Matt Gaetz: Ted Cruz’s Delusional 2028 Bid, the ADL, and Identity Politics Taking Over the Right

25:50Because we're Americans, we can say and think whatever we want. That's the point of being American. How can a U.S. official say that? I think we have crossed that Rubicon long ago. When you had people in the Biden administration censoring true information about vaccine side effects and no accountability for that, no action against those officials. It has blown the door open to use powers in government to try to advance the viewpoints that you find comforting and to silence the ideas that you find uncomfortable. I've never heard anybody say we should censor anti-white hate on the internet. Not one person has ever, I don't, by the way, I don't think we should censor it or any expression of what people believe should ever be censored.

26:31I think censorship digitally is ultimately sustainable with the fragmented digital environment we're living. So that's the point. I'm coming. Once again, you're seeing – I'm not as worked up over it as you are. I know. Because I think that you've got – we have so many different opportunities to communicate now, more so than in the 2010s. And the censorship regime is only going to backfire on these folks. And it's sad. Honestly, I wish people like Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL and this particular rabbi would see that what they are doing is ultimately to their detriment because more and more people are going to wonder why there is this one group that seems to have primacy in speech and discourse.

27:16You're 100 % right. And you're able to control your emotions sufficient to see that, which is why I'm glad you're here. Controlling emotions really is what I'm known for. No, it is actually because you're seeing, at least compared to me, with no self-control at all. You're seeing the big picture, which is that this is a conversation that can only be counterproductive. They don't understand the nature of human discourse and of the Internet. And like you can't censor it. No. And how are you going to censor the presidential debate stage in 2028? Because let me walk through what you're going to see.

27:49You are going to see candidates on the Republican debate stage and on the Democrat debate stage. They're going to say, I'm going to cut off all aid to Israel. I believe the U.S.-Israel relationship is toxic. I think it is an abusive relationship, and the United States is the abused partner, and we need to leave. And those people are automatically going to surge to a prominent position in the polling, in their parties. And so then how are you ultimately going to censor a viewpoint that is a rising viewpoint on the left and the right among the bases of those parties? This isn't a viewpoint percolating among the elites that maybe the U.S.-Israel relationship is something we have to question in its current iteration and its current form.

28:33But this is coming to a head. And I saw the deal where, have you looked at the FARA filings with the Israeli government, is paying to geofence U.S. churches so that they can propagandize evangelical Christians? I'm watching this saying, it's not going to work. People are still going to ask questions. And I still can't find any of Israel's strongest defenders who will defend that conduct. They've also, I guess, hired Brad Parscale to spoof the AI bots. I saw that and I thought at least it's like them getting grifted this time. He's pathetic. But yes, no, I mean literally pathetic. But it's still so dishonorable what he's doing.

29:19But you're absolutely right. I should have a lighter heart about this kind of stuff. I guess what concerns me is these are people who are totally committed to violence. I mean for rabbi, whatever his name is, to say we need to hold the people of Gaza accountable when they already, the Israeli and the U.S. have murdered tens of thousands of women and children, murdered them. It's like, that's not a, like what? Is there anyone who believes that Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more terrorists than it's created? Is there a single serious person who believes that? Well, it's a crime. It's a crime.

29:55And the more you know about it, the more shocking it is that it's happened, a first world country doing something, murdering all those kids, murdering them, which they have. and all these people like Rabbi whatever and Mark Levin defending it, they're just pro-violence. They believe in violence. Mark Levin, when Charlie was murdered three months ago, said he was murdered because people called him a Nazi and that's an invitation to shoot somebody. Next thing you know, he's running around calling everyone who disagrees with the next aid package a Nazi. He's espousing violence. Mark Levin's totally for violence.

30:25A lot of these stronger voices are for violence. So if censorship doesn't work, it makes me uncomfortable when people who believe in violence and murdering the innocents, as they do, if they can't achieve their goals by peaceful means, like, what's the next step? Violence. I think that they come from a viewpoint of, like, every 400 years, people round up the Jews and kill them on the planet Earth, and they think that their struggle is existential, and if they do not become violent in certain places, in certain iterations, that they become the victim of it. Okay, look, I get that. And actually one thing that I grieve over, because I hear about it all the time from friends of mine, is that people are panicked, are panicked.

31:06And then you have a shooting, this massacre in Australia. It's like the worst thing of ever. I couldn't even watch the video. It was so horrible. And it's like that adds to people's sense that there's something like that is going to happen here. And I totally sympathize with that, all of that. But violence is not the answer. That's the point. It's why you can't defend the murder of kids in Gaza. You can't call for your enemies to be killed like Mark Levin, in effect, does. Don't do that, right? Yeah, and it probably is the next chapter of all of this, is that more of that type of violence is visited here in the United States, and we're against that.

31:45By the way, that's why the speech and the dialogue and the discourse is so important, which is what Charlie Kirk understood. I know. And said so. All the time. And I mean, when you and I know what few others do, and that is the operational competence of Charlie Kirk in doing everything he could to support the Trump administration to make the best possible decisions on the information that existed. And Charlie told me something once about President Trump and Twitter. And he said, you know, Matt, how many times back in 2016, 2017, did we have someone come up to us and say, we love Trump, but can we get him off Twitter?

32:23Can we just get him to stop tweeting every impulse? And by the way, I always loved the posts, still do. But we, so many people were focused on the information flow from Trump out into the Twitter sphere. When what we, I think, discounted was when Trump was scrolling Twitter regularly, he was getting bidirectional feedback that does not exist right now. that that that avenue is not open the way it was in those years. And I think it was really special and awesome about Trump that he was able to understand the zeitgeist and what the temperature and mood of the country was. And I would love to see Trump back on Twitter posting regularly and seeing the feedback from users.

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36:24Vanta is the platform used by over 16 ,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started at Vanta.com. What role does Twitter X play in the discourse of the nation? It's the global newswire. It's where news is made. And, you know, I think that people discount the significance of the platform when they say it doesn't have the same user base that you see on Meta or TikTok. But the reality is the news that is made on X, Twitter, really pollinates to those other platforms extensively and I think drives all the action.

37:06So Twitter is real life is what you're saying? I think that it is. Yeah. Could you understand what's happening in the country without reading it? I don't think so because you would be limited in the inputs to your system, right? Right. What are your. Well, you host a show, but even long before you hosted the show, you're in the middle of the national conversation. You were the subject of the national conversation for a while. Where do you get your information? How do you know what reality is? I try to read a lot. I try to watch cable news as little as possible, even though I'm a host of a cable show on One America News.

37:48I think we've lost an appreciation for the 10 ,000-word piece in society today. I miss the long investigative reporting pieces we used to get at places like the National Pulse and places like Revolver News. And more and more, the attention span of the country is limited. And so you've got to be able to convey messages sharply, crisply so that they're absorbed and people can act on the information. Do you read Twitter a lot? I do, yeah. I'm on Twitter a good bit. A Citizen Free Press is one of my daily check-ins for the news as well. And also, more and more, since I've left government life, seeing how the movement of money impacts policy decisions.

38:31I totally agree. I was so into what was on the next committee agenda, what the next witness would be in the chair. And oftentimes, it's the way money moves in global marketplaces influencing events. And I also think this is informative on our discussion on the Middle East because for most of you in my life, the principal capital markets that mattered in the world were New York and London. Of course. think a lot of people were really comfortable with that. And then as capital has really flown out of these Gulf monarchies, out of the Middle East, you're seeing places like Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Muscat Oman, Riyadh emerge as these very significant capital marketplaces.

