Tucker Carlson on Neocons vs. Trump's Iran Peace Deal, and "Hate Speech" Censorship, Plus Lindsey Graham's Primary Challenger | Ep. 1312

26:45And their position is more war, it's more strife, it's more bombs, it's send more foreign aid. and those are the things that I've been voting against. So is that it, Tucker? Is it just a matter of money? She bought and paid for Trump and now he's doing her bidding? Well, there's no question about it. It's literally that simple. I would say Thomas Massey is not an opponent of the Trump agenda. Thomas Massey is one of the very last proponents of the Trump agenda, defenders of the Trump agenda, the agenda that Donald Trump ran on a year and a half ago. That's what Thomas Massey still believes. That's what he votes for.

27:23That would include transparency, an end to corruption, no more wars. Trump ran on these things just the other day. I campaigned for them. I remember very well. And so Massey still believes those things. He's never stopped believing them. The break came when Massey described how AIPAC controls members of Congress. And I should just say, Massey reminds me of you in a way. He's never been against Israel. Massey likes Israel. He's certainly not against Jewish people. He likes Jewish. I mean, there's nothing anti-Semitic or anti-Israel about Thomas Massey. He just made the mistake of describing out loud what it's like to have a foreign lobby show up in your office and demand that you vote a certain way.

28:02And he said to them, as he has to all lobbies, foreign and domestic, I'm voting the way I think my constituents want me to vote, consistent with my principles, and I'm not playing along. And because he said that, Trump's donors decided we have to take this guy out because if we don't, not that Massey is going to change the system, single-handedly but if we don't take mass yet if we don't punish him publicly for telling the truth about what we're doing others may follow so as an example to the rest down the line they have to crush thomas massey and then all of these all the goons the paid consultants in republican politics and all consultants are the same republican and democrat a lot of them are vicious people and they're all only about the money this guy la civita who is the head consultant for donald trump Trump, rather than just work against Massey in the primary, he's taking money from these three Israeli lobbyists, basically, Paulson, Singer, and Adelson.

28:59He starts attacking the guy personally, calls him garbage. Garbage? Thomas Massey is one of the most decent members of the Congress. One of the most honest, sweet-tempered, kind, totally opposed to hate Christian. Called him garbage. Then they start attacking his wife, his new wife. His wife passed away two years ago he got remarried and the consultants started attacking the guy's wife and then the president attacks his wife it's like why go scorched earth on a man who's done nothing wrong other than stay consistent to his own principles to the president's own stated policies he's doing the right thing he this is what democracy is supposed to look like a citizen legislator it's really unbelievable how the president has attacked not only uh Massey's remarriage after he lost his wife, but Joe Kent's remarriage four years later after his wife was killed.

29:53I mean, it's insane. And killed by who? Killed by Donald Trump's administration. Joe Kent's wife was killed. The mother of his two sons was killed as a CIA officer in Syria by a suicide bomb. What was she doing there? She was sent there by the Trump administration to fight another one of Israel's wars. So it's a decision that Donald Trump made that got Joe Kent's wife That's a fact. It's not an interpretation. It's a fact. And now Trump is attacking the guy for getting remarried after that wife is killed serving his administration. It's almost too much. Four years later. Yes. No, I mean, like, not to put too fine a point on it, but Donald Trump cheated on his wife, Ivana Trump, with Marla Maples.

30:37It was extremely infamous. And all over the papers. How dare he criticize these honorable men who lost their wives for finding love years later? It's truly galling. It's way below the belt. But okay, it's just one example. I mean, this is like the stuff that all of us kind of overlooked on Trump for many years because he was he's not a particularly moral man. I think we've known that. It's just right now he's spiraling because he knows, Tucker, that his numbers are spiraling down the drain. He sees what we see. It's so bad he can't even come out and attack the polls as he normally would because it's every poll.

31:18He's at the lowest approval rating he's ever been at in the history of his two terms across the board on the economy, on this war, on inflation, on whether they trust him with white working class voters, with men, with young voters. I mean, of course, he's already lost women and so on, but like every single constituency, there is one tiny constituency that still seems pro Trump, and that is the self-described MAGA over 65 Fox News viewers. That's it. Yep. And he knew this was going to happen. I mean, Trump didn't want to start this war. He was fully informed about the consequences of it. I talked to him about it.

31:59He had no enthusiasm for it whatsoever. He just kept repeating the world's dumbest talking point. Do you want Iran to have nuclear weapons? Well, no, I guess. Don't care that much. Pakistan has him. North Korea has him. Israel has him. A lot of lunatic countries have nuclear weapons. I don't want more countries to have nuclear weapons. I don't like nuclear weapons. On the other hand, is that a priority for me? No, it's a priority for Israel. But that was his only line. Do you want Iran to have nuclear weapons? No. Okay. But I don't really care. And most Americans don't really care. What they care about is the condition of their own country.

32:33And Trump knew that. He ran on it three times. He actually felt it. He knew that he risked his presidency, his legacy, the country itself, by starting a regime change war with Iran. He knew that fact and he did it anyway because he clearly felt he had no choice. That is my read from talking to him extensively on this topic before the war began. And so I think it's incumbent on all of us to figure out what exactly was the pressure applied to Trump to make him do something he knew was going to hurt him and his party and his legacy and his country. What could possibly compel a man to hurt himself?

33:10and I don't know the answer. Well, I've heard you talk about that and the suggestion by Joe Kent and others might be somebody held something over him, somebody threatened him. Did he believe the lives of his family or his own life might be in jeopardy if he didn't do this thing? My own belief, just having watched Trump for many years now, is it was just hubris, Tucker. He got drunk on his own wine after the damn Venezuela strike and then the June strike in Iran and thought he was talked into, you know, this sort of cowboy persona. You know, I heard Jane Fonda talking about Ted Turner because he died yesterday.

33:46And what a badass the guy was. And he won the America Cup and he founded CNN. He had all these billions. He had swagger. He had personality. That's how Trump wants to see himself. And those two military operations let him do it. He, of course, dodged the Vietnam War. He never actually served himself. And so now he's commander in chief. He's seeing how impressive and amazing our military is. And they truly are. And they can do heroic and amazing things. And he's at the top of the command. And I truly believe he thought, I can do this. BB says they're going to be above ground. I can take out the Ayatollah and his top emissaries.

34:25It's four days. I'm in. I'm out. I'm lauded as a hero. I'm going to have these people writing things like it's the greatest thing since, you know, whatever. the Russian revolver, the fall of the Soviet Union. And he bought it because he is a narcissist. They all are when they become president, but Trump's in a special league. And he bought it because his ego needed him to buy it. And it's easy to win Trump over with that kind of flattery and false praise. He had tried it. Netanyahu had on Obama. He was just out confirming that the other day. And on many other presidents, he just found the one who was really susceptible to that kind of talk.

35:00That's my own belief. I thought that, but I pushed him hard on this. And I said, look, Netanyahu hates you. You know that. They don't like each other at all. And he has contempt for you. He's shown that. He does not have your best interests at heart. The people pushing you toward this would include Rupert Murdoch, who despises you. Trump knows that, of course. Mark Thiessen has always hated you. Ben Shapiro, they hate you. Mark Levin hates you, has always hated you. Yes. The people pushing you to I said this right to his face. The people pushing you to do this want to destroy you. And they're doing it on behalf of Israel, whose goals include getting the United States out of the Middle East.

