Mario Nawfal’s Interview: Tucker Carlson – They Dragged Trump Into Wars He Promised To Stop (Transcript)

He had no natural desire to launch a regime change war against Iran. He understood the risks perfectly well. He feared those risks. He told me that, and he did it anyway. So he did it against his will.

That tells you a couple of different things. One, that there is some sinister mechanism by which the president of the United States was forced to do something he didn’t want to do. But it also tells you that the president of the United States — whoever it is, Trump or the presidents that preceded him — don’t really run the country, that they have a boss. And again, that’s the kind of realization that leads to societal collapse and revolution. Once people realize the system itself is fake — not just that bad people are running the system, but the system itself isn’t what it claims to be — then you’re kind of shaking the foundations of the society.

I know that about Butler. I know that Trump shut down the investigation into Butler. That is a fact. Dan Bongino told me that when he worked at the FBI. And Dan Bongino himself was terrified when I spoke to him in December.

It’s such a long story, but basically I accidentally came into possession of a lot of the social media posts that we were told didn’t exist, that were posted by Thomas Crooks in the months and years before the shooting. And I was amazed that the FBI had lied about this. So I called Kash Patel, and I later called Dan Bongino, and I said, “What is this? I’m not attacking you. It was the previous FBI administration that did this. It was Chris Wray. But what is this?”

And Dan Bongino became hysterical with me on the phone. I’ve known Dan a long time, for many years, and always got along with him. Whatever his faults, certainly very nice to me. I never had a problem with Dan ever. And that problem began when I brought this information to his attention, and he became a different person. He was clearly terrified. I didn’t get it at first, but he was hysterical.

And ultimately, after a long series of text exchanges — which I still have — and phone conversations, he said, “Look, take it up with Trump. He’s the one who shut down the investigation.” And that was, I think, the first or second week of December. I have it written down. But that was the moment, and I realized, oh wow, there’s no good explanation for shutting down an investigation into your own attempted murder. Like, this is not what we’ve been told it was.

The Risks of Regime Change in Iran

MARIO NAWFAL: When you said Trump feared those risks, he told you that — what risks do you think he was referring to? What was he fearing?

TUCKER CARLSON: He was responding to my description of what I thought the risks were, and they were, in order: if you achieved your goal and regime changed Iran, if you took out the leadership of Iran and the country collapsed into some kind of ethnic civil war — because it’s only barely 50% Persian, there’s a lot going on there — it could be an unstable country. If you did to Iran what we’re trying to do to Russia, would that be a win? No, because the weapon stockpiles would fall into the hands of people you couldn’t control. You would have a refugee crisis that would further destroy Europe. You would have a lot of downstream effects.

You would also — and I said this to Trump — inevitably get a lot of direct attacks on your Gulf state allies on the other side of the Persian Gulf, who are our main allies in the region. And they can’t defend themselves, and we have reached the limit of our ability to defend them. And in the end, the United States could lose a lot of influence, if not its physical presence, in the Middle East. And places like UAE and Qatar and Saudi, which are real allies and have invested trillions in foreign direct investment in the United States, those countries could be wrecked.

And then of course the Strait of Hormuz would be shut — by definition it would be shut — and a fifth of the world’s oil and at least as much natural gas and sulfur and all these different petrochemicals and commodities the world needs, the global economy needs, would end. And you could tank the global economy, you could wreck markets.

So I said all of this to him. And he said, “I know, I know.” And said a few things that were so nihilistic that they led me to believe that he had no choice at all. Trump is not stupid. Trump is light on detail, doesn’t care about detail, makes stuff up. He’s a compulsive bragger. All of Trump’s faults are on display. But he has a very high comprehension of certain things, and one of them is risk. Trump understands risk. That’s why he’s still here at 80. And he knew these risks. He thought them through. I don’t know if anyone else had presented them, but I did. And this was like 10 days before the war started. And he knew it, and he did it anyway. So I thought then, and I think now, he did it against his will.