39:14And I think Netanyahu is trying to wash that region in blood and chaos and war migrants so that there is a return to New York and London being the principal capital markets. Yeah, I mean, I saw an Israeli cabinet minister the other day describe, was talking about the Saudis and, you know, go back to whatever, your camels and sleeping with your cousin or whatever, eating lamb in a tent. And, you know, it was dismissive, of course. I'm not even taking sides in it, but it was more than dismissive. It was like idiotic. It's like, have you been there recently? You know, there are not a lot of camels in downtown Riyadh, which has like 8 million people in it.

39:54It's like the most modern city in the side of China. I think people don't fully understand how quickly that region has changed. Yeah. And, you know, that change is frightening to people who are losing power. I get it. And I think a lot of those people are the constituency that Netanyahu is serving as he is trying to advance an agenda that will create more war and create more violence. And nobody's going to want to do business deals in Doha or Abu Dhabi or Dubai if there are 30 million Iranians that are on the move because they're war migrants. No, that's really, really smart. So I want to get to something.

40:40something. So you sponsored this bill in the Congress in 2024 last year that would have pulled the United States finally out of Syria. And of course it didn't pass. Did you even get to a vote? Yeah, I was able to force a vote on it under our rules. Yeah. I mean, it lost by a margin of two to one. I didn't even have a majority. At least. Oh, of course. But the fact that you did that, which by the way, for people who aren't from Washington, that's like a radical act. That's like Tea Party level. It's like throwing the tea in Boston Harbor. That's like no one would do that poor Tulsi Gabbard once said like why do we have to be in Syria and they spied on her and kept her off commercial airplanes for saying that so um it was a ballsy thing to say but you've always had this kind of like you know independent cast to your thinking it's been very obvious for a long time several years ago your life got completely blown up it sounded like you were going to jail people started calling you a child molester you're a job molester.

41:36I was attacked for talking to you, which is kind of funny. Normally people were attacked for talking to me, but I was attacked for talking to you. But at the heart of that story was foreign influence, and I've never heard you describe what exactly happened there. So in one sentence, news broke in the New York Times at the House Ethics Committee? No, this was, I got news that the Department of Justice... Oh, sorry, it was DOJ. It was a criminal investigation. The Department of Justice was investigating me. And obviously, I knew that the allegations were false, that someone was just - You'd be in jail right now if they were true.

42:14Obviously. You and Andrew Tate would both be in jail, so stop with the bullshit. And by the way, no one has ever even made an accusation against me in any forum in which I can depose witnesses, do cross-examination, review records. So that's how you know the allegations against me are false. No one is ever willing to make them in any forum where I'm allowed to fight back, where I have any of the tools that you would get in due process. Well, you haven't been charged and brought to court. Charged, sued, anything. You've never been sued on the basis of this. No, of course not. And if anyone were to sue me, a human being would have to stand up and make an accusation against me and have their name behind it.

42:50That's never happened. Who is the person who has publicly accused me of misconduct regarding women? It doesn't exist, right? It is just an op. And it was an op to silence me. And Israel was involved. And I hate to say that. I was shocked to learn it, but there was a consulate official. Okay, so this is the charge that you were like trafficking underage girls. Absurd. I don't even know what the charge was, but that was the headline. Matt Gaetz traffics underage women. It's like, oh my gosh, can't talk to Matt Gaetz anymore. Well, for us, the shocking moment was when my father, who's a prominent person in our community, got outreach from someone he had never met that said that there were pictures and images of me with underage prostitutes, and my dad needed to meet with these people right away.

43:36And so my dad, somewhat surprised and concerned, goes and talks to these people and says, what in the world are you talking about? And they said, well, Mr. Gates, we need$25 million from you to go and rescue a spy that is being held in Iran. And if you do that, we can make these things about your son go away, which was crazy and wild we did what any reasonable people would do we went to the fbi and said that we were being extorted by these folks with their false claims and we later learned that this consulate official with the working for the israeli government was sending text messages to scott adams of all people the dilbert cartoonist saying they were expecting my father to furnish this$25 million payment and that that would be evidence of my consciousness of guilt.

44:30For the American FBI agent grabbed on an Iranian island maybe 18 or 19 years ago. And I don't know anything about this person. I don't know if the person's dead or alive. But it was troubling and concerning to me that someone who was getting paid by the Israeli government was involved in a criminal shakedown of a U.S. congressman. And someone went to jail for this. The person who conveyed this message to my father pled guilty to the attempted fraud, and surprisingly, there was never really an effort to figure out what the government of Israel's involvement was in this matter. But you know that the government of Israel was involved because this was an Israeli government official who was involved in this?

45:11Yes, yes. A person who, his name's Jake Novak, I think he currently works for Real America's Voice, and he sent text messages. What? Yeah. Yeah. That's the name of the official. And he sent messages to Scott Adams saying that he was involved in this scheme that was later deemed a criminal scheme to shake down my family based on these false allegations. He got a television show. Come on now. I didn't know any of this. I'm not playing dumb. I really didn't know that. Have you ever talked to him about it? I have attempted to figure out because obviously I still have a lot of unanswered questions about why he was working for a foreign government and trying to shake down my family.

45:52What's the answer, do you think? Well, some have shared with me their concern that this was a consequence of some of the votes and positions I took in the Congress. I represented one of the most military heavy districts in the entire country. I think number one. Yeah, right up there. And I saw these wars in the Middle East that my neighbors and friends had fought in as unworthy of our best, unworthy of the disruptions in parenting and the divorces and the injuries. Suicides, yeah. And so I took the position that we should be less entangled in these things. And I think that really shocked a number of people who thought I would be more of a neocon coming from the district I came from.

46:38And I think that with the Israel influence operation, it's always fire and ice. It's always outreach followed by consequence and then outreach and then consequence. Even to this day, there was someone who just appeared and offered to pay me a bunch of money to go to Israel and give a bunch of speeches. And, you know, you decline those offers when you don't feel they're appropriate. And then, lo and behold, it's like Greenblatt on the other side of the operation calling you an anti-Semite. This just happened to you? Yeah. You don't need to be an economist to see what's happening. The dollar is in trouble.

47:17It's getting weaker. It's sad. But we're not in charge of it. So we have to respond. appropriately in ways to protect our families. When paper money dies, it's going to be replaced by programmable digital currency or gold. Gold survives. The same Americans who think they're protecting themselves with gold are the ones getting ripped off by big gold dealers. After we left corporate media, we got offered tens of millions of dollars to promote gold companies. How'd they get the money to spend that much on marketing? Because they're scamming their customers. We didn't want anything to do with that.

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48:16You're younger than I am, but been around a lot. You have such a blasé attitude. Like, yeah, that happens. People try to pay you off, then they threaten you, pay you off, then they threaten you. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, this is the parlance of government. It's a series of carrots and sticks. And, you know, I was the only Republican in the entire Congress during my time there who refused all PAC and lobbyist donations because it was like a game I just didn't want to win. What you have to realize is what most of your Congress is doing most of the time is trying to move up in this system. And sometimes moving up means a better committee.

48:50Sometimes it's like getting invited to better dinner parties. We lived in Washington for many years. You know that there's this hidden dinner party circuit that is reflective of your influence and your acceptance. And people who are probably good people when they get elected go there and morally compromise for that. And I just reached a point one time when I just thought, I don't even care. It's like, oh, well, if you do enough favors for the chief deputy whip, they'll invite you to their fundraiser. And then you could move up. And the whip could invite you to his foreign trip. And if you say the right things on the foreign trip and kiss the ring, well, then maybe the majority leader will want you on a task force.

49:30And at the end of the day, I thought, I'm not here to do any of this stuff. And I don't really care about any of it. Those are prizes not worth winning, too. Yeah, it's sort of like the homecoming court. Nobody really cares except the people doing it. The problem is in Congress, the people who are not the brightest and not the, I think, most service-oriented often prevail in that system. It's all so low bar, so just pathetic. And it's even more pathetic when really smart, accomplished people do it. That's always what amazed me. If you're like, I'm just a country lawyer from North Florida, been in the legislature, got elected to Congress.