35:40They don't want the U.S. in the Gulf because it strengthens the like our friendships there. They don't like our friendships there at all because Qatar and UAE and Saudi, but also Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait. But those mainly those three countries are a massive rival to regional hegemony. You can't run the Middle East with strong Gulf states. And so they want the U.S. out. Israel wants the U.S. out of the Middle East, and they want to degrade those Gulf states. And I said that right to his face. And he said, yeah, I know. So that just, that happened. Now, maybe he was lying to me. I don't know why he would.

36:18He did not seem at all enthusiastic about this at all. He seemed like he dreaded it. And I think he retreated into his happy place, as all of us do. Like, maybe it'll be fine. It'll just roll the dice. We'll kill the Ayatollah. The whole thing will collapse. It'll just be like the Maduro operation. I think he allowed himself to think that. But he's not stupid. He's very smart in his weird way. It's weird, right? He's not conventionally brilliant. But in his specific way, well, you know him. He has a brilliance to him, obviously. He is gifted, for sure. And he knew exactly how bad this could be.

36:50And I think within like 24 hours, he knew it was bad. And that's why he sent, I believe he sent Rubio out there to blame Israel for it, to say, well, we had to do it because they were moving first. And like, then they were going to be exposed and our assets in the region would be exposed. Like, I think that was on purpose. I can't prove it, but I believe it because Trump was enraged at the Israelis. The second this happened and the regime didn't fall, he knew, oh, wow, how do you get out of it now? He knew he was shafted. And I think he's known it for two months. Now, the main thing we're negotiating over is the thing that we had prior to launching this war, which is opening the Strait of Hormuz.

37:26That's so great. I mean, terrific. There's really no winning for us at this point. There's no winning. There's just getting out, stemming the tide of losses and trying to save face. But I don't even care about saving face at this point, Tucker, right? It's just like, just get out and let's try to stop this from spiraling into a nuclear war. Meanwhile, there is, you know, I hate to be too big in my rhetoric here, but there is sort of a parallel war happening domestically in the battle over narratives around this war. And the pro-Israel side is out for blood. They are crazed right now in their attacks on people like you, like Candace Owens, like me as well now.

38:10Now, anybody who is openly critical of Israel or raising questions about Israel or not pro this war, I mean, the number of hit pieces you're going to get, the number of very nasty names. I don't mean just like, I know nothing. I'm talking about Nazi, which Mark Levin has been calling all of us, but especially you and Ben Shapiro and all of them. Okay. So that's happening. And in the midst of this, we get yesterday two congressmen going on Jake Tapper's show, Representative Gothheimer and Mike Lawler of New York. Josh Gothheimer is from New Jersey. He's a Democrat. Lawler's a Republican. And they introduced, this is so galling, a bipartisan resolution.

38:58They went on Tapper to discuss it, and I'll show you what happened. A bipartisan resolution condemning the rise of anti-Semitic hate-filled rhetoric disseminated by prominent online personalities. The two they name specifically, but it's not limited to them. It's just including Hassan Piker, he's of the left, and Candace, and calling on social media platforms and public leaders. So all the social media platforms and government leaders to take a stronger action, quote, against hate. This is an obvious push to censor opinions about Israel. That's what this is. Okay, and they go through saying, and Tapper mentioned you as well, but they say that they're dangerous.

39:45Their rhetoric and their conspiracy theories, I'm reading from the resolution, the actual text of it, are dangerous and contribute to a climate of hatred and intolerance. Individuals with online platforms have a responsibility to refrain from promoting or amplifying anti-Semitic narratives and disinformation. Now, this is our government telling all of us who are in the digital space, we have a responsibility to refrain from hate speech. No, we don't. No, we don't. Actually, we can engage in as much hate speech as we want. That's America. That's the beauty of being an American. and you don't like it, there's this wonderful imaginary thing that you apparently don't know about called the dial.

40:27And if you press the dial, you can go right down the lane to listen to Rachel Maddow or Kara Swisher or somebody who's saying what you like. Here they write, social media and streaming platforms should take appropriate steps to enforce their policies against hate speech and prevent the spread of anti-Semitic content. Public officials and community leaders should unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism, including when it's propagated by high profile media figures and influencers. And they go on from there. So now these two, now it sounds all pie in the sky, right? Like we're against hate, hate, hate against racial groups, hate against religious groups.

41:07Okay. In theory, yes, people don't like that. This is the government calling on social media platforms and other government officials to quote, condemn hate and stop the hate. What does that mean? That means censorship. That's directly antithetical to the First Amendment. So they go on with Jake Tapper. And I just want you to know, I know you don't watch TV, but they recently had the White House Correspondents Dinner. And Jake Tapper and others like Margaret Brennan of CNN were wearing these little virtue signaling pocket squares or arm bandage, bandage, whatever they were. She's from CBS, Margaret Brennan, saying the Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech, like their little First Amendment advocates, Tucker, just reminding everybody they don't want government interference.

41:58OK, this is great. It's on. These two guys have this insane resolution, which is basically calling for censorship against anybody with criticisms of Israel. And they go on with the free speech advocate himself. He's so important to put it in a pocket square, Tucker. OK, and this is how that went. I don't have it in front of me, but my team knows what I'm looking for is a stop five. Let's hear it. We have seen a rise of anti-Semitism, especially on social media, and a lot of it at the voice of people like Hassan Piker and Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, among others, who are promoting anti-Semitic hate speech, who continually seem to engage in longstanding anti-Semitic tropes.

42:47And we are pushing back against it. First Amendment says Congress shall make no law establishing the freedom of speech or of the press. What do you say to somebody who wonders, are you not risking running afoul of that? Hassan Piker, Candace Owens, this is hate speech intended to incite violence. And our resolution is really focused on we've got to take the temperature down. This kind of hate speech is unacceptable. People like Hassan Piker and Candace Owens shouldn't be out there campaigning with elected officials and being used and propped up as heroes when you have, you know, Piker saying things like Jews are bloodthirsty pig dogs and inbred and saying that 9-11, America deserved 9-11.

43:31Your thoughts on that? it's just amazing to see jake tapper abetting something like this encouraging i remember when he was a lobbyist for hooters thinking about becoming a journalist he was literally a lobbyist for hooters i i knew him well at the time oh yeah oh absolutely uh yeah he was traveling around america with the hooters girls promoting hooters um i mean i think i'm gonna go into journalism him uh and you know he did and unfortunately didn't do as well as he'd hoped to do but i still thought he was like a journalist um and there he is saying things like well do you think passing a law trying to get people scrubbed from the internet might be brushing up against the limits of the first amendment what it's completely in contravention first amendment it's the most obvious violation of the first amendment and he knows that but he doesn't care because he like the two guys on the set cares more about the fortunes of the Netanyahu government.

44:28He's an agent for a foreign country in this specific case and has been for a long time, obviously. But what's so interesting and mind bending is that those three are accusing other people of hate speech. Those three have spent the last almost three years making excuses for ethnic cleansing, the murder of children, the killing of people because they have impure blood, the killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the murder of civilians in Lebanon, now the killing of civilians in Iran, all because of the way they were born. These are people who are daily encouraging violence. Now, I can't speak for the other two they're attacking.

