Tucker on Macklemore’s Cancellation and the So-Called “Conservatives” Championing Censorship

29:44And so there's no doubt, trying to be charitable about it, that the woman you just saw from Stop Anti-Semitism believes that she's doing a virtuous thing. She believes she is saving Jewish people from Nazis. Now, of course, her definition is deranged. Most people who are against killing children are also anti-Nazi by definition. Of course, violence against innocence was one of the signature crimes of the Nazi regime. That's why we're against the Nazis in the first place. We're not mad about their economic policy. Most of us don't even know what it was. We're mad because they hurt innocent people, and that's always and everywhere immoral.

30:19And so there's probably a huge overlap between people who are disgusted by what the Israeli government is doing in the territories it occupies, and people who are also disgusted by what the Nazi regime did in the territories it occupied. Probably almost 100 % overlap between those two groups. But because no one will say that out loud, and because extremists have been allowed to hijack the conversation, and because there isn't actually free speech on this topic, the free speech that Charlie Kirk so assiduously called for, the other side of the argument, which is moderate and temperate and fact-based and not hateful, which is universal rather than sectarian, which rejects identity politics in favor of universally applicable standards for every human being, that side of the argument rarely gets an airing, if ever.

31:11And so the net result of this is to, with every passing day, make people crazier, angrier, and less restrained. And if that process continues long enough, you wind up with Mark Levin. Basically, in the clip we're about to show you, calling for Kristallnacht. Watch.

32:01canceled David Duke. Donald Trump canceled David Duke. We canceled Pap Buchanan. We canceled the John Birch Society. We canceled Joseph Sobrin. We canceled pornography on TV. We canceled stuff all the damn time. Hitler admires, Stalin admires, Jew haters, American haters, Churchill haters. You're damn right. We're going to cancel them and de-platform them. whenever you hear that guy talk you want to be serious because it does matter and it is important to explain what's wrong with what he said but it's so disjointed and and illogical and there's always at least a line or two in there that doesn't make any sense at all we canceled pornography on tv you know i think you've promoted pornography on tv as far as i know um churchill haters just like throw it in there jew haters okay yeah i'm against jew haters churchill haters you're not allowed to hate Churchill now?

32:58Was he like some British prime minister who screwed up at Gallipoli? I think it's okay to dislike Churchill. No, I kind of, let me check my passport and see if there's fine print in there about having to pledge loyalty to Churchill. I don't recall that part of the American creed, Churchill haters. Where did that come from? Actually, you should think about it because if it's disqualifying to hate Churchill, maybe there's more to Churchill than we've been told. Why are they defending Churchill? Now they've gotten pornography off TV. Mark Levin's against pornography. Sorry for the sidetrack there.

33:37It's just impossible to parse a Mark Levin speech without winding up in a cul-de-sac. But to the center of what he's saying, here you have, so the speech you just saw was given November 1st, 2025. So that's almost exactly one year from Donald Trump's second election as president, which was the first Tuesday, of course, of November 2024. And if you can recall back almost two years and ask yourself, what was that election about? And if you voted for Trump and if you're watching this, maybe you did. I did. What were you voting for? Well, probably a lot of things. Lower gas prices, no more foreign wars.

34:14But one of the things you were voting against, of course, was what we called cancel culture. The idea that if you disagree with someone, you just shut them down, can't have a bank account, can't fly in an airplane, can't have a job, can't have a spouse. We're just going to cancel you. We're not going to rebut what you're saying. We're not going to explain why it's wrong. We're not going to offer a competing vision that entices you over to our side. We're going to smack you in the face as hard as we can until you shut up and never say it again. In fact, we may hurt you as a lesson to everybody else.

34:43Hang you by your ankles so passers-by will know, don't say that. That's what cancel culture is. And if there's one thing that virtually every single human being who voted for Donald Trump fewer than two years ago voted against, it's cancel culture. And here's Donald Trump's favorite pundit, a Fox News host in good standing, unlike some of us, calling openly in a speech on camera for cancel culture, including canceling people who don't like Winston Churchill.

35:15But there's menace in his voice, of course. Damn it, bastards, bastards. He wants to hurt people who disagree with him. He's got what we used to refer to in right-wing world as Antifa face. Screwed up in rage. I'm mad at my parents, so I'm going to beat you in the face with a flagpole. Antifa face. Mark Levin. Maybe this is what power does to people. Maybe when they finally have the ability to hurt others, when they think they can finally make words they don't like go away, shut up or I'll hurt you. They can't resist using the power to do that. It may be that power itself corrupts everyone who wields it.