50:08I'd never done anything in my life that rendered me a war hero or some tycoon of industry. But those people do get elected at times. And then you just go watch them debase themselves. Oh, I know. And they become actors. And the scripts are written by the lobby corps and produced and directed by the leadership. You never took APAC money? I did not. I refused those funds. How did that go for you? I just, you know. Well, I guess you ultimately got blackmailed. I didn't become attorney general. No. But I forgot about that. But that wasn't precisely about APAC for me. That was just about all of it.

50:50I even had groups like the NRA or Right to Life that I was largely aligned with. Well, will you take RPAC money? And I just, the whole thing seemed untoward. How do you take money from people who have a specific interest, at times hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars, and then go stand at the fish house in Pensacola, Florida and tell people you're not influenced by it? I couldn't perform the act anymore. Now, there are other – throughout my time in Congress, there are other kind of accommodations you have to make. Like I had to be their willing able anytime your bookers or anybody else's bookers would call and say, come be on television.

51:27Because my theory was if I wasn't going to have the resources to buy ads, just go be on TV a lot. And that comes with its own compromise to your life and your overall operation. Right. Well, life is a series of traps. And sometimes you don't know you're falling into them. Yeah. It seems like a good trade, but it never is. But just to go back to what happened to you. So this guy or a series of people approached your dad and said, we have documentary evidence that your son. Photos. Photos. Slept with underage girls. Will you give us$25 million to go find the FBI agent Bob? Levinson. Levinson. Right.

52:08Also working for CIA who was grabbed on this island in Iran. still in custody, dead or alive. Your dad says, no, contacts you, you call the FBI, the person who reached out gets convicted of that, goes to jail for it. But this other guy is never punished for it, the one who's working for the Israeli government. And then the story winds up in the New York Times. How does it wind up in the New York Times? Well, I think that Bill Barr told them. Bill Barr was a very well-known source for the New York Times. Bill Barr was the Attorney General. And he hated me. Why did he hate you? We were in a big dispute about his unwillingness to enforce some of the election integrity laws.

52:54There was a case in Florida where a Democrat supervisor of elections brought to the U.S. attorney a clear instance of fraud where a Soros-aligned organization was fraudulently creating voter registrations. so that they could request absentee ballots that were ghost votes. And the U.S. attorney asked for resources to pursue that investigation, and Bill Barr refused and said, I refuse to investigate any of this stuff because it will decrease confidence in the elections. This was before the 2020 election. And so I was constantly pestering President Trump and members of his administration that Bill Barr had to be dealt with on this.

53:31You can't just say that you're not going to investigate something because the investigation itself will impact people's confidence. And so he and I were in that big struggle, and I believe he was angry with me and wanted to leak things that would hurt me. This is the guy who covered up the murder of an American citizen in federal detention in New York City. I mean, the person who was murdered is called Jeffrey Epstein, so I understand that I'm not defending Jeffrey Epstein, but no American should be murdered extrajudicially in federal a lockup. Bill Barr covered up that murder. Also, we're the United States of America.

54:06You can't even go in and out of a casino without people knowing that you're there and without it being on every camera. And you're telling me that we don't have the video of Epstein killing himself and that we're all just supposed to expect this guy who we know, we know, all those people who are in the admin now, my friends, they know Epstein was intel. They know he was tied to our intel. They know he was tied to Mossad. They knew he was tied to Saudi. He was a free agent. He was willing to go. And British intelligence. Yeah. And he was willing to go and get this compromise at a time when the British and the Israelis and the United States government needed to get people aligned with the Iraq war.

54:42And there was a worry that people would drift off and start opposing an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq. And so they got together a bunch of people in academia, politics, media, business, and tried to get them in a compromising situation so that then everyone would stay on board no matter what. That does not sound unlikely. But when he died, Barr, by his own admission, he said, our job is to convince the American public he killed himself and prevent dangerous conspiracy theories from threatening. The guy was murdered. And so Barr is, by definition, corrupt. Like, you can't, attorney generals can't do that.

55:15That is totally over the top. So, and he was fighting with you. But you think he's the one who leaked this stuff? Leaks happen in a while. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and pearl clutch over some leak. When the FBI took my phone away, I assumed this was all – when they first came – On what grounds did they take your phone away? Well, they came with a subpoena and said, we want your phone. And at the time, I was somewhat relieved because I thought, perfect. If what you think is in my phone is some sort of untoward issue with underage people, have a look. And obviously, if I'd committed any crimes, they kept my phone for years.

55:54They did? Yeah, they did. and you've never been charged with anything? No. What's it like, because we have a justice system, you know, it's still in place, I think. We've got courts and stuff and police and all that. But what's it like to be accused of a real crime, child sex trafficking, and then sort of wait for all these years to get indicted for it and have someone prove it, and that never happens? Well, I mean, I know who I am. The people around me know who I am. I would, during these investigations, repeatedly run back to my district. And despite Kevin McCarthy spending millions of dollars to try to defeat me, I was always overwhelmingly reelected.

56:35And so I took comfort in knowing - But you got reelected in the middle of this. Despite a lot of folks not wanting me to return to Washington, but there is comfort in knowing that the people will be there for you, your family, the folks you care about. And so I'm not a tragic case by any sense. I wish I would have had the chance to be attorney general. I said a lot of bad things about senators over the years that made that impossible for me to achieve. So walk us through that. So Trump announces you're going to be AG. And I have not campaigned for that position. To be clear, I love President Trump and was there to support his transition as a friend, a confidant, someone who had been there during the tough times in his first term.

57:19I mean, the real reason I was hanging around the transition is because I remembered what it was like when you had a good amount of the cabinet hoping that Donald Trump was a criminal and wanting to install Mike Pence. For sure. Just the nightmare that that was. So I was there to be a trusted friend. And Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller and I had talked to a number of people who wanted to be attorney general. And we were presenting some of those ideas to the president. I was advocating for a different person to be the attorney general on a plane ride with the president. And he just sort of, as he has a tendency to do, said that that wasn't who he wanted and he wanted me to do the job.

57:57And you had no idea this was coming? No, none. And it was - So you're telling Trump, actually, I think you should pick so-and-so. Right, right. And I did tell him if he wanted me to do it, I would do my best job. I would work hard to be confirmed. And that I thought I could lead the department out of some of its darkest days and towards something better. I think Pam Bondi has done a very good job. I know she has her critics. By the way, I would have too. If I'd have been the attorney general, there probably would be a whole ecosystem saying I wasn't doing enough. But I actually think Pam Bondi's done a good job, and I'm here to be her supporter and advocate.

58:32Clearly, you are here to be her supporter and advocate. I disagree. But whatever, I think - But let's get into that, Tucker. Wait, but hold on. I'm not here to attack Pam Bondi, who I know well, and I've always liked Pambani. But you were willing as a sitting member of the Congress and the House to go after your own party when you thought that they were wrong. And I think Trump also believed that someone who had been unfairly accused of something and who had endured the grind of that - Would care about justice. Yeah, would be really interested in fixing it. I mean, I think that's why President Trump asked me to do the job is because he saw that I could empathize with those who had been treated unfairly and that I would approach the position with a true sense of justice.

59:19I love that. No, I share that view. And I do think the only quality that matters in a leader is strength. So we can oppress people. Weak people oppress others. Strong people have no need to oppress others or rule over others. They can serve others because they're not compensating for the void within them. And I think you would have been, you know, the best person I can think of because you've been through it. You didn't collapse. You married a great girl right in the middle of it. You got reelected. Like your life shows that you were not destroyed by what happened to you. So you are strong by definition.