45:10I'll speak for myself. I'm totally opposed to violence. I'm a Christian. I believe in the Sermon on the Mount. I think it's wrong to kill people, and I think it's totally unacceptable to kill people who did nothing wrong, to kill innocents. That is a red line that you cannot cross. And I sincerely believe that. So I'll just, again, I'm not being defensive. I'm just noting what is, I say every single day, I am opposed to violence against innocence. It's the main thing I oppose. It's why I oppose Jake Tapper and that Lawler, that chill for Israel Lawler guy and the Gottheimer from New Jersey. It's not that I dislike them personally.

45:45I feel sorry for all three of them. It's that I don't agree with their program of hate and violence. And it's just so interesting that they whip it around and be like, no, no, anyone who criticizes ethnic cleansing in Gaza is guilty of hate and abetting violence. It's like, come on, I'm not falling for that. It'll work, by the way. They're absolutely going to censor the internet. Of course, at the urging of the Israeli government using our tax dollars, there's no doubt that people are going to be - I mean, I really hope that the social media companies have learned their lesson because remember they were censoring all talk about, you know, the trans issue.

46:19For years, they were censoring. You couldn't say that it's a sickness. You're unwell if you have this gender confusion. You couldn't say that a man cannot become a woman. YouTube was censoring as well. And it took years for us to get them to the point where you can call Leah Thomas a he, because that's what he is. Years. But they got there. And they eventually came around on COVID too. So like this cannot become the new one where this powerful lobby comes and holds this cudgel over the heads of the social media companies saying that's the new hate speech. Like this whole thing about hate speech is very dangerous because I was also told for years, you can criticize Israel, you can criticize Israel and not be called an anti-Semite.

47:04You know, that's different from Jews, which is the latter part is true to your point earlier. There are a lot of Jews who don't like Netanyahu. I know from our mutual friend, Melissa Francis, who's been over to Israel a lot, that there's some very controversial opinions about some of these figures like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin. They are not universally beloved over there because they're so divisive. And there are a lot of Israelis who are like, just stop. You're not helpful, not to mention American Jews. But that pro-Israel first crowd does conflate the two. And that's what this resolution is, conflating the two, that if you say hateful things about Israel or this war, these guys want to censor you.

47:44And it's hard to imagine that happening right now. But the second there's a domestic terror attack, and I'm very concerned that there will be, in which innocents are murdered, whether it's a real one or a false flag, those are common. Not all terror attacks are false flags. Some are. We know that. But whatever the cause, whoever the perpetrator, in a sense, if they are murdered in the United States, will be used as a pretext, an excuse for shutting down criticism of the people in charge. That's always the way it works in every authoritarian regime. Well, in every regime, that's why it's the First Amendment, because the framers understood human nature very well.

48:24And they knew that people with power will always want to stop criticism of themselves. And let's be super clear, American policy toward Israel, it's American tax dollars that allow the ethnic cleansing going on in Israel's neighbors. That's the result of votes taken in the U.S. Congress, which is not majority Jewish. It's not it's not just about the Jews. It's about everybody in charge has been four square behind this stuff, has been backing it, has been allowing it to happen in some cases. in the case of Mike Huckabee, for example, has been enthusiastically cheering it on. So it's not about criticizing Jews or anti-Semitism.

49:03It's about criticizing the policies of the United States government, which are deeply held by our leaders. And they don't want criticism of that at all. And they will do everything they can to shut down that criticism. You watch. I mean, we've spent the first hour criticizing a president we both campaigned for. We can criticize our leaders. We are free to criticize whatever political leader we want, domestically or foreign. I mean, this is like the notion that, oh, that's a bridge too far when you take it over to Israel. It's just absurd. It's so antithetical to being an American. I think I have time to get a second soundbite in from this representative Lawler, and I'm going to try for it.

49:42SOT7. Well, Congressman Lawler, what do you say to somebody who might say, look, it's very easy to take on Candace Owens. It's very easy to take on Hassan Piker. But what about the politicians who campaign with them or the politicians who, well, Tucker Carlson spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2024, that by going after these individuals and not the folks who enable them, the people who join them on the campaign trail or such, you're doing something easier than what would need to be done? First of all, these folks are grifters and they foment this hate to make money. I've called out people in my own party like Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the dumbest people to ever serve in Congress who talked about Jewish space lasers and continues to engage in anti-Semitic tropes.

50:31The fact is, in both parties, we need to call out this extremism. We need to demand better of our elected officials and really hold these individuals that foment hate to account. So there's the push to punish the politicians who associate, of course, with the Israel critics. Marjorie Taylor Greene never said a word about Jewish space lasers. That's a lie. But what's so funny is their grifters says the guy, Mike Lawler, who's taking all this money from a foreign lobby, an unregistered foreign lobby. I mean, it's all just inversion as it always is. I would just say censorship is coming and it's coming because the people in charge failed.

51:12Their failures are really obvious and it's too painful for them to be reminded of that. So they will use whatever pretext they need to shut down that criticism. But I don't think it's going to work long term. Yes, I hope you're right. All right, we have much more to discuss. We're going to take a quick break. We are back on the opposite side of this with more Tucker Carlson. Don't go away. You're busy, but let me tell you about Daily Look. It is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. Daily Look is a game changer, ladies. You get your own dedicated personal stylist to curate a box of clothes based on your body shape, preferences, and lifestyle.

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54:27Tucker Carlson is back with me. He is host of The Tucker Carlson Show. Go and subscribe now. Tucker, you got a lot of attention last week, two weeks ago, it's hard to keep track, where you said you regretted voting for Trump. You regretted recommending him to the American public in the wake of this war. And I was asked about it recently, and I was explaining to somebody that didn't surprise me at all because I've been watching you for years and for years, you've been very, very concerned about war and other countries dragging us into war, having nothing to do with Israel, nothing whatsoever to do with Israel.

55:04I mean, I've watched you talk to foreign leaders about like, how's that in our interest? You've been very guarding when it comes to the United States against getting sucked into these things. So I wasn't surprised at all to see when it became clear, Israel is gonna get us into this thing, you were against it and then were disappointed in Trump. My own position has been, I too am against the war, but the main things I voted for Trump for wasn't about the war. It was, I wanted him to push back on the trans insanity. You know, I'm a mother of three young kids and I wanted him to close the border.

55:38And he did, he did those two things. So I still would describe myself as a supporter. You know, I feel betrayed by Trump. I think, you know, what he's done, he's been pretty grifty in the office. He has not lived up to the promise on the Middle East wars. And that's a huge one that's going to cost us who knows how much down the line. I, too, worry a lot about domestic terror attacks and response and a possible nuclear spiral in the Middle East. But what do you say to people who say, well, what's the alternative? You know, like you didn't want Kamala Harris to win, right? Neither of us could have stood for that.

56:15So like had if you had it to do over again, what would you have done? Well, I don't know that I feel bad about voting for Trump. I would never vote for Kamala. First of all, I'm never going to vote. I'm opposed to abortion. And that's just a bottom line issue for me. Like, I'm never going to change that. I really mean it. It's at the kind of the top of my list of things I care about. So I'm never going to vote for a pro-abortion candidate ever. I would never vote for Kamala Harrison. She was an idiot, obviously. So I don't really feel bad about choosing Trump in that binary. What I feel bad about is getting up and saying, you know, vote for Trump.