35:59That's something we're thinking about. You don't want to believe that, but there's a lot of evidence that that's true. given that the people we elected fewer than two years ago wound up behaving exactly like the people they replaced except a little more aggressive and a little less disorganized because of course the upside of dealing with liberals is they you know everything is like macrame and campfires they can never really get it together they argue amongst themselves but you elect these guys and they're of course still disorganized and flaky and no they probably couldn't organize your daughter's birthday party very well, but they're a little better than the Kamala Harris team.

36:37So it's the same brand of politics, but a little harder edged. What? It's just remarkable to see it. And it makes you wonder, are there options? And if you care about speech, which is to say, if you care about humanity, because there's no difference, we are defined by language and our ability to use it. It's not the opposable thumb that separates us from animals. It's our tongue. It's language. It's words. In the beginning was the Word, as the opening verse of John says, and it's true. The Word is the most important thing. Words are the most important thing. They endure long past. Bullets or cannons or swords have been replaced by some new technology that kills people, but all that in the end is forgotten.

37:25words remain. Your words define you, and if someone takes away your words and your ability to articulate them, they've stripped you of your humanity. So in the end, it is the thing that we have to defend. We have no choice. We have a moral obligation, an obligation, a duty to the people who follow us to defend it. But now the question is, who will defend it? Because when the party that opposed free speech got beaten by the party that promised to uphold free speech, and then less than two years later, both are united in their total opposition to free speech and are threatening people, openly threatening people, hurting people who disagree with them, and not even bothering to explain why they're wrong, you have to ask if both parties are against it, who's for it?

38:19And before you think too long, here's the answer. Everyone is for it, except the people in charge. That's the truth. People with power always oppose free speech. Everybody else, of course, clings to it like a life jacket. It's all they have. In a country where people no longer have economic power, where the middle class hasn't been the majority of the country since 2015, where the integrity of our elections is, well, up for debate in a world where AI can hack anything. Anyone who thinks electronic voting is secure hasn't thought about it very carefully. So in a world where people don't have economic power and they may or may not have political power, what power do they have?

39:02The power of their own conscience and their inalienable right to express what's on their conscience. They have in the end only one thing and that's their words. And so anyone who seeks to take that away from them is a blood enemy. Make no mistake. And that gets us to the free speech case of the moment, which is an unusually illuminating one. And it has to do with a performer called Macklemore, you may or may not be familiar with. But he was scheduled to give a performance with Ed Sheeran at Gillette Stadium recently, and he was canceled by Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots and owner of a number of stadiums who is, I think it's fair to say, a fairly fanatical devotee of the state of Israel.

39:50And not just devoted to the state of Israel, which is fine, but devoted to hurting anyone who is not and slandering them as anti-Semites. And so he canceled this performer's appearance at his stadium and said anyone who criticizes the state of Israel, and of course he dressed it up in false language anti-semites nazis jew haters are not allowed here but what's interesting about this case is that the performer he canceled macklemore had a chance to speak for himself so we want to read this to you this is what he said on stage as he criticized the state of israel's behavior in gaza and just to be clear anyone who's not criticizing what israel is doing in gaza is either lying about it and there's some of that or just doesn't know anything about it and there's a lot of that.

40:38Most people just don't know. But five minutes of reading about it, and not just some partisan anti-Israel take on it, but just the facts which have been gathered and widely disseminated, anyone who reads about it for five minutes cannot come away defending it because there is no defense of murdering tens of thousands of children. It's always and ever wrong, whether Jewish children or Catholic children or Palestinian children, it doesn't matter. In any case, before we tell you what Robert Kraft and various news outlets said about this performer Macklemore, here's what Macklemore himself said because it matters.

41:14These are the words that got him canceled as a Jew hater, and we're going to read them. Quote, To all my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you. My message is for peace, love for all human beings to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. So I say free Palestine. I say free Lebanon, free Cuba. He goes on. To my Jewish brothers and sisters, criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide is no way a criticism of you. Because, by the way, it's not. It's not. Criticism of the behavior of a secular government is not criticism of an entire people, many of whom disapprove, in fact, hate what that government is doing.

42:03And so don't let anyone lie to you. They are not the same thing. That is not Jew hate, despite what the IHRA definition may try to impose on you and this country's legal code. they are not the same thing and so that's what he said so for saying that we want to put on the screen how fox news characterized that watch this this is the headline of the story anti-semitic rapper booted from performing at gillette stadium over free palestine chant anti-semitic rapper okay now now it's actually worth going on here you you find yourself in middle age doing things you never thought you would do, which is like defending political rappers on your podcast, never thought I'd be here.