Now, what’s the mechanism by which he was forced to do this? The donors were up in his face, all the Zionist donors. Obviously Rupert Murdoch — who for the record is not Jewish — was the most aggressive of all of them. And I said to Trump many times, “Rupert hates you. I worked for Rupert for 15 years. I know him very well and actually still like him, but he despises you. So if you’re taking advice from people who despise you, it’s probably a trap. This will wreck your administration. This will destroy your legacy. You won’t be able to do anything.”

I mean, George W. Bush had all kinds of plans for reforming Social Security and a lot of other things, and he’s remembered for the one tragic mistake that he made — the Iraq War waged on behalf of Israel. I said this to Trump. He knew, of course he knew that. And I said, “You could easily be George W. Bush, very easily, but Iran is more than twice the size of Iraq. So like George W. Bush 2X — you want that?” But he did it anyway.

Forced, Not Tricked

MARIO NAWFAL: Was he — do you think he was misled into it, tricked into it, or forced into it?

TUCKER CARLSON: Forced. I think he was forced.

MARIO NAWFAL: Pressured.

The Fix Was In: Trump’s Path to War with Iran

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, look, they’ve been putting pressure on Trump, his donors, Miriam Adelson, Rupert, Benjamin Netanyahu, since the first portion of his first term. You know, they pushed him to kill Soleimani, to get out of the Iran deal. I mean, this has been coming down the tracks for more than 10 years, and I’ve been staring at it as it approaches, and I’ve been talking to Trump about it for 10 years.

So it’s not like out of nowhere super clever people surrounded Trump and said, “I’ve got an idea, you want to enhance your legacy, you want to make America truly great again, launch a regime change war against Iran.” Like, that’s not how it happened. He’s been under consistent pressure, which he has withstood for a decade, and then at the end of February, he flipped 180 degrees and did this thing.

So yes, I mean, look, I was in Washington for the inauguration. I was with Trump at the inauguration, went to church with him that morning, and the very first visitor to the White House was Benjamin Netanyahu. Very first. And that was the first of, I think, 8 trips to— what, 8? I think that may be 7, but I think it’s 8. To Washington in less than a year and a half. So this was already going, like, they had already— this was already planned out by the inauguration.

I mean, think about it. Mike Waltz was the National Security Advisor, the first National Security Advisor. Obviously, Marco Rubio was the Secretary of State and now the acting official National Security Advisor. Like, John Ratcliffe was CIA Director. Like, from the very first day of the transition— and I was at the first meeting in November, you know, the first Wednesday in November after the election— those spots were occupied by people, to my shock, who wanted war with Iran.

So in retro— and I didn’t fully understand it. I was really stunned that after that whole campaign in which Trump said again and again, including standing right next to me on stage, “No more forever wars, no more pointless wars in the Middle East. We’re going to actually do something about our country. We’re going to turn our attention and our money to your concerns. We’re going to make this a better country. We’re going to make America great again.” After all of that, he would put Ratcliffe and Marco and Waltz, like, all of whom I like personally, but that’s not the point.

The point is these guys are ideologically committed and paid, paid, and have been their whole careers to support a regime change war with Iran, and they had the national security posts. It was like mind-boggling to me, and I didn’t understand it. Now I do understand it. The fix was in. So I wish I had understood that earlier, but I didn’t.

Yeah. So basically, as of November 5th or 6th or whatever the date was, that Wednesday, we were on track for war with Iran. That means that for the preceding whatever period, Trump was on board with it too and lying about it. I mean, this is all becoming clear to me with some distance. I didn’t have enough distance from Trump to really see this clearly. And I like Trump. I’ve always liked Trump, like, as a person. So that makes it even harder to see it.

But no, I think it goes back to at least Butler. And by the way, the second the Butler shooting happened, all these people who were not Trump supporters became public Trump supporters. Now, at the time, I thought, well, they just admire his bravery in the face of gunfire, which he displayed. I just want to be clear about that. The guy did get shot in the ear. That’s real. It wasn’t a blood packet. That was absolutely real. He behaved in this incredibly manly way that I admire. I talked to him that night, and he had his wits about him, and he was calm. I admired that. I still admire that. So, like, that’s all real. But then you have to think, like, I don’t know, something about that moment was the pivot.