56:50No more wars. And that just turned out not to be true. And by the way, I'm not a Trump hater. I've noticed my whole I've known Trump for 25 years. And I've noticed in the last 10 years that people who organize their lives around Trump, pro or con, don't tend to thrive. They tend to become irrational. If you hate Trump too much, if you love Trump too much, it's not good for you. He's a man. He's got good qualities. He's got weaknesses. I'm happy to describe his good qualities. He's got a million good qualities. But I've just never put Trump at the center of my life either way. And I would not recommend doing that, again, positive or negative.

57:23It's not good to obsess over another person unless you happen to be married to the person, unless that obsession is love. I just think it's unhealthy, super unhealthy to treat our leaders like gods or devils. They're not. They're just people. I'm just mad that he betrayed the country on this war. And I do think I have a million concerns, and the trans question is definitely one of them, for sure, and immigration, too, for sure. However, war, when you read the history of nations, civilizations, rise and fall is determined primarily by war. Nothing changes a civilization more quickly, more profoundly, more permanently than war.

58:03And so that's just my read on history and the nature of life. And so you got to pay attention to the wars. And because we have an all-volunteer force, and it's kind of a cast, like people who fight our wars are usually the children of people who fought our wars. Like it's a specific kind of world that fights our wars. And that means – and they're great at it, of course. There are upsides to that. But it means that most of us are so detached from the cost of war that it's very easy to support them because you don't have a good sense of the downside. And there's also something about getting older that tends to make some people bloodthirsty.

58:36I don't know why that is. But, you know, the Rupert Murdochs and the Lindsey Grahams, it's like people over 70, I hate to say this, tend to be pretty cavalier about killing, maybe because they're not exposed or they don't love their grandchildren or they don't care about their country or they're on their way out. I don't know what it is, dementia, but there is almost a one-to-one connection between age and a willingness to commit other people's children to war. You see this. You see it in the poll. I mean, I have a son who's almost 17. So, yeah, I'm in a different place. Yeah, exactly. Much different place.

59:09That's right. And a lot of my audience feels the same. Like, they're moms who may have been more pro-war post-9-11. It was one thing, but we are not living in a post 9-11 world in the way we were back in 2002, 2003 and four when we were launching these retaliatory, well, the retaliatory war in Afghanistan and then the, you know, unnecessary war in Iraq. We're not. We're in a different place. We have to be honest about the cost of those wars, the lies that we were told by our government and so on. But what happens to Trump now? Right. Because with these with these terrible approval numbers, with the midterms all but lost already to the Republicans, he basically becomes a lame duck after those midterms one way or another, because the 2028 presidential election gets into full swing after midterms and all the focus goes on the new person, not on the one who's holding the office.

59:59And especially if he's got a Democrat-controlled House, God forbid, a Democrat-controlled Senate too. And he's there's nothing there's no legislation that's going to get through. Not that any did his first year. You know, we had one piece of big legislation. Well, to we had the taxes extended and tax cuts and we had the Lake and Riley Act. But in any event. So what happens to Trump now? you know on inauguration day i got up really early and i went to church with trump and charlie kirk i sat with charlie kirk right behind trump in church and i had a whole and i said my prayers and i had a lot of thoughts about what the this new world was going to look like um and all of them were wrong so it's so important to remember that that we're just not good at predicting the future you know we imagine like this is going to happen in november in the midterms maybe maybe not.

1:00:49Like we don't really know. I do believe it's clear that volatility is coming for sure. And there's going to be a lot of change. And it doesn't mean everyone's going to get hurt. Some people will thrive in the middle of it. Bill Ackman will be just fine. He'll be richer than ever. We know that. But a lot of us will be fine too. But some people are going to get hurt. I just feel that really strongly. And I feel really sad about it. And I just hope that we can keep our heads one way or the other. And just remember that Trump turns 80 next month, you know, and I hope he has a great birthday. I don't wish Trump ill.

1:01:17I never will wish Trump ill. I always have a gut level affection for Trump. That will never change. However, he will be gone relatively soon and we'll still have this country. And after 10 years of thinking and talking about him all day, every day, I just wonder if we're prepared for what that's going to look like. I don't think things are going well. I think they could be a lot worse. I think there, I can think, imagine other leaders who are both malicious and competent. Trump is incompetent. So that's a good thing in some ways. I mean, Gavin Newsom is not incompetent. He's far more malicious than Trump.

1:01:52I think he's far less transparent than Trump. Like, I don't know, we just need to keep our wits about us and not ping pong from one bad idea to another bad idea. There is a kind of sensible way forward where we minimize the losses, where we strengthen the country to the extent we can, where we find something that every American has in common with every other American, that would be a good start. I don't know. I think we can manage this if we stay calm. And just because this version of capitalism is clearly fake and the markets are clearly being manipulated and, you know, a lot of what we think is real is not real doesn't mean that we need the state to run the economy, for example.

1:02:31Just because this war is insane and counterproductive doesn't mean we need to disband the military. I mean, like, there's a way to think about this that's measured and thoughtful and not just reactionary, and I hope that we do. Those trades that you made reference to are now the subject of a DOJ and Commodities Future Trading Commission investigation. Just for the listening audience, we've been talking about this a little on the show. They're probing the$2.6 billion in oil trades related to the Iran war. ABC News obtaining the data that they're looking into from the London Stock Exchange Group.

1:03:09They include on March 23rd, 15 minutes before Trump announced he would delay the threatened attacks on Iran's power grid. Traders bet more than 500 million the oil prices would fall. On April 7th, hours ahead of a temporary ceasefire announced by Trump, traders bet 960 million that oil prices would fall. On April 17th, 20 minutes before Iran's foreign minister announced that the Strait of Hormuz was open, traders bet 760 million that oil prices would fall. on April 21st, 15 minutes before Trump announced that he would extend the ceasefire. Traders placed a series of bets worth 430 million that oil prices would fall.

1:03:45Thank God they're investigating this, Tucker. Thank God. I actually wondered and worried about whether they would ignore it. I maybe I'm too cynical. You mentioned 9-11. In the days before 9-11, someone with foreknowledge of the 9-11 attacks bet big shorts against the airlines and the banks involved in those attacks. And the FBI investigated it solemnly. We've got to find out who knew 9-11 was coming. They found out who did it. And they've never to this day released the identities of the person or people who made those bets. So, you know, and we have a right to know. We have a right to all 9-11 files declassified.

1:04:23No one is even trying to do that. No one will ever do that. And you have to ask, well, why is that? Why can't we know? I don't know the answer, but we can't even know that. So I'm not too hopeful that we will find out who did this and that anyone will ever be punished. I will say, if you look at the commodities numbers, for example, oil, Brent crude, 100 bucks? Really? The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for two months and oil is at 100 bucks a barrel. It was at, what, 180 or something like that during the financial crisis in 2008? Like, this doesn't make any sense. Gold, you see the U.S. dollar is clearly in retreat.