42:49But it's not a defense of any one person, it's a defense of the truth, of the literal meaning of words and the intent of the words and of reason. But above all, it's a defense of the inalienable right of every person to express his conscience, whether you or I like it or not. So the Fox News piece, and not to beat up on Fox News, but a lot of people uncritically believe what they watch or read. And so here's how FoxNews.com characterized this controversy. Quote, McLemore is learning the hard way that concertgoers paying top dollar for stadium shows do not want to lecture on Middle Eastern geopolitics from the guy who wrote Thrift Shop.

43:34Oh, okay. So what does that tell you? Concertgoers, you're paid a lot for these tickets, aren't interested in McLemore's views on the Middle East. Well, we haven't polled the topic, so of course we don't know. We watched a video of his performance on stage, and we noticed that the whole stadium seemed to be cheering him, as he said, Free Palestine. But what do we know? We're not pollsters. What we do know is that the audience didn't make the decision. And in fact, there's a way to know what the audience thinks, and that's by continuing to allow Macklemore to perform. And if he sells tickets, well, presumably the audience agrees or they wouldn't be buying them.

44:11But the Fox News piece, in a very kind of clever, feline, incredibly dishonest way, frames this as a decision that the audience made. Concert goers, you paid high dollar for tickets, don't want to hear the lecture. Really? They're the ones who canceled him? They're the ones who said you can't perform at the stadium? Oh no. One billionaire made that decision. And then he got on the line with a bunch of other billionaires who also own sports teams and said, we can't let this guy perform in our stadiums. Is that the market at work? Is it actually the market at work? That's what they're telling you.

44:47It's his stadium. Really? Well, if that's going to be the standard, let's take a close look at how we got the stadium. Were there state or federal tax dollars involved in that? Was that purchase in any way subsidized by the public? Yeah, I think so. Has any stadium in the last 30 years in the United States been a product of pure market capitalism? Or are they all subsidized by taxpayers? I don't know. We're going to have to grok that one. But our guess is that every single stadium in the United States, including Gillette Stadium, which is owned by Robert Kraft, is subsidized by taxpayers against their will.

45:26so it's not as simple as oh he owns it or any of these people own anything and we are strongly in favor of property rights strongly and justice but that's not what's happening here this is a veto by one guy likely against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the american population so don't tell me this is a product of the market at work this is censorship by the billionaire Epstein class. And by the way, yes, he is mentioned in the Epstein files. Look it up. So why would you defend that? You could argue about how to fix it. Not that easy to fix, really. There are some, and if this goes on long enough, there will be many who just call from taking the stadium away from Robert Kraft.

46:13We're not for that. We're not for anything radical or crazy, actually. This is a hotbed of moderation. But we can tell you that if someone doesn't move to fix the current situation where a tiny group of totally immoral, monomaniacal people who have no actual connection to the United States or loyalty to it or love for it, and don't care at all about the founding documents and the spirit that they express, which is of individual sovereignty, if those people continue behaving like this, you're going to get a radical population. so maybe short term Robert Kraft felt like he was doing a good thing but getting this Jew hater off stage who just spent you know five minutes on stage explaining how he loves Jews but doesn't like the behavior of the Netanyahu government and it's like a good thing to slander him as an anti-Semite but long term it's very foolish and it's even more foolish to defend it as many on the so-called right are and that raises the question what does it mean to be on the right if you're defending censorship by billionaires who share none of your values how are you conservative and how more precisely a year and five days after the murder of Charlie Kirk are you upholding his memory well that's the question we had to ask ourselves as we saw someone we know very well and still like but who appears every day on the Charlie Kirk show say something we found absolutely remarkable.

47:47And this is not a personal attack and it's done with some reluctance. But you just have to say it out loud, this is where we are. We're talking about a man called Blake Neff who worked for me for years, always liked him a lot, helped get him the job that he currently has. But there was a pretty distressing and highly revealing, which is why we're going to talk about it, profile of him in Politico recently. And there's a lot in there that we're not going to get involved with, but there was a passage that we do think is worth highlighting because it tells you a lot about the total rot at the center of the conservative movement as of September 2026.

48:31And whenever you get this kind of rot, you get people who literally can't hear themselves. And we're not, don't want to be too judgmental here because a lot has happened in the last year, a lot of traumatic events for the staff of Turning Point, and so you always want to extend grace to them. I've tried to do that, even as they do things I disagree with, and I know that Charlie would vehemently disagree with, and I've been frustrated by that, but haven't said a word. But the second that you give up on the very core of Charlie Kirk's message while continuing to occupy his studio under his name, I think it's important to say something, so that's what we're doing now.

