stuff I don't understand.

1:46:42Yeah. All right. I want to end it on this. There are a lot, we spent a minute earlier on young men and I have two young men in my house and a daughter too. My kids are 16, 14 and 12. The oldest and the youngest are boys. And tonight we have a bunch of young men who are in high school with my oldest and some young women too. And I'm still worried about them. And so when you, these young guys who are here tonight, they were throwing out merch to the audience earlier. What do you want these young guys to know? Oh, thank you. That's sweet. What do you want these young guys to know about their future as young men in America?

1:47:24I want them to know that society can't exist without you. You're essential. And you've been told the opposite in subtle and explicit ways, that you're not needed and that your innate qualities, your basic nature is somehow offensive. And that's a lie. And it's destroyed. You know, I'm not passing the buck like if, you know, there are a lot of things that young men do that I did that are just their fault. I was always telling my kids, no, I think it's your fault. I'm big on blaming kids. But it's also true that we're the product of the society that we grew up in to some great extent. And the message to young men has been like, yeah, we don't really need you.

1:48:07Like what you're designed to do, act with certainty and aggression, make decisions, create, express your feelings physically. These are all verboten. And so I I think it's really important to say to men, no, you're absolutely vital. And to say to men about women that men and women need each other, they were created for each other. And I know that there are so many impediments to finding the right person. And I know that because I talk to young men and young women a lot because I really care about the topic. And I find that young men are very hostile to young women and young women are very contemptuous of young men.

1:48:43And it breaks my heart, you know, that the symbiosis that is necessary for growth, the most basic growth in life between a man and a woman, it's the center of everything. We're created for it. All mammals are. Has been really poisoned, and it makes me sad, but I just want, and I'm not quite sure how to fix it, by the way. I don't have a simple solution, but I think it starts with telling the truth, which is that men and women were designed for each other, and when they are together in harmony, they create a whole. that is true a hole w h o l e and so that is absolutely essential it has been everything good in my life comes from my wife and my relationship with my wife and i've been and that's not like some i've got the best wife in the world no that's real though i do but it's not even that it's like no man can fully become himself without a woman and no woman can become fully herself without a man they need each other and the most poisonous lie ever told was told in about 1965 that women just don't need men.

1:49:44And then at some point, men decided they don't need women. And that's when things really fall apart. It's like so basic. And without getting too personal, I know something about your personal life. And you have a balanced, happy personal life. At the core of your life is your family, not in some sentimental BS way, but in a real way, a day-to-day way. And that is your strength. I've just seen it. And I know that that's true for me. I'm not embarrassed at all. And so finding that is the most important thing. And all good things flow from it, beginning with, and primarily, most importantly, children, but also, as someone whose children are all grown, every other good thing.

1:50:22So whatever you can do to do that is so... And when you find it, do not dick around. Don't dick around. And maybe you're 40 when you find it. You can't, you know, it's one of those things you have to find. But when you do find it, I found it at 15. I don't want to get married at 22, which I did. but I was totally an idiot in every way. But part of me was like, I even said to my girlfriend at the time, like, I don't want to get married. What? But if we don't get married, I'll like run into you in some airport 20 years from now. We'll both be married and we'll commit adultery. And I want to kind of cut out the middleman in this.

1:50:55Like I had no choice. I found the right girl. Right. And I'm not from a culture where people get married at 22, like at all. That was like, what? Are you from Appalachia? Like, what are you doing? But I did because it just happened. So that'd be my advice. When you find the right woman as a young man, that is the most important thing. So pursue that single-mindedly. That's great advice. It's amazing. I'll tell you quickly, Tucker's executive producer at the time told me he'd been on the road a lot. We saw each other at Turning Point event a couple years back and he told me when Tucker's unhappy, whenever he gets unhappy, he said it's rare and we're on the road traveling, we know exactly what to do.

1:51:37Susie needs to come. She needs to come be with him. Yeah, we call it the celibacy rule. And I would always say, it's just not good for, I'm just totally joking, sort of, not really, but in part about that. No, it's just the balance. You need the balance. That is you're just out of whack, right? You're not meant, man is not meant to be alone and neither is a woman. And that's just a fact. And I don't know why. Yeah, I think it's very sinister, by the way, that we tell young people and old people and all people that that's not true. Like you're better off alone, really. In what world are you better off alone?

1:52:13And it's just such an easy society to live in. That's changing. I think things are getting crazy and all of a sudden we're gonna be like, actually, we kind of need men. A lot of home invasions recently. I need a man, you know? Like it'll become obvious men's utility, I think, soon. Yeah. But for the past 80 years, it's been like, well, maybe it's just more efficient to be alone. You know what I mean? Like you're a much better Citibank employee if you don't have dependents or whatever the thinking was. But it's really hurt a lot of people. No, when we launched the tour and we started two weekends ago, right?

1:52:41We started out in Texas. And Doug and I talked about like, do I go alone? Like should the family come? Do you want to come to the kids at school? And Doug said, I want to come for the first leg at least. I want to make sure everything's safe. I want to see what this feels like. And he did. He came with us through Texas. And he's here tonight. And my kids are here tonight, too. And they wanted to meet all of you. And we both felt so much better. Because the first weekend out, it was a little disconcerting because we didn't know, is the security going to be okay? Is the audience going to be okay?

1:53:15Is everything safe? Obviously, we're all still thinking about Charlie. And I have to say, Doug felt much better seeing how it was all being handled. sorry for all the security he had to go through and I felt much better just having him with me and it's like if you can find love in your life it's just of course you get the benefits of love and connection and family, children, raising kids together but you also get the benefits of in those tougher times or where you're uncertain or you're unsteady you've got this life partner who's got you, you know, who's just got you and I love that you have that I want all of you to have that I want you boys and girls to have that and I love all of you for having me too.

1:53:54Thank you. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Tucker Carlson. Love you. You're the best. Thank you, Megan. The best. God bless you guys. Thank you, White Plains. We'll see you tomorrow on the show.

1:54:09Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.