1:04:58Clearly, they're settling oil in yuan, in Chinese currency. And gold, is it 4 ,700 an ounce? It's not rising. And you have to ask, what are the forces that are moving markets? Are they natural forces? Are these the markets that we were told they were? Supply and demand being the two forces that control the market? Or are there other forces? clearly international markets, equities markets, commodities markets are not what we thought they were. And hopefully they will be at some point. But like one of the things I've learned in the last two months is that, whoa, this is there's some rigging going on here and it's very distressing.

1:05:39And it's just it doesn't make any sense. It does not make sense. If you think supply and demand drive markets, it's beyond my understanding. I'm just saying the fundamentals should be reflected in the price of these commodities, and they're not. Fair point. Right, so it's bizarre. On the subject of the economy, an American company is struggling mightily. It's called the Daily Wire, and they've reportedly laid off as many as 50 or 60 % of their staff. They deny that. They say those numbers are overstated, but they've definitely had massive layoffs over the Daily Wire. Why do you think that is? I knew an old political consultant once, 30 years ago, I was covering a campaign, and he said, you know, propaganda works, advertising works, but ultimately reality makes the difference.

1:06:27You can spend a billion dollars advertising a dog food, but if the dogs won't eat it, it's just not going to sell. And I just don't think the dogs are going to eat this dog food. I mean, there's more supply than there is demand in this case. There's an awful lot of daily wire and not a lot of people want to consume it. Who is the constituency for more wars? Hey, Americans, shut up and stop complaining. Get back to work. Retirement, as Ben Shapiro famously explained retirement is immoral. You should be working for him and his family, I guess. I don't know. But the contempt, the pure contempt that Shapiro and not all the people who work at Daily Wire, but some of them have shown for their audience, like it's not a long-term play.

1:07:08It doesn't work after a while. If you hate your audience, if you hate your voters, in the end, you're going to be rewarded with failure. And that's not surprisingly what they're getting. and I'm not, you know, I don't, I don't rejoice over anybody's failure, including Ben Shapiro's. I don't hate Ben Shapiro. I don't even, I don't even care enough to dislike Ben Shapiro, but I'm just, I just will say I'm not surprised at all. He should go do something else useful. He, um, a few years ago was on Bill Maher bragging about his bed made of money that he sleeps on every night and look it up. It's all over the internet.

1:07:42It was a shocking thing to say. and it's what you don't say things like that right because it's like that then when something like this happens it feels like karma and he also of course famously or infamously depending on your pov tried to kick you out of the conservative movement tried to kick steve bannon out uh threw me in there for good mention in december and i do think regardless of one's feelings on the three of us uh i don't think conservatives are into that kind of policing it's pretty no antithetical to what makes one a conservative, which is like hands off to each his own. We have our points of view.

1:08:17We may fight and disagree, but we don't excommunicate over here on team rational. No, and also money worship is bad. I just want to say it. I'm hardly a socialist. I hate socialism. But like money for its own sake, accumulating money just so you have more money, which is very much Ben's worldview, is disgusting. Since when is that virtuous? It's not. it's anti-Christian, for one thing. It's very clear. Jesus is not for communism. That's not the point I'm making, sorry. But money for its own sake is a dead end. It actually doesn't make you happy. Debt makes you miserable. Poverty hurts. But accumulating money, bragging about how much money you have, measuring your value by money, these are contemptible things.

1:09:02And we've lost the ability to say that on the right because people whip around. They're like, oh, are you Ocasio-Cortez now? It's like, it's so stupid. No, I'm not Ocasio-Cortez, whoever that is, that absurd person. No, but we do not worship money because that's low and disgusting. In fact, our Bible calls it evil, the root of evil. And we should just say that. It's just true. It's like accumulating money for its own sake is ugly. That was always Ben's goal. And yeah. The same man is accusing you and me, for that matter, of chasing cliques for opposing the Iran war. And yesterday there was a soundbite of me on with Mark Halperin on his show talking about how my understanding is that you've had an influx of young viewers and some Muslims now that are taking another look at the Tucker Carlson show because you've been somewhat defensive of Islam, just the blatant attacks on it as a religion.

1:10:04and I also said something that you and I talked about months ago which was as I now see what Israel does to you I mean truly like its emissaries for sure have unleashed a vicious campaign against yours truly on social media and elsewhere it's fine I mean we're handling it but as I now see what they do it does cause me to reevaluate what other propaganda has been out there that I've fallen for that's coming from a foreign government you know you and I discuss this so I'm gonna show you the soundbite and then I'll tell you what they're saying about it watch Like he's gotten very, very popular lately, I read, with Muslim viewers because he's been standing up for Islam.

1:10:41And I have to tell you, Mark, it's been something I've noticed just since I've gotten sort of more clear-eyed on Israel that a lot of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that's put out there originates with people who are very, very pro-Israel who kind of need us to demonize them. And I've taken a look recently at my own rhetoric on this to say, have I been manipulated? I want to make sure I'm not getting manipulated. But I think he's having a lot of Muslim viewers flock to him. I know for a fact he has a lot of young men flocking to him. And so while he may have lost some contingent of the Fox News audience that's very, very pro-Israel and pro-Trump, and you can't say anything about Trump, for every one of those who leaves, there is another newer, younger audience member who does want to hear these traditional lines challenged and hear just new independent thinking.

1:11:35I mean, I'm experiencing some of that myself and Tucker probably times 10. Okay. So what happened interestingly in response to that clip online yesterday was a torrent of demands by the Israel firsters and some regular conservatives. I mean, demanding that I, in their view, return to Muslim hate, that any deviation off of Muslims are bad, universally bad, is not acceptable and makes you of the left was the accusation. And, you know, you're just out there for clicks. It's like nothing I've done is for clicks. If anything, my stance on the Iran war and Trump attacking me hasn't been particularly helpful, but it's sincere.

1:12:20And, you know, you got to be honest about who you are and where you stand. Yep. And I have been blown away by how openly the Israel first crowd is demanding that I and others hate Muslims or else or what we're going to be called empty vessels. We're going to be like shamed for having said things that are questioning about Islam. I'm not real pro on like Islamic leaders in America. I still stand by that. But I am reevaluating some of the things that I swallowed hook, line and sinker, Tucker, because I now see we've all been manipulated. You have no idea how ubiquitous and powerful AIPAC, Israel, its lobby, its paid agents.

1:13:00I mentioned Brad Parscale the other day, who's registered as a foreign agent for Israel now and runs Salem Media Group. I mean, there are a lot of those folks in our nation pushing propaganda on us. And I frankly think I've been too trusting. Well, this was one of the concerns about immigration 100 years ago, that people would come to this country and import with them their own ancient blood feuds and then impose them on the rest of us. And I'm American, and I don't have to sign on to your blood feud. If you're Armenian and you demand I hate all Turks, no, I'm not doing that. I mean, you may hate Turks.

1:13:36You may have good reason to hate Turks, whatever, but I don't hate Turks. I kind of reserve the right to form my own bigotries. and one of the reasons that I try to retreat from the world regularly in the woods or sauna or whatever is just to kind of get, it's just to come to center to what I believe. I'm a Christian, which is an exclusive claim, okay? So I believe Jesus is the son of God. I believe you get to through Jesus. That's exclusively through Jesus. So I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Jew. I'm not a Hindu. I'm not a Sufi. I'm a Christian. On the other hand, I just like reverent people and anyone one who bows down before God and admits I'm not God five times a day doesn't share my theology.