49:07So I want to read this to you. This is a profile of Blake Neff from Politico. Neff confessed to grappling in a roundabout way with the possibility that his maximalist position on free speech has helped foster the conditions that have allowed rank conspiracism to flourish. I've reflected on this often, he said, sipping a s'mores-slavered cold brew on a leather couch in the studio's green room. So let's just stop right there. A maximalist position on free speech, By the way, that's not a Blake Neff quote, just to be completely fair, and we want to be fair. That's the anti-free speech Politico author Ian Ward's kind of clever framing here.

49:49But it's very common, maximalist position. Well, there's no maximalist position on free speech any more than there is on pregnancy. You either are for it, or you are pregnant, or you're not. that free speech means acknowledging the inherent right of your fellow citizens whether or not you like them to say what they really think period and if what they really think is repugnant to you and if they have some version of events that you consider a poisonous conspiracy theory there's not really anything you can do about it in fact there's literally nothing you can do about it under our system and i would also argue under christian precepts other than rebut it and offer a competing vision that is more compelling to listeners.

50:30That's it. As Charlie Kirk said at the outset of this segment, more speech. But that's not the conclusion that many on the right are coming to. Now, why? Probably because they spend way too much time on social media and they read every attack on themselves and they get more paranoid. In fact, they become kind of a version of what they claim to hate, which is conspiracy nuts. But they get completely overheated. They feel like they're at war. I'm at war. Never seen war, of course. But they think they're at war. They think they're under attack. And bit by bit, it completely corrodes their decency, but also their sense of proportion.

51:11And they wind up abandoning the principles they're there to uphold. So as they sit day after day underneath the sign that says Charlie Kirk on it, they wind up with views like this and we're going to read this and we're quoting this is blake neff the guy in the charlie kirk show we got what we wanted on speech and that means we also have to endure a lot of things that were tamped down on before neff sees only two potential paths for this is a verbatim quote either we have to make our peace with censorship and explain how we're going to do that or we have to explain how we're going to combat this without censorship period but we've got to confront it.

51:53And that's the point at which you just feel like, well, we're done. We may have to make our peace with censorship. How would we do that? It's like saying, well, you know, I'm really mad. We may have to make our peace with genocide. We may have to kill, you know, didn't ever think I'd say it. Didn't ever think I'd be here. We're going to have to kill them all. Maybe there's another way to do it. But it's possible we might have to make our peace with murdering all their kids just because it's that important. It's that bad. Didn't ever think we'd come to this place, but here we are. So we're going to think about it.

52:27No, you can never make your peace with turning other people into slaves. You can never be the slave master because slavery is bad for them, but it's even worse for you. It is totally dehumanizing to everyone involved to turn other human beings into something that is less than a human being. And that is exactly what censorship does each and every time. So even to float that possibility that you could, quote, make your peace with it, there will be no peace with censorship. You can't have peace with censorship because you are suppressing by definition what people believe is true. So if you want to eliminate, if you want to forestall even the possibility of peace, try to impose censorship.

53:20It's an oxymoron, make your peace with censorship. But that's where we are because people have lost any sense at all of what the principles, the ones that actually matter are. And to restate, Those principles are not don't hurt other people's feelings or tell truths that billionaires don't like. Those truths are respect the inherent, the God-given dignity within every person and that dignity is expressed through their ability to say what they think, not what you think. Other people have no obligation to repeat back what you think. They have an inherent right to say what they think because their interests and their dignity and their humanity is every bit as important and every bit equal to yours.

54:10And even on the Charlie Kirk show, they seem to have forgotten that. And we hope they remember. Eating right is pretty important, but it's hard if you live here. About half of the American diet is ultra-processed foods, and that hurts you. Fake food harms your body, your mind, and especially your liver. So people think that feeling sluggish and foggy and bloated is just what it is to be older, but that's not true. eating crap makes you feel that way? Well, our friends at Dose have a solution. It's called Dose for Your Liver. This doctor-approved plant-based liver supplement is clinically proven to promote liver function and lower liver enzyme levels.

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58:17And that's Anna Kasparian, who we just spoke to a moment ago. Here she is. Anna Kasparian, thank you so much for doing this. Do you think we have free speech in the United States as of now? I think it would be wrong to say that we have free speech, considering the fact that we literally have the majority of our states passing laws that would punish American citizens or organizations that are critical of Israel by denying them any public money or public grant. That's clearly a violation of our constitutional rights because it's literally the government getting involved and violating our freedom of expression.

