Transcript: Tucker Carlson on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #468

It’s not a chortle. It’s more a giggle.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. No, it seems like a kid. Yeah, Like a kids would love. Seems like.

TUCKER CARLSON: But not too much.

THEO VON: Yeah, it reminds me of like Winnie the Pooh, kind of. You know, you low key do have a Christopher Robin vibe if he grew up, you know.

TUCKER CARLSON: Thank you. I don’t think he ever did, though. He exists only in the pages of the books.

THEO VON: Oh.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Actually, there was a Christopher Robin that was Milne’s son, and he grew up to be a super bitter atheist who hated his dad. Yeah, it didn’t work.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: All fantasy. Yes.

THEO VON: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: Unless I’m misremembering that a Milne who wrote the book. Yeah, he had kind of a tragic family life.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s heartbreaking. Good to see you today, man. We never met before.

TUCKER CARLSON: One of my children is like your biggest fan.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

THEO VON: And are they, how children are we talking?

TUCKER CARLSON: Mid-20s.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s fine. I’m just saying I don’t want it. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t creepy or anything.

THEO VON: I don’t need, because it’s kind of weird that they allow, like, little kids to watch you.

Content Moderation on Twitter/X

TUCKER CARLSON: So, I mean, in a world that allows that you’re fine.

THEO VON: You think there should be porn on Twitter?

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, it shouldn’t be porn on Twitter. I mean, I’m, you know.

THEO VON: No, yeah, don’t go to.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, I don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t, you know, spend a lot of time trying to ban porn on Twitter, but, porn on Twitter, Come on. Twitter is for your ugly opinions, not, you know, not your nudity.

THEO VON: Yeah. What things do you think shouldn’t be on Twitter?

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, I think everything should be allowed on Twitter. I mean, I’m on Twitter because everything is allowed.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t think everything is allowed on Twitter. I haven’t found the boundary yet. But Elon Musk, who owns it, has said he’s for free speech. And if it’s a political view that most people don’t like, it’s still allowed.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I’m so grateful for that as someone with unpopular views, you know.

THEO VON: Well, didn’t they have. Well, one thing that I don’t like on Twitter, sometimes you see, people beating up teachers and stuff like that. You ever seen any of this violence that happens? Right. I don’t like it, but the fact that they allow it and kids beating up each other will have those things where somebody’s going to set up, somebody’s filming some other kids, are going to come in and beat up the kid. Right.

But why did that? Because then I feel like if they would stop allowing that then. Because other kids just start mimicking what they see.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it’s also bad. It’s bad for you to watch it. I say someone who’s watched a lot of it. It’s like the ISIS videos.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you know what I mean? Or there’s a whole bunch of channels of criminals getting shot, coming into a jewelry store or a liquor store and some Korean guy just blows them away. Yeah. And you can’t help but love it. I mean, it is the most alluring kind of porn. You just watch it again and again. This guy getting killed. Yeah. And you think, this is not good for me. Actually I shouldn’t watch this yet.

THEO VON: Or part of your spirit or whatever.

The Watchmaker Who Defended Himself

TUCKER CARLSON: Totally. It’s not edifying. It’s actually bad. But it’s very hard. Have you ever seen the criminals getting killed?

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ve seen a couple of them. There’s one guy who’s so good at it, he’s killed like seven criminals.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, he’s a watchmaker in LA. Yeah, no, it’s a very famous guy.

THEO VON: Oh, there’s a one guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Mike.

THEO VON: Dude, they got to quit trying to rob this guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, he finally gave up and now I think he lives in Vegas. But this was in the 80s or 90s in LA. I think he killed five people, literally, with revolvers too. This was before everyone had like a double stack, you know, 19 round magazine. These were just like with conventional .38 or .357 revolvers.

THEO VON: That’s him right there. Can you have that up for me, Nate? This is a. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Watch seller. He’s actually a watchmaker. He’s the guy who, you know, fixes expensive watches and makes the new gear. So he’s a very. Yeah, look at that.

THEO VON: Mr. Thomas, the dealer, Lance Thomas, was wounded five times at his shop. Wow. Let’s see. He’s like the 50.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m sorry, is my memory pretty good or What? He killed five robbers since 89.

THEO VON: That’s amazing. He’s like the 50 Cent. A watchmaker.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s like, 50 seconds. He’s like, yeah, that’s good.

THEO VON: That dude’s unreal. “They ran me out of business. Each time,” he says, “there’s got to be a truce. There’s got to be a time. There’s got to be a time when you walk away from the war zone.” Wow. So he just quit because it was.

TUCKER CARLSON: Too, what, a BMF? I mean, he just. Yeah, he shot a couple in one day.

THEO VON: He says this is his best quote. “Mr. Thomas said he felt no remorse for the lives he had taken. The police ruled each shooting was justified. I was ice,” he said, “a frightening thing about this is that it all becomes easier.” Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s not good for you to. I mean, you don’t want to have to kill five people. I don’t. You know, I don’t think it’s. I don’t think it’s good for you.

THEO VON: What’s a fair amount of people to kill?

Self-Defense and Human Rights

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t think you want to kill anyone if you can help it, you know? I mean. Well, it’s certainly justified in self defense. I mean, no one will judge you. No honest person will judge you for killing someone to protect your life or your loved ones, even your property. But I just don’t think you want to have to.

THEO VON: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I will. Unfortunately, there’s some people, I think, that wake up and they’re kind of looking, you know, wouldn’t mind getting into a little, you know, killing or whatever.

But I think. Yeah, I think you have a lot of people move into places where you can defend yourself, where the laws are more in your favor to defend yourself. Because it feels like your own safety has become your own responsibility.

TUCKER CARLSON: You can’t defend yourself. You’re a slave. I mean, by definition, if someone can hurt you, but you can’t defend yourself, then you’re not a human being. You’re subhuman, obviously.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, because that’s a human right that precedes government. Right. I mean, being a human, defending yourself, you know, you have to be able to defend. If I walk up and punch you in the face and you can’t hit back, I’m the master, you’re the slave, obviously.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know.

THEO VON: Yeah. That’s why I think it’s one reason why you can’t take guns away is because people have, at the end of the day, have to be able to defend themselves or groups of people have to.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, of course. And the police, you know, they’ve got their own thing, their own concerns, and. Yeah, you can’t rely on them.

Violence on Social Media

THEO VON: But I was thinking. Yeah. What I don’t like about those violent, the violence that they show on Twitter, where it’s like the children beating up children.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: Is because if you’re a kid and you see that, and you see it gets a lot of traction, then you get to go do it. So you’re just replicating this vibe. It’s like you see so many more kids doing it now because they’ve seen it as a thing. So that kind of thing I don’t think they should allow on there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, so you don’t want to see every ugly thing that people do. You know what I mean?

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You don’t want to see fat people in the shower. You don’t want to see people on the john. There are a lot of things that happen that you don’t necessarily want to look at video of.

THEO VON: I don’t mind watching a thick person in the shower if there’s a real skinny person there with them and they have to kind of jockey for position or something. I think I don’t shower with somebody’s heart, I think, no matter what size they are.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you seen a lot of that?

THEO VON: I think I’ve been in some showers with varying sizes of humans and yeah, it’s…

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s the fattest person you’ve showered with?

THEO VON: Oh, probably a good… I’m trying to remember, real fat or just kind of bulky. I remember I picked this gal up one time trying to go back to how it felt on my back. I’d probably say upper ones.

TUCKER CARLSON: Upper ones. But you’re not going to…

THEO VON: I wouldn’t get into that. No, no, no, no. Just it’s…

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Okay.

THEO VON: You’re lying.

TUCKER CARLSON: I can tell. Yeah. Yeah, you are. Okay. No.

Social Media and Child Safety

THEO VON: Is there laws? Do you know if there’s any laws, if there’s people who are doing pedophiling, right, and they are reaching out to children through social media, why isn’t there a responsibility on the social media companies? That’s allowing that to be an open wall.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think there is. I think there is. And I think some have gotten in trouble for that.

THEO VON: Oh, okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: Providing a space for that. Look, I’m not a lawyer, but it’s certainly wrong, certainly immoral.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you got to think they make some effort to stop that, though. I think there’s a lot of it. There are a lot of creepy people out there.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And the number of creepy people is increasing.

THEO VON: You think so?

TUCKER CARLSON: Seems to be, yeah. Seems to be.

THEO VON: Yeah. I wonder why that is.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because you can look up other creepy people. It’s kind of like you said, you wouldn’t allow video of kids fighting on the Internet because it inspires other kids to fight.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Creepiness inspires creepiness, right?

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, man. I just want to get to know you a little bit.

TUCKER CARLSON: I want to get to know you, too. Not the whole shower thing.

THEO VON: Oh, no, no. You don’t weigh enough. I don’t think close what I’m looking for. Okay. Yeah, man. Nice to meet you. So you grew up in California, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: I did.

Growing Up and Independence

THEO VON: And so were you… I think people… Were you in a fraternity? I think that’s the most thing people look at when they see in a fraternity.

TUCKER CARLSON: No. No.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

THEO VON: Okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: I never joined a fraternity. All my roommates joined a fraternity, actually lived in a fraternity, but I never joined. And I don’t like to be told what to do at all.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

THEO VON: Me neither. Do you, at all?

TUCKER CARLSON: At all, at all?

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. It’s my biggest… It’s I have a moral claustrophobia about being told what to do. I’m happy to do things. I don’t mind serving other people, but it has to be voluntary. I can’t be ordered around.

THEO VON: Yeah. I don’t like being told what to do.

TUCKER CARLSON: Hey, bch, go get me a cigarette. You’re a pledge. I don’t think so.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s a good point. I don’t think I do that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: And I don’t want to be told what to do by some white kid that’s in poli sci or whatever.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or any color kid.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: No color kid.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or adult, for that matter. I just don’t want to be bossed around. And by the way, I don’t mind taking advice or wise counsel from people I respect. I’m often wrong. I’m not saying that I’m always right. I’m definitely not. But being ordered to do things suggests a level of disrespect. I just can’t deal with it at all.

THEO VON: And even just about work and stuff. Were you always that from just with work, you want to be your own voice?

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course, yeah.

THEO VON: I mean, that’s where you end up, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Getting fired, right?

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Finding Your Voice in Media

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, not that I don’t… I don’t want to fight about it. I’m not interested in being, you can’t tell me what to do or give a lot of lectures about it. But especially my business. You have a similar job where you’re paid to say what you think.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. And so you want to do your job, which is to say what you think.

THEO VON: Was there even a time when you were working at different news places where you were, gosh, this still isn’t my own voice?

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, all the time.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Was always my own voice. But they’re just… You could feel the parameters. I mean, I started in my 20s, mid-20s, now in my mid-50s, so it’s been a long time.

THEO VON: Why? You look great for 50s, man.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m 54.

THEO VON: Are you really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

THEO VON: Oh, wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: No. Shocking. Shocking. I don’t feel it. But anyway. But when you’re much younger and you’ve got little kids. I always had a lot of kids. Just reproduce a crazy person.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Which I recommend strongly to you. You feel vulnerable and you’re not allowed to say certain things. And I do think I was never censored, but I self-censored for sure. The war in Iraq breaks out and you’re, maybe it’s a good idea. It’s not a good idea. And you know it’s not a good idea.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know what I mean? But you allow yourself to be convinced because it’s super unpopular to say it’s not a good idea. But it clearly wasn’t. War with Iraq not a good idea. I can say that now.

Group Think and Following Your Instincts

THEO VON: Why do we go along with that consensus a lot of times? What is it that makes us afraid to speak out?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, people have a deep need to be part of a group. It’s just a human need right up there with sex and food and shelter. People want to be connected to other people, which I understand, and I want that too, but that can override reason and common sense very often.

So if you’re… A million studies have been done on this. But if you’re in a group full of people, and everyone’s, I hate chocolate ice cream. And you’re, I kind of chocolate ice cream. But you don’t say anything about it because people like chocolate ice cream suck. And you’re, yeah, they kind of suck. It’s just a human thing.

And so people go along with stuff that their gut tells them isn’t the right thing. But you should never ignore your gut, your instincts, which you inherited from your ancestors, which are encoded in your DNA and which are almost never wrong. If you’re with someone and you feel, God, that person’s lying, that person’s lying. You may not know what about, you don’t have X-ray vision into someone’s soul, but you can smell the deception on someone. I know that you can. We all can.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or if you feel danger, you’re, wow, this person poses a threat to me. You’re right. You don’t know the details. You don’t need to know the details. Get away. And if something’s really stupid, let’s go to war with Iran. It’s what? Yeah. And I just feel it’s, maybe because of my age and my job, I have a moral obligation to say I think that’s really unwise.

THEO VON: You don’t want to go to war with Iran.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, because I’m not insane. That’s insane.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Look, I’m not saying it is either. I don’t think that we should be involved in a lot of this st.

TUCKER CARLSON: You think? How’s it helping? Is it helping you a lot?

THEO VON: No, it’s just causing all these moral victories. You’re winning, it’s causing more problems. I don’t even know if I’m winning any moral victories. It just causes more problems. It’s hard to navigate between my friends that are different ethnicities, are different, are from different places now.

TUCKER CARLSON: We shouldn’t have to because we all live here and we should all be united in that.

The Erosion of American Unity

THEO VON: Right. But do you think… And I think when I was a child, it felt we were all American. It felt we were united, that we were all Americans. Yeah, but it doesn’t. I feel that’s been pretty heavily compromised pretty quickly, even. Which is almost amazing. And I feel… And these aren’t Debbie Downer feelings. These are just thoughts. I should say that I think sometimes that… Yeah, it’s America just feels a shell company.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

THEO VON: That…

TUCKER CARLSON: That people just park their assets.

THEO VON: We’re just an LLC for a lot of… Yeah, no, I mean, we always been that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course not. It was a real country. It wasn’t just an idea or some shell company or LLC. That’s so nice. I’m stealing that. By the way. I hope this never airs. So I can’t steal.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: But no, a buddy of mine, my best friends just sent me video about eight minutes ago. He’s dropping… He’s visiting his daughter at parents weekend at a college, a well-known college. And there’s a huge demonstration in the middle of campus between two sides in the Middle East. And one of the sides starts burning the other side’s flag. It’s a foreign flag.

THEO VON: Okay, okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: And this fist fight breaks out and I’m… I mean, I have views on who’s more right or whatever. But I thought to myself, and I said to him, if someone burned an American flag, nobody would fight over it. You get to burn the American flag. But burning the flag of another country, which is not our country, to which we do not pay taxes, whose military we don’t serve in, that’s the most offensive thing.

I’m we have lost the thread, man. We’re all Americans. And if you wind up in a place where our allegiance to other countries or regions or things that are not American take precedence over our common Americanness, I mean, we’re screwed. We’re screwed.

THEO VON: I feel we’re at the apex of that sometimes. Yes. And if we’re not at the apex of that, I don’t think in the… I can’t tell if we’re at that in the… I think we’re getting to that in the moral compass of a lot of people.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: And it’s sad because I think a lot of people, myself included or for myself, I don’t think I ever wanted to get to that place. No, I never. But I think a lot of people are just starting to feel, once your Americanism dissolves and once your common thread dissolves, you don’t have a connection. And so then your instincts start to take over. We’re kind of talking about. And you have to take care of yourself.

And so once the ice you’re on starts to get melting… Before you’re on an ice, you can skate. You’re seeing other people. You’re buying a bootleg Gretzky jersey off somebody, whatever. You guys are all on the ice, right? You’re imitating Home Alone. There’s a… gays, or there’s a gay guy’s always on the ice, but it’s…

TUCKER CARLSON: What are the gays doing in the ice?

THEO VON: Skating, bro.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: Stupid.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: But they’re having fun, right? I lived. And I’ll say that I live with the gay ice skater, and he could jump over a Volkswagen, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s impressive.

THEO VON: Oh, it was unbelievable.

TUCKER CARLSON: But I’d never seen strong ankles.

THEO VON: I mean, just. The dude was like. Yeah. He brought us out of the living room once and showed us and blew our minds, man. Beautiful guy. Not that great. I mean, pretty beautiful, I guess. Tall.

TUCKER CARLSON: Tall. Which adds a little built to, obviously.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Kind of. I don’t know. I’m going to quit thinking about him, but anyway. But once that ice starts to melt, the first thing you have to think about is yourself, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: And so that’s what I feel like, where we’re at now. And a lot of people are having to think about themselves, like, literally watching our country or what we viewed as our ideals and morals and what we held dear, like, sink in this water, and there’s nothing you can do about it except take care of yourself. That’s where I feel like a lot of people are at. There’s nothing they can do right now but take care of themselves.

TUCKER CARLSON: And they’re displacing a lot of their frustration about our economy, which we never talk about. It’s getting very expensive, people to live here. Like, too expensive, actually.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I saw some gas the other day. I was like, Jesus, man.

TUCKER CARLSON: How do people afford that? Yeah.

THEO VON: How do you even do a bonfire anymore?

TUCKER CARLSON: Totally right.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it’s completely right. How do you, if you want to take gasoline and pour it on the pallets.

THEO VON: Like, it’s six bucks, right?

The Cost of Living Crisis

TUCKER CARLSON: But they’re displacing a lot of that frustration onto regions, countries, conflicts that are thousands of miles away. It’s almost like I’m picking a team and all my rage is going to. And I do wish people reserved their anger for our leaders who deserve it, in my opinion, on both sides, and for the problems that are besetting the country.

You drive through America recently, it’s not in good shape at all. It’s kind of poor, actually shockingly poor. And people should be really mad about that. And instead they’re mad about whatever. Israel, Hamas. I mean, I get it. I think they’re, I understand people are upset on both sides.

However, it’s unhealthy to spend all your time in your head enraged about a foreign conflict when your own country is suffering so badly. Like, we need that energy, that constructive energy here. And I never hear anybody say 108,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses last year in my country, young people, a lot of whom weren’t doing fentanyl. They were taking Percocet or benzos and they ingested a pill with fentanyl in it and they died. They were poisoned to death.

Okay, that’s unbelievable. That’s outrageous. No one seems mad about that. Yeah, they’re mad about some foreign war and what a waste, because we can’t control that anyway.

THEO VON: Yeah. Well, I think it’s a lot. I mean, that opioid epidemic thing. I remember watching that show. What was that show that I really liked? Yeah, Dopesick. You see Dopesick?