Trump’s Miscalculation and the Trap He Can’t Escape

MARIO NAWFAL: So I’m in the belief that after the war went so badly, you know, he was planning a short war, which is just crazy to me. And then once the Gulf got struck, once the Strait of Hormuz got struck, once he saw Iran’s capabilities to keep firing missiles day after day, he realized it was a mistake and he started to pivot. He started preparing to walk away, trying to get an MOU, and even distancing himself from Israel.

Some people called me naive thinking that, but I’ve been very optimistic since even before the ceasefire. As soon as he started making those tweets about wiping out civilization, I’m like, look, seems he wants an off-ramp. I don’t expect Trump to really destroy the energy infrastructure of Iran and the Gulf. But then I see what’s happening yesterday and today, that we’re back into, you know, Trump talking about firing at— I think Wall Street Journal reported that Trump wants to attack Iran on a daily basis. That’s no longer a ceasefire. Do you think Trump is trying to walk away right now, or he’s in a completely different mindset and he wants this to continue?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I want to be clear, I haven’t spoken to Trump since the day or two before the war began at the end of February. So I don’t, you know, so I try to reach out. I’m not, no, I’m not in— I don’t hate Trump, but I’m, you know, this is the worst thing that any president has ever done, from the perspective of American interest. This reduces American power and our standard of living more profoundly than any single decision any president’s ever made.

So, you know, at some point as an American, I just don’t support it. And no, I’m not going to call him, not because I hate him, but because I just, I’m so sad about this and I so strongly disapprove of it. But I’m only saying that because I want to be clear, I don’t know what Trump’s thinking because I haven’t talked to him, but I do know him well and I’ve talked to him a lot over many years.

And I agree with your analysis. I think Trump convinced himself, he went into his happy place, which he does, and he convinced himself this could be like Venezuela, and he could get it over with quickly at minimal cost and be, you know, greeted as a liberator or whatever here and in Iran. And when it didn’t happen, he was angry at Israel. I absolutely agree with you.

I think he sent Marco Rubio out to Congress to blame Israel, which he did. It was really literally one of the very first public statements the administration made within 2 or 3 days of the war commencing, that we followed Israel into this. I don’t think Marco would have said that without authorization. I just don’t believe it. That’s such a heavy-duty thing to say. It’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory, among other things. It’s also a fact, but I don’t think he would have said that unless it was mirroring what Trump was saying in private.

Okay, so that’s one. So I do think he’s always disliked Netanyahu, always. Most— I think everyone dislikes Netanyahu personally. I think Mrs. Netanyahu dislikes Netanyahu more than anybody. So, I mean, like, disliking Netanyahu is a kind of universal, you know, it’s a universal blood type. But I think that that’s intensified, and I think he feels trapped.

So yes, and Trump has this very unattractive but recognizable quality where he blames other people for his own failures. So I do think he’s blaming the Israelis. I’m sure he’s mad at Mark Levin or all the other buffoons, Mark Thiessen, all these other low IQ creatures around him affirming his bad instincts. I’m sure he’s blaming all of them. I don’t know that, but I know him. I’m sure he’s blaming JD, you know, or whatever. He’s a blamer.

Iran’s Geographic Power and the Deal That Must Come

But fundamentally, he can’t get out of it because of the geography of the region. And if there’s one thing that I’ve always noticed about American policymakers is they don’t look at maps and they have no sense, especially now that we’re all living in a digital world, they have no sense of physical reality. And, you know, Iran’s place on the map, occupying the majority of the shoreline along the Strait, gives it power that’s pretty hard to do anything about. You know, no matter how many $120 billion aircraft carriers you have, you can’t move Iran, which is right across the water from Oman. You just— it’s there.