58:54So no, at this current moment, I would not say that we actually fully have free speech here in the United States. Yes. There's a way, though, that free speech is not just defined as the Constitution defines it, which is a system where the government stays neutral on speech. But also like on a practical level, if you are punished by organizations by saying denying you a job or housing or a right to a bank account or a right to live peacefully in your own home, then like in what sense do you have free speech? Well, I mean, that's true. Now, the argument is that if you are engaging in certain speech, you can't expect that it comes without consequence.

59:37That's right. That you should expect a response that you might not like to that speech. And the big argument that you'll hear from those defending, say, Robert Kraft today would argue, well, Robert Kraft is the billionaire who owns the Gillette Stadium, and he gets to decide what type of musical acts are able to perform there. Okay, I guess that's a fair point to make, but why don't we take a step back and look at how this intermingles with our democratic process. Because if I can recall several years ago, you had the world's elites getting together at the World Economic Forum to note that their plan moving forward is to ensure that no one owns anything.

1:00:19In fact, all of us will just have to rent things. So there will be the owners who own the property and then the rest of us. And so if we're going to base free speech rights on property owners, the wealthy elite being able to squash free speech because they happen to own things and we don't? Is that really a fair and just society? And do we have the economic conditions on the ground to ensure that there's a level playing field? So if one billionaire decides, no, I'm going to crush you because I don't like your comments about a foreign country, are we going to have other opportunities or other platforms, other means to put our work out into the world?

1:01:00You know, that's the real question here. Yeah. Well, and in some way, I mean, the nature of our economy has changed. The economic structure of the United States has changed. Obviously, there's much more concentration at the top. But the truth is, rich people have always run this in every other country. I just think we have a different kind of rich people. Like, previous generations of oligarchs felt like, well, you know, everybody has a right to say what he thinks. And if I disagree with you, I have got some obligation to explain why I make a counter case. I don't see that gracefulness at all in evidence now.

1:01:33It seems like our current leadership class, the current oligarchs who run everything, just decide, like, if I disagree with you, I don't have to explain why. I don't have to convince people that you're wrong and I'm right. I can just crush you, and that's enough. Well, there used to be a middleman, I guess, and that middleman used to be our government, right? The government would step in and provide protections or defend ordinary people. And I'm worried about the lack of will among our political elite to do what they know is the right thing to do in serving the American people. I mean, these are people who signed up to be public servants, yet all they do is serve moneyed interests who bribe them during their campaigns.

1:02:15And so just to give you one example, and I know you've been very critical of FDR, but not for the reason that I'm about to describe. You know, FDR was savvy enough to realize that following the Great Depression, communism, socialism was on the rise and he very much wanted to protect a capitalistic society. So he realized if I don't step in and implement some of these economic policies that will help improve the quality of life for ordinary American workers, we're headed toward socialism. We're headed toward communism. And he didn't want that. And so it's same with Henry Ford. I mean, Henry Ford was the CEO who decided, you know what, it makes sense to give them my workers the weekends off.

1:03:00It makes sense for me to pay them enough money to be able to afford Ford vehicles. like these are people who don't just think about their personal benefits and what benefits them in the short term they have long-term goals that goes beyond you know their own self-indulgence and we just don't have much of that right now either in our political elite or certainly not among the billionaire oligarchs who uh we're unfortunately being ruled by right now yeah there's not a lot of longitudinal thinking it seems like there's a kind of a day trade worldview in force. So you've always been on the left, on the progressive left.

1:03:40I don't think you're much of a Republican voter or haven't been anyway. I think it's fair to say. But I noticed that - I think it's complicated. It's complicated. It's complicated. It's complicated. Right. Well, it's complicated for everybody all of a sudden. So I'm with you on the complexity. But on the question of free speech, so I saw the Biden administration as totally opposed to free speech. They're pressuring social media companies to shut down people's accounts for disagreeing with them on COVID or lots of other topics. And I really believe that the Trump coalition was put there in part to defend free speech, free expression, free exchange of ideas, including those you disagree with.

1:04:17And yet it seems like a lot of its leaders pivoted almost immediately to a Biden like position on speech where if I don't like you, I'm going to cancel you. when they had just run against what they call cancel culture like 20 minutes before. Am I imagining that? No, you're not imagining it. And the fact of the matter is, regardless of which political side is doing it and both political sides do it. Yes, it's an attempt to hide something from the public information that they don't want the public knowing about. And I think a big red flag, especially from the government, is when they say they're doing something in the name of safety.