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t know if I could handle it, but I live in a place with a lot of that, so I see it.

THEO VON: Well, it’s about the fan. It’s about. Michael Keaton is in it, right? I think that’s him. He used to be Batman, but now I guess he’s selling drugs, right? Which is a perfect example.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, it’s about Purdue Pharma.

THEO VON: It’s a perfect example of our country. Even Batman is f*ing selling pills.

The Opioid Crisis and Accountability

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, the company that got the country, got rural America hooked on opioids, got away with it. I mean, they paid fine. Nobody went to jail. Yeah, the Sackler family, they’re still rich and really didn’t go to jail.

THEO VON: This ruined my. This ruined this. I think about this every single day. I hate the Sackler family. I hate this whole thing that happened. It’s unbelievable.

TUCKER CARLSON: But they got away with it. How do you do that?

THEO VON: Well, these people, this country, they let our FDA let these people down.

TUCKER CARLSON: No one was punished. Not one person was punished.

THEO VON: Yeah, I know.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you see people go to jail. I mean, it’s not even a political point. It’s true. And both sides, voters for both parties go to jail for very small things. Very small things.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And yet you poison the entire country. You wreck an entire generation of kids, and you’re still a billionaire. Tell me how that works.

THEO VON: I don’t know, if I ever saw that guy on the street, I would f*ing saw his face off.

TUCKER CARLSON: How would you saw his face off?

THEO VON: I’d figure it out.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you bring a saw? Do you have a saw with you?

THEO VON: I just turn into a saw. That’s how much I hate that guy. I mean, it’s just unbelievable how many people I got killed in no care concern.

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

THEO VON: And then the way that they lobbied our own FDA people, they took them off of the job and paid them more to work for them, to help them beat the laws. Yeah, sorry, man. I didn’t mean to bring that up.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, no, but I mean, next time they tell me I have to take some pharma product, I’m probably going to pass. I’m just saying.

THEO VON: Yeah, I’m probably going to pass.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t trust you anymore. Sorry.

THEO VON: Well, I miss the day you get some f*ing good pills, too. I mean, there’s part of that in this, when a dude could give you a couple stack or twos, you’d hold up the wall over there in Hoboken for an hour. I think those days are over.

TUCKER CARLSON: You got to go to Fentanyl.

THEO VON: I just don’t want to do it.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I don’t think you should.

Sobriety and Recovery

THEO VON: Well, I’ll overdose, man. I’m sober, like 18 months. I would overdose easy.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re sober 18 months?

THEO VON: Yep. One of the reasons I don’t do cocaine anymore is because they ruined it. Why? With the fentanyl.

TUCKER CARLSON: It used to be just baby laxative.

THEO VON: Yeah, but I’d rather than die.

TUCKER CARLSON: I agree with that.

THEO VON: I’d rather get off the toilet and be like, oh, I was hectic, than be laying there just like, God, wish I could shit going blue. Yeah, but I got to go to heaven and that.

TUCKER CARLSON: And that, by the way, is a guess, but that’s the hope. But how’s it been? 18 months?

THEO VON: It’s been good, man. I love it.

TUCKER CARLSON: How were the first six weeks?

THEO VON: That’s the toughest part.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I know. I’ve been there.

THEO VON: Oh, you have?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: What did you have to get off of?

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, you name it, but. Yeah, it’s been 21 years, but yeah.

THEO VON: You can drink, though.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I can drag a little blow. I can drink. But other than that, I’m totally sober. It’s a modified soap. Shepherd. Who is your brother?

THEO VON: Shepard Smith.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay, that’s funny, but I’m not going to comment on it beyond that.

THEO VON: That’s fine. No dig to Shepard. I’m a fan of Shepherd.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: But he’s just a legend in a lot of circles from a lot of friends of mine from different colleges.

TUCKER CARLSON: How do you know all this?

THEO VON: It’s like, dude, it’s easy. You just be alive and you just pay attention.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, without commenting on that, I will say.

THEO VON: But no. Sobriety’s been cool for me, man.

TUCKER CARLSON: But it was tough the first six weeks. Like, how would you do?

THEO VON: Yeah, I think what’s tough is having to change, having to quit some, having to not have a beer if you need it. Having to not have something to give me a little bit of respite. Yeah, that’s right. Owning angst.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

THEO VON: That’s a lot of it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you go off everything?

THEO VON: Yeah. So I didn’t have a problem with anything except for cocaine. So if I drink, I could have a drink. I’d be fine. I hated drinking, but I know if I have a drink, the only reason I’m going to have it is so I can go. I’ll have four sips and then I’ll go get cocaine and then I’ll be.

TUCKER CARLSON: How did you deal with feeling terrible the next day on the cocaine?

THEO VON: Oh, poorly brother. Begging people for Gatorade over text message. Yeah, it was horrible, dude. Yeah. And this. But this was some of this. They didn’t have that.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s a high cost drug.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And not just on the front end. On the back.

THEO VON: Yeah. The next day was horrible. The sad, the things that have to apologize for.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s the freakiest thing you did while in cocaine?

THEO VON: Oh, dude, I’ll tell you some. Well, the weirdest thing is what is I would look for escorts on the internet.

TUCKER CARLSON: Classic cocaine move there. Yeah. Hunter Biden has plowed this furrow before others. Others have been where you were.

THEO VON: Yeah, literally. Yeah. I think Hunter even was my plug on some of this. And so he. I would. But then they would come to my residence. I would be so scared and paranoid. I would take the money and hand it out the door because I didn’t want to not pay for the service.

TUCKER CARLSON: I, you know, service.

THEO VON: They drove over.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

THEO VON: You know, so, yeah, I would pay them and then I would just be grateful that they weren’t there.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you wouldn’t stiff the hooker, but then you wouldn’t stiff the hooker? Well, to my mother.

THEO VON: I think. Look, I just felt bad.

TUCKER CARLSON: You must have been their favorite account.

THEO VON: Well, then sometimes, dude, I had to talk to a lady who speaks another language. That’s crazy, because then you’re playing charades. You’re high on cocaine.

TUCKER CARLSON: You were ordering the human trafficking ones.

THEO VON: I wouldn’t say that, dude. These people were off the interstate.

TUCKER CARLSON: I would say that they were off the Internet. Yeah.

THEO VON: They weren’t like lot lizards. No, this was out of. This was. Yeah. I mean, they weren’t. I think these were decent ladies who were totally trying to make a dollar. I never. Yeah. Anyway, this isn’t going to end well, but yeah, that was kind of the toughest part, because I was just looking for some kind of connection, of course. And I just.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s a real thing, what you just said.

THEO VON: I get that. I didn’t know how to get it because it’s isolating.

The Isolation of Addiction

TUCKER CARLSON: Drugs and alcohol are isolating. You’re really about yourself when you’re doing them. Part of you wants to reach out and connect with someone else.

THEO VON: I think that’s absolutely.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think that’s absolutely right.

THEO VON: Yeah. I like cocaine because I needed to control how I felt immediately. That’s one reason I didn’t like alcohol, because I was just such a control person that I needed to control how I felt immediately. So cocaine, I could do it immediately. The feeling would be there immediately. Yeah. And so that’s one reason that I liked it.

TUCKER CARLSON: You never got into Xanax or alcohol or anything to help you come down?

THEO VON: No, I wish I had. I didn’t know you could do that. Oh, yeah. You can do that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I mean, I don’t think it’s legal, but you can.

THEO VON: So I was doing.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, you’re doing it wrong.

THEO VON: I was just.

TUCKER CARLSON: You had the wrong kind of cocaine addiction.

THEO VON: And most of the. I was doing. I think it was Sherwin Williams.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: You know, this had. You know, I remember doing an eight ball of matte finish, you know, so I’m like, this isn’t legitimate. You know, some semi gloss. I’m like, this is for shutters. This is outdoor. You know, I’ve done some very questionable cocaine, you know. So what was it like for you getting to getting off of it?

Tucker’s Journey to Sobriety

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, it was awful. It was awful. It was awful. It was absolutely awful. But I’m so grateful that I did. I’m thankful. My brother and I both did, actually. Wow.

THEO VON: So it’s in your family? It’s a genetic. It’s a.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it’s in my family. We’re Swedish. Yeah. Oh, y’all are.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. Also, the farther north you go on the globe, the higher percentage of people have drinking problems. I mean, that’s, I think, pretty well established.

THEO VON: Look at Santa. Dude works one f*ing day a year.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, the Eskimos. No, I’m serious. And, you know. Oh, yeah, a lot of ancestors from Northern Europe. So, yeah, alcoholism is a big thing, and I needed to get off it and had all these children and a job on TV, and it’s just not compatible with a productive, happy life at all.

And I quit in the first few months were like, shocking. I didn’t realize. I didn’t realize. Well, I had no help at all.

THEO VON: Really.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I didn’t. I did it at home alone.

THEO VON: And I didn’t get willing to try and have help. Like, were you that kind of person? Like, you’re like, were you like.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I had a public job. I know I was an anchor on CNN. And so I just thought, I don’t want to get into the whole, like, I’m going to rehab or whatever. I just didn’t want to get involved with that. And it was fine. Worked great. And I’ve never, you know, gone back, and I never would for anything.

However, I didn’t realize that I knew very little about it. About it. I hadn’t. This was kind of before I was using the Internet. I just didn’t know that much about addiction at all. And I quit. And all of a sudden I had these withdrawal symptoms that were like, shocking. My hands are shaking. I feel like I’m going to freak out all the time. Super anxious, super, super anxious. Sweating, heart palpitations. I was like, what is this?

And I asked somebody. I didn’t tell many people. I asked somebody like, oh, you’re withdrawing from alcohol, and if you start to hallucinate, that means you have the DTs, the delirium tremens, and you need to go to the hospital because you could die. I was like, what? I never got that. Thank heaven. But anyway, yeah, it was awful.

But then, you know, within like, I don’t know, six months, I felt great. I started smoking two cigarettes at once. I mean, my nicotine problem got a little more intense, but I felt wonderful, and I felt great ever since.

THEO VON: Wow. And did you ever go to meetings? You ever get into 12 step or.

The Power of 12 Step Programs

TUCKER CARLSON: No, not one time, but I love it. I just had dinner last night with Bobby Kennedy, who’s been in 12 step program. Russell Brand, same thing. Another friend of mine, I almost went.

THEO VON: To a meeting at Bobby’s house on Tuesday.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay, what a wonderful man.

THEO VON: He is. Bobby’s a neat guy, isn’t he?

TUCKER CARLSON: He is. He’s a very deep person and he’s learned the right things. And people like that make me very pro 12 step. It’s like they’re just like, I’m not in control of my life and they’re not, because nobody is. Everyone lies about it. I’ve got it under control. No, you don’t, you know, freaking idea what you’re doing. You can’t extend your life by a single day.

You’re lying to yourself and those around you. Just admit you have no clue. You’re doing the best you can. You’re a totally screwed up, kind of embarrassing person, you know what I mean?

THEO VON: Okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: And be liberated. And I strongly believe in that. Because it’s true.

THEO VON: It is the truth. I know. And the rest of it is such a f*ing. Such a sled we pull.

The Liberation of Honesty

TUCKER CARLSON: And it’s fake and it is ridiculous. As I always say to my kids, everybody knows who you really are. Everybody already knows what your bad qualities are and they love you anyway, so don’t even try and hide them. I mean, I’m sure, you know, people are like alcoholic or bad temper or secretly gay or whatever. And yeah, they’re like, oh, no one knows. No one knows. Everybody knows. Are you kidding?

And again, they love you anyway, so you don’t need to hide it. Just be who you are. And when you are, I mean, you are so liberated. It’s this massive weight coming off you. It’s like, yeah, kind of f*ed up, but, you know, more than some, less than others, but trying and people are like, that’s great. Yeah, people are way less judgy than you think they are.

THEO VON: Right. There’s some inverse of it, you know, where it’s like, we think someone’s so. But then if we look at the way we look at people, we might have some jokes about it stuff. But most of the time you have empathy.

TUCKER CARLSON: At dinner two nights ago, I’m sitting next to this woman and she said something about. It was a long story, but basically it was about a woman gaining weight. And I said to her, you know, I’ve never been in a group of just men on a hunting trip or fit. You know, we’re just men.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Where someone’s like, ah, she had a fat ass. It’s like, men have the widest strike zone imaginable. Men like women. Heterosexual men like women. They don’t judge their appearance very harshly at all. They kind of tend to like all sorts of women.

THEO VON: That’s true.

TUCKER CARLSON: And if you knew how non judgmental men were about women’s appearances, you would relax. But of course you don’t care what men think about your appearance. You only care what other women think about your appearance. And they’re very judgy. But it’s the same principle. It’s like we are less judged than we think we are, you know.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s funny, but you. We don’t. But it’s not the nature of us to think that we are.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you tell people when you quit using cocaine?

Theo’s Recovery Journey

THEO VON: Yeah, I did. I think. Let me think. Yeah, yeah, I did, I told him. Well, I got into meetings. I didn’t. It was been in my family, you know, my family, a lot of my family. It’s in my family. So the cocaine thing, the drug, just alcohol, childhood issues. Really a lot of it is more. A lot of my stuff comes from really intimacy disorders.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: Like emotional, like connectivity disorders, you know, so. But then whenever anything triggers one of those connectivity disorders, then my. A lot of times it would lead me to doing drugs. So yeah, I just love it that what I love about it is now I get to see man, I saw a dude yesterday who just got a six month chip, you know, in the guy, man, to see somebody whose life has changed, you get to witness.

TUCKER CARLSON: Unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. I totally agree.

THEO VON: I had a friend call me this morning, right. And we’ve been friends for years and we kind of both know that we have some of the same problems. And it was like the first time he like opened up to man and we’re both sitting there just kind of crying on the phone. It was just because when he opened up it just made me kind of. It just made me feel like I was like, I don’t know, I just understood him and it was like, I don’t know, it was just so important.

The True Meaning of Intimacy

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that’s what intimacy.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve always thought that we misread intimacy. We think it’s when someone tells the truth about other people. It’s very easy to tell the truth about other people. It’s only when someone tells the truth about himself. It’s only when you admit who you really are to someone else that you have intimacy. That’s the measure of intimacy.

If you’re willing to tell someone who you really are, you were intimate with that person and vice versa. And that’s totally the key. So if you want to know how many truly close relationships do I have, that’s how you know how many people am I willing to admit what a schmuck I actually am, too. That’s the number.

And what I love about 12 Step. I’ve never actually been to 12 Step. I’ve only heard about it, actually. I went. I was at Russell Brand’s house summer, and he had a meeting. Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s cool. Hilarious. Was it?

TUCKER CARLSON: I didn’t stay for it. I had to leave. But they were. One of the guys was smoking, which I love, and old school. And they were. Anyway, but I love the 12 step thing because you just, like. As with Christianity, which I also like, you admit right away that you are powerless. Yeah, exactly. You’re not in control.

THEO VON: Your life’s unmanageable. That’s a nice word that they use a lot because it’s like, sometimes people are like, man, I’m not powerless, but I’ll be like, you know, things are unmanageable for me. The way that they phrased everything, it was just really articulate. But anyway, man, well, congrats on that. Yeah. I think it’s interesting, and it gives me a better scope to handle my own life, you know? And it definitely gives me more opportunity to look at other people when I’m able to.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you find yourself less judgmental? And what about all the guys you used to do cocaine with?

THEO VON: Do you still talk? I did it by myself.

TUCKER CARLSON: Good. That’s a fun way to do it. Chopping out lines at home.

THEO VON: Yeah. I change outfits and come back in and be a different guy doing it. Yeah. I’m like, hey, don’t do any. This is for me, you know, is yelling at the other me.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re literally doing it alone.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, brother. I would do it alone, and I’d go hide it somewhere. I’d be like, I’m going to bed, not doing anymore. And then I would f*ing get up and go find it, you know, and I would do more.

TUCKER CARLSON: And it does affect your sleep patterns. Yeah, bro, I’ve heard that.

THEO VON: Most likely patterns is me praying, dude.

TUCKER CARLSON: That sleep.

THEO VON: Somebody would pour Gatorade down my chimney. I was just. Gatorade?

TUCKER CARLSON: Why Gatorade?

THEO VON: Just because it has electrolytes in it. I would be so dehydrated.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you’re not much of a planner. You didn’t go to Costco ahead of time? Just get a pallet of it for home?

THEO VON: No, no, bro. Did you have some pretty crazy nights or?

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I had a few.

A Different Era

TUCKER CARLSON: The good news is that, I mean, it was a different. I’m 54, so it was different in the world that I started. Where I started work in ’91, everyone went to lunch every day. I was a writer at a magazine, and everyone went to lunch for an hour and a half every day, period. I mean, it was a different economy.

This was before the corporations took over everything and implanted chips on your phone to listen to your conversation, track your whereabouts. And before we became East Germany, they didn’t really know where you were, and it was just a civilized place. And you could just have lunch, and if you drank, it was totally within bounds to have a couple drinks at lunch, and smoke at lunch, and then that could keep going.

I’m not saying it was great for productivity, but it was a better country. That’s just a fact. It was.

THEO VON: Yeah, it was some fun.

TUCKER CARLSON: And so I would just say the great blessing in my life is it definitely erased my memory of a number of years. So I don’t have a lot of guilt simply because I don’t really remember what I was like, but I don’t think very appealing. Not a great drunk.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: And when you drink, even if you’re not setting out to, say, use cocaine, you can wind up doing that.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. If somebody’s got some cocaine, you’re staying around them until they don’t have it anymore. Until you have it.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve heard that. Yeah, that’s true.

The Vest Phase

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, that’s me right there. I did one time. I was doing some cocaine at the house and people like. I was like a big vest guy for about 11 months and.

TUCKER CARLSON: Vest with nothing underneath.

THEO VON: Yeah, just.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s kind of like the Chippendales thing.

THEO VON: Some shades. Yeah, yeah. Just chilling in my apartment.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you ever dance?

THEO VON: Huh? Yeah, I wouldn’t dance. I’d make a smoothie, but which is kind of like dancing but just.

TUCKER CARLSON: But literally nothing underneath it. Just the vest.

THEO VON: Yeah, no, no, just the vest. Yeah. Because this was in California, too. The weather. It was, you know, weather permitting.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. It’s totally normal, people. I mean, I remember I grew up in California, and I’d often wear a vest, a silk vest, kind of against my nipples. I liked it. Dude.