59:53That's what we need. And all of America's problems are downstream from weak men, obviously. That's why the women are crazy because the men are weak. So like, let's find a strong one to lead a critical agency. That's my like primitive view of it, but I think I'm right. what happened why did you not get that gig uh there were a lot of great people i interacted with in the senate but at the end of the day there was a core block of about half dozen of them who'd said they would never vote for me and uh you know i could have endeavored to grind that down maybe win you know one or two of them possibly over an extended period of time but you saw the way courts started enjoining the actions of this administration right off the bat Pam Bondi did defeat nationwide injunctions as a ruling legal theory.

1:00:39And had we not had her and her team lined up to do that, I actually think that we'd be in a very different position today with the deportation agenda. Yeah. How can... But I mean, look, you know, a lot of my conversations went, I'd be like, yes, Senator, so and so, this is Matt Gaetz. I'm calling about my confirmation for attorney. What was tweeted about you? Now, that was a staffer years ago, and they were fired immediately. Oh, they were that petty. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Several would bring things I tweeted about them to the meetings. Is that really so the point of your attorney general is not to say mean things about an individual senator?

1:01:14Like what? Talk about making it about you. Well, yeah. Who cares? And then I had one senator from Oklahoma really grill me about my vote against the anti-Semitism bill. so how can I vote for someone who voted against the anti-semitism bill and I'm thinking like is this some like driving issue in Oklahoma that I'm this was Langford uh unaware of just just mentioning it uh yeah Langford is such a is a weak such a weak man it's sad um and is a tool for evil in my opinion so sorry that's what I think um but despite you know having good qualities but uh so who were the senators were against you? Do you care to name anyone?

1:01:57I don't know that that's productive, but I think that it would not be difficult to look at the college of senators who have been otherwise problematic for some of Trump's appointees, and that's where I had problems. So you decided to bow out? Yeah, I didn't think that me doing some multi-week, multi-month fight to try to grind down the last of Mitch McConnell was somehow going to help the administration in the end. Can I ask, do you think, just since you know the system so well, because you serve within it most of your life, do you think there's anything you could have traded in exchange for their support?

1:02:37I don't know. I don't know. I oftentimes couldn't get a meeting with people like Senator Murkowski and Senator Collins. They were not interested in even having a discussion with me. So it would have been hard to execute a trade. I mean, I think part of the problem is you're not the kind of guy who makes those trades, and that's why they opposed you in the first place. Well, and I think also there's something unsettling about my unpredictability. You know, people who read the script are easy to predict and manage. So you wind up with a government and business, you wind up with a whole society run by weak people.

1:03:17Not at the top. Trump's pretty strong. Of course. And I think Vance is strong and I think Susie Wiles is strong. There's no doubt about what you just said. But no, I mean beneath the very, you know, you're talking about the pinnacle of the pyramid. I mean like all the way down. They're just, everyone's so weak and that's where evil thrives is in weakness. Weakness and risk aversion. And risk aversion is fundamentally anti-American. We are a nation of risk takers at our best moments. That's who we are. But in government, it's often, you know, how do I how do I avoid any attention or ire? I do think that, you know, the riskiest thing we've seen is what Obama got everybody together to do on December 9th of 2016 when he ordered the Russia hoax.

1:04:03I think that is really the original sin of a lot of this that has happened. And I certainly would have brought a RICO charge against the people who were involved in that decision-making process and participating in the various predicate criminal acts. I wouldn't be surprised if that's precisely what Pam Bondi does. When the Biden FBI raided Trump's house, they engaged in a predicate criminal act to try to get information back that was exculpatory as to Trump. From my standpoint, that would properly venue a RICO charge against the major players in the deep state in the Southern District of Florida rather than in Washington, D.C., where they have an administrative and judicial advantage.

1:04:51So the Russia hoax was predicated on something that I'm pretty sure was a lie, which is that the Russian government stole a tranche of emails from the DNC earlier that year. But it got reinvigorated after. Of course it did. All of that got dispensed with. Then Trump won, which people weren't expecting. And Obama on December 9th calls in Clapper, Brennan, Comey, and says, you guys have got to go out and reignite this Russia thing. And in that effort, you see all of this offense against George Papadopoulos. Oh, I remember. You see the activation of foreign intelligence networks to try to create some predicate for spying on the trump campaign and you know where where uh you know where does that leave us i think in a like almost a post-coup country well we're literally at war with russia today as a result of this hysteria which was all the kind of predicate for that war and you know it's like there was a real discussion in the 90s going on about extending nato membership to russia which is what we should have done what do you mean that putin in his first meeting with george w bush was like right at the beginning of 2020, 2001, said, I want to join NATO.

1:06:06Imagine where we would be right now if the United States and Russia had created peace and a security infrastructure around Europe, I think appropriately positioned NATO as an alliance against the excesses of Sino expansion. It would be a safer world. It would be a more prosperous world. All the way to Asia, because Russia extends into Asia. And right, so you would have a Western bloc of not identical countries. Russia's got a different system, different culture, different language, different history. But so many aligned interests with NATO when it comes to countering extremism, having strong borders, all of the things that— Trade, right?

1:06:43Trade. One of the most mineral-dense countries in the world, right? It's basically a Western country, produced Dostoevsky. Don't tell me otherwise. Anyway, yeah, I couldn't agree more. But I just want to get to something I've never gotten past, which is the question of whether the Russian government stole those emails from the DNC during the Democratic primary. And then this DNC staffer called Seth Rich is murdered in Washington, D.C. in a robbery in which his wallet is not taken. and a number of conservative, conservative, people who call themselves conservatives went on TV and said, I think Seth Rich was murdered because he knew too much and then those people were either sued or threatened with lawsuits from Seth Rich's family so everybody shut up about it.

1:07:31And then Julian Assange is asked repeatedly, who runs WikiLeaks at the time before they sent him to prison for talking like this, did the Russians send you that information? And he goes, no. did Seth Rich. And he says, we're not going to talk about that. So the heavy implication is that Seth, and I don't know the answer, despite knowing Julian Assange, but the heavy implication was that Seth Rich sent this information because he was offended by how the DNC was taking Bernie Sanders out, was basically all behind Hillary Clinton. It was a rigged election, and they were crushing Bernie Sanders, and he was offended, so he leaked these emails.

1:08:09And they killed him for it. And no one was allowed to talk about that. And I don't know if that's what happened, but I knew someone at a very high level of the DNC who thought that's what happened. And no one's ever talked about it again. We in Congress had people that were doing various roles within the D.C. Police Department come and say, we want to be whistleblowers. And we want to talk about the way in which this investigation was truncated. And we didn't get to really do the shoe leather work. let their work. But there's a way that the FBI can involve themselves in these investigations that doesn't strip the agency completely away from their partners to also participate.

1:08:51And so these whistleblowers were concerned about that. And then ultimately, they weren't really given much of a platform. Well, we never saw Seth Rich's laptop. And that story just ended. And I'm not alleging anything. But isn't the tell in that how it kept shifting? First, it was the emails. And then it was Vladimir Putin had taken over Facebook with$120 ,000. And then it was actually like George Papadopoulos in a London bar. Then it was Don Jr. at Trump Tower. It was an effort to obscure the lack of quality in any of these theories by just having a sufficient quantity of them. Well, that's always, that's called flooding the zone.

1:09:34And that's what happened. I'm watching that happen right now. That's what always, that is the most classic move of anyone involved in a psyop, the Intel community. Yeah, you just, you just, you see this with UAPs. Pretty obvious what they are actually in my view, but no, it's this, it's men from Mars, it's an advanced technology program. It's like, whatever. Yeah, they flood it with too many theories. And you think that's what happened there? Of course, because none of the theories could individually hold water. And I had a recent conversation with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and I like John, but I chastised him for not answering some of these fundamental questions.