1:04:56So in the case of the Biden administration, we want to keep you safe. We don't want you to get COVID disinformation in the case of the Trump administration. And by the way, also to some extent with Biden on the Israel issue, there were efforts and have been efforts to essentially say we got to keep our Jewish community safe. as a result of that, we can't let you say certain things that are critical of the Israeli government, which obviously makes no sense. And we shouldn't be conflating the Jewish population with a foreign country. But Israel likes to hide behind human shields in their own way.

1:05:32So they intentionally make that conflation. But yeah, the word safety, once you hear the word safety, and by the way, I've seen every political faction use similar arguments, even on the far left, you know, stifling free speech on college campuses in some cases because students feel unsafe. And I'm sorry, in that particular context, you are going to an institution to learn, obviously, but also to be made uncomfortable. Like you're not growing, you're not learning until you're actually being confronted with ideas that challenge your own. Sure. And it's also a misread of the human condition. You're never safe.

1:06:11I mean, the future is not assured. And resistance to your narcissism is just like a fact of life for everybody. And it ought to be. And that's how you become an adult, right? I mean, of course. So you actually want confrontation because it draws you out of your own stupid little universe. But I just wonder if the left did it with cancel culture and wokeness or whatever you want to call it. But that whole movement that we suffered through for so many years. And now the right is doing exactly the same thing. They just picked a different victim. It was black people. Now it's Jewish people. It'll be somebody else.

1:06:46It's all it's always a cover for protecting the people in charge. Then like who actually will defend free speech? well there have always been very loud voices that have been consistent on protecting free speech you know glenn greenwald happens to be one of them he's undeterred in that mission and in fact the one area where he and i might have a disagreement on free speech is whether or not corporations are considered people with protected speech and thus can provide unlimited campaign bribes to politicians. He has defended that Supreme Court ruling. I have a different perspective on that. But in terms of actual individuals practicing their free speech, he's always been consistent.

1:07:29And whether the cancel culture proponents like it or not, we do still have constitutional rights. And if someone is willing to take some issue to the court, I do believe that the courts tend to decide appropriately based on what our constitutional rights happen to be. But that can be a costly way of pushing back and defending your free rights. And it becomes an even bigger problem when, again, you literally have the government on a state by state case passing laws. I mean, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, literally went to Florida to sign state legislation that made it clear, If you're criticizing Israel, we're not going to give you any government money, no grants for you.

1:08:14Or even if it's a government institution, we're going to strip you of your funding. That's ridiculous, especially since this has to do with criticizing a foreign country. You can criticize our country as much as you want. And I like that. That's what we should have. But we shouldn't have certain protections for a foreign country that violate our free speech rights. We are strongly pro-dog on this show. We make no secret that dogs are one of the great blessings of this life. And to keep them healthy, we recommend Dutch. It's the solution to skyrocketing veterinary costs. Why are those costs so high?

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1:10:03And the promise, of course, is that this is progress. But has it been? Well, you've also seen amidst all this progress, the total destruction of our social fabric, an epidemic of unhappiness, a spike in the suicide rate. So as we get closer to the promise of technological progress, our lives will all become better and easier, less work, more automation. We get farther away from what gives our lives purpose and meaning, what gives us joy. So how do we recover what we've lost? The means to live a fulfilling life. Our friend Sean Stone has just written a book about this. It's called 10 Things to Learn, Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Soul.

1:10:38And it draws on ancient wisdom to help us navigate the spiritual disorientation of modern life and restore a sense of purpose in a world defined by technology. Get Sean Stone's 10 Things to Learn today. It's only at tuckercarlsonbooks.com. That's tuckercarlsonbooks.com. My sense is it's a very anti-democratic, small-D democratic move too, because I think most people hate this. when you see AOC thinking about running for president get up and admit like wokeness was went too far it was bad what she's really saying is secretly everybody kind of hated that and you know it takes a few years for people to admit it because people are do benefit from shutting down public conversations about this or that but like ordinary people hate it and now she has to admit that very few people are admitting that now about our current explosion of identity politics around Israel.

1:11:29But my sense is that deep down, though, they may be afraid to say it. Most people really resent this. Do you think that? Oh, I absolutely. I know for a fact that people resent it, but people are terrified. I know. And for me, the reason why I'm a loud mouth about things like this is because I know that when people see an individual public figure go out there unafraid to just say what needs to be said, it kind of gives them permission. It gives them a little more comfort to come out and say what they want to say. And we do need to foster that kind of environment. And I can't emphasize this enough.