THEO VON: Remember when silk came out and it was like. Remember silk shirts?

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah.

THEO VON: They were so bad.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m not going to.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I never wore a silk shirt in my whole life.

THEO VON: You’re a liar.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I swear. Yeah, never. I never fell for that.

THEO VON: Good for you. Actually, I fell forward.

TUCKER CARLSON: I never bought anything from Fila.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I never did. Never had anything that was velour. I mean, there are whole epochs in fashion history that I just missed. I just totally ignored it. I’ve been wearing the same freaking clothes since 1984, and I mean it.

THEO VON: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: If you just stay exactly the same, someday this will be super cool for a moment, and then we’ll move on to something else. We’ll go back to vests.

THEO VON: When I was in school. It was good, man. It was good, right? Yeah. Yeah. You seem like you were conceived at a Johnson and Murphy and something just rolled. Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t know what that is, but I will take that as a compliment.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s a compliment, man. My best friend Kevin likes that store.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s Kevin do?

THEO VON: He does. I don’t know. He’s looking for a place right now, but his wife. He got married. But that’s Johnson Murphy. They’re at the airport.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s a producer. I buy almost no clothes at the airport, but I’m not against it.

The Buzzwords

THEO VON: So let’s get into something important then. Right? Did you have. Trying to think of where to take this thing.

TUCKER CARLSON: You see? Trauma.

THEO VON: No, Trouble.

TUCKER CARLSON: Trouble, Hooks, Trouble, trauma, Trump.

THEO VON: Those are the f*ing. Okay. The buzzwords.

TUCKER CARLSON: Buzzwords. Yep. You make me nervous. I’m going to grab another Zen one in. I’m going to.

THEO VON: God, I almost want to do one, but I just don’t know how I’ll deal with it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why don’t we wait until we’re about to close? Because things may happen to you that you’re not ready for.

THEO VON: Okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: But it gets wild.

THEO VON: Huh?

TUCKER CARLSON: It gets wild in a subtle way. It kind of grows on you. It’s not like doing cocaine. It’s not like firing up the pipe and, you know what I mean? Blast off or anything like that. It’s a much more subtle, organic. You just all of a sudden, you feel good. Then you feel the power rising from your central nervous system, then sort of going outward through all the nerve endings down to the tips of your fingers.

And then up here, it just starts crackling. The synapses just make connections that you hadn’t before. I know I’m making it sound like ayahuasca. It’s a lot more subtle than that.

THEO VON: Tuck. If you did a Tucker. A lip Tucker. Yeah. I would. If that was your brand of nicotine.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’d love to do that. Because I believe in it.

THEO VON: Tuck.

TUCKER CARLSON: Tuck a tuck.

THEO VON: Yeah, tuck a tuck. And you could have a Native American attached to it.

TUCKER CARLSON: I love that. I’d definitely get picketed, but I’d do it anyway.

THEO VON: Yeah, but someone would love it. Native Americans love nicotine.

TUCKER CARLSON: They certainly do.

THEO VON: God, they love it.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I, unlike most people, I actually know some.

THEO VON: Do you?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, I do. Because I live near. I live near a population of Native Americans in Maine. In Maine. And employ too. And have for years. And they’re really wonderful people. Spend a lot of time with them. And the two that I know very well both love tobacco and they have every right to.

THEO VON: Yeah, look, I think it. Let them love it, you know, at least leave them with tobacco, you know, 100%.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, they actually. They gave us tobacco.

THEO VON: They did.

TUCKER CARLSON: 100%. Yeah, it was. I mean, there are a million different Native Americans. One of those terms, it’s like, I’m not sure what Passamaquoddies have to do with Hopis. Like, it’s pretty.

THEO VON: There was a lot of beef. There was a lot of beef between Native. Different Indian tribes. Yeah.

Tobacco Rituals

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. Some of them were very warlike, I think is the term we use. But no, they used. A lot of tribes used it in religious rituals. And they would use it rectally. Yeah. Tobacco suppositories. Yeah, there’s a ramrod. Get it up there.

THEO VON: Oh, dang. Huh? Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: For real.

THEO VON: Look it up. Boofing freaking. That’s insane.

TUCKER CARLSON: What?

THEO VON: I can’t. Did Indian. Yeah. Let’s see tobacco smoke in them. Let’s see.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, there you go.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, look at that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay, so that said it was used by. Okay. Imported from the New World.

THEO VON: Okay. And insufflation of tobacco smoke into the rectum by enema was a medical treatment employed by the European physicians. Right. But also it says tobacco smoke was used by Western medicine as a tool against cold and drowsiness. And drowsiness. If I’m drowsy and you’re blowing smoke in my ass, I got the wrong PPO.

TUCKER CARLSON: You definitely do. And by the way, it’s not even covered now. Yeah, no, no, that’s. And leeches are completely ignored by the medical establishment. But yeah, it was common.

THEO VON: The procedure was used to treat gut pain and attempts were often made.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m not making this up. You’re fact checking me in real time.

THEO VON: No, I love this. But applying it by enema was a technique appropriated from the North American indigenous peoples.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, that’s right.

THEO VON: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: See? How great is that?

THEO VON: It’s amazing if they even thought it up. I think that if you’re chilling around that long, you got somebody’s going to blow smoke in somebody’s ass.

TUCKER CARLSON: You think so, yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah, dude, you get people around.

TUCKER CARLSON: So like, how many thousands of years does it take in the evolutionary process for someone to say, okay, we’ve reached this point in civilization where somebody’s got to blow smoke up someone else’s ass? Is that before or after the wheel? Because they never figured out the wheel.

THEO VON: Four years, somebody’s blowing smoke.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really? It’s quick. It’s quick.

THEO VON: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. It’d be interesting to see how the first things happen like that.

The Pyramids and Humility

TUCKER CARLSON: How are the pyramids built? I don’t know.

THEO VON: People talk about it a lot.

TUCKER CARLSON: We don’t know.

THEO VON: We don’t know how is that.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I’m not by the way, suggesting any theory.

THEO VON: Yeah, no. Well, look, I think.

TUCKER CARLSON: But how do we not know that? And why doesn’t that make all of us humble? Like if we don’t know how they built the pyramids, three or four thousand or actually we don’t know when the pyramids were built, to be totally honest.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: If we don’t know that, then we don’t know shit.

THEO VON: Yeah, right. Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: So what should you say that.

THEO VON: Yeah. Why don’t we just say we don’t know shit? Yes. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: All wisdom begins with acknowledging what you don’t know. And anyone who tells you I know the answer is about to lead you into, say, war with Iran or something equally crazy. Take the vax, you know what I mean? Like, that’s a lie. Should never trust anybody who claims to have it all figured out because he’s lying to you.

THEO VON: Well, do you think that one of our politic, that one of the political parties thinks that they have it all figured out more than the other?

TUCKER CARLSON: I think they both do. I mean, I think politicians by their nature are unwilling, by the way, every once in a while you get somebody who shows up and starts to tell a portion of the truth and everyone loves him. And then he’s always invariably accused of someone at that point. I got to take him out.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Anonymous charges. He’d be in 1985. I can’t tell you my name, but it happened. They just did this to Russell Brand.

THEO VON: There’s always somebody. Yeah, they’ll come out with anybody.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, but, or nobody in his case. I don’t think they put a name to any of the four people who are accusing him of sexual assault.

THEO VON: Not shocked. Well, now there’s bots. They can even, I mean, those bots writing articles now. I read an article the other day about my parents. I’d never heard of either of the two people in the article.

TUCKER CARLSON: Are you sure?

THEO VON: Yeah, it was a bot article. It was a botted.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you done 23 and Me? I mean, you’re positive?

THEO VON: Okay, I’m pretty. I mean, yeah, you’re right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because you don’t know, dude.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, yeah, it’s a good point.

THEO VON: Yeah, maybe I’m angry at the wrong woman.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

THEO VON: You know, that’s a good point.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re telling your shrink about the wrong mom.

Finding Truth in Media

THEO VON: Yeah, I think one of the sad things these days is that we don’t know where to get any information anymore, you know?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I’ve got one suggestion, and that is…

THEO VON: Whenever you have to change the subject, I’m just trying to think.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s a fair question. I mean, how do you make sense of the world if you don’t believe what people are telling you about the world?

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: How can you make rational decisions if you can’t be certain that the input is accurate? I can’t really answer that. I know what I do, which is I don’t read any New York Times or the Washington Post or NBC News. They’re liars. I know they’re liars. I’ve written for all three of those. I know that they lie, so I don’t get anywhere near it.

THEO VON: When you say they lie, does that mean you write an article and you give it to your publisher, your producer, and then they say no, and they change it, or what do you…

TUCKER CARLSON: No. It means they don’t assign stories on things they want to ignore.

THEO VON: I see.

TUCKER CARLSON: And…

THEO VON: And where do they get those orders from?

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s all by instinct, you know. So their job is to protect the people who are in charge. I mean, it’s to protect the people who have power. Currently, the point of journalism is to challenge the people who have power on behalf of the rest of the country.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And they’ve inverted the formula. And so if you work for the Washington Post, the idea is just protect Jeff Bezos and his friends at all costs. And that’s what they do.

But I’ll tell you a way that I think is a good start to figuring out what’s true: watch what they become hysterical about. You’ll see somebody occasionally say something and people just land on him. “Shut up, shut up. Let’s put him in jail.” Whatever that guy is saying is true or it points in the direction of the truth.

THEO VON: Right?

TUCKER CARLSON: When someone says something that’s legit and no one’s mad at the schizophrenic on the bus, you know, who’s talking about whatever, the earth is flat or lizard people, which, by the way, may be true. I don’t even know.

THEO VON: Playing duck, duck, goose on a…

TUCKER CARLSON: Nobody cares because he’s not a threat to anyone because he’s insane. Yeah, insane people are not a threat to the existing order because they’re crazy. They’re self-discrediting.

But when they become hysterical about somebody and they’re like, “He’s a conspiracy theorist” without even refuting what he told you, then you know he’s onto something. I mean, a hurt dog barks, right? When you have an infection, someone touches near the infection, it hurts. What does that tell you? You have an infection.

Bobby Kennedy and Vaccine Questions

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Well, do you think that’s one of the reasons why Bobby Kennedy was looked at as so crazy? 100%, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And what’s so funny, as I said, I saw him very recently, the other night, and I said to him, and I saw him, I sort of follow it. I’m just interested in the reaction to Bobby Kennedy. And remember they attacked him as a crazed conspiracy nut because of the vaccines. And he said there may be a connection between the vaccines and autism. Like, “Shut up.”

And they literally canceled his contract with the New York Times. He had a contract to write for them. They canceled it. And they just basically drummed him out of polite society. They don’t talk too much about that anymore. But the vaccine stuff, because I think there is this recognition, and by the way, I’m not an expert, but that actually a lot of people were hurt. A lot of people were hurt.

Not just with the most recent round of mandatory vax, but in earlier rounds. Now, you could argue it was worth it. We have a flu vaccine. It academically supposedly prevents the flu, so maybe we get it and some people get hurt. But they were telling us for years nobody gets hurt. Well, that’s just a lie.

THEO VON: Yeah. People get hurt all the time.

TUCKER CARLSON: They get hurt all the time.

THEO VON: Yeah. I mean, a lot of vaccines, it’s like, even the polio vaccine, I recite this a lot. But they tested the polio vaccine in our hometown where I’m from. They had a primate testing facility there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Are you serious?

THEO VON: Yeah. And that’s where they tested the polio vaccine.

TUCKER CARLSON: You grew up in a town with a primate testing facility?

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: What town?

THEO VON: Tulane National Primate Research Center.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s got to be the most depressing place in the world. Is it in New Orleans?

THEO VON: It’s outside of New Orleans. No, no, this is outside of New Orleans.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. They don’t allow that in Audubon Park.

THEO VON: But in our town, this is where they made it at. But that vaccine gave cervical cancer to tons of women. And they knew it when they put it out, but they’d already ordered it. They’re like, “Well, f*ck it, we already paid for it.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Right, so. Exactly.

THEO VON: But, so I think that…

The Cost of Lying at Scale

TUCKER CARLSON: So it’s bad to lie, and it’s especially bad to lie at scale. Like, if I lie to you about something and, you know. Yeah, but if I’m lying to 350 million people, that’s a crime. And they’ve done it.

And the problem is, at this point, it’s like, I mean, I would go to a surgeon, you know, because that’s a pretty straightforward operation. I’ve got a knife. I’m going to take this thing out or sew this up or whatever. But I don’t think I would go to a doctor for, “Well, we’re going to try this drug.” It’s like, maybe I would. I mean, I don’t know. Yeah, I haven’t had to make that choice, thankfully, but I would be hesitant because I don’t trust them. Because they lied. They got caught lying and they never admitted it.

THEO VON: That’s part of it. There’s never any resolution. There’s never any affirmation to your questioning. And even if you were right, there’s never any about-face acknowledgment.

TUCKER CARLSON: It can’t get better. If you get in a fight with your girl, okay, and one of you behaves horribly, one of you is on, say, cocaine and says something outrageous, and you want to continue the relationship, there has to come a point where you’re like, “You know, I really was an asshole and I’m sorry and I love you and I’m sorry I did that.”

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And only when you do that can it get better. It cannot be healed before you do that. It doesn’t work. And that’s true with public trust as well.

THEO VON: And that’s where we’ve gotten. It’s gotten to the point…

TUCKER CARLSON: But I don’t understand why they can’t admit it. Like, I’ve been wrong about a ton of things. I feel so much better when I admit it and stop pretending that I’m omniscient. I don’t know everything, and that’s okay.

Why can’t they do that? Why can’t Fauci just be like, “Wow, you know, I told you this in good faith. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.” He would do more for people’s trust in science if he did that. He’s totally incapable of that because he’s a freaking sociopath, dangerous human being. He’s a shitty pitcher, too.

THEO VON: You see that?

TUCKER CARLSON: Quite a shitty pitcher. And I say that as a shitty pitcher, but even I… He’s got little dwarf arms, but still. Sorry.

THEO VON: No, it’s okay, man. Look at this. Let’s show this shit. God. Get that. Dude is out of control.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s got a mask on outside.

THEO VON: Huh? Dude, that guy’s got…

TUCKER CARLSON: But it’s so prima facie retarded. It’s like there’s a dwarf on the field with a mask on outside throwing it at the bat boy. Like, this is not a real country if that guy’s running it. This is a joke.

THEO VON: First of all, the bat boy’s 11.

TUCKER CARLSON: So he’s flirting with a child.

THEO VON: So let’s call that he’s flirting with a child. Let’s call it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, you freak.

THEO VON: Now half of America needs a Tommy John surgery in their heart because of this dude. Myocarditis right there. And there I am with a f*cking slider boy.

Baseball and Getting Older

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, you don’t even dick around, do you?

THEO VON: Is that you? I’ve done some things, but no, not on this.

TUCKER CARLSON: Where is that?

THEO VON: No, it’s St. Louis. But actually, I got to throw one out for the Diamondbacks. That’s why I’m wearing this jersey.

TUCKER CARLSON: How nervous were you?

THEO VON: I was pretty nervous, I guess it suddenly makes you feel like how old you are. You’re like, f*, I’m getting old.

TUCKER CARLSON: How old were you?

THEO VON: I’m 40. Oh, I was 41. And I’m 43. But I was like, oh, shit, 43 is pretty old. Yeah, it feels old sometimes, actually. Does it feel old? No, it just feels old when you’re running upstairs.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I know.

THEO VON: I’m talking about.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m 54.

THEO VON: I can’t believe that.

TUCKER CARLSON: I always run upstairs. I always run upstairs just because. You’re like, I’ll show them 100%.

THEO VON: Yeah, I’ve always been.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I’m with my wife, who’s very fit, like next level fit. Crazy. And she doesn’t even. She’ll just be prattling on, running upstairs. Doesn’t even.

THEO VON: Oh, she does, huh? She’s whimsical.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t know if she’s whimsical. She’s just got crazy cardio.

THEO VON: Oh, God.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because she never stopped doing it. When you’re a kid, they make you do physical fitness. And I took about 40 years off for cigarettes and stuff, and she didn’t. So, yeah, it pays off, it turns out.

Smoking Stories

THEO VON: When was your first cigarette? Do you remember it?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I remember it really well. Yeah, it was delicious. And my father smoked and was very. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes called Pell Mells. We called them Pall Malls.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, Pall Malls.

TUCKER CARLSON: But they were extra long flavored with licorice, I think. Made by the American Tobacco Company. Great cigarette in a red pack. And we had many. So that’s. I don’t even know if there’s a picture of the. He smoked right there. Right there. One down. That right there. That’s the cigarette of my childhood. He picked him up in the Marine Corps when he was 17. I guess they came in his K ration.

And that was the cigarette of my childhood. There was always one smoldering in an ashtray in our kitchen and everywhere else anyway. But I was. I was when I was little, I was against it. And my father really loved cigarettes and he wasn’t embarrassed of it. It wasn’t like, I smoke, but I feel bad about it. He was like, no, And I smoke unfiltered. It’s because you feel stripped. And when you’re done, there’s no filter. You smoke them backwards. So the enemy doesn’t know it’s an American cigarette. You burn the logo off the paper.

Yeah, he really liked cigarettes and he felt sorry for people who didn’t smoke. So I was maybe 13. I was in eighth grade when I started. And it was totally.

THEO VON: Where were you? Were you out with the boys or you was at the house and you smoked?

TUCKER CARLSON: I was at school. I was at school.

THEO VON: Smoked one at school.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah. It was loud. Actually. It was a pretty freaky. With a teacher. I know. It sounds like it was in the 1830s.

THEO VON: Sounds romantic.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think it was romantic. It was great.

THEO VON: Just to sneak. It sounds like espionage.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, no. It was totally open. You could smoke at school. I could smoke at school through senior year of high school. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh yeah.

THEO VON: You could smoke as a child at school.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah. I had parental permission.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really? I shouldn’t be saying this. It’s a. You know what’s so funny? People would be like, yeah, I did Ayahuasca or DMT. And everyone’s like, it’s so cool. It’s like, yeah, I smoked a cigarette.

THEO VON: What?