1:10:14Joseph Mifsud was this professor who was drawn into an intelligence operation against the United States. He was drawn into that operation either by the United States or one of our allies. How do we not know the answer to that question? This was the key thing that we said we were going to uncover when we got power. And I know they got a lot of work to do to keep the country safe, but I would encourage the director of the CIA to really tell us the CIA's role. What's the answer, do you think? Well, I believe that some of this crowd in the Obama administration knew that their direct management of an asset against the Trump administration would create paperwork, payments, complicating things that could be found out.

1:10:55And so they went to other European countries and said, you know, you do us a favor, we do you a favor. But the favor we want from you is actually to go against our country, our presidential candidate, Donald Trump. And that is treasonous. That is straight treason to ask another country to attack your country. And I think that occurred. And I think that if we knew who had authorized that, we would have a person to be at the center of this Broderico conspiracy. Yeah. Yeah. And traditionally, it's been Britain and France who play that role. Huge intel presence in Italy as well. Exactly. It's one of the biggest CIA.

1:11:33And now with the growth of NATO under this war, it's Romania, it's Eastern Europe, it's wherever you have a NATO base, there are a lot of other things that come with it, of course. So you've seen this a lot where American political actors or IC members in the United States use foreign governments to do their work for them. Yeah. And I am concerned that that doesn't just happen abroad, that that happens even within the eight square miles of Washington, D.C. Did you feel when you worked there that there was a lot of intrigue? There's always intrigue. But I think that a lot of the decisions that get made in Washington are detached from the elected leaders.

1:12:17And there probably should be more intrigue, actually. our lawmakers should be more curious and inquisitive and skeptical. What do you mean a lot of the decisions that are made are detached from elected leaders? Well, look, take these bills that get written, right? Do you think that anyone who voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was trying to outlaw hemp? It just was stuck in the bill, and then they voted for it. And however you feel about hemp, I think it's kind of crazy that an issue wouldn't even get its own dignity. Like the lashing together of disparate issues for just an up or down vote that kind of becomes a shirts and skins exercise is a way to detach from the realities of the decision making.

1:13:03And those decisions are made by staff, by interest groups, by foreign countries at times. What's going to happen in the next two election cycles? I think we are headed for a bloodbath in the midterms for a few reasons, primarily history. The president's party loses seats during the midterms. I don't think I'm breaking any news there. And I think that the other side has just really worked up, and they have an organizing principle. The organizing principle of the left in America today is we hate Trump. And they don't need any more than that. And there's something elegant politically about using that to activate voters.

1:13:43Yeah, totally. Whereas we're trying to tell people to reward us for securing the border. And voting is rarely an exercise in rewarding prior conduct. It is always about new promises. What are the new promises you're making? And right now, a lot of people have economic anxiety around the cost of living. And I think the Democrats, again, have an elegant presentation to make, which is we're going to take the things that cost you a lot of money and have the government provide those to you. And then those things won't cost you a lot of money. And we try to make an argument about economic theory that doesn't always land with the same poignance.

1:14:23So midterms in a year, very tough. Yeah, I think Hakeem Jeffries becomes the speaker. I think that they will then, And the problem is the candy becomes the poison for them because when they do this big elect us so that we can use all these tools to fight Trump, then once they get that power, they're going to be pressed to continually use the silliest ones. And think about what they've already used. They've already used like the attempted application of criminal law. That backfired. They already used the impeachment process. That backfired. And so what I think Democrats believe or what they've recently been conditioned to believe is that shutdowns are good for them under Trump, that that's good politics.

1:15:07So my prediction is Democrats win the midterms. They execute a series of ransom-like shutdowns on Trump. The country gets weary of that and probably elects J.D. Vance president in 2028. What's the field look like in 2028? On our side? I mean, I'm just assuming that there will be, you know, Ted Cruz. I mean, Ted Cruz is running, I guess. Against you, apparently. I'm not in the race. I've never seen that. It's odd to have someone running for president against, that the organizing principle of their campaign is to attack someone else who is not running for president. It's a novel theory for Ted. But, you know, Ted.

1:15:46What is that to you think? Ted and Ron DeSantis both want to be president really bad, but they suffer from a likability problem. And they're not really having a good time. I can tell. And when you run for president— Ted looks miserable. When you run for president, there's an element of it where the people have to feel like they're a part of something fun. And that's something Trump understood. That's something Charlie Kirk understood. And for Ron and Ted, the campaign is sort of something they have to do in order to get the power that they seek. So what is that—I mean, I could see—Ron DeSantis has been really successful in a lot of ways.

1:16:20I would vote for him again for governor. If he could run again for governor of Florida, I would vote for him again. I would too. Despite the fact he signed a hate speech law in Israel, which is like so offensive to me as an American. Not because I'm against Israel, but we don't have hate speech laws in the United States. And when we do, we don't sign them in foreign countries. So I, you know, whatever. But you'd still vote for him again. For governor of Florida? Yeah. Oh, without thinking about it. For sure. I think he's been a great governor. He could, whatever, quibble about it. But generally, no, he's been great.

1:16:47I totally agree. but Ted Cruz is not going to be president obviously nobody thinks that I'm sure Mrs. Cruz doesn't think that she probably wants to get out of the house who knows what's going but why doesn't Ted who's famously obviously the smartest person in America why can't he see that well I think that as we were discussing earlier running for president is an itch that doesn't go away with one scratch I think that he believed he should have defeated Trump in the 2016 election and he's toiling in the Senate until he gets the next bite at the apple. I think on the other side, I would have believed before Kamala Harris that the Democrats had nominated their last straight white guy.

1:17:27Yeah, I would think so too. Yeah, they're just not – I mean it is a movement that stands against straightness and white people. Is Gavin straight? He seems to be pretty enthusiastic heterosexual based on some of his personal conduct. Again, no judgment. You never know. It could be an omnivore. There's some of those. Yeah, we're not the bedroom police. Oh, no, I don't even want to think about it, honestly. But Newsom has at least demonstrated power. And I think that is what Democrats have lacked in this time in the wilderness, in the Trump era, is that no one steps up and says, I'm ready to use power effectively.

1:18:04And when Gavin Newsom stole those congressional seats with Prop 50 in California, it was an effective exercise of power. And I think voters may reward him for that. someone else in the Democratic Party who wants to be president told me that it was actually Kamala Harris who has like reignited the prospects of Gavin Newsom. If they had just run Biden and lost, they would have never gone back to another straight white guy. But rolling out Harris and the embarrassment that that was has people thinking, well, you know, maybe we don't want to try this again. No, that's, that's, I believe that. Just knowing what they're like, they're just, they're just transactional.

1:18:42They just want power. That's it. they don't have any beliefs they just want to be in charge and i get it i find it terrifying uh but that's who they are and i also think that when gavin started going on conservative podcasts that's when i was like oh you are formidable i mean he didn't you know defend his own policies very effectively it didn't matter he he like went on other people's podcasts and took questions ballsy yeah well that in that in in essence is an indictment of harris because harris could not have an extended intelligent conversation about anything. And so just getting over the most basic of hurdles to be able to string sentences together was this great display of talent in the Democratic And he'll say anything.

1:19:23He just doesn't. But look at what they've been through, right? Joe Biden never did extended discussions. Harris never did extended discussions. So he was giving the base at least some viewpoint into his thinking on things. So do you think Gavin will be the nominee? Right now, I would say so. I think that AOC is going to make a compelling run, and I think she will be formidable as well. You really do? If Bernie really does the handoff. Bernie has this kind of goofy professor persona, but in reality, Bernie's a deeply selfish person. He's selfish. And a coward. He's a total coward. And he believes he is the leader of the Democratic Party.