1:12:05We can't give the censorious people, regardless of where they fall in the political spectrum or on the issue of Israel, we cannot give them an inch under any circumstance. So like for me, when they come at you with a bad faith allegation, the left falls for this almost every time. And I'm trying to get them to like think a little more savvy. They're not looking for an apology. And in fact, if you do apologize when you haven't really said anything wrong to begin with, they see that as an admission of guilt. So don't give them an inch. Don't play their game. Don't play their game. As long as what you actually said wasn't coming from a place of hate where you're trying to get people hurt, you're just sharing your perspective on something.

1:12:49Don't let the bad faith actors convince you that maybe apologizing will make like this crazy mob go away. The mob is not going to go away unless you ignore them and double down, in fact. So you've, you, yeah, you got a congressional medal of honor for that. I mean, that's definitely the way you approach it. And God bless you for that. Graham Plattner, what just happened to the political candidate in the state of Maine, Graham Plattner earlier this year, seems like a pretty good example of what you're describing. Can you, now that, you know, and we've had a month or two to assess it. What was that, do you think?

1:13:25Well, okay. So let me back up and give you my perspective on Grant Plattner and the entirety of his campaign. So I'm in a kind of black-pilled place in life where the midterms are coming, and everyone thinks it's like, oh, it's going to make all the difference. It's not going to make all the difference. Our political system's broken, and I don't really have a dog in this fight, believe it or not. So when Graham Plattner came on the scene, I'm like, same old, same old. Yes, you're going to do all these wonderful things for working class Americans. I don't believe anybody. OK, fair. And then the tattoo thing happened, you know, and I side eyed him because I'm like, how do you have like he at some point he realized the tattoo he got, the skull and bones.

1:14:07He realized that it was like a Nazi symbol. He even admitted that. And then he kept it on his person for years until he ran for Congress and it became an issue. I thought that was weird, but whatever. For me, it's not disqualifying necessarily. I just didn't buy his story. Final thing though, was the allegation of forcible rape, which I understand when someone has been raped and they're terrified to go to the authorities because sometimes it ends up backfiring when you go to the authorities. It's insult to injury and you go through a terrible time. If you don't have hard evidence, people are going to deny you or blame you.

1:14:48It's awful. So I can understand that. But the woman who accused him of forcible rape, who she had been dating for two years, by the way, decided I'm not going to go to the authorities after he allegedly forcibly raped me. I'm just going to come out and talk about it in public as the primary for Plattner's race approaches, thus forcing him to drop out. And then we never heard from her again. Did she ever go to the authorities? Is she comfortable with the fact that if, in fact, she was allegedly raped by Graham Plattner? Well, now he's free to go wherever he wants to go, do whatever he wants to do and potentially rape someone else.

1:15:29Exactly. And so for me, Tucker, I think the reason why she didn't go to the authorities and instead came out and told the entire world about what allegedly happened is because I don't believe it actually happened. I just don't. And the reporting on it intentionally omitted details that I think the public should have known about. You think? Right. Namely, the fact that she sends him a... The way their interaction started that night, she sends him a text message about how she needs a glute massage. but they omitted that from the reporting i just to me it looks like a fishy story to say the the glute being the butt muscles yes yeah pretty provocative text i mean look i wasn't there you know i wasn't dating grand platen or i don't know but that seems that seems like a relevant detail to me here's my take on it was less sophisticated than yours but i was just trying to take a big picture assessment so here's a guy who's who's clearly going to beat susan collins one of the most mediocre she's a joke of course susan collins um probably not an evil person but like susan collins come on now he's gonna beat her he's a conventional democrat in some ways but the big issue in which he disagrees with his party's leadership is israel and he just says it he's like what's happening in gaza is a crime because it is a crime and it's that issue that torpedoes his candidacy because his own party, including the state party in Maine, turns against him on orders from their donors.

1:16:59That seemed to be what happened to me, but maybe I'm missing something. I mean, if you do take a step back and you look at the specific candidates who have been hounded and treated poorly throughout their primaries, and even after they won their primaries, you'll notice that there is a through line. And that through line is criticism of israel criticism of u.s financial support for israel's wars genocides atrocities things like that and um you can't argue that you want to be a public servant who genuinely believes in an america first agenda when you're okay with doing things like merging the idf with the u.s military or continuing this like gravy train that we can't afford.