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re a criminal. But I mean, I wouldn’t say smoking is a great long term play.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t think that it is. Where I quit when I was 45 because I felt like I probably should. Yeah, it’ll probably get me anyway. But I did enjoy it. I really did. I never had a bad one. Yeah, there are no bad cigarettes. You’re not like, oh, this is disgusting. I never felt that way at all.

THEO VON: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve had bad Fig Newtons. You can screw up almost any consumer product, but a cigarette is remarkably consistent and it gives you what it promises you. The payoff is always there.

THEO VON: That’s a good point. Yeah, the payoff is always there. Especially that first f*ing drink. Greg.

TUCKER CARLSON: In the morning. In the morning.

THEO VON: You know what I loved was they had a man in our area and it was actually my grandmother was married to a man and he would light his cigarette and he would let us inhale the smoke up our nose when we were really young.

TUCKER CARLSON: Louisiana’s the best, isn’t it?

THEO VON: God, it was f*ing good.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think it’s at the highest smoking rate of any state.

Louisiana Culture

THEO VON: You know what Louisiana does have? It has the most people that are born there, that die there, that never leave there.

TUCKER CARLSON: I believe that, that it’s a cool place. It’s not like every other place, actually.

THEO VON: No, dude, it is. Yeah. I always say New Orleans, it’s a good place to get oysters and murdered.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, you get murdered and oysters. That’s totally right. The thing about Louisiana, it never gets credit for. Everyone talks about diversity in the melting pot. Louisiana actually was that long before most places. Yeah, it was. You had a bunch of different cultures there and they kind of got along, sort of.

THEO VON: Anyway, you still got a good mix down there. Yeah, we had a area bus called Chafuncta, that was the river and it was named after the Chafunta Indians.

TUCKER CARLSON: Chafuncta.

THEO VON: Yep.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is that like the Fagawi tribe?

THEO VON: I’m not sure.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s not a real. That cannot be a real name.

THEO VON: It’s a real name. T C H E F. Yep.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, it does sound like a real.

THEO VON: Right there in Louisiana.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, it sounds like a play on words.

THEO VON: Yeah, it does. Well, here’s how they got the name. A long time ago, a Native American threw a big rock into the river and that’s the sound when it made. When it went in chip boot.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, that’s so cool. Is that true?

THEO VON: Yeah, true story. It’s pretty fascinating. But that right there is a perfect example, Louisiana, to me is that it’s a place for great storytelling. It’s a great place for kind of family.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

THEO VON: So that’s one story I like to tell about that.

TUCKER CARLSON: People have dinners with their families there.

THEO VON: People have 90 minute lunch breaks. People wake up, get to breakfast, and then do two or three things before they go to lunch.

TUCKER CARLSON: I love that.

THEO VON: Yeah, it was part. It was just. That’s how life was. It was.

TUCKER CARLSON: It wasn’t all about efficiency.

THEO VON: No, it wasn’t.

Corporate Culture and Leadership

TUCKER CARLSON: So if your life is all about efficiency and every moment is being monitored and counts towards something, then you’re not really human. You’re a machine at that point, aren’t you? I mean, you’re. Or a cog in a larger machine.

THEO VON: And that’s what I think a lot of people feel like these days.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, and for good reason. There’s some chick on the Internet, 22 year old, experiencing life in the corporate world for the first time. And she does this video like, this is terrible. I don’t make any money and they treat me like shit and treat me like I’m not worth anything. I’m not human. And everyone’s like, shut up and work, honey.

And I watch this and I’m like, no, no, I hope you win. I hope you win. I hope you. The seeds of revolution are sprouting in my heart. I just so hate that culture.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Treats people like they’re not people. Like, for what?

THEO VON: Yeah, well, I mean, I think for some people, in my own sense, learning to be a boss and leader has been tough. Just because I never. I just started out wanting to be a comedian. I wanted to sleep in, of course, and masturbate and go a lot.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right.

THEO VON: Be chatty. No, I didn’t get crazy with it. Okay. I didn’t.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I was kind of not compulsive or anything?

THEO VON: No, no, I was an organized. Yeah, just.

TUCKER CARLSON: Good. Okay, that’s fair.

THEO VON: Yeah. One off kind of guy. Yeah. Kind of like when they play the trumpet in the morning.

TUCKER CARLSON: You never got greedy, though. You never went back.

THEO VON: I got greedy, yeah. I was like, that’s it. Yeah. But so I think learning to do that personally has been a little. It’s been a journey for me. But yeah, I think with companies, it’s like, how do we get away from that? And is it just. Sometimes I think America was just this Christian experiment that got compromised and has turned out poorly. You think?

America as a Christian Nation

TUCKER CARLSON: I think you’re onto something.

THEO VON: And I hate to say that because a part of me doesn’t really want to admit it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it’s obviously true. It’s obviously true. I mean, you can’t have a democracy unless it’s a voluntary system. People have to show a lot of restraint. They have to be all in. There has to be some sense of the common good. You can’t just be like, how much can I grab?

It’s like Halloween. It doesn’t work if all the kids just empty the basket on the front steps in the first wave of trick or treaters. No, it’s true, though.

THEO VON: No, you’re right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And a democracy is very much the same way, because you can take power and then just steal everybody’s money legally. And so you really have to have some boundaries that you impose on yourself, and that has to come from within. You have to have the sense that someone more powerful, I hate to use the word, but God is watching. And if you don’t have that, then it just descends into greed and selfishness, which is where we are now.

THEO VON: Have we let. Because do you think America is still a Christian nation?

TUCKER CARLSON: No. No.

THEO VON: What is it?

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s an LLC, as you said so brilliantly, actually.

THEO VON: Again, we’ve entered privatized communism. It feels like to me that’s exactly right.

The Rigged System and Media Distraction

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, I don’t. No one’s for the free market. Everyone’s for using power to hobble their competitors. The only reason we have regulations is to create monopolies. The system is completely rigged, and you know that.

You’re asking, how do you get reliable information about the news? The news media want to talk about race. That’s like their main thing that they want to talk about. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian. But that’s actually not an interesting conversation because you can’t change your race. And people are different races and they’re sort of different, but they’re also very much the same. It’s not that interesting a topic. To me personally, I’m not interested in talking about race.

What’s really interesting is that the United States of America is being looted by a small number of people who are getting away with it. And they don’t want to talk about that. They never want to talk about economics. They never want to talk about the tax code. They never want to talk about any of that stuff ever.

And that’s how you know that CNBC and CNN and the New York Times, all these people are just the praetorian guards standing in front of the people with the most power and money and keeping the masses from asking uncomfortable questions.

So whenever anyone asks about, well, wait a second, you know, why do we tax people at half the rate for investing that we do for working? Literally, they pay half the tax rate. So you have a job and you work every day and you pay one rate. But if you just stay home and invest money and live off the interest, you pay half as much. So are we saying it’s twice as virtuous to invest as it is to work? Is that what we’re saying?

THEO VON: So if you’re a day trader, just trading stocks or something you don’t have.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or if you’re a private equity guy and you can claim that your income is actually investment interest on your investments, you pay half the taxes. So we have a tax code that discourages work and encourages parasitic behavior. Now, there are arguments on both sides, and I’m not an economist, but you don’t even hear those arguments because it’s like, shut up. Racism, trannies or whatever, it’s all a distraction from what the real story is, which is they’re looting the country.

THEO VON: Looting.

TUCKER CARLSON: And at this point, you know, we can’t repay the debt that we owe. So it’s going to be like, well, unfortunately, we had to sell Yellowstone and. No, I mean, it’s going to get to the point where we’re all.

THEO VON: To Asians.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, for real. Where we’re. I mean, what.

THEO VON: And then they’re going to say the sale was racist, too. That’s going to be the craziest part.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re asking questions about. It is racist. Okay, yeah, you’re always the race. Just to be clear, you’re always the racist Louisiana man. He wasn’t David Duke from Louisiana. Shut up, Klansman.

David Duke and Louisiana Stories

THEO VON: Yeah, I used to lift weights with David Duke.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, God. In prison.

THEO VON: No, I can see you guys in.

TUCKER CARLSON: The yard area, all the Aryan Nation guys. He’s on your back as you’re doing push ups, bro.

THEO VON: I was never in any Aryan Nation.

TUCKER CARLSON: Dude, you know, not even in prison. No.

THEO VON: I never even went to any of their meetings or anything. I saw pamphlets or whatever, but I never pulled up over there. But yeah, we shared a back fence and he used to date this hot girl that worked at a seafood restaurant that I worked at. And so he’d pop in there and I’d watch him eat shrimp or whatever.

TUCKER CARLSON: But what was the seafood restaurant?

THEO VON: It was called Morton’s Seafood in Madisonville. Right on the river. Really worked over there, baby. And I was a bus boy and they used to have raccoons coming out the wall when they’d cook duck. The boarding was bad on the wall and rotted out. And they’d let one of us bus boys get there with a broomstick. We’d have to stand there and beat the raccoons back in.

TUCKER CARLSON: They’re ferocious animals.

THEO VON: Well, they loved duck.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course they do. And pizza.

THEO VON: Oh, really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: They call them trash pandas where I live and you see them outside in the trash cans.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And they love pizza. I like pizza. Oh, yeah, unfortunately. And oh yeah, you have pizza and you, you know. Yeah, they go crazy.

THEO VON: I’d love to see. Now that would be a good Dave Portnoy thing where he gives up. He does one bite to a raccoon with a bite, you know.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you ever seen a raccoon eat? You never gave him any duck, did you?

THEO VON: Oh, I pulled up on them and they’re always like this, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: With their hands.

THEO VON: We didn’t do. The gayest one is the one in the recycling bin. He’s always, you know, at least the other ones are in the trash. There’s always that one that kind of wanders up in the recycle bin and he’s wearing a negligee. Your mom or something, what the f* is that one been doing? You know? But yeah, they always plead innocent or whatever.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, they do. They’re so clever. I love them.

THEO VON: Oh, they’re crafty. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve never shot one. I’ve seen them so many times in the woods. There they are. Yeah, they love dog food. Yeah, that’s kind of a mangy one. I’ve seen. We have big ones where I live.

THEO VON: Yeah, I grew up running a lot of rabies. So when one would come down the street, we’d all have to go inside.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do a lot of people have rabies where you grew up?

THEO VON: Yeah, I would say it was. Well, there was a big scare of it. When was rabies popular? Can you look that up, please?

TUCKER CARLSON: When was rabies popular?

THEO VON: Oh, when I was a kid, it was a big thing. Get off the street. You know, there’s a sick raccoon or.

TUCKER CARLSON: But when they got cars and electricity and stuff, they fixed all that.

THEO VON: I mean, they just. It wasn’t as big of a thing, but. But, yeah, David Duke, man. We go to the gym sometimes, and I’ll say this nice guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. I never met him nice guy.

THEO VON: You know, he never. You know, we just did chest and tries or whatever. There was never any racial things or whatever, you know, but he was a very fit man.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve never met him. But I will say this, and I’m not saying he’s a fed, though. He’s obviously a fed. But every time I would get a new show. I don’t know anything about David Duke. I’m from La Jolla, California. He wasn’t quite as popular there.

THEO VON: Yeah. Can we find another picture without.

TUCKER CARLSON: But every time I get a new show, there would be some news story. David Duke endorses Tucker Carlson. Why? I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. I’m from La Jolla.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay. We don’t share a common culture.

THEO VON: Yeah. I’m from Mitt Romney Country.

TUCKER CARLSON: 100 percent. Literally. Mitt Romney goes to La Jolla Comedy Store.

La Jolla Memories

THEO VON: I use Comedy Store. La Jolla is one of my favorite. My favorite comedy club in the whole country.

TUCKER CARLSON: Been there a long time.

THEO VON: It’s the best.

TUCKER CARLSON: I was a child, really, up in the Village. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, there was a Jack in the Box next door that I used to ride my bike to.

THEO VON: I remember that Jack. It wasn’t. It was maybe disappeared a few years ago, if it did.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or it closed down for a while because he got caught selling kangaroo meat. Oh. Yeah. And I don’t know if that story was actually true, but that’s what everyone in the town thought.

THEO VON: I mean, look, if you can get a couple grams of roo in La Jolla.

TUCKER CARLSON: Rooburgers. That’s what we called them. That’s so funny. We took a close look. Meat. It was gray and kind of gristly, and it was not beef. I mean, I. And I think the company was owned by Ralston Purina at one point.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. And they’re out of. I believe they’re out of. Oh, are they?

TUCKER CARLSON: I think.

THEO VON: Yeah. Another out of the Midwest. But, yeah, I loved it over there. You’d always hear, I love La Jolla. It’s a beautiful area.

TUCKER CARLSON: But they weren’t big on racism there when I was a kid.

THEO VON: Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know if they hit. Well, it’s mostly white there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that’s why they’re not big on racism.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: People are expecting. We can’t do it.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it was rich white people.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Rich white people. Oh, yeah.

THEO VON: No, it seemed like rich people.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, for sure.

THEO VON: It’s. Yeah. You feel rich even when you’re driving by or you feel like people want you to leave. I feel like it was. It’s beautiful there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, it’s really pretty.

THEO VON: It’s very beautiful. Sad, though.

TUCKER CARLSON: Soulless.

THEO VON: Is it?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes. Yeah. No soul at all. No one had a last name. I mean, it was. Obviously, it’s one of the prettiest places in the world. But, yeah, it was, you know. “Hi, I’m Bob. I’m a Sagittarius.” Nobody had a real connection to anyone else. Everyone’s just kind of passing through.

And the first time I went to New Orleans, which is obviously a disgusting place, but I loved it because it was so. It was just so thick. It was just so much there and all these weird rituals and customs. There’s had a culture, and I just didn’t grow up around that at all.

And even though I didn’t understand what they were doing in New Orleans, and obviously I was very threatened by it because half the town is a violent criminal. Right. But I still liked it because I thought, this is interesting in a way that nothing I grew up with was interesting at all.

THEO VON: I could totally see that. Yeah. I think I grew up in a place that was just so. You know, there was so much lore and stuff in our area that. And I think that’s just a lot of the way that Louisiana was.

TUCKER CARLSON: Amos Moses is from Louisiana. I don’t know, but I love that song. But you just picture, you know, wrestling alligators in the swamp. And where I grew up, people literally talked about the weather every single day, every day. And the weather never changed. It wasn’t like we lived in Minnesota or something.

THEO VON: It’s very Truman show there in the whole.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s unbelievable. Be like, “Well, it’s going to be 72 and partly cloudy, moving to mostly sunny in the afternoon. It’s going to be 68 overnight tomorrow.” And it would just be on an endless repeat. It was a skipping record.

Self-Perception and Class

THEO VON: Did you hate that about yourself? That, was there any self-loathing? Because, I hated myself because I was so poor. Right? But does that happen on the other end of the spectrum or. And I hated my neighborhood, I just felt embarrassed, right? Does that happen on the other end of the spectrum where people.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, not enough. There should be a lot more self hatred in rich neighborhoods, I think.

THEO VON: And I hate to say self hatred. Sorry, I was ashamed of myself. That’s a better way to say there.

The Ruling Class and Shame

TUCKER CARLSON: Should be more shame. It should be more shame. Like, if you’ve amassed $100 million from sucking the last remaining lifeblood out of some manufacturing company in the Midwest, calling it private equity, you should hate yourself a little bit. You know what I mean? And there’s none of that. And I think that’s part of the problem.

There’s not enough guilt among the ruling class. There’s no sense of obligation to people beneath them. And that’s one of the reasons they hate them so much. And that’s one of the reasons that the fentanyl crisis has not even been acknowledged by Washington, is because they kind of know they’re responsible for it. And you wind up hating the people you’ve wronged. I have noticed, like, what do you—

THEO VON: Mean that you might wind up hating?

TUCKER CARLSON: If you commit a sin against somebody, if you’re cruel to somebody, unfair to somebody, you cheat somebody, you wind up hating that person as a way of justifying what you did. And the only way to stop that is by admitting what you did, saying it out loud to the person’s face and asking for his forgiveness. Which again, is why the 12 step model works, right?

But if you don’t do that, you wind up blaming the person for the crime that you committed against him. And that’s one of the reasons that people who don’t get sober are so angry at the world, they’re pissed at their parents. You meet these people, their parents send them to rehab six times, and they’re pissed at their parents. Why are you mad at your parents? They did everything they could.

And the reason that junkie’s mad at his parents is because he knows that he’s actually the guilty party. And he’s committed massive crimes against them, but he can’t admit it, so he blames them. And that is true at a macro level as well.

And if your ruling class of all the richest people have gotten rich by screwing over the people beneath them, running these fascist companies that spy on their employees’ phone calls and track them as they come in and out of the building and require them to work on Sundays with no overtime. And just really inhumane sweatshop type practices, creepy Stasi stuff. Those people end up having great contempt for their own employees. Do you know what I mean?

Keeping People Down

THEO VON: Yeah. Well, I think it’s one of the spaces we’re getting to right now in the country is people. If you’re an owner of something, if you are a—well, you know what’s interesting is when you say that I recently met a guy who was a Democrat, right? He’s a devout Democrat, right?

And he said to me, this was interesting. I never heard this. He said, you know, I vote for Democrats because I want there to be programs in place to keep the people that are struggling. I want to keep them. I want to satiate them just enough so they don’t rebel, they don’t have power, right? And I’d never heard that.

TUCKER CARLSON: I always—

THEO VON: Out loud. Yeah, he said that to me. And I was like, that’s so—I never heard.

TUCKER CARLSON: Here’s your weed, here’s your porn. Just don’t make a mess.

THEO VON: Just don’t make a mess so that the rest of us who don’t, who aren’t as unfortunate as you can still operate like we operate.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay?

THEO VON: So it blew my mind. I just never heard that perspective.

TUCKER CARLSON: Was this on camera, that the person—

THEO VON: No, this was just in a human conversation as two humans eating.

TUCKER CARLSON: An inhuman conversation. Really inhuman. What?

THEO VON: Yeah, I had a salad. I don’t know what he had. We were having lunch. He—

TUCKER CARLSON: The blood of children, probably, I would say sounds that way.