1:14:15We don't have the same view of how you get to heaven, but that person is not by definition my enemy. People who I have a problem with are those who espouse violence and hatred, who lie, who think it's okay to lie. People with a point of view that is not universal. The Christian worldview, and by the way, also the Muslim worldview, is a universal worldview. Anybody can come to this faith. That's my worldview. I was born into it. I believe it. It's sincere. And so anyone else who has that worldview, I'm willing to be friends with. I'm not going to hate you because your parents did something that somebody else objects to.

1:14:54I'm just not playing along with that. And I knew that I would be attacked as like a Muslim lover or whatever. I don't know. I'm not a Muslim lover. I'm a people lover until proven otherwise. And I'm just not going to play along at all with that kind of stuff. And at this stage of my life, I just don't care because it's not about the money for me. Honestly, I've never taken a dollar from a Muslim or anyone else. I have no debt. I have no investors and I don't seek to be a billionaire. So I'm not in crypto. So at this point, it's like, what are you going to do about it? Call me a Muslim lover. Okay.

1:15:26Okay. Go ahead. So what? Yeah. No, same. It's like, I don't know if anybody who thinks I'm opposing Trump for clicks hasn't followed the history of our relationship. Oh, I know. And by the way, I don't think it's helping. You and I have our ups and downs. Hasn't made your life easier, that's for sure. Definitely not. But it's like, I also can't wake up in the morning and look my audience, you know, in the figurative eye and lie about how I feel on something this big, you know, on anything. Why would I? Like you, I'm fine independent, you know, as an independent, I'm fine financially and I don't need to do it.

1:16:04And so people will like it or they won't like it. I think most of the audience, even if they disagree, will forgive it. You know, it's like we talk about a lot of things on this show. That's not even the main thrust of this particular show. It never has been foreign policy. But it's crazy to me the attempts from this Mike Lawler resolution to the online hate campaign to silence this point of view. Like you are not allowed, at least as a conservative or a right winger or somebody who's perceived to be on the right side of the aisle, to be opposed to this war or to be in any way soft on Muslims.

1:16:37My God is like, you know what? Fuck off. I'll be whatever I want to be. And if I want to reevaluate any POVs at 55, I'll do it. Too bad. Amen. That's exactly right. But did you think when you campaigned for Trump and for MAGA and all that stuff a year and a half ago, less than a year and a half ago, that you'd be signing up for like a more rigid version of identity politics and cancellation and censorship and basically screaming in the face of people you disagree with rather than debating them? Did you think you were signing up for that? Because I didn't. I thought I was signing up for the opposite.

1:17:11I voted against that. That's one of the main reasons I campaigned for Trump is I can't stand that. shut up racist and shut up racist turns out to be maybe not even as annoying as shut up anti-semite I mean they're the same thing yes I was nowhere near shut up anti-semite's a little harder edged no one ever accused me of wanting genocide when one of my main instincts in life is anti-genocide I'm against ethnic cleansing that's why I'm concerned about what Israel's doing so like this whole thing is like not what I thought we were getting at all yeah I know and it's the fact that it's happening on our side, you know, on the right is so stunning and upsetting.

1:17:52And I don't even understand it. You know, like I going into this whole thing, even the question of what role does Israel play in our politics and our country seems like something we should be able to debate like gentlemen, to steal a phrase, right? Like, okay, there are facts. You can be pro it. You can be against it. Why do we have to hate each other over it? I don't, I certainly didn't make that the stakes of any of my friendships with the more prominent Jewish members of the media. They did. They all did. You know, I mean, Mark Thiessen is very, very unhappy with me for not supporting the war.

1:18:28I love Mark Thiessen. I really do. I care about Mark Thiessen a lot. I'm the one who made him a star, Tucker. I put him on the Kelly file night after night. And I know he's a good man. And I know he's very, very pro this war. And I actually don't hold it against him. He comes by it. Honestly, he's been in that place for many, many years, but he's not somebody who's like ended a friendship over it. There are others who really have, and who have gotten so personal and vicious, most of whom I just don't respond to. I just don't even respond. It's like, well, whatever you do your thing. But I've been shocked at how vicious it's been from the right.

1:18:56Well, it's to see, I mean, I, as I said, I've, I was in Jake Tapper's wedding. Like I knew Jake Tapper really well. And again, I knew him when he was a Hooters lobbyist. I wish he'd remained one. He was, I think, a pretty good Hooters lobbyist, but to see him like attack me as someone who should be censored because he doesn't like my opinion on Netanyahu. It just shows you found the red line, the thing that really matters to other people, the thing that's more important to them than friendship, than love between people, than people in general. Like this is what they care about most. And it's, it's so revealing that I think it's going to be hard to go back, honestly.

1:19:34Yeah. All right. Now, speaking to people in the media, how'd you do with Lulu? How did you enjoy your experience with the New York Times? Oh, I loved it. I mean, of course. Yes. Yeah, I mean. I like her. Do you like her? Oh, yeah. You know, I get along. Very few people I don't get along with. Of course, half the thing was about Fuentes and like, who cares? Fuentes. There was a lot of Fuentes. Who cares about Fuentes? Talk about irrelevant. And I said to her, I wish I'd never interviewed that kid. Not that I'm again, I don't even really have strong feelings about Fuentes. I just don't care. You know, he doesn't know anything.

1:20:09He's not like a I don't really know what's the significance of significance of Fuentes other than as a tool to get other people to be quiet. And that may be the whole point of Fuentes, by the way. I don't know, but I wonder. But anyway, the point is, what a waste. And so you throw up to the New York Times like, well, actually, I think the members of Congress who are voting for ethnic cleansing in Gaza may be a little bit more morally questionable than some podcaster who lives in an apartment in Chicago and has no power at all. and like her mind was just blown like oh ted cruz could be more damaging to other human beings than nick fuentes but he's a white nationalist and i want to i don't want to get sidetracked but i want to be like first of all i'm not even sure what a white nationalist is but i noticed that white nationalist is the only kind of nationalist that's not allowed i mean i believe in universal principles if something's calling you a white nationalist like two minutes ago at the New York Times.

1:21:08I never even understood what it was. But I guess my point is either a standard applies to everybody or it doesn't apply to anybody. I just am a Christian. I believe in universal standards for all people. That's the basis of our laws, you know, as an attorney. We don't have laws that apply just to some people. Then they're not laws. They're just preferences. That's the definition of corruption. And so if it's okay to be a nationalist, and ethnic nationalist, and we can debate whether it is or should be or whatever, then it's okay for any group to be an ethnic nationalist. White, black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, doesn't matter.

1:21:46But we live in this weird world where there's only one category that's totally immoral and the rest are encouraged. And I just feel like those kind of - It all starts with white. I know. That's why Fuentes exists. They've made race everything. Exactly. Exactly. And by the way, I think - They've made race everything. They're the ones. Lulu's paper and the left have made race everything. They're the reason Nick Fuentes is popular, right? Because the same generation that listens to him has been told nothing other than race is all that matters. You are defined by your skin color. You choose your team because nobody else wants you or likes you or values you.