1:20:02Does he really? Well, but he's won every argument in it. maybe he is the leader of the Democratic Party. If you look on policy, Bernie has won the argument on this shift towards socialism, but the party structurally did things twice to stop him from becoming the nominee. They stole the election from him twice. And he sat back and was like, oh, I've been kind of a sexist. I'm sorry. I mean, he's such a fucking coward. I can't deal with it. If he was real, at least I would respect it. AOC, same thing. Yeah, ASC is a very different person today than when she got to Congress. Totally corrupted. Co-opted.

1:20:42Completely. Oh, the Gaza war is fine. It's like, what? When we were ousting McCarthy, she came up to me and was like, I really respect this because I'll be honest, we don't have the guts to do this on our side. What's she like? Before January 6th, she was incredibly chummy with Republicans in Congress, would regularly come over to our side, sit down, hang out, talk about her day. Did you ever date her? I did not, no. Did you try? No. And not my cup of tea. But she, after January 6th, treated us all like we had horns or something. So she gave this kind of famous statement after January 6th and said, you know, as a trauma survivor, I was traumatized.

1:21:21I was almost killed that day. Do you think, was that real? No, but it is reflective of the performance art of Congress. And it was just bad performance art. How could you get points from anyone for being like, yeah, I'm a terrified little girl? Because on... I find that contemptible. No, you can't be in charge of anything if you're a terrified little girl. Sorry. But we are a society that is increasingly built on grievance identity. You are the grievance that you can access, right? And so if you are a woman, that can be a source of grievance if you're a minority. And then you have people who are just odd and say, well, maybe if I'm trans, then that can be this source of grievance.

1:22:02And then you have a bunch of men, white men looking around saying, well, I guess I'll be a drug addict because then like that can be my my source of grievance. And, you know, that she was leaning into that. She wanted to show that she had been aggrieved by this act and should be owed some some unique empathy. But she revealed that she's afraid that she's a coward. Like, how is that? The only thing people respect on a gut level is strength and courage. That's it. So I just don't get like what's the – you really think that works? I mean, yeah. Strength, courage, and sincerity. Well, sincerity grows from strength and courage.

1:22:40I'm brave enough to tell you what I really think. Yeah. And I got to a point where I was confident enough with my district where I could say the things I believed that I knew they didn't. Because even if they disagreed with me on a subject, they knew I came to that view sincerely. That I wasn't holding – marijuana legalization is something you and I disagree on. Yeah. I disagreed with a majority of my constituents on that point. I authored Florida's marijuana law. I support President Trump rescheduling marijuana. And when people at my First Baptist Church in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, came up to me to say they really disagreed with me on that, they did not vote against me as a consequence because they knew that these were views that I sincerely hold.

1:23:26Well, I could be one of those congregants if I were Baptist in the Baptist Church, because I agree with that. I don't expect people to agree with all of my eccentric views or my heartfelt views. It's okay. We're different people, but can't deal with falseness at all. And that, I think, was the magic of Trump, and I think that's a magic that he knows he needs to reignite on the campaign trail going into these midterms. the connection directly with the American voter that no matter who you are, if you're the president and behind the Resolute Desk and in the Rose Garden, it's a different experience than being out on the trail in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

1:24:02So what's AOC's lane? Is it the... The Bernie lane. Okay. But the Bernie lane was an economic lane, which I always had respect for. I didn't agree with all of it. But we've got too many billionaires and not a big enough middle class. That's true. That's factually true. And anyone who says it, I will agree with. And he used to say that. And the open borders line. Well, totally. Well, they're two are related. I mean, we have all these billionaires because we've had open borders. They weren't always. I mean, Bernie at one point, as part of his pro-American worker agenda, was actually for restricted immigration.

1:24:32No, no, I'm saying they're related in that. But it's the AOC corollary. It's to take the Bernie economic socialism and lash it to unchecked borders. Borders. If you care about the lopsided economy where all the wealth is concentrated in too few hands and the country's becoming unstable as a result, it's becoming pre-Java's Venezuela, we're going to get a revolution if this continues. I wrote a book about this. if you care about that you have to ask how did that happen and the main way it happened was by unchecked immigration which devalued labor that's people have less economic power because there are more people willing to work for less it's really simple it's why organized labor always supported immigration restrictions they're the ones who got them in 1924 they closed the borders for that reason and bernie was from that tradition and i always respected it and then he became this kind of, you know, neoliberal hybrid where he's like, oh, we got to fight Russia and it's racist to be against borders.

1:25:28And like, what? You know what I mean? We have to send money to Israel. What? Like, so I don't think that's a real lane. I don't think it's a sustainable lane. Do you? It is a sufficient cohort of voters to virtue signal kind of a reignition of Bernie's economic policies alongside. side like that she will stand up and say no more money for israel no more money for ice and universal basic income for americans and open borders that will be the core of the open borders with universal basic income and print more by the way like i mean did you see what we just did in the economy in this past week we are we are printing money to buy our own debt right now the self-licking ice cream cone the electric windmill i know when there's right how much of it is real when we're printing money to buy our own debt yeah and the explosion of personal wealth among people i know is just unbelievable not me but i at all but i all of a sudden you know people who are just like worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, whereas I never, and I grew up in rich people world, I never really knew anyone with hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.

1:26:44One in every ten Americans is a millionaire now. Actually? Yeah. You're including assets? Yeah. Yeah. Well, homeowners are millionaires now. Well, and if you talk about the revolution coming, I mean, housing is as likely to be a part of that as anything else because the way housing is indexed to what people make and what they can afford is insane in this country. Yeah, and I'm totally opposed to revolutions. However, if there was ever a reason to have one, it's that. That's a real grievance. I think that's totally... Isn't it kind of what all revolutions are about? Like, where am I going to live?

1:27:17Yeah, and how do my kids have kids? How does this continue? How do my genes thrive when I'm gone? I mean, yeah. Have you noticed this trend online where all these lonely women in their 30s are making car selfie videos about their personal anguish that they can't find men? I posted one recently and got millions of views. and it what what's like i feel i feel i feel sad oh so sad my wife has so many friends who are beautiful accomplished wonderful people but they cannot find men they cannot find men to marry them and they start to feel the clock ticking and it's it's really a lonely world out there well i think it's important to identify how we got here and certain bad ideas played a huge role feminism, which is like just a total lie on every level, but also the way the economy is structured where businesses decided to be a good idea to bring women into the workforce, a better idea than say, like supporting families or allowing people to have children, like was more important to have female workers than it was to have American families.

1:28:19This is a constant discussion we have on my One American News program is like, can you have both? Because I do see women who excel in the workplace. Rich people can have both. Sure, yeah. build businesses who have great ideas and are the center of their family. Well, I certainly know a lot of women in the workplace who are amazing. And if women left the workforce, you know, my business would fall apart. Yeah, I mean. And they're the best. And anyone who's an employer, I'm a small bore employer, will tell you, female employees, man. There are some jobs. Type A women. Well, that's. Crush it. That is 100 % right.

1:28:53Of course. And they're also like just the greatest people to work with if you're a man. because there's no competition. They're so nice. They're always nice. I'm 56. I've never had a dispute with a woman at work ever, not one. I've seen them mistreat each other in a way that North Koreans could learn from. It's like truly cruel the way they behave to each other. But if you're a male employer having female employees, it is 100 % upside. They will never stop thinking about their job. They will never stop being nice to you. They're great at their job. Certain jobs, they're the only ones who can do it because they just – But do you think men are out there looking for jobless women?