THEO VON: He had a O negative.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Junior.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, that is so dark, but it’s so true. And by the way, bless him for his honesty, because that is exactly what’s going on. And that’s not how you treat your own kids or people you love, right? You’d never say, I’m going to keep you on just enough assistance that you cannot starve to death, but that you’ll be so harried by the shittiness of your existence that you’ll never challenge my power. That is a crime I’ve never committed against that. Well, that’s—

THEO VON: That’s an—as an American value. That was like, oh, that’s never a way that I ever would thought or think.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, because you encourage self sufficiency. Because that’s where self respect comes from, right? I’ve got my shit in a pile and I’m proud of myself. That’s the goal for an adult man. And if you’re preventing people from getting to that, then you are committing a crime, and you should be held accountable for it, in my opinion.

THEO VON: But there’s nobody to hold anybody accountable anymore, it feels like.

TUCKER CARLSON: No. Well, I’m very aware of that.

THEO VON: Sorry.

TUCKER CARLSON: Everyone’s in on it. Well, it’s just so interesting.

THEO VON: How do we get out of it, then?

The Power of Truth

TUCKER CARLSON: By saying the truth out loud. I think that’s the only recourse. I think that’s more powerful than guns. I mean, I do. Saying truth, I mean, that’s what they get hysterical about. It’ll be a mass shooting, and they’ll be three days. We need to take all our guns away. They’re not going to take your guns.

THEO VON: Yeah, okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because they can’t. But that’s not their priority. But when somebody says something that’s true, I mean, they will disappear a person for that. You’ll never hear from them again. And there’s a reason. Yeah, the reason is nothing is a greater threat to the people running things than true words. And that’s why they’re—

THEO VON: Kanye, you mean?

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m not talking about—well, Kanye was disappeared.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, and my view of Kanye would be, you know, if you show up on Alex Jones in a hockey mask saying you love Hitler, you’re probably not really a threat to anybody, actually. I mean, a lot of people are going to watch Kanye being like, I love Hitler. Be like, wow, I love Hitler, too.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, no.

THEO VON: Oh, you might be able to walk on with the devil rays, maybe.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, I’m just saying, that wasn’t—if you actually wanted to promote Hitler, and I hope no one would ever want to promote Hitler, but if you did, that would not be the way to do it.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. So actually, how is Kanye a threat to anybody? I don’t think he was.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And by the way, he’s a recording artist. He’s a musician. So, and a clothing designer. He’s not in charge of federal policy. So I did think—yeah, I thought that was distressing, just because I don’t think anybody should be silenced.

If you’re not committing violence against somebody, you have the right as a human being, because you are not a slave. You are a human being. You have the right to say what you think. That is the foundational right. And if you don’t have the right to say what you think, then you’re not a human being. You’re a slave. That’s the acid test. Am I a slave or not? I don’t know. One simple question. Can you say what you really think? And if you can’t, then you’re a slave? Super simple.

AI and the Future of Writing

THEO VON: Well, now it feels like they own it—used to feel like you could write what you think, but they—now it feels like the paper is owned, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: So they can—even with AI coming out, it’s like they could even adjust what you write so you don’t even have a value to write anything anymore. It’s like, hey, just put in kind of how you feel. We’ll write what you’re saying. It’s getting to that point, you know, I’m saying it almost starts. I know it could be two years from that where it’s like, I’ve been—

TUCKER CARLSON: A writer all my life, and to see now machines doing that and actually doing a fairly serviceable job. I mean, writing poetry and screenplays and—

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Giving me a fake father, but upgrade or no.

THEO VON: A little younger than my dad, but I don’t know. That guy seemed a little bit devious. My father seemed a little happier than him. Fair. I’m going to, you know, real fast.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re going to urinate.

THEO VON: Yeah. All right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like a racehorse, my brother.

Dogs and Greyhounds

THEO VON: You ever owned a horse?

TUCKER CARLSON: Never owned a horse. I’m a dog guy.

THEO VON: Really? You ever bet on dogs? You ever put one in at the track?

TUCKER CARLSON: Honestly? Yes, I have. Yeah. In Florida. And in fact, in Florida in the 80s now, that dog track has now been closed. And I love dogs, and I’ve always loved dogs.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And it’s the one in Miami that’s near the airport, and it was the most depressed, depressing, inhumane—you just wanted to send money to PETA, spending 20 minutes there. But I did go there. Yes. I had been drinking and probably other things, and I did bet on the greyhounds. And I feel bad about it. Yeah, I do.

THEO VON: You ever ridden on Greyhound?

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve always—I’ve always been a sizable man. And they buck me off every time I try.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Wheel around and bite me.

THEO VON: Yeah, they’re—

TUCKER CARLSON: They don’t. It’s hard to saddle a Greyhound.

THEO VON: No, I mean the bus service.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, sorry, sorry. I thought you meant the dogs. Oh, I spent a lot of time, actually. True story. Yeah. I had a girlfriend in high school, but we went to different colleges, and she went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. And I lived in New England, which is a small, colder region.

THEO VON: Will shepherd over there. Go on.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I took the bus. I took a Greyhound bus from Washington, D.C. where my parents lived, to Nashville, which is like 12 hours. And then I took one back. And so this bus was going on to New York City and for some reason was 100% Puerto Rican. And me. And I was at the back of the bus and it left like midnight.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I was drinking and smoking on the bus. How long ago it was? This was 1987. I’ll never forget it. And I fall asleep because I’m so loaded. I’m taking a leak in the empty cans, you know, doing what you do.

And all of a sudden I feel this wild, wet, grainy thing on my face. And these people right there in the seat right across the aisle were just full coitus, just playing couch ball. Just full blown sound effects, everything. And the guy was wearing socks. And one of the socks hit my face and it was just moist and had a lot of gravel from the ground on it. And I remember thinking, this is the—I can’t wait to get off this bus. It was dark. It was nothing erotic about it at all. Oh, yeah, right.

THEO VON: I mean, I don’t know. It depends on what you’re, you know, how you are at the time.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think, well, I was drunk and in a dead sleep. And they’re rolling around and she’s making these animal noises—they were not at all inhibited, which was kind of impressive in a way. I felt it was very much an intrusion into my space.

THEO VON: Wow. Yeah, that’s fair. Like, hey, is there any zoning over here?

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re right.

THEO VON: What? Yeah. Who died? Do we have a tactic hound?

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s a true story. That’s a true story.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, that’s good. Oh, Greyhound’s unbelievable. I remember one time, a guy’s on there, right, sitting by me, he goes, hey. And, yeah, there was a brother on there. And he goes, hey, you want to see something? And I thought it was going to be his wiener, right? Because I’ve been on the bus before and—

TUCKER CARLSON: But you said yes.

THEO VON: Well, it was a two hour ride. I was like, I’ll see it now. You know, I’m not going to pretend.

TUCKER CARLSON: You thought he cut a hole in the bottom.

THEO VON: Yeah, I thought so.

TUCKER CARLSON: I get it, I get it.

THEO VON: Some wiener trick.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wiener trick.

THEO VON: And I was like, yeah, I’ll see. And he had a bag of jewelry and a gun, and he just robbed a jewelry store.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow.

THEO VON: He had a bag of gun. No, I didn’t buy any, but he wanted me to sit there and look at it. And I put on a couple of necklaces or whatever.

TUCKER CARLSON: And did you act impressed?

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, because I was scared. And they always give the guy, once you get out of jail, they give you a ticket on the Greyhound.

TUCKER CARLSON: But imagine you rob a jewelry store and your getaway vehicle is a Greyhound bus. You are retarded.

THEO VON: You’re like, we got to get out of here in seven hours.

TUCKER CARLSON: I bought the ticket. Yeah, it’s pretty cool, dude.

THEO VON: It was. Yeah. I mean, I loved riding Greyhound. I used to work on a farm up in Mississippi. And so I would take a Greyhound bus up there and I would ride it up there. And it was always people on there. There was the bathroom like ghosts on there. It was always closed. They said, I was on one where, yeah, part of it was on fire. I was on one where a guy stopped to meet his ex or something for like 20 minutes and we all had a chill at a—

TUCKER CARLSON: No way.

THEO VON: 100%. Dude. Go to Greyhound bus Twitter feed Greyhound bus help and look at their replies on there, bro. Welcome to America, bro.

TUCKER CARLSON: Love that. So it’s just like every Waffle House they stop at.

THEO VON: Oh, it’s just like the bus supposed to leave at 4:30. It’s 9:70. Somebody like it’s 9:70 or you have a bad watch. But like it’s 9:70. Two people are pregnant. It’s just the list goes on, man.

TUCKER CARLSON: Chances. I’d like the people on those buses. Buses 100%.

THEO VON: Yeah. I got everything on here. Unbelievable.

TUCKER CARLSON: This is, but seriously, all drivers allow my bag to be stolen this trip. Where’s customer service?

THEO VON: Yeah, go back one. They got a video. Let me see that video on there. This is what I do at night. I go to Greyhound bus health Twitter feed. And they’ll show stuff. Yeah. Little eight balls between the seats or different things. There’s somebody found a gram down there between the seats.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you ever do that?

THEO VON: I never found any drugs on there. Oh, that might be somebody touching themselves. Don’t let that video finish, please. But I spent a lot of time on this, man. It’s insane.

TUCKER CARLSON: Greyhound bus hell. It’s called Greyhound bus help.

THEO VON: But yeah, they could change. Would still work. I’m going to urinate real fast.

TUCKER CARLSON: All right.

Bathroom Stories and School Days

THEO VON: So sorry. I had to urinate and that’s why I heard it. Yeah, well. And it’s okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: Strong stream.

THEO VON: I’m a new part was being little and just not being able to pee in there. And I grew up around, we had a lot of dudes and they would hold a lot of brothers back three or four years. He’d have a big brother in there and he’d pee with his dude, Mr. Larry, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Mr. Larry.

THEO VON: Yeah. He was like, they held him back like seven times, right? So at that point, you got to respect him. And he would urinate over your back, and it just, just right into the urinal, dude. You’d be standing there peeing, right? You’re like a scared kid. Remember how scary it was the first time you had to go into the urinals as a kid?

TUCKER CARLSON: No. Oh, well, I grew up in a less threatening environment.

THEO VON: Oh, you did?

TUCKER CARLSON: Because there’s no one doing piss rainbows over my shoulder. No, that wasn’t hilarious.

THEO VON: He was the fing Gary Payton. The piss on me. He would fing shoot from deep. And so you’d literally be peeing. Imagine this. And you can’t pee. You’re scared. And then a f*ing pee comes just from above and goes perfectly in.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s so impressive.

THEO VON: You just feel demoralized, though.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, but I mean, the pounds per square inch, just the velocity. You think you’d almost need CO2 to get that much power.

THEO VON: Yeah, it was impressive, man. It’s crazy what some men can do, or young men or adult, adolescents.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, there’s not a lot of dribbling at that age. Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, there wasn’t any dribbling, dude.

TUCKER CARLSON: No dribbling. It’s like—

THEO VON: It was just—

TUCKER CARLSON: And then at the end, it’s like, bam, off. It’s like the Bellagio fountains. Like, when it’s done is done. I do respect that. What.

Global News and American Perception

THEO VON: So what’s your, how? What is news like around the world? That’s something I don’t understand.

TUCKER CARLSON: Different. It’s crazy. You don’t realize. You don’t realize that we live in this bizarre biosphere where you have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world. You have no idea how you’re perceived, the United States is perceived, and you have no idea, really, your place in the global order.

Because we’re cut off from the rest of the world, and we have these two extremely lame, irrelevant countries bordering us, but that’s it. Mexico and Canada, no offense, I like them both, but nobody cares. But there are big, important countries around the world, and they’re very focused on the United States, and they have all these views about what we’re doing, and those views are never expressed here.

So if you’re a leader in the United States, you can be like, well, we’re doing this for democracy. This is the arsenal of democracy. And then you go to the countries that are directly affected by those policies, and they’re like, you’re freaking insane. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

I mean, the mind blower for me, this summer, we traveled all over the world, a bunch of different continents, and we’re still doing it because I got fired. So I’d been stuck in a studio for all those years.

THEO VON: Now you got to get out and about.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, kind of. I mean, I go on vacation for two weeks a year, but that was it. When you do, well, you do a show regularly, it’s, you’re tied to where you are, period. You’re in a studio.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: So all of a sudden, I’m like, wow, I’m kind of emancipated yet for a few months. And it was the summertime, and anyway, so we wouldn’t. But the shock for me was, and this is not a partisan point at all. At all.

THEO VON: And what does partisan mean?

TUCKER CARLSON: It means like carrying water for a party. Like, this is what Republicans think or—

THEO VON: Some Democrats think nonpartisan means not.

TUCKER CARLSON: This is just what I think is true. And it doesn’t matter what the either party says.

THEO VON: Okay, what is nonpartisan.

TUCKER CARLSON: It just means not partisan. It’s not, you’re not connected to a party. You’re not helping either party.

THEO VON: Okay.

The Ukraine War Reality

TUCKER CARLSON: But what I mean is, both parties, Republican and Democrat, were saying for a year and a half, Ukraine is winning this war against Russia.

THEO VON: Yeah, I remember hearing that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah. I mean, and I still think people believe that. So whatever you think of the war, Russia, Ukraine, I mean, I’m not that interested, honestly, because I’m not Russian or Ukrainian is the truth. But lots of Americans seem to be interested. They have their little Ukrainian flags and their learning to pronounce Kiev as Kyiv. And they’re doing all the steps that you need to do, repeating all the dumb slogans, slava, Ukraine.

Yeah, they don’t, whatever. Americans have this thing where they have no idea where something is, but they’re all of a sudden, I’m an expert. You see it now with the Middle East, but I’m an expert. It’s like the Nakba. What? Stop.

But anyway. But the article of faith for most Americans was that Ukraine is winning this war. So, I mean, I don’t know. How do I know? I’m stuck in a studio. So I go over to the region. Two different countries that border Ukraine.

THEO VON: Oh, you popped over there to Ukraine?

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, I didn’t go to Ukraine. I don’t think I do well in Ukraine now.

THEO VON: They really.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, the government of Ukraine has attacked me by name a lot, so I felt like that was unwise.

THEO VON: Who’s their master over there, their leader?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, the president is a guy called Vladimir Zelensky.

THEO VON: Oh, right. That’s right. He’s a f*ing comedian.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, a very unfunny one. Yeah.

THEO VON: Do we have any videos of him doing stand up comedy?

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s got one where he’s playing the piano with his d*. I don’t know if you can find that.

THEO VON: Oh, really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, but yeah, and actually fairly well.

THEO VON: Was it at a Sigap house? Where was that?

TUCKER CARLSON: It was in Ukraine somewhere. Oh, no, that’s, yeah, it’s a pretty common thing there. Oh, there he is playing piano with his penis. Yes.

THEO VON: Is he really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yes.

THEO VON: Oh, anybody can be president now.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I don’t know. Can you play the piano with your penis?

THEO VON: Huh? Oh, no. A little bit of Baltovan.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

THEO VON: Kind of hacky. But it’s cute, though.

TUCKER CARLSON: That was good.

THEO VON: I like that I said that just because I knew you might like it.

TUCKER CARLSON: I love that. I wish I’d said that. But anyway, so whatever. I don’t care about these guys in any way.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: I go over there and I start talking to very knowledgeable people, like the people who run these countries, and they’re like, what? No, Russia has a hundred million more people than Ukraine. 100 million and much deeper industrial capacity. They have all these weapons factories. It’s the largest country in the world by land mass. There’s literally no chance, even theoretically Ukraine could beat them.

THEO VON: But aren’t they an industrial old. Aren’t they Russia? Things made out of stone. Aren’t they living in the past with a lot of technology?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it turns out, I mean, there’s a military. Well, we always made fun of it during the Soviet period because it was super inefficient and they were all drunk and they would crash their commercial airliners all the time from drunkenness all the time.

In fact, a famous, their plane, their carrier, the international carrier, their national carrier is called Aeroflot. The Russian carrier was the Soviet carrier. And in a very, very famous crash, the pilot had his son in the cockpit with passengers on the plane. And the cockpit voice recorder prove this. And the son just takes the yoke, just pushes it down and flies the plane right into the ground.

So people made fun, correctly, of Soviet Technology. But it turns out they were actually pretty good at this. They produced a lot of chess players. They’re not stupid people at all. And neither of the Ukrainians, for that matter.

But anyway, the point is, the Russians were never going to lose, period. And anyone who looked at it objectively would know that, except no one in the United States knew that. So that kind of freaked me out. I’m like, we have a big country, smart country, very, the most advanced country in the world, supposedly. And nobody even knows a basic fact. Like, Russia has 100 million more people. Of course they’re not going to lose to Ukraine. Like, that’s insane. And yet nobody knew that.

So I thought, wow, what else don’t we know? And just the amount of lying that you can do in a world where everything is controlled, all information is controlled, with the exception, pretty much of Twitter, because the guy who owns it has said he’s not going to censor.

THEO VON: Yeah, Elon, it’s nice. I feel like that’s one thing that I thought was that, yeah, maybe that’s it. That’s what’s about censorship is at least you feel like you can say things or that things can be shared on there. Because didn’t.

Freedom of Speech on Social Media Platforms

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you feel, I mean, as someone who writes comedy, does this every day, do you feel freer on the platform now on Twitter?

THEO VON: Yeah, I feel like at least if YouTube takes me down, oh, look at that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Comedy is legal on this platform. So Elon specifically endorsed your right to say.

THEO VON: Yeah, it was nice of him. We had Roseanne Barr on, and she’s a—

TUCKER CARLSON: I like her a lot.

THEO VON: Oh, dude, she f*ing did so much for comedy. She did so much for women and gays and—

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, wait, I saw part of that.

THEO VON: And they, Hollywood threw her under the f*ing bus as soon as they had a chance because they’re heartless. And so anyway, she was on my show and she—

TUCKER CARLSON: I saw that and they took—tell me if I’m misremembering this. They took a line that she had and they cut out all the context and put it on TikTok. And it made her sound like she was a crazy person or a vicious person, which she’s not either one.

THEO VON: Yeah, she’s Jewish. I mean, she was born Jewish. I think she’s still Jewish, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: She is.

THEO VON: And so she said—

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, and the Holocaust never happened, right? She said sarcastically, right, of course.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think she had relatives who died in it.

THEO VON: Yes. Yeah, very obvious, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course.

THEO VON: And they, some guy on Twitter, ahole Sam, I don’t know what the guy’s name was. Something Fucklestein or somebody, he f*ing made—

TUCKER CARLSON: A big deal about for the Minneapolis Fuckel Styles.