1:22:24And unfortunately, a lot of people have believed it. So they need to do some self-reflection over on that side. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. As soon as they catch the people shorting oil futures, they're going to start to self-reflect, I think. Right around when they released the 9-11 files. So they're going to find the people who did the insider trading because there are still some honest brokers and there's a resentment of rich people and people who cheat and trade, you know, on other people's backs in the system. And now, unlike after 9-11, you have the digital media, you know, to keep the story going.

1:23:03And, you know, so we can ratchet up the pressure on this in a way that the mainstream maybe wouldn't have and didn't after 9-11. I mean, I hope, I hope that's what happens. All right. Now listen, I have to, I have to get this in before you leave. Thank you so much for introducing us to Buckley Carlson, your brother. I also know Buckley, your son, who's also awesome. But Buckley Carlson, your brother was a special treat, Tucker, Thank you. For the listening audience who didn't happen to catch, I think you've had him on twice. He's amazing. He's like Tucker uncensored. Yes. I mean, I know you don't censor yourself, but like if you took away just like 10 % of the decorum that Tucker's learned from years of being in the media, you have Buckley sitting there who doesn't give a flying fig what anyone thinks of him.

1:23:55That became very clear. And I speak for America. We fell in love with Buckley. We pulled this piece of the discussion, which set it off so perfectly. This is you two talking about John McCain way back in the day when you were young and coming up as kids in D.C. Sot 27. The Republican Party was completely empty. And I had also lived through empty. What do you mean? They had no principles that they were willing to stand up for. And I had seen probably the starkest example was John McCain, who I had grown up really respecting. Was it a time in America when people actually celebrated war heroes? I thought he was a war hero at that time.

1:24:36I subsequently learned differently. But it was when he attacked the tobacco industry early on when I was first working for corporate America, a big PR firm. And he had led the charge against big tobacco and had been a grandstander and a phony. Tobacco was a great American heritage product. And as a consumer who enjoyed tobacco, I always sort of respected it. But it tied in also with a sense of personal responsibility, which we never see now. You had the freedom to smoke. May it be bad for you? Yes, I think every smoker knew it was probably bad for you. I love that. I did not see that the John McCain thing, like what turned the Carlson's on with John McCain.

1:25:21It was his war on big tobacco. But that set the tone for the rest of the interview, and it was no holds barred. So can you just give me a couple of – give me some insights into the wonderful Buckley Carlson. Into Uncle Buck, because he's known in our family. Well, he's the smartest person. Uncle Buck has probably 15 IQ points on me. He is very intense intellectually, reads constantly. Like my father, he keeps a book in the car to read at red lights, and has been everywhere. You know, I spent all those years in the studio. Uncle Buck was all around the world doing things was not exactly what he was doing, but, but he was just everywhere all the time.

1:25:56So he's just seen a lot. And he's one of these people who's just decided, like, at age 15, that's one of the reasons he didn't make it through boarding school, that he's just going to say what he thinks is true at all times, no matter what. And he loves people. He loves dogs. He loves women. He's just a very warm person. Like my daughters love him. In fact, one of them called me this morning about Uncle Buck and how great he is. But he so it's not that he's not acting out of rage or anything. He's acting out of love, but also just an unshakable determination to say what he thinks is true at all times.

1:26:27And so it's just funny. He's so famous. And doesn't care what you think in response. Oh, in my neighborhood in Northwest DC and in our family, we have a big family. Uncle Buck is very famous. Everyone talks about Uncle Buck every day. And it's only been in the last couple of months. All of a sudden, he's on the internet. I'm like, what are you doing on the internet? I had no idea he was on the internet because I don't go on the internet that much. His Twitter game is second to none. He's unbelievable. No, he's the, he's, yeah, he's my best friend and my favorite person. But I just, I'm amazed that other people know who he is now.

1:26:56It just cracks me up. He's now becoming the dominant conversation in my family too. He was just straight out of central casting Tucker with like the tan and the cigarettes and like the suit and like just the grizzle, like, yeah, on everything. I loved his lack of self-protection. Great to see you, my friend. We'll talk again soon. You're the best. Thank you, Megan. Great to see you. Lots of love, Tucker. And I should point out, we loved Buckley Carlson so much, we invited him to come on this program, and he will. He'll be on next month. I hope in person. I don't know if we were trying for that.

1:27:30So I can't wait for that. Yeah, he's coming to the Red Studio. That's going to be super fun. Okay, coming up next, the man trying to primary Lindsey Graham. Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and that now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack, and that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable.

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1:31:03Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTICS or cosentics.com. Move and feel better. Ask a rheumatologist about Cosentics. Hey everyone, it's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

1:31:51Next, we turn to an important Republican primary race for U.S. Senate in South Carolina. After more than two decades in his role, Lindsey Graham is facing a formidable primary challenge. Mark Lynch is a South Carolina businessman, father and deacon running to bring his business skills and America first attitude to Washington. The Republican primary is set for next month. The question is, does he have a chance? Joining me now, Mark Lynch. Mark, welcome to the show. Do you? Oh, yes. We sure do, Megan. Thank you for having me on today. Sure, you bet. So why do you have a chance? Because I just did a quick search, and Pulse Opinion Research used Rasmussen Report's licensed methodology for its poll and came up with the following result.

1:32:36Lindsey Graham has 41%, and you are in second with 21%, which is a big gap to close. Well, that was towards the end of March. Since then, on April 10th, the guy in third place, Paul Dans, realized with the polling and his not having the funding to really do this race substantially like he wanted to endorse me, he took his name off the ballot. He endorsed me and he was at 11 percent. And that was an awesome, humbling, unifying thing to show the Republican Party that he's still all in. His focus is still the same to take out Lindsey Graham. And he's working with me now, supporting me to do that.

1:33:20And when Rasmussen did an informed ballot, it flips. Lindsey falls to 23 and I go to 34 percent with still some undecided votes. And that was when Paul was still in the in the in the polling with 11 percent. So it's very. What is an informed poll? What do you mean by that? when they when the voters know more about me and understand my platform. Well, even even without the informed poll, you can see here in the numbers, you got unsure at 22 percent. So if Paul's voters at 11 percent in D 'Orseo, you're potentially at 32 percent. And then you got unsure at 22. So if you had 32 and Lindsay had 41, you got 22 percent who you could still get, which is more promising.

1:34:06So there is a chance. I do believe there is a chance. And it needs to happen, Mark. Yes. You tell me, because it sounds to me like you're very, very pro-Trump. There's no daylight between you and the president. It's not like an anti-Trump thing. But you tell me, what is it about Lindsey Graham that led you to file this challenge? Well, his conservative lifetime voting record is 43 percent, failing. His constitutional voting record is 57 % failing. He claims to be pro-life, but on his U.S. Senate page, he's from murdering children up to 15 weeks and voted on a bill that puts our tax dollars into a blood pact with Satan, with Obamacare and Medicaid funding Planned Parenthood in nine states to murder babies up until the moment before delivery in the ninth month.

1:34:56That's not a pro-life candidate. And our founders of this country, when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, realized we are endowed by our creator, God, with certain unalienable rights. And the first right is the right to life. And he's not supporting that. So he's not really holding up to his oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and to defend us against foreign and domestic enemies. And he's not really a flip-flopper. I would call him a traitor with some of the things he does. But he does move to the right during election season so that he looks like he's a Republican again. And everybody's tired of it.