1:29:30Because I certainly wasn't when I was single and trying to find a wife. I was not out there seeking someone who had nothing else going on but to serve me in a marriage. I think it's people's passions and enterprises. Women will choose their family if given their choice. And some won't. I mean, there's anomalies in every cohort. But what do you say to the ones who are like, I want to make that choice? millions of women out there that are like please present me the guy who isn't spending all this day playing fortnight and you know hanging out at the tattoo parlor look the first thing to know is men and women need each other they can't exist separately or they're destroyed we have to themselves a hundred percent they fit together like puzzle pieces and they can't live alone again there are exceptions to all of these rules but overpopulations these are hard and fast rules that have existed since adam and eve so it's just a fact and if you ignore that fact you'll be destroyed and we are because we've ignored it so most women if given the choice between going to work at jp morgan or staying home and raising their small children will of course choose staying home and raising their small children if they're given the choice they're not given the choice because feminism total fucking lie there are no choices get to work well oftentimes it's people's economic conditions that take the choice away if you're saying that's what i'm saying on 130 thousand dollars in student loans because you were told that you had this great that's the point i'm making great future they don't have a choice that's why they do it and it's a hobson's choice but it's not marital bondage as much as it's economic bondage to debt marriage isn't bondage for women marriage family is the context in which women have the most power women have no power outside of their relationships women are relational so if you want to empower women power in business they can have no wealth they can have money that's not power that's not power who has more power over you, your employee or your mom, your employee or your wife, your employer or your daughter.

1:31:22Real power is the power to influence other people. And women outside the family have very little. Within the family, they have huge power. There's no man. Almost all of it. Almost all of it. There's no man who ignores his wife. There's no son who ignores his mother. There's no father who ignores his daughter. And so, I mean, there may be, but they're freaks. The average man is influenced by women in the family more than any other place. So if you want to empower women, put them at the center of a family. If you want to disempower them, put them at the center of Citibank. It's super simple. And liars and dumb people, like fucking feminists, are like, oh, real power comes from money and job title.

1:32:00And it's like, that's a lie. And anyone who believes that is an idiot. But they think it's their power to get a man. There was this theory that the way you prepare yourself to get the husband you want is to showcase your LinkedIn resume. Who told them that? You don't think there are a lot of women who are going to watch this program and have tuned out by now and say, yeah, I actually thought if I had the big job and had the house that a man would want me more. Are you being serious? Yes. I mean, look, I shouldn't be surprised if people believe dumb things because look around. But that's the dumbest of all.

1:32:37Look, imagine believing that and now being caught. How much social science do we need? First of all, we don't need any because we just know our lived experiences. But there's a lot of study on this. If you're interested, I happen to be. Women do not want to marry men who make less than they do, period. In any society in which that becomes the case, you find marriage dropping off a cliff. That's what happened to black America. Black people used to be married like everybody else. then black women started making more than black men the marriage rate declined rural america rural whites i live in a place like this the women on average make more than men because they work at the hospitals and the schools the men have only seasonal work guess what no marriage so if you want to discourage marriage set up a system where the women make more which is the system that we have that's why people don't get married because women make more and the women are making the decision they don't want it they may want to sleep with them they want to have his babies they don't want to marry him it's just a fact ask them ask a woman do you want to marry a man who's shorter than you or makes less than you and the answer is no but nobody asks women because nobody cares because the idea is to destroy the country its people and its most basic structure the family so it's just like we're going to do this in your name and tell you what you want but they don't want that and if you ask ask 15 women do you want to marry a man who's shorter than you or makes less than no i've asked and yeah you're right it's i'm i'm so lonely i need to find someone i have so much love to give i've built a great life i want to share it with someone and then it's like okay well a woman says that no women say this and then i say well like are you the dumbest thing i've ever heard are you cool with uh a guy who like makes less than 100 grand well you know that shows that he doesn't have ambition oh what about someone who's a little shorter well i want to feel you know i want to feel feminine and if someone's shorter that i don't think i'll be able to things are more fucked up than i really if people actually believe that what look a man's job is to protect and provide, period.

1:34:23Those are his jobs. Protect and provide, period. Yeah, but when that class of men is shrinking because testosterone is falling, because of the war on masculinity that we've endured for the last 40 years, when that resource isn't available, then women start to say, well, I've got to put a roof over my own head. I've got to protect and provide for myself. And there are a lot of them who would say, where is my protector and provider? I get it. I'm not attacking women. I'm just at all. I feel so... I've got three daughters. I feel so sorry for women. I do. And I, as a man, I always blame the man first.

1:34:56Always, 100%. It's your job. You're the man. Your wife's unhappy. Whose fault is that? Yours. The kids are out of control. It is the job of a husband to keep your wife happy. 100%. That's your job. Yes, I agree. I literally couldn't agree more. And if she's a drunk or something, it's not going to work. It's out of your control. But in a normal marriage with two sober people who are kind of trying, it is up to you. By the way, her happiness is not contingent on yours. Your happiness is contingent on hers. That's the great equalizer designed by God to keep balance in a relationship. I don't know a single man who's truly happy whose wife hates him.

1:35:27Of course. I don't know one. And the reason our system, our biology, is set up that way is because men are physically dominant. So you could just beat up your wife and rape her and make her do whatever you wanted. Sounds terrible. Exactly. It sounds terrible. Exactly. That's exactly the point. It sounds terrible. Men don't want that. They want a woman to be sexually attracted to him, to be happy, to have real orgasms. They want it to be genuine, and that's the equalizer. You're totally focused on your wife's happiness. That keeps it equal. That gives her power. That's where her power comes from.

1:36:00How do we fix it? By letting people observe the laws of nature, which they ignore at their peril. You can't ignore the laws of nature around you, or you get killed. Well, nature is sending us the message when we see the declining birth rate, when we see the societal impact. Nature is sending us the message that this isn't working. Yeah, and you're not allowed – you're, like, considered some sort of weird religious freak when you're like, I don't know, unnatural sex acts gives rise to disease. People are like, shut up! Shut up! Well, they do. I mean, I don't know. Have you – I've been alive for 56 years.

1:36:36I've watched this. That's just a fact. I'm not saying I want it to be that way. I'm not in charge of nature, actually. and I'm not in charge of human nature above all. None of us is. Do you really know women who think if they get a big salary in a house, some guy will want to marry them? Oh, yeah. Would you want to marry them? There are many who will watch this discussion and say, I am that. I am perfectly suited for marriage. I've done everything society has asked of me. I got an advanced degree. I got a six-figure job. My LinkedIn is fire. I do five spinning classes a week. I look good. And every man that I find either is on the dating apps and they have so much optionality that there's not really an incentive to anchor your life with someone, or they're losers.

1:37:21And they can be losers who've inherited money and just have no desire to build something beyond that. I mean, I'm sorry to sound like a liberal. I do blame society. I blame what people are taught and the lies that they get through propaganda. For convincing them that something so obviously absurd could be true. I mean, of course, men find that emasculating, unappealing. No man wants to marry a woman with her own house and a higher income than him. No way. And she doesn't want to marry him. You know, if you had marriage as this thing that gave people financial security, right? Yeah. You know, 40s and 50s, people were getting married.

1:37:59And then you're bound to someone economically. Yeah. And built a life together. You got married in your 20s and did your thing. And then when we did no-fault divorce, then marriage really became a contract more than anything else. And just like any other contract, when you're out of the contract, there are certain obligations that you still have to fill financially and otherwise. And then the obvious next step is, well, if marriage is a contract, kind of so is dating in a weird way. Yes, of course it is. Like what you will provide and what I'll provide. and if at the end of it there are women who say yeah if I'm going to spend my time to go on a date I want you to pay for it I think that's where we are and I don't mind when I hear women say that they go out and the guy wants to split the check to me there's something chivalrous or interesting about that well it's awful again men and women need each other they compliment each other men are necessary to tame women and women must tame men.