THEO VON: Yeah, probably.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know them.

THEO VON: Yes. Dude, this was two weeks after, right? Makes a big deal about, or just put that clip and whatever, no context. So then YouTube took us down, took that episode down, but we got to put it on Twitter. So that was nice at least because it was an honest place.

But what I worry about is, didn’t some of these companies, didn’t Twitter or Facebook, didn’t they get in trouble for not letting, during election times, real information being allowed to be shared?

The Threat of Open Platforms

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know who would get them in trouble. They run everything. And my concern would be, as we’re getting to this election, it’s very intense. I think they’re very intense people on both sides. And if you actually had a platform that was open for everyone to say what he or she thinks, that’s a massive threat to the ahole community.

And I think that the—because the truth is always a threat to liars.

THEO VON: That’s just right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Never changes. People are killed never for lying, ever. They’re only killed for telling the truth. You’re only punished for telling the truth. People get mad, it’s because you told the truth. Everyone should know that.

So, I mean, I don’t—I can’t imagine the pressure that’s going to come to bear on this company, X now, over the next year. I mean, it’s going to be without precedent, I think.

THEO VON: Do you think Elon could be—I mean, there could be even an assassination attempt on him or something?

TUCKER CARLSON: I would never speculate about something like that. But I just think there’s—but just you can’t—

THEO VON: You’re a guy at a bar. What are you going to say?

TUCKER CARLSON: I think there’s going to be—I would have a food taster. I mean, I think it’s—I think, look, the one thing we—look, if you’re doing a great job at something, if you’re a great father, great husband, great employer, great comedian, you’re not too worried because you’re doing a good job.

But if you’re doing a bad job and the only beneficiary of your work is you and everyone else is getting screwed and they can’t even afford to fill up their truck or buy groceries and you’re still getting rich, you’re very worried. Dictators are always worried about their own security.

Okay, so what’s the biggest threat to you? The biggest threat is someone calling you out. And so you have to shut down any medium where that could possibly happen. So obviously Facebook is completely controlled. Google is completely controlled. TikTok, foreign owned company. God knows what their agenda is.

So really the only big platform that’s pretty not controlled with some apparently some limits, but in general it’s not controlled, it’s free speech, it’s X. I agree. So there’s a lot at stake.

Legitimate leaders don’t worry about this. If I’m a legitimate leader, if I’m a good father, one of my kids is, I want to smoke weed at the breakfast table. You’re like, you can’t. Sorry, because I make the rules. No weed at the breakfast table. I’m not worried about saying that because I think I’m a pretty good father and I think my kids think I’m a pretty good father.

But if I’m a terrible father who’s abusing my kids, I can’t let them say anything because the authorities might find out. But I get punished for what they know. And that is the same attitude that every dictator has. That’s why all dictators take the guns and impose censorship is the first thing they do.

They don’t want to throw you in prison. It’s expensive, it’s difficult. They don’t want to execute you. They just want you to shut up and be obedient. And Elon Musk, in buying this platform and opening it up to all positions, even unpopular ones, is the single greatest threat to their hegemony, to their control.

And I’m not predicting their response, but I mean, it’s going to be intense. Super intense. I can say that.

Security Concerns and Tesla Features

THEO VON: Do you have security and that sort of thing? If you were him, would you have somebody, would you make sure that the Tesla truck, which is supposed to have been out for 17 years, but that it has extra bulletproofness in the glass?

TUCKER CARLSON: I would definitely include as a standard feature, not an add-on, the oil tanks that drop the oil onto the road behind you so that people pursuing you spin out and go right into a bridge abutment or off the side of the mountain up Mulholland.

I would definitely do that. And I’d have hidden machine guns under the side view mirrors. I’d have a death ray possibly. That would probably be a custom feature, but I would have stuff like that. Yeah, for sure.

Media Coverage of International Conflicts

THEO VON: Do you think we get fair news about the war in Israel? In Israel and Hamas? Do you think we get fair information about that? Joe Rogan had a lady on recently, and she was saying that the perception of what happens over there isn’t the information that we get.

TUCKER CARLSON: Think of it this way. What’s at stake? People’s lives. Control of governments, control of land, ancient rivalries and hatreds. I mean, there’s so much at stake.

THEO VON: Here versus the Celtics and the Lakers.

TUCKER CARLSON: From the Bible, that of course, yeah. I mean, it’s very intense. And so of course there’s going to be massive lying on all sides. And there is, and that’s fine. And you go into it knowing that.

I’ve spent a lot of time over there, and I will freely confess I don’t understand a lot of the dynamics because I’m from La Jolla. I’m not from Jenin or Jerusalem or Qatar. It’s like, I’m not from the region. Okay. I don’t speak the languages, but I know enough to know that there’s massive lying. And I think it’s good to know that.

The only thing that enrages me is when you hear people say, you must believe me. I have no obligation to believe anybody. You have an obligation if you want me to believe you, to prove what you’re saying.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I have a right to ask simple, fair questions. How do you know that? How can I trust that? And if you don’t give me those answers, then I just don’t believe you and I don’t have to believe you. And if your recourse is you’re a bad person for not believing me, f* you. That’s my response.

THEO VON: F* you.

TUCKER CARLSON: And especially in this case, where my money and potentially my children’s lives—well, that was a cocaine thing you just did.

THEO VON: Yeah. One of these things got blown out of my nose. Every now and then, I got to make sure it works.

TUCKER CARLSON: You got to open it up.

THEO VON: Yeah, just—

TUCKER CARLSON: I agree with that respect. Just widen them out. There’s no shame.

THEO VON: Ah, did it feel good? Doesn’t it? God, dude, if I can feel it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Dripping down the back of my throat right now. Anyway, sorry to use profanity on your show, but it—

THEO VON: Somebody put on some Kesha, let’s rock.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is that what you listen to?

THEO VON: I don’t know what happened, dude.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, be honest. What were you listening to?

THEO VON: I think it was probably, yeah, some Kesha, some Traveling Wilburys. Maybe a little bit of that’s the—

TUCKER CARLSON: Soundtrack of your private cocaine.

THEO VON: I got a unique list, a little, maybe some Morgan Wallen. Different, eclectic mix, I think. James Blake.

TUCKER CARLSON: What about Dust in a Baggie by Billy Strings?

THEO VON: I’ve never heard that. I love Billy Strings, but I haven’t heard Dust in A Baggie.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, it’s a great tune. And it’s about dust in a baggie.

THEO VON: I thought it was an Irish guy. Dust in the Baggie. Dustin. Mom’s pissed. Sorry.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you ever been to Boston?

THEO VON: I’ve been in Pittsburgh, though. Dave Chappelle was just in Boston, man. You saw what they did to him over there.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s unbelievable.

Dave Chappelle and Free Speech

THEO VON: Yeah. Do you think that’s fair that they should—

TUCKER CARLSON: Because—

THEO VON: Well, it’s not fair, but it’s like, I don’t know, if you go to listen to Dave Chappelle these days, he’s going to talk more about a lot of stuff. Dave Chappelle criticizes Israel, spars with crowd at Boston show. Oh, he criticized Israel. So I didn’t know that’s exactly what he—

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, look, I wasn’t there. I only know what I read.

THEO VON: I wasn’t there either.

TUCKER CARLSON: But I think he made one point which I think is entirely—I don’t know if I agree. I don’t agree with David Chappelle on everything, of course, but the one point that I read that I did agree with was the United States is implicated in this. And so we have a right to have an opinion on it. And that is obviously true. And anyone who tells you you don’t have a right to have an opinion or you must have one specific opinion—

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is wrong. And I think it’s fair to say that.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: I think people should be able to have their opinions. Because once you don’t have your f*ing opinion, then it’s like, how do you—how do you get to a revolution? How do we get to a revolution?

Because at what point do people just say, well, if my life doesn’t—if you don’t want my life to mean anything to me based on how you’ve set up the environment, at what point do you go from there to then, I am not going to play this game? Or how does a revolution start?

The Path to Revolution

TUCKER CARLSON: They’re very worried about it. That’s why they’re putting people in prison.

THEO VON: I think they should be worried about it.

TUCKER CARLSON: They are worried.

THEO VON: I’d love to f*ing be on a horseback, dude.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, but you know how you get to revolution is by not listening to people and not serving their interests and telling them to shut up again and again, calling them names. You’ve got a legitimate question. Like, why should I support a war with Iran? Shut up. Calling me names.

THEO VON: What?

TUCKER CARLSON: I have four children of draft age. Why is that not a fair question for me?

THEO VON: Shut up.

The Cost of Being Ignored

And you do that enough. And I have recourse because I have a platform, but most people don’t. And if you tell them to shut up enough, like, “we don’t care that you care about gas prices and your stupid pickup truck.” Well, some people like their pickup trucks and they use them for work. And if it’s not affordable to fill it up, that’s a big deal for them.

And if you’re like, “shut up, climate change pig,” you know, your nephew ODs on fentanyl and nobody cares. If you keep that up for long enough, you’ll make people radical. And why wouldn’t they be radical, actually? And I’m so insulated for most of it because I have enough money and I’m not in debt and my kids are grown and paid for. I’m in a much easier position than most people.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I feel radical just watching.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: And so why wouldn’t they be on the brink of being unreasonable? And it doesn’t need to be this way. You don’t have to solve all people’s problems. Some problems are very hard to solve. And people know that there’s no magic button you press that ends inflation or stops fentanyl. And everyone knows that.

All you need to do is express the fact and do it sincerely that you care, you acknowledge these are big problems. But when the speaker of the House, who I know is a nice guy from your state, the new speaker of the House comes in and the first thing he does is issue a statement on behalf of foreign country. That’s the most important thing. And I’m not even against the statement, but I’m just saying, what bigger statement does that make?

THEO VON: That’s him. Mikey Johnson.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. And he’s the Speaker. He is.

THEO VON: Praise God, Mikey.

America First

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s a nice guy and I’m not against him. But I’m just saying, if you think the welfare of another country is the most important thing for you as one of the leaders of our country, third in line to the presidency, you have lost the thread, son, because it’s not. Nothing is more important for the leaders of our country than our country. And how its 350 million people are doing.

So I was enraged by that. And people were like, “oh, are you for Hamas?” Of course I’m not for Hamas at all. I’m for America. Actually, I shouldn’t even have to answer that question. “Are you for Israel or Hamas?” I mean, obviously I’m for Israel over Hamas, but that’s irrelevant. I’m for America, and no one even asked that. And I feel deep resentment about that, that the concerns of this country are of no concern.

THEO VON: Right, right. It feels like our concerns don’t even f*ing matter.

TUCKER CARLSON: They don’t matter.

THEO VON: That’s why it makes you wonder, are we just a shell company for Israel? Are we just a shell company for China? Where are we anymore? Are we just…

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, there are a lot of people who live here who really like it.

THEO VON: Here, who were born, love it here.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I know you do. And I’m just saying, it doesn’t have to be this way. You know, there are people. There are hundreds of millions of people whose ancestors are buried here and they want to stay here. They don’t have another passport, and it wouldn’t be hard to rally them and just say, “you’re a Democrat, you’re a Republican, you’re this, you’re that, but we’re all American, and let’s have a conversation about what’s best for our country.”

You would get people from all sides being like, “that’s right. That’s the right conversation.” We may not even agree, but that’s the conversation we should be having. And if you don’t do that, I’m just telling you, you play with fire, people go crazy.

Mental Illness and Mass Shootings

And I’m totally convinced that the mass shootings we’re seeing, in the massive spike in mental illness that we’re seeing, which is leading to the mass shootings, these are manifestations of the frustration, the hopelessness that people feel when they realize their leaders don’t care about them. I believe that. I can’t prove it, but I believe it because I happen to live in a place with a lot of people who are not succeeding in the modern world.

And they’re good people and they have skills and they’ve been here, their families have been here for hundreds of years. We should care about them.

THEO VON: I agree. But, yeah, I think our company, our country, has been compromised by people that don’t care and they don’t see value in that. And it feels like it’s just about a bottom line or it’s about, I don’t know, some goal that, to me, seems so erroneous. I can’t even fathom that you wouldn’t have feelings.

When you’re like that Sackler family that’s just watching people’s children die. She can make money off of a f*ing pill. Who cares? What do you eat? What are you going to get? Another half bathroom or something? What are you going to get exactly? I just don’t understand the goal sometimes of some of that or why people would think that selling someone out to such a point where they don’t have any purpose, where you take away their hope.

The Importance of Meaning

You know, we had a guy on here, talk about meaning. This guy, John Vervaeke, and he was real interested in. This guy is from Canada, and he just talks about meaning. And when people don’t have, when they don’t feel like they’re supported by. I’m going to f* it up. But if they don’t feel like they’re part of a group or they don’t feel like if they’re totally cut off.

TUCKER CARLSON: From other people and just floating around atomized and alone.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: It drives them crazy.

THEO VON: Right? You go crazy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: And then you get to manage solitary confinement.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

THEO VON: So you’ve basically taken so much of America by taking away things that brought us together.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

The Death of Small Town America

THEO VON: And some of those things were smaller towns, businesses in small towns. Things that made people feel of value. You know, my father went to a. You know, my father. His family was mahogany farmers. They did wood. And so I think if your father went into the woods in your town or whatever, part of a company that built.

TUCKER CARLSON: They were literally mahogany farmers.

THEO VON: Yeah. And you had a table at home and then your. It was your dad’s company’s table. You’d like. We eat at our family. We build it in our town.

TUCKER CARLSON: Some physical connection between labor and reward and.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Now theoretical and digital and bullshit.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Zoom calls and.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. Now it’s just like, do you want to eat at this f*ing Chipotle Sit. Go. You know, where they’re selling gas and burritos and, you know, and it just like.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is that a thing?

THEO VON: But that’s a f*ing town hall of a lot of. It’s just now everything has just been. It’s a dollar general in most towns. It’s. And that’s what it is. And you know, it’s just. We’ve killed off a lot of that.

Architecture and Meaning

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, what’s interesting is that you drive through. I like to hunt and fish. So I’ve been in a lot of small towns in America because that’s where the hunting and the fishing.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And some of these towns, and especially the county seats in rural towns have beautiful courthouses. Beautiful. Somebody spent a lot of money and a lot of time to make a beautiful public building. One of those hasn’t been built since the Second World War. That is true. Probably since the 30s, since the Depression.

Your state especially. You’ve got a lot of great public architecture in Louisiana. None of it has been built since Huey Long was murdered. Okay, so why is that? And it’s been replaced by disposable garbage in the dollar store. I’m sorry to single them out, but they are a symbol of it. It’s so intentionally ugly. Box stores are so ugly. You’re like, there’s got to be a purpose behind. You know, architecture exists for a reason. You’re sending a message.

When you build a building, you build anything. And the message of box stores and dollar stores and of public, the DMV is you mean nothing. We’re not going to spend any time or any energy trying to elevate you or please your senses or build anything beautiful. It’s ugly on purpose to let you know that you mean nothing. You do not count. Shut up and obey. You’re an animal, actually.

And I just feel like there’s something very profound about that. The message that it sends. And everyone receives the message whether they know it or not. You go into a DMV, what’s it telling you? Wait your turn, wait for your number, and then some surly low IQ person hassles you over. It’s like, I’m a citizen of this country. Why don’t even have to have a driver’s license. Give me my f*ing papers and let me get out of here. How dare you speak to me that way?

But you can’t because she’s in charge. The whole experience is designed to degrade you and make you less powerful, to take your self respect away. I’m very upset by it.

THEO VON: Oh, the DMV. It’s almost like they have a line. If you come out of the closet, you get to go to the front of the line. You know, I’d be willing to do that. Yeah, but that’s the kind of shit I’m saying. It’s like that’s how much they want to compromise who you are or what you are.

The Message of Modern Architecture

TUCKER CARLSON: But look at that, okay? The drop ceiling. There’s no reason to have lighting like that. It doesn’t cost more maybe to put some lamps or sconces or something. There’s nothing more oppressive than a drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting. And there’s no reason to have that. And everything is made out of vinyl and metal. There’s not one natural material in there. Why don’t have wooden benches? What would that cost extra? Train stations used to have them, but they don’t.

Because the message there is all this shit’s disposable. It’ll be in a landfill in five years and so will you. Everything about that is degrading to the citizen. And it’s not an accident. We’ve been doing that since the day we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. That is true. Why end of the second world? I mean, I have a lot of theories about it. I, you know, I have no evidence to back up any of my theories. So I should just say that.

I think that dropping the atomic bomb on Japan convinced the US government and Western leaders more broadly that they were God. They had the power to destroy whole cities. Nuclear power, when weaponized, is the most powerful tool man’s ever made. And it gave people the impression that they were God. And they lost all humility and all love for their fellow citizens. They lost love for their fellow citizens.

That’s what our architecture, post war architecture conveys. I don’t love you. I don’t care about you. The British colonized whole countries. India, for example, they didn’t love the, I mean, they loved the Indian, but they thought the Indians were lesser than them. They did. They were racist in our current understanding of that word. But they built train stations in say, Calcutta or Bombay that would blow your freaking mind. There’s nothing as beautiful in the United States. The train stations they built in the subcontinent in India.

THEO VON: Oh yeah. Stunning places, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Stunning. So what does that tell you? And these were colonial train stations built for Indian subjects.

THEO VON: Right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Look at that.

THEO VON: But they still had a lot of pride in what they built.

TUCKER CARLSON: They did. But they, people here do. The one in Mumbai, the Mumbai train station is the most unbelievable.

THEO VON: I met a Pakistani the other day.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that was part of India up until 1987.

THEO VON: They have their own autonomy now.

TUCKER CARLSON: They do. They have nuclear weapons actually. Yeah, look at that. Look at that. Right? Wow, look at that.

THEO VON: Come on.

TUCKER CARLSON: That looks like, I mean, that’s the train station in Bombay, Mumbai, India. Oh yeah, I’ve been there and it just, I sat there and it’s very poorly maintained. The Indian government has done nothing to preserve it, unfortunately. And they’ve built a lot of garbage architecture they stole from our anti human architects. But what kind of country would build something like that. A country that cared about pleasing people.

THEO VON: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: You look at that. That pleases you. You want to keep staring at it because it’s beautiful. We’ve created nothing of beauty in the United States in 80 years. What the hell? Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. That’s beauty. No, it’s not. As garbage.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. It’s bootleg.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re getting me going, baby.