1:35:36He doesn't seem to pro the right to life if you happen to be a civilian in Gaza or Lebanon or Iran, for that matter, either. His bloodlust, and I just finished a segment talking about how I have dear friends who are very pro this war in Iran. I disagree with them, but I respect their opinion and I know they come by it honestly and in good faith. Not him. He seems bloodthirsty, Mark. What is what do you make of his rhetoric around this war and his constant pushing for more of it? Right. It's just evil. I mean, even on January 6th, he's he's he's crazy. He told he told the news we should have shot them all in the head.

1:36:20Americans expressing their freedom of speech and grievances against the elections that happened when Trump's election was stolen in 2020. He wanted to shoot all the people on J6 in the head and they were all let in. I didn't know he said that. Oh, yeah. Yep. You know, so people are tired of it. You know, with Trump's endorsement, everybody is concerned about that. The whole country loves Trump still, whatever respects President Trump. But they've all said in South Carolina and America that endorsement won't save Lindsey Graham this time because Trump's made some bad endorsements. That's OK. We understand that.

1:36:59But we've seen Lindsey's patterns and it's tired. We're all tired of it. Enough's enough. It's time for him to go. What what why is it that South Carolinians, who are very sensible people among the best people. Why do they keep electing him? One reason, Megan, is we have open primaries of all things. So we don't require party registration. So on the primary on June 9th, Democrats can cross over and vote in republic elections and change our election results. That's just crazy. And we can't get it changed because there's so many rhinos in the statehouse, they'll never vote to close the primaries so we have stagnation and we just have things we can't get past so that's how Democrats are voting for Lindsey Graham and you know when we first filed in February of 25 Breitbart news organization contacted us and said we don't know what you're doing but we've never seen Lindsey moved to the right this early in a campaign cycle so we gave them some knowledge of an article that we had, an inter-email correspondence between Obama's chief campaign pollster Paul Harstad talking to John Podesta, they thought, on a private email.

1:38:14And they all agreed that Lindsey Graham would be the greatest ally to the Democrat Party they had ever had. So that tells the whole story. That's who he is. Wow. Well, I certainly hope you manage to pull this out because America's had enough of Lindsey Graham. I hope the South Carolinian people do the right thing and relieve us of this burden. We need a true conservative in there who's not a warmonger, who's not bloodthirsty, who's just an honest, true red conservative person. And you seem like the man, Mark. Thank you. Thanks for throwing your hat in the ring and we'll continue to watch it. Thank you, Megan.

1:38:48I would tell the voters if I can go to lynchforsenate.com. What can we do? People always say, call me, tell me what we can do. Pray for us. This is spiritual warfare. Everybody has one of these. Contact your friends and family and tell them about me and support our campaign because it takes y 'all out there. I'm the guy that's willing to go. Help me get there and let's replace him and give America a wonderful birthday present on its 250th anniversary. We'll remove a traitor in Congress. All the best to you. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Wow, that'll be a fascinating contest. I mean, if he can keep that tight at all, he's got a shot.

1:39:31I realize it's a long shot, but it's there. And I do think Lindsey Graham's been more in the news negatively than he usually has been as he approaches yet another reelection. If you are in South Carolina, please, please consider Mark Lynch and go to lynchforsenate.com. Like he said, check out his platform. I think you're going to be very happy if you're a Republican or a right-leaning independent. Okay, in the time we have left, I've got to spend a minute on Spencer Pratt, who was a star, star at the L.A. mayor's debate last night. Watching him against Karen Bass and that other woman, Nithya Rahman, it was a thing of beauty.

1:40:11This guy was real. He was raw. He was authentic. He was unafraid. My favorite clip is when he rolled his eyes at the one. It was like he kind of made fun of her. He was funny. I enjoyed him thoroughly. And it doesn't appear that my friend Tish Hyman made the stage. That doesn't bode well for her numbers. But I am totally behind Spencer Pratt here after listening to him last night. Let me give you an example in SOT 29. I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her. And we can find some of these people she's going to offer treatment for. She's going to get stabbed in the neck. These people do not want a bed.

1:40:46They want fentanyl or super meth. These ideas cost us over$400 million to house for 70, what did you say, 3 ,000 people for 400 million? This is an absolute failure for both of them. They're a team. So the only question is whether Californians are going to respond as they absolutely should to him, to that kind of frank talk. She's going to get stabbed in the neck if she goes down to these homeless camps and tries to offer them her therapy or whatever. He's exactly right, as we all know. And that's why she would never go there. And none of us do. So he's talking, frankly, to Angelenos and they know it.

1:41:20They know what he's saying is real. And he's nonpartisan, this guy. He's not a Republican. He's, I think, running as an independent. And he sounded like an independent when you heard him talk last night. Here's a little bit more in SOT 28. First off, Mayor Bass and I are definitely not working together. I blame this person for burning my house and my parents' house and my town and all my neighbors down. I am not working with Mayor Bass. Second off, if I wanted to run against anybody, it would be the council member who is terrible. Mayor Bass has at least been a mayor for almost four years and has, as she talked about earlier, the unions, all the unions endorsed Mayor Bass.

1:41:56You think it's easier to run against the incumbent mayor with all the unions or a random city council member who's been a failure for six years? I would much rather run against Councilwoman Rahman. Thank you very much. So that was brilliant because he dissed the councilwoman as like a nobody, which she took issue with later. You could see she was offended. He treated her like she was like not some star and also dissed Karen Bass in the same fell swoop. You could feel his contempt for his two adversaries in a way that was refreshing. It wasn't a turnoff. It was like, yes, I think a lot of people are feeling it.

1:42:32Karen Bass tried to get up there and blame the L.A. fire debacle on everyone other than herself. Everyone. And he was there. He's living in a trailer after he lost his house with the receipts. And he knew the facts and the figures. This is a former reality TV star, but he has studied up. And he knew his facts and the figures about what was going on with the water reservoirs, what the winds were on the night. because Karen Bass likes to blame the winds for a reason why we couldn't have the helicopters dropping the water, as opposed to the reservoirs being empty. He had all of his stats and figures and was firing them off with ease.

1:43:11The other two were caught flat-footed and looked embarrassed, frankly, that they didn't come to play. Here's the soundbite I mentioned for the listening audience. And for the listening audience, you got to go to YouTube just towards the end of the show to see this, but it's worth it. Such a good clip. Watch. i'm not sure how to respond to that vision of los angeles this is a maga republicans idea of what los angeles looks like this is this is really not this is

1:43:42so what happens in the clip is she's like kind of shaking her head you know from side to side like i'm at a loss here and they cut to him in the middle of this is what a maga republicans which she's not, by the way, a view of Los Angeles is. And he just does a quick imitation of her with the shaking of the head. Very funny, very good political instincts. And you know what you walk away thinking at the end of the debate is he's just likable. If you're anything other than a hard leftist, he is likable and he instills confidence. And I think there's something about somebody who's been personally affected by the incompetence of the current ruler, Karen Bass, that will be inspirational and hopefully motivational for the people who live in LA.

1:44:30Please save LA. Save LA. You guys need Spencer Pratt. Don't miss the show tomorrow. Maureen Callahan comes back on the show. That's going to be fun. thanks for listening to the megan kelly show no bs no agenda and no fear

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