1:39:03A hundred percent. And without each other, they become just industrial components who can be manipulated by global capital or whatever. Whatever force you're afraid of, the only real protection is your family. And that includes the one, not just you were born into, but the one that you start yourself. That's your bulwark. That's your fortress. And if people are making it impossible for you to build that fortress, like I respect the whole man. It's not just like what you say you believe, it's how do you live if I had a camera in your house would do your kids respect you does your wife respect you if not why would I respect you I feel like do you think that the notion of the barren life is what motivates people like Lindsey Graham to go to 100 % 100 % like a normal person goes home you go home man if you and I are normal but just like a conventional person goes home and it's like I've got all kinds of views but like continuity matters to me because I've got descendants.

1:39:59If you have no descendants, it ends with you and you don't believe. Clearly, none of these people believe in God. So it's like, I don't know. I got 15, 20 years, five, three years. Whatever I have, we don't know. And it doesn't matter what happens after that. Oh, that's scary. That's day trading with the world, right? With your life. No, but with everyone else's life. You think, why would Lindsey Graham carry 70 years old? He has no kids. Why does it matter if there's a nuclear war? I mean, he's looking just at, he's not the back nine, it's like the back three at this point. Like his options are like heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's.

1:40:33That's it. There's no tomorrow. Sad. Don't you think? I do think, I mean, you know, having children vests you in the future in a way that not having children just doesn't. I mean, hasn't it changed your attitudes? Of course, of course. And, you know, the way you care about what comes after you shifts dramatically. Well, it was like maybe 10 years ago, some smart friend of mine sent me this list of European leaders. I'm interested in Europe, so I felt like I knew a lot. I didn't know that none of them had kids. And I remember thinking, first of all, you can't say anything about that because you want to seem like you're attacking people without kids, which I'm not.

1:41:13I'm feeling sorry for them. I'm attacking the idea of childless leadership. You can't have leaders with no kids because they're not thinking long term because why would they? And look what happened to Europe. And the Harris campaign. And the Harris campaign. Yeah. What's going to happen to her? She's running again. You haven't seen the news? She's assembling her team. For what? President. Come on now. As we've said, it's an ambition that resurfaces often in one place. So what, I mean, you know a lot more about this than I, but let's say you decide you're going to run for president.

1:41:52How does your party exert influence on you? like stuff that's such a bad idea you would think some of the Democratic Party be like be able to say no I don't know I again who's like you assume the Obamas are in charge of that party so potentially they could move her to another path but you know they'll have a crowded field and may be the case that having ancillary people around soaking up votes is good for the ultimate objective I can't imagine the Obamas in the Gavin Newsom world would mix well that's not really the same vein of the Democratic Party. Do you know anyone who's friends with her or knows her well?

1:42:27Harris? No, I don't think I do. That's kind of strange considering you know everybody. I know a lot of people, but I can't say that there was a single member of Congress I ever interacted with that could talk about any private moment or in-depth conversation they'd ever had with Kamala Harris. so there was really no constituency for her like it wasn't i mean that was yeah i think that democrats believed that there is this vast part of the population whose dream candidate is some combination of michelle obama and oprah and like the closest they could get was like bargain basement kamala harris to go and achieve that archetype and just didn't didn't work out so it's all about race and gender.

1:43:15I think that that was a huge part of it. And we saw the limits of playing into those impulses with Harris. Last question. Where do you think the country goes in the next, say, three years? What are the big trends? No, what are the big trends? Obviously, we're going to see automation in the next three years at a level that you and I have never seen in our lives. You really believe we'll see that in the next three years? I believe that automation in transportation, in agriculture, in manufacturing will be the new dominant force in our lives. And I don't think that's going to be entirely good. I think that it's inevitable.

1:44:04Because the capabilities... You think automation will be a dominant force in our lives in three years? Yes. I think that I will tell my grandkids what it was like to order food from a person. That will go the way of the payphone. There are like 7 million American men who make their living driving today in one form or another. Those jobs are gone in the next half decade. Where do those people go? I think that's when you start to see these calls for universal basic income because we will say that there's such wealth being created on a lot of these tech platforms that doesn't get shared broadly. And I worry that that draw politically is something that will zap the motivation of the country in a bad way.

1:44:54Just look at this healthcare debate that's happening right now as a microcosm of this trend. Republicans are trying to cobble together something that they think is a free market approach to health care, as if anything in health care is a free market. And Democrats are just saying, we're going to give you free stuff for longer. And I think that Republicans in swing districts have seen that and said, we can't beat that. So we have to have our own version of, we'll give you free stuff longer. And you may see these Obamacare credits extended via a discharge petition that does just that. And that brings the right in America in line with where the right has moved in Europe, which is toward economic liberalism, which I'm not for.

1:45:38I think you'll see what also has happened in Europe where the richest people, the Bill Ackmans, the bottom feeders like Bill Ackman, nonproductive elements of the economy who just made billions of dollars shorting stocks, those people are totally fine. They offshore their money. They find ways around tax compliance. But it's the level down. It's the 65-year-old Florida retirees who own some insurance company in Indiana. They spent their whole life building it. They sold it for 5 million bucks. Exactly. Exactly right. Exactly right. They have just enough money. Exactly right. To live on a golf course outside Sarasota, love Ron DeSantis, love Trump, and those people are going to see everything stolen from them.

1:46:22And the method of theft will be the devaluation of their existing assets. It will be the – that's it, especially real estate. I totally agree with that. And I think in taxation. Just like the – and I love Steve Bannon, so I don't want our last discussion to come across as a criticism of Steve. But I mean he's going to run for president on just a straight Elizabeth Warren wealth tax economic agenda. Actually? Yeah, he's going to run for president and say, take the money from those people who have way too much of it, the Bill Ackmans of the world, and I want to give it to you. I wonder if that – has it ever – it always seems like those people flee the country.

1:47:07I mean, Miami is filled – I know a lot. The people who fled other countries for that purpose. That's exactly right. And they live in splendor. Not attacking them, but like they didn't give up their money. They just left. and then the middle class, upper middle class especially, just get hammered. And that is the core of your society, right? It won't last that way. And Trump's elections have been, I think, a reaction to that broader trend we've experienced for decades. And what I hope doesn't happen is that it just becomes a policy race to the bottom to try to throw insufficient solutions at that.

1:47:46Things like, well, we'll just give them free houses. well just give them free health care the robots will just build the houses in national parks right right wouldn't that be awful Matt Gaetz thank you for spending all this time it's always good to see you and I'm just glad that you survived everything and you're thriving likewise are you running for president? no not of this country thank you thank you

1:48:13some Americans have become cut off from the things that once kept us grounded our land, the skills that tied our families to nature. Told you he was getting his next spot. And to remind us we made a new six-part series, American Game, Tales from the Wild. We follow the sportsmen who are keeping these ancient traditions alive. We follow a formula of the seal into the mountains of Texas. Donald Trump Jr. across the ridges of Lanai. That's what we call from going from zero to hero. And wander with me through the quiet woods of Maine. I have just three dog commands. And then as I direct the dogs, find the bird.

1:48:48Find the bird. And then dead bird, obviously. Which I don't use as much as I'd like to. We cast for Steelhead on the Deschutes River in Oregon. That's the first one I've caught in a while. Track mule deer in the Utah high country. Spearfish in the waters off Montauk, chasing striped bass and bluefin tuna. See you on the other side. It's called American Game, Tales from the Wild, an outdoor series. Watch it at tuckercarlson.com.