THEO VON: Am I?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh yeah. Dude, I like your attitude. Well, you know where there’s great architecture that blew my mind? Milwaukee.

TUCKER CARLSON: The best. Down by the river, dude.

THEO VON: Milwaukee, yes. Is such a beautiful city.

TUCKER CARLSON: I totally agree with you.

THEO VON: I had no idea.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you tried Cleveland?

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean Cleveland obviously is famously screwed up, mistake by the lake. But look at that right there. So the Germans built it. Milwaukee was a German city. Obviously it was. That’s why the beer was brewed there.

THEO VON: Oh yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Very German city.

THEO VON: But we just…

TUCKER CARLSON: And they recreated Europe, the best of Europe.

THEO VON: Yeah, Cleveland definitely. It was a bit of a different experience I think when I was there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Look at that. Look at that building.

THEO VON: It’s stunning.

The Loss of Beautiful Architecture

TUCKER CARLSON: Imagine building something like that. And instead we build glass boxes that are LEED certified. And it’s like we’ve built nothing of value, nothing of permanence. Nothing we have built in my lifetime will last. And rightly so. There are Roman buildings and arches, Rome.

THEO VON: That are going to last longer.

TUCKER CARLSON: Rome fell in the 5th century and they’re still there.

THEO VON: And that will outlast the construction of half these Petcos.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s true. It’s totally true.

THEO VON: Yeah. No, it’s crazy though. But we just… There’s something. Something happened and I think that’s the infection that starts to get into the spirit of us. And I think that’s the fight that’s going on inside of a lot of people.

TUCKER CARLSON: Make something beautiful. That’s what we should be telling kids. Your job in life, it’s not just working for the man and paying the bills. It’s make one thing that’s beautiful that you are proud of. That’s an expression of something good inside. You make it with your hands or with your mouth, but make something beautiful.

I don’t know why that’s… And by the way, when you say something that you think is particularly funny or insightful, you’re getting the truth about something, aren’t you? Filled with this, wow, doesn’t that feel better than anything?

THEO VON: Yeah. I think it feels like what you’re supposed to be doing.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, that’s it exactly. You’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. What God made you to do. That’s my feeling. But that’s not advice that we give at all. It’s like, how to be an obedient… Get some stupid degree at some stupid college to be an obedient employee to some stupid ahole who runs it, who’s going to mistreat you.

Tucker’s Move to Twitter

THEO VON: Yeah. How do we… What’s new in your world? What do you do?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I’ve gone crazy.

THEO VON: What are you doing now that’s different? You got on the Twitter, right? And so, I know that. Congratulations.

TUCKER CARLSON: Thank you.

THEO VON: I think it is interesting. It’s brave for people to get out of the system.

TUCKER CARLSON: I was expelled from the system.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you got laid off from everywhere. Was it cutbacks or why did you think cutbacks?

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I love… I’m going to use that, though. There’s downsizing. Just downsizing. Yeah. I’m being retrained. I’m learning to code. Actually, they closed the place. I totally get. I was on third shift and they’re just… The demand was in decline. I am going to use that, though, next time. Why were you fired?

THEO VON: But you got out and you moved to…

TUCKER CARLSON: I was thrown out.

THEO VON: You’re thrown out.

TUCKER CARLSON: And Elon called me the day that my show was canceled, and I was grateful that he did.

THEO VON: And he called you. Huh. Had you spoken to him before?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Yeah, I had. And I really liked him. And I’m not a technology person, to put it mildly, at all.

THEO VON: Yeah, I’ve heard that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep. Almost in a crazy, sort of Ted Kaczynski way, which is… I’m not defending.

THEO VON: Who handles tech for you, then?

TUCKER CARLSON: The tech people. They live in Bangalore. I don’t know their names. Just kidding. No, we have really super smart people. Most of our staff from Fox came. And Elon… We don’t work for Elon. I’m a Twitter user like everybody else. But all he said was, I’m going to keep the platform open and people with differing views, whether I agree with them or not, are welcome on the platform.

And that’s the guarantee that I wanted and needed. And so I’ve been super grateful. I mean, that’s all I’ve ever wanted, by the way. I’ve never been… I have made some money, but not… I never got crazy rich, but I never wanted to. That wasn’t my goal at all. I mean, I guess I would like to be richer. I guess I don’t know what to do with it exactly.

The Problem with Greed

THEO VON: Well, it’s… Now it almost looks like a sickness too. I think there should be a…

TUCKER CARLSON: The money acquisition thing. Yeah, there was a name for that, actually. Historically it was called greed.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And then somewhere along the line, we decided you weren’t allowed to complain about greed. And I don’t really… Because you’re against capitalism. First of all, there is no capitalism in the United States. There’s no free market, okay? The government controls everything. You can’t have a business without intersecting with government. And the government is used by businesses to create monopolies. So there’s no free market. So let’s stop lying about that.

Second, I am not against capitalism. I’m for competition. I wish capitalism would return to the United States, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t say, if I’ve got a billion dollars and I need 10 more, that you’re sick. Actually, if that’s your goal, what would you do with a billion dollars? I mean, I don’t want a billion dollars. Not that I’m in danger of getting it, but if I was, I’d be like, I don’t want that. Because then you spend your whole life worrying about losing it and your existence becomes about preserving money when your existence should be about loving the people around you and creating something beautiful. Those are your jobs as a person, in my opinion.

THEO VON: Yeah, well, how could we put a cap on how much money people are allowed to make?

TUCKER CARLSON: I guess people would find their way around it. I mean, the way to do it is to say it out loud again. Everything changes with words. Articulate the truth. It’s not an attack on capitalism, which again, does not exist in the United States. I wish it did. To say it is ugly. In fact, it’s a sin to worship money. Yeah, it is. You should not be worshiping money. Worship God, worship people around you. Worship nature even. But worshiping money is disgusting.

And we should not compliment people who do it. We should instead criticize them and say, that’s gross. Hey, hedge fund manager, that’s gross. I’m sorry. I think that.

THEO VON: No, I f*ing think that too, man. I remember maybe two years ago, it was the first time I’d really made some money in my life and I thought… And I remember I was in my garage and I just was heartbroken, man. I remember calling my brother. I was crying.

TUCKER CARLSON: But it didn’t make you happy.

THEO VON: I thought… Yeah, because I… Well, I didn’t even know it was money. I didn’t know if it was popularity. I don’t know what had happened. But I got into a different space in my career. I finally knew I could pay my mortgage for the year. And I thought that somehow in the back of my head, without me even realizing it, I thought that that would be the answer to everything. And when it wasn’t, it f*ing killed me.

TUCKER CARLSON: This is…

THEO VON: But nobody wants to hear that also from somebody who…

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s the most familiar thing I’ve ever heard. I could tell you so many stories.

THEO VON: It just made me so sad that I’ve just been fooled, and even fooled by myself.

The Emptiness of Success

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, getting what you want is one of the saddest things that can happen to you. I mean, when you’re happiest, as a man… I’ll speak for men, because I am one. You have a clear mission.

THEO VON: For now.

TUCKER CARLSON: For now. I mean, I could totally change.

THEO VON: Oh, they’ll change.

TUCKER CARLSON: I get a better spot at the DMV.

THEO VON: Tucker.

TUCKER CARLSON: It does change. There is something going on in the water, baby. And that’s why if I could take a break…

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: To just promote my non-sponsors. And these are threes. And I normally use sixes, but I appreciate the gesture, but I do think nicotine does keep your testosterone levels up.

THEO VON: Really? I do one of those suppositories. I’m not doing a big one or anything. Maybe during the holidays, I would.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s not like an expander. It’s just a regular suppository.

THEO VON: Okay. I would do something small. Pop a bead in or something. If I’m going to be at the ballpark, I’d probably just do something half a gram or whatever. Milligrams. I don’t know what it comes with.

TUCKER CARLSON: In 3 milligrams.

THEO VON: But…

TUCKER CARLSON: But getting what you want, succeeding… That’s when men fall apart.

THEO VON: Yeah. But then also, I think that there were more opportunities for success in the past, and there were more opportunities to feel value in the past. I remember when I was a kid, we used to get our name in the paper and it made you feel so good. Your local baseball school. And even if you lost, they put your last name.

TUCKER CARLSON: I get it.

THEO VON: Oh for four, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Cried.

THEO VON: Even though they put “cried” in parentheses. You’re like, yeah, dude, at least I’m on the stat sheet.

TUCKER CARLSON: Are you crying? Yeah.

THEO VON: I mean, I had an appendectomy, right. And the guy who I think was closeted or whatever, was our assistant coach or whatever, and he was screaming at me to get to third base. And literally my appendix had burst.

TUCKER CARLSON: So can you show me on the doll where this happened?

THEO VON: Dude, I remember we had a dude…

TUCKER CARLSON: There’s something here. I can feel it.

THEO VON: Oh, bro, this guy’s screaming at me to get to third base. My appendix burst. I’m laying in the dirt, right? And that’s a sign of our country nowadays. They’re like, get to third base. You’re like, I have sepsis and nobody cares, man. But they still put you in the stat sheet. Oh for four.

Yeah, I think… We had a dude who was touching players, and they just called him. And they’re like, look, you can’t keep coaching if you’re going to touch players.

TUCKER CARLSON: That was touching them in an affirming way, I think.

THEO VON: Just extra affirming.

TUCKER CARLSON: Too affirming.

THEO VON: Overhand. You’re affirming, but once you turn the hand this way…

TUCKER CARLSON: Reach around. Not affirming.

THEO VON: Yeah. If you’re doing that. Yeah, that’s totally…

TUCKER CARLSON: Totally.

THEO VON: That’s unaffirming, dude. What do you think about… Where do we go? Does Bobby Kennedy Jr. have any chance? Does a third party have any chance these days?

Third Party Politics

TUCKER CARLSON: No third party can affect the outcome, for sure, but the system is… I mean, this could change with time, but the system, it’s shown no sign of changing. I could bore you for hours, but Ross Perot ran in ’92 and then ’96.

THEO VON: I remember that.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, and he got Clinton elected.

THEO VON: Fear the ears. That was the campaign.

TUCKER CARLSON: Hear the ears. I never heard that.

THEO VON: I just made it up.

TUCKER CARLSON: That was good.

THEO VON: Thanks. But he.

TUCKER CARLSON: And he actually was kind of impressive.

THEO VON: He was a real smart guy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Was.

THEO VON: He was.

TUCKER CARLSON: And he said a lot of things that turned out to be true. But of course, he was attacked as some kind of crazy person. But including by me, I should say. I was used as a tool.

THEO VON: Do you even notice you’re a tool when you’re a tool like that?

TUCKER CARLSON: For the…

THEO VON: For the…

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

THEO VON: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: I was in my early 20s, and I was writing. I was covering. First of all, people in their early 20s should not be covering anything other than kids with appendectomies in baseball.

THEO VON: That.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. Shouldn’t be covering national politics in your 20s. What do you know? You don’t know shit.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you shouldn’t be rendering 100%, FFA events or whatever. But not politics. But anyway, I was. And I attacked him as a crazy person. And I was used by the person I was working for, who’s still a public person and truly a dishonest person. But anyway, whatever.

THEO VON: If it was Chuck Schumer, to say it.

TUCKER CARLSON: More dishonest than Chuck Schumer.

THEO VON: Wow. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Anyway. I can’t even get into it. But the point is, he got 23% or whatever. I think it was 23 that year in Boss.

THEO VON: Perot did.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah.

THEO VON: Wow.

Ross Perot’s Impact on the 1992 Election

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, dude. Because he was running basically on a pre-Trump platform. Sort of a pre-Trump, more restrained, more academic. Less Trump.

THEO VON: But.

TUCKER CARLSON: But the idea was the same. Manufacturing is dying and it’s going to wreck the country. We need to make things. Stuff like that.

THEO VON: Bush, Perot and Dukakis. No. Who was that?

TUCKER CARLSON: No, Dukakis was ’88. It was Bush, Perot, and Bill Clinton.

THEO VON: Wow.

TUCKER CARLSON: Who was then the Governor of Arkansas. 1992 was the first race I covered, and Perot did really well, despite massive hostility from the media because, of course, they were protecting their bosses.

THEO VON: Establishment.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly. That’s exactly. But I didn’t perceive any of that.

THEO VON: 18.9%. He got.

TUCKER CARLSON: What did he get?

THEO VON: 18.9.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m sorry. 19%. I’m embarrassed.

THEO VON: Did he affect the outcome of that race?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, he won it for Clinton. I mean, Clinton won it, as you see on the page, at 43%. Absolutely.

THEO VON: If Perot didn’t win, do you think that Bush wins that?

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course. Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, absolutely.

TUCKER CARLSON: He took from Bush. Yeah.

Bobby Kennedy’s Independent Campaign

THEO VON: Who is Kennedy taking from?

TUCKER CARLSON: What do you think? Trump, you think. Of course. There’s no person who’s thinking, “I’m going to vote either for Joe Biden or Bobby Kennedy.”

THEO VON: I have some friends that are. No way. I swear.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really?

THEO VON: I have some friends that are. That have known Bobby. I mean, these are people that have known Bobby Kennedy for a long time. But who are Democrats who are like, “This is my guy.”

TUCKER CARLSON: The only reason you would vote for Joe Biden is because you believe there’s safety in numbers. You’re voting for the party. You’re not, obviously, I’m not attacking Biden, but you’re not voting for Biden. You’re voting for the Democratic Party because you think when they have more power, you’re safer or richer or whatever. That’s the only reason.

And Bobby Kennedy, man, I mean, I’ve never seen anybody get right to the core issues affecting the country the way he has. And I don’t agree with him on everything, but I mean, he names names. I mean, in a big way.

THEO VON: Yeah. That’s why I love him. I think, well, I just think he can f*. He doesn’t. I don’t feel like he’s in anybody’s pocket. Do you feel like low key there’s some party that’s planted him in there? People say that, but that’s crazy.

TUCKER CARLSON: I feel like I know Bobby very well and I am totally convinced just on a human level that he is an honest person. And I don’t think that he would do that. And I just have to ask, are there people in his orbit who would do that? I believe yes is the answer, but I don’t think he knows better, has anything to do with it. I think he’s totally sincere.

He’s certainly not in anyone’s pocket. I mean, the guy could be. His name is Bobby Kennedy. The son of…

THEO VON: Oh, he could do whatever.

TUCKER CARLSON: He could do whatever. He could do whatever.

THEO VON: And he has done. He’s done a ton of great stuff with his life. He has.

TUCKER CARLSON: But I’m just saying it’s very easy to be loved by everybody and to just, it’s very easy to make money when everyone loves you. Bobby Kennedy could have an infinitely easier life than the one he’s chosen. He’s doing this because he sincerely believes it. Look at that. Right?

And he’s under threat. I mean, I was with him on the street the other day this week in Washington, and the security people around him were very nervous. He was not nervous at all. But they were. Anyway, the point is, I think Bobby’s totally sincere, but he is giving a massive middle finger to the establishment, almost as aggressively as I’ve ever seen anybody.

THEO VON: Why can’t we get him to a level? Because what percent does he have to get? Oh, I guess I don’t. We don’t know.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because you don’t know what you need to get the plurality. You need to get more than the other two. And unfortunately, the system is set up where it’s hard for a third party guy to get on all ballots. I mean, they’ve rigged the system against a third party challenge. Because they don’t want that.

THEO VON: Who has rigged the system? Both of the parties.

TUCKER CARLSON: Both of the parties, yeah. Of course. Of course they don’t. I mean, once you have power, what’s your number one goal? It’s preserving it and preventing people from challenging you. Of course.

Revolution and Survival

THEO VON: When there’s a revolution, what city should we meet up in?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, if there is a revolution, and I pray there isn’t, because they never end well. But if there is…

THEO VON: But it’d be f*ing fun, huh?

TUCKER CARLSON: The first 20 minutes when you actually storm the Bastille and free the prisoners or whatever. Hang your homemade flag from the roof of the Capitol or whatever.

THEO VON: Burn the news networks, is exact thing you’d have to do.

TUCKER CARLSON: So that’d be the fun part of the revolution. I think that’d be definitely be the fun part. But then it gets, then you have show trials and famines and you have all the downside. But whatever. I’m not in church, so if that happens, I will be so deep in the woods surrounded by my dogs and I’ll say it, firearms. Probably not going to hear.

THEO VON: Look, let’s just pretend one of your dogs is named Firearms.

TUCKER CARLSON: I actually have a dog called Firearms. Yeah, I have AK and 47.

THEO VON: I got bow, I got arrow, I got whatever. I got all my weapons in the woods with me. But yeah, and you can even just text me and just let me know where you’re going to be. But I think about that. You know what’s wild? Is I think about that sometimes.

TUCKER CARLSON: But you’re going to be in LA.

THEO VON: No, I won’t be. I live in Nashville.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, you don’t live in LA.

THEO VON: No, I live in a place where if somebody is being weird, you can shoot them. Okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because if you’re in LA, you just get eaten.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, well, here’s a move you would do in LA. You would get in a boat and go off the shore. That would be the first move. And let the other…

TUCKER CARLSON: Having grown up on the Pacific, let me just say it’s a little bigger than the chunk of funky river wherever you’re from. Super big ocean. Yeah.

THEO VON: Ben and Jerry’s, while we’re at it. Yeah, but go on. They’re Marxist.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is it called Chunky Monkey? What’s the name of your river?

THEO VON: Chafunkta. But I love that.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s the greatest name ever. But the Pacific goes on forever and then you make it to Hawaii six days later in your Boston Whaler. Right.

THEO VON: Well, if you’ve been lost at sea for six days, you deserve to show up in Hawaii.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s easy to miss Hawaii, though, in the middle of the Pacific.

THEO VON: You could. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s a long way to Thailand.

THEO VON: You were this close to Hawaii. You’re like, “What the… I let my wife drive.”

TUCKER CARLSON: No, the Pacific is not a good escape plan at all. No, because south, you have Baja Sonata.

THEO VON: Right, Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s going to be a little chaotic. It always is.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: From Los Angeles to the Arctic Circle. I mean, that’s just like nothing. It’s like Alaska. There’s kind of nowhere to go. Yeah, but you get in the woods deep in there. Yeah, you got a shot.

THEO VON: You got a shot. Isn’t it Radley up in there with a couple of pups?