1:17:47We like we are literally going deeper and deeper and deeper into debt in order to pay for Israel's weapons. Trump just signed off on another three billion dollars for two thousand pound bombs for Israel. They're not even paying for it. We're going to go into debt. Oh, yeah. Provide it for them. And that is an injustice. And these are the types of things they don't want us talking about. They want us to shut up. There is nothing in my commentary right now that even touches on the Jewish identity. It's about morality. It's about finite resources. It's about doing what's right for the American people as a member of the political class.

1:18:24And somehow that is considered incredibly outrageous, dangerous, and offensive to say. And other candidates who have said things like this tend to be the ones who are targeted um maniacally by people like laura loomer who by the way last june i don't know if people know this uh was bitching about the fact that not enough americans hate muslims so maybe we need another 9-11 yeah so what what does that make you think when somebody who's you know a very powerful player for some reason at this moment within our political process calls for another 9-11. I mean, that seems like an extraordinary thing to say.

1:19:10Not only is it extraordinary, I think the bigger picture, I think the overarching issue that I'm struggling with is what is my identity? Because I've always identified as American. I've always identified it as American, right? Like, I love this country. I want to defend this country. I want to live here for the rest of my life. My family, my brother is raising his four kids here. I want them to thrive. I want everyone to thrive. But there are so many different things happening simultaneously right now, Tucker, that makes me think, oh my God, like we are surrounded by people who don't really see this as their country.

1:19:48Like they just, it's like a commuter country. Like you come in, you take what you need, and then you go. And so when you have someone like Laura Loomer saying, maybe we need another 9-11, disgusting. When you see the willingness of our lawmakers to sell out our own country, put us deeper and deeper into debt on behalf of a foreign country, it just feels like everything here is being exploited for other purposes. Yes. And I'm angry about it. And I know other Americans are angry about it. Elaine Chao, Elaine Chao turns out to have worked for the Chinese government while serving in the Trump administration.

1:20:30That was a huge story that was broken by the Daily Caller. I just reported on it yesterday on our show. How is that okay? How is that okay? She's a two-time cabinet secretary in two separate administrations. Her husband was Senate Majority Leader, and she's working for China. And of course, there will never be any attempt to hold Elaine Chao accountable for that ever. It's crazy. But at least, I guess, here's the point of my thoughts today on this specific topic. At least we can still acknowledge it, report the truth about it, try to call other people's attention to it, rally support for some kind of solution to it.

1:21:08That's why speech is important. And I just wonder, given that all of our conversations take place digitally and the digital platforms are owned by people who clearly are not committed to the concept of free speech, How long does this last? I don't know, but I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to stop. And I'm willing to, I mean, there have already been consequences for me personally, and I haven't stopped and I'm going to keep going. Because the ability to express yourself is one of the most precious rights that we have in this country. And I don't think that we should give it up willy nilly.

1:21:44I think some people have been willing to do that. But honestly, if it takes sacrificing potentially everything, I'm going to keep speaking my mind. Yes. I know no other way. It's torture to not be able to speak your mind. I can't imagine living in that type of society. So look, there are consequences already. Luckily, I work for Cenk Uygur, and Cenk Uygur really does believe in free speech. Yes, he does. And even if we have some big fights on the show time to time, and he's never once retaliated against me because we disagree. And I just love that I'm lucky enough to work for him. But even if he ended up firing me for speaking my mind, where there's a will, there's a way.

1:22:24And if it means that I have to do menial work to make ends meet in order to continue being able to speak my mind, I'm going to keep speaking my mind. But here's what I would say to the audience, because this is really important. How about we don't give into these people anymore? How about we have each other's backs as Americans? Yes. You get what I'm saying? Oh, yes. So like the whole Macklemore debacle, I think the way that that played out was kind of fantastic because there's a lot of rage among Americans who don't think he said anything wrong. Even Jesse Waters. He's like, what did he say? He said free Palestine.

1:22:58I don't think that's hate speech. And so people having Macklemore's back, and in fact, Ed Sheeran, being a coward in this scenario, has now lost like half a million followers on social media because he didn't stand up for what was right. And so I love to see that. Let's do more of that. Let's have each other's backs because you're not just defending one person. You're defending the whole concept of freedom of expression. Amen. Boy. And on that note, thank you. Thank you for everything you've done to preserve and expand the boundaries of speech at cost to yourself. And I really think you'll be, whatever you're going through now, I think you'll be rewarded for it in the end.

1:23:39I believe that. So Anna Kasperian, thank you very much. Thanks, Tucker.