TUCKER CARLSON: 100%. You go full Boo Radley, live in the hollow of a tree. Yeah, that’s it.

THEO VON: Me, too, man. It sounds exciting, but I think people start to think that way. How. And that’s a sad. It’s interesting because it thought. It just comes in my head sometimes. I’ve thought about asking people I know. I thought about asking Joe Rogan, where do we meet up if shit gets weird. And I’d never used to think…

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t think Joe’s going to leave his house. Right.

THEO VON: He might not. But I think everybody’s got a little bit of a place. I think some people are thinking maybe, could be. I think you want to do mountainous, so I think you go Salt Lake or Denver. Broncos suck, but so I don’t know if I’d go there. Utah, at least doesn’t have a team. I don’t know.

But you start to think about that. You want to get up to sea level. You don’t want nature beating you, so you don’t want to drown out. You don’t want to be in f*ing Johnstown or something, or Jones or whatever that place is.

TUCKER CARLSON: Johnstown or Jonestown or Jonestown.

THEO VON: Both of them.

TUCKER CARLSON: Both of them. Bad, bad, bad. Purple Kool-Aid overflowing rivers. You don’t want to go anywhere, I think is the truth. You don’t want to go anywhere.

THEO VON: You don’t want to.

TUCKER CARLSON: You don’t want to travel. If things go sideways. I don’t think you want to be on the road.

THEO VON: I mean, that’s a good point.

Experiencing Chaos

TUCKER CARLSON: The two times I’ve been in places for brief periods where there really was no authority.

THEO VON: What did that feel like? And where was it?

TUCKER CARLSON: One was at Katrina, right after the storm in New Orleans.

THEO VON: Wow. You were down there, huh, bro?

TUCKER CARLSON: I was. And the other was in Baghdad in December of ’03 when it kind of started to get, I felt out of hand.

THEO VON: And which one was more hectic, you think?

Hurricane Katrina and Social Collapse

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, Baghdad. But for the United States, I really, no one ever says this, I really feel like Katrina was almost unbelievable, how chaotic it was.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, for real. I mean, yeah, I could bore you, but…

THEO VON: Oh, I’ve been at a game when the Saints are losing to the Falcons and it gets hectic enough.

TUCKER CARLSON: There is no one there to call, period. And then people start behaving in ways that are ridiculous. And I saw, I saw that with my own eyes and dead people and people getting shot. I saw it, not guessing. And I was just like, this cannot be America.

I always thought if something bad happened, there would be, you just call some special number and dad comes and restores order. No, no. All the police were looting. I saw it. Yeah, police were looting during Katrina.

So that’s, anyway, whatever. My point is, I don’t think you want to travel too much if you can help it.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, it’s better to be in a place where you’re just like, this is my place and I’m defending it with these firearms. But until things calm down, you know, until electricity is restored after the EMP attack or whatever. Yeah, because that’s what’s going to happen.

Digital Vulnerability

THEO VON: You’ll be a nuclear attack.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, there’s going to be, it’s pretty easy to take down a society that’s digital.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Once you unplug that. And then when there’s, but that’s a crazy feeling when you’re like, okay, because your first thought is, let me call somebody. Nope, your phone isn’t going to work.

TUCKER CARLSON: No calling. No oil through the pipelines, no food delivery.

THEO VON: God’s going to have the busiest afternoon.

TUCKER CARLSON: No airlines, no one on the roads. Dams fail. If you’ve put everything online, which, because the people who run our country are so stupid, they’ve actually done that, you are so vulnerable that it’s unbelievable. And you’re using Chinese servers and switchers, and at that point, you have no control. You don’t need to drop a nuke on anybody.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. First of all, if anybody scrambled any other kids do not nuke.

TUCKER CARLSON: You don’t need to.

THEO VON: Yeah, you don’t need to. Let us at least enjoy the mystery of it for a little while too.

TUCKER CARLSON: But people are so, that doesn’t mean just no DoorDash. That means no anything and people. One thing I’ve noticed in both the places I’ve been.

THEO VON: Stacy Dash either. Huh? That b.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, no Stacy Dash. You can’t call any of your call girls from the interstate.

THEO VON: Oh, thank God. What if they start showing up?

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re like, they will. They’ll be seeking refuge at your place. Remember me? You tipped me for no service.

THEO VON: Seeking refuge. Raiments. That was a tough play on words.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s a good one though.

THEO VON: Thank you, dude. But I think, yeah, but you wouldn’t be able to use money anywhere. No, that’s going to become no value. It’s just, it’s weird we’re having this conversation, but even as me listening to you talk, I am, my brain, I think is recording this because it feels like it could be plausible.

All you need is a couple of cops to be like, you know what? F these people as well. I’m not going to fing quit. I’m not going to quit blockading or attacking these people who I know are really struggling when I’m going home tonight and being one of them 100%.

When Authority Disappears

TUCKER CARLSON: And by the way, my kids. My kids are at home. And there’s, now this happened in New Orleans during Katrina is cops. And I give them all the benefit of the doubt. You know, some of them, you do have some criminal cops down there, but you also have good guys too, you know, and the good guys, I’m sorry, I got a wife and kids at home. I’m not.

And people going nuts. The thing that I noticed was it took zero time from when authority disappeared for people to get super afraid for the predators come out and start preying on people and for everything just to fall apart. Everything.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And if you unplug this country. And by the way, once you decide you’re going to go to war with Iran, as we’ve apparently the morons who run our country have decided that is, I mean, a very likely outcome that they’re going to do something like that.

THEO VON: Really?

TUCKER CARLSON: Absolutely. Everyone’s like, oh, they could send an ICBM or whatever. Why would they bother to throw a missile at the United States across the ocean when they could unplug the country? And then you have real casualties, mass casualties and mass chaos. True, true chaos.

THEO VON: Oh yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: People are not prepared for this. They haven’t thought it through. Our leaders have not prepared them for it at all. It’s like, oh, it’s on your iPhone. We don’t have an iPhone. And there’s no electricity and there’s no water and there’s no way to get anywhere. Yeah, come on, dude.

And that could happen. That’s not science fiction. That could happen soon. And we’re not ready for it. And as you said, it’s not a cohesive country. People are not like, oh, I’m going to help my neighbors. You don’t know who your neighbors are. They may not speak the same language.

THEO VON: Well, you’re certainly not going to also help your government. So that’s going to be the weird thing when the government’s like, people do this. It’s your, you might. If you’re, a lot of people are like, f* you. I don’t trust you totally.

Understanding Chaos

TUCKER CARLSON: And people have not seen chaos. They don’t know what chaos looks like. When people imagine war, they imagine, you know, two lines against each other, lobbing artillery shells or rifle fire at each other. There’s a certain order to that and people can handle it. You know, it’s dangerous, but I can handle it. It makes sense to me. It’s orderly, it’s geometric.

Chaos is completely different from that. Chaos is like, you have no freaking idea what’s happening. Who’s on your side, who’s not, who’s a threat, who isn’t where things are going. People are not designed for that. People can’t handle chaos and they go crazy.

And I’ve only, as I said, had a taste of this a couple of times, but enough to learn. Chaos is the one thing you have to avoid. Because that’s when people become animals and really start behaving in ways that are inconceivable to civilized people.

THEO VON: Oh, we’re going to turn into middle monkeys real fast here.

TUCKER CARLSON: We’re going to in minutes.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh yeah, bro. Dude, I was at a Dave and Buster’s one time, right? I’m not even joking. Power goes out.

TUCKER CARLSON: Dude, did you eat anyone, bro?

THEO VON: It was wacka. Everyone in that dude. People were beating this. There was, it was complete darkness, right? And people. Yeah, you’re feeling around for whatever, you know, birthday cake or whatever. You’re, you know, you don’t even know what’s going on. Yeah, but that was created at the Dave and Buster. I know. You know.

So what is your plans now? You’ve already, you’re on Twitter, you’re in a free space as much as we have in today’s society. You’re in a free space for free speech. What else do you…

Future Plans and Territorial Expansion

TUCKER CARLSON: Is there, we have some plans. I mean, some of them, I mean, if I’m being honest, include territorial expansion. We’re going to invade Canada.

THEO VON: Oh, dude, they’ll just knock.

TUCKER CARLSON: No pillow fight. No, I mean, I just want to continue doing what we’re doing, which is just, you know, say things that can’t be said in other places, bring facts that maybe people haven’t heard with a spirit of humility. You know, if you, having spent my whole life in Washington, most of it 35 years, I’m very, I know it’s, I can’t believe I…

THEO VON: But you know what? I think a lot of people were glad that somebody was there. You know, it’s nice to see people that get out of a space because then they’re, when you’re not as compromised, when people don’t seem as compromised.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s totally right. No, it’s totally true. But I didn’t realize just how controlled my brain was by it when I was in it. Because you don’t. Right. But anyway. But I’ve been around a lot of people who set out with these grandiose plans, I’m going to change the world. Those people invariably, 100% of the time, make the world worse.

So, you know, approach every task with the knowledge I have no real idea what I’m doing. I don’t know the long term consequences of this. I probably can’t fix every problem. I’m just going to try my best with humility, you know, to make things slightly better. That’s my goal, make things slightly better.

But anyone who tells you if we pass this legislation, we’re going to fix everything, we’re going to fix healthcare forever, said Barack Obama in 2010. As soon as he said that, I was like, I don’t even know much about healthcare. I’m hardly an expert, but I was like, the second you tell me you’re going to fix something as complicated as, you know, one fifth of the entire US economy in one piece of legislation, f* you. Yeah, because you’re lying, actually. Because that’s impossible. And it turned out they made it worse, of course.

So I don’t want to do that. Not that I even have the power to, but I just want to, you know, I just want to tell the truth and do it without being told not to. And I think that we can.

THEO VON: And Tucker on X is your show.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

THEO VON: Right?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

Working With Others

THEO VON: And do you guys have, will you, do you think? Would you ever do a show with a partner, you think, or anything like that? I’m not going to pitch you an idea. I’m just, because that’s usually the predecessor question of somebody trying to pitch you an idea. But do you think about that sort of thing?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I mean, I have a million people I would like to work with. I mean, you know, I like to interview people, actually, and a lot. And I really try to be quiet while I interview them because I’m a compulsive talker, obviously, but I’d like a respite from that where I can just listen.

So I like to, we will have a lot of people on and we have. And we’ll have a lot of recurring guests, but yeah, we have all, we’re making a bunch of documentaries and doing stuff like that.

THEO VON: So like a production company kind of more like, are you expanding in that sense?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

THEO VON: Like, what is that one? Ben Shapiro has one. Outkick is a company. Is that a company? Daily Wire.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t know what Outkick is. I have a friend who works there.

THEO VON: Okay. I think it was football. And then they, okay, does Jason…

TUCKER CARLSON: Does Jason still work there? Do you know Jason Whitlock?

THEO VON: Yeah, I do know Jason Whitlock. I met him one time.

TUCKER CARLSON: So I love Jason Whitlock.

THEO VON: He’s a really neat guy. He seemed very friendly. I didn’t get to talk to him much.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s a great guy and very deep. He’s not a shallow person at all. He’s the kind of person. When you’re talking to him, Whitlock’s, oh, there he is right there. Whitlock will say things and you’re like, wait, what? I’m sorry. I just want to have a super shallow conversation like, how are you? I’m great. How are you? And he’ll, because I’m shallow in some ways. And he’ll, he’ll sort of super heavy stuff out there and it’s cool.

THEO VON: That’d be interesting. Sometimes I want to have deeper conversations with people, but I think I get afraid to get into him or I don’t know how to get into him without seeming like I’m being obtrusive or I don’t know.

TUCKER CARLSON: With him, you don’t have to worry because he does it.

THEO VON: He’s okay with it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, well, he just goes there immediately goes there. I like that about him.

THEO VON: Do you, do you ever get asked and then we’ll wrap up because I even here for a while. Thanks for your time.

TUCKER CARLSON: I love it.

THEO VON: Do you ever get asked to bring people over to Twitter? Is there no movement? Because I know Jon Stewart just had a show with Apple, right? Was that recently where he canceled? Yeah, he had a show with Apple.

TUCKER CARLSON: John Stewart.

THEO VON: Jon Stewart.

TUCKER CARLSON: Guy from the Daily Show.

THEO VON: From the Daily Show. John Stewart. Show on Apple is ending. Mr. Stewart and Apple are parting ways because of creative differences.

TUCKER CARLSON: I didn’t even know he had a show on Apple. So it shows you what I know.

THEO VON: People with the knowledge. But they had a disagreement about the episodes. The type of episodes he wanted to do. He wanted to do episodes on… According to Hollywood Reporter, head of its decision to end, Apple approached Stuart directly and expressed its need for the host and his team to be aligned with the company’s views on topics and disgust.

Rather than falling in line, when Apple threatened to cancel the show, Stewart reportedly decided to walk. Stewart discussions of artificial intelligence and China were a major concern for Apple. Why would they be concerned with him having episodes like that?

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, we’re assuming that’s true. I hope it’s true. That’s a noble reason to leave. If you think there’s something really important you want to cover and your boss says no, it’s a good reason to quit. So I hope that that’s right.

THEO VON: Was there another time you almost quit before?

TUCKER CARLSON: My sense laid off all the time. I didn’t even know that show existed. So I don’t think it was doing well. I don’t think so.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And Stuart, obviously a talented guy. I knew him, 25 years ago. Yeah, I always thought he was talented. He definitely did what I think everyone does at some point. And it’s important to come out of it and start to mistake yourself for a messianic figure and just… No, I’m just a guy. It’s so important. And I’ve done that, so I’ve been there.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Your ego is the first thing to grow 100% and it’s very scary. You’re like, dang, does God have some special reason for me?

The Danger of Ego

TUCKER CARLSON: No. You will humiliate yourself. You will humiliate yourself and you’ll destroy yourself. You will lose the respect of your wife and your friends if you don’t pull back from that. And just remember, I am an asshole.

And if you don’t believe that, next time you get out of the shower, walk in front of the mirror and look at yourself and be like, am I really impressive? No, not really.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah. I saw it this morning. Did you?

TUCKER CARLSON: What do you think? Right. Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. So it’s important to do that. That will keep you from thinking you’re the Messiah. I don’t think he has any mirrors in this house.

THEO VON: Any other question or anything you wanted to talk about, Tucker?

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

THEO VON: Okay. I know you share everything on your own show.

TUCKER CARLSON: I just share everything in general.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve enjoyed the hell out of it.

THEO VON: Yeah, man, it’s been a lot of fun.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve had a great time.

THEO VON: Yeah, me too. I appreciate it.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re the only person I’ve talked to in the last… well, probably ever, who one of my kids will be impressed by. They’re not impressed at all. Yeah, they’re impressed by you. I don’t know why. You’ve obviously got some sort of weird magic power over younger people.

THEO VON: I don’t know anything about you.

TUCKER CARLSON: Don’t abuse it. Okay, good.

THEO VON: I guess you’re not going to start.

TUCKER CARLSON: A children’s crusade or anything.

THEO VON: They came after our industry a couple years ago.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, I didn’t mean anything creepy.

THEO VON: Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I only know adult women.

TUCKER CARLSON: The old women like you.

THEO VON: No, I just only know people that are legally adult.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course.

THEO VON: Okay. That’s all I’m saying, dude. Because yeah, immediately, you know that. I remember the New York Times hunted down half of our industry.

TUCKER CARLSON: I noticed.

THEO VON: Yeah. Just that vague stuff, what comes up.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I think there are a lot of creepy comedians, but not as many as there are in journalism.

The Jeffrey Toobin Incident

THEO VON: Yeah, there’s some creatures in journalism. Oh, dude, what happened? Remember the guy who jerked off in the Zoom meeting, and then they brought him back on for the interview, and he sat there.

TUCKER CARLSON: And he’s like, oh, you got caught whacking off at a Zoom interview. I mean, it just shows you. His name is Jeff, too, and not a stupid guy. Actually, I know him and I worked with him.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: But his desire to be on television trumps everything else. If I said to you, if that happened to you, you’d be like, you know what? I’m just kind of out. I’m going to do something. You know what I mean?

THEO VON: I’ll find people know I’ve had issues with it. Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, well, you… but you said you have them under control. You’re not compulsive.

THEO VON: No, I’m doing great.

TUCKER CARLSON: Just habitual.

THEO VON: But not a problem on a full moon.

TUCKER CARLSON: But imagine if you’re Jeff Toobin, to sit there with this female anchor on Fox and talk about that. It’s like there’s no shame that you won’t bear. There’s no sh*t you won’t eat just to be on television.

And I obviously had no respect for Jeff Toobin anyway. Because I know him. But I had even less after that. I mean, that was…

THEO VON: It’s weird how God will give you your gifts. You don’t f*ing know what they’re going to be wrapped in. It’s like all he wanted to be was on camera.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know.

THEO VON: And just like, you got to want the right things.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know what I mean?

THEO VON: I think you got to get real specific with God, bro. Because he’s busy.

The Value of Public Humiliation

TUCKER CARLSON: I totally agree. And last thing I’ll say is, I think it’s so important if you are publicly humiliated. And I have certainly been. And he was, of course, too. It can be a great thing. That’s a great thing.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you should treat it that way and be grateful for it. You know that this is keeping me from becoming an even worse person than I might otherwise have been.

There’s nothing worse than a man who spent his entire adult life succeeding and never being humiliated. They become unbearable. They talk only about themselves. They can’t bear to listen to you every time you talk. If they’re holding their breath until you stop so they can start up again, they become true narcissists.

And I just hope for Jeff Toobin, who’s really an asshole, actually. I’m just saying.

THEO VON: I don’t know.

TUCKER CARLSON: I do. I do. So I just say he’s an asshole. Yeah, he is. But he may be less of one now.

THEO VON: Yeah, actually.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I’ve certainly been an asshole a lot. So I’m not judging.

THEO VON: But I do it.

TUCKER CARLSON: So I have high hopes for him.

THEO VON: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Caught whacking off. There’s a massive upside, potentially.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, dude. I mean, definitely. There’s no way. Yeah, that guy definitely likes jerking. But yeah. Anyway, Tucker Carlson, thanks so much, dude.

TUCKER CARLSON: The best.

THEO VON: It was interesting and I really appreciate your time. I really do.

TUCKER CARLSON: I did. And thank you for the Zen.

THEO VON: All right. Yeah, you bet, brother. I might do one later. We’ll see.

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