So Iran is an economic power. More than anything. And we just didn’t recognize that because, again, people are way too up in their own heads with their own theories, and everything’s on a screen. But just like, look at a map. Iran is— it doesn’t matter whether they have nukes or not, they are physically on this choke point at the eastern end of a fifth of the world’s oil supply. So it’s like, it’s a powerful country no matter what you say, no matter what you do. Iran is powerful now. It’ll be powerful in a year. It’ll be powerful in 100 years. As long as people use petroleum products, hydrocarbons, Iran will be powerful.

So anyway, Trump realized all that, I think, within a day or two. And everything since has been him kind of speaking his frustration out loud. The problem is that, you know, when you’re the president, a wartime president, as he now describes himself, it kind of matters what you say in public. Trump has promised since March 23rd, 38 separate times, that we were on the cusp of a deal with Iran. I checked yesterday, 38 separate times. And of course there’s no deal, and there won’t be until the United States feels such profound economic pain that it has no choice but to make concessions that would have been unthinkable in February.

For example, allowing continued control over the Strait. Oman and Iran will share control of the Strait. That was not true in February. It’s going to be true probably for the rest of our lives. And there’s really nothing we can do about it. So he has to accept that, and it’s hard to accept.

Israel’s Hubris and the Reckoning Ahead

Now, will Israel accept it? Will Israel, at the end, whoever’s leading the country, whether it’s Netanyahu or the next guy, be able to look at his population and say, “We’re going to have to share the region with another power center that’s not going away, nukes or not.” And I don’t know if they can. I don’t know if like emotionally they can. They’ve talked themselves into such a state, such a grandiose state, you know, in Israel.

I know a lot of people in Israel and every time I talk to them, they tell me the same thing. “Everyone here thinks we run the world.” And those are kind of like the sentiments you have right before you blow up your life. In a man, that’s called hubris. You know, “I’m so powerful. I’ve got 3 girlfriends and my wife doesn’t know, but like, great men deserve a harem.” Like, this is how men think when they’re in this state of hubris. I mean, it’s— I’m 57, I’ve seen a lot of it. But it’s also how countries think, how people think collectively.

And Israel is in that state, and it’s not because it’s Jewish or Israel. It’s like, this is how people are. All people are capable of this. The Israelis, the Malaysians, us, everybody. And they’re in this state, and it is in effect a self-destructive state because pride goeth before the fall, you know.

So I feel sorry for everyone involved, including— I mean, obviously I think the government of Israel is disgusting and they’re genocidal, and I hope they’re brought to account, and I hope the people who’ve committed genocide and murder of children are punished for it. And like, I’m not endorsing Israel, obviously. But as a human being, I do feel sorry for the Israelis because they’re about to find out the hard way that no, they’re not a superpower. They’re the tiny little country in the Levant of 9 million people who are committing grotesque crimes, and you can never get away with those forever. And they’re not going to get away with them forever. They’ll be punished for this big time. And I feel bad for them because they don’t know that yet.

MARIO NAWFAL: When you say they’ll find out, you mean Trump will change that relationship? Because we’re seeing a bit of a power struggle, at least in the media, like the Axios call between Trump and Netanyahu.

Israel’s Control Over Trump and the Middle East Conflict

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I mean, I think, look, for whatever reason, Israel has complete control over Trump and still proxies. Oh, of course, of course. Yeah, of course. I mean, we shifted— I’m not guessing about this— we shifted missile defense from our actual allies in the Gulf, our most faithful allies in the world, the allies from which we receive the most benefit, and that would be the GCC, the Gulf states. We shifted missile defense from them that would be defending Doha and Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Riyadh. We shifted it to Israel, and they know that. They’re very aware. Trust me, they’re very aware of that.

So in the middle of the war, we did this. They have nothing to do with this. They’re just bystanders, and they’re getting destroyed. Israel started this war. And so you would think, well, they can defend themselves. They want a war, go ahead and have a war. Good luck. But we shifted our missile defense from our actual allies to Israel. So that’s the clearest possible illustration of who’s in charge. Israel’s in charge. They control Trump. Trump does not have sovereignty.

But the arc of justice is long and there is justice in this world. If you commit crimes, you will be punished for them. Period. That is always true. And life for most of us is this whole process of denying that, but it doesn’t make it any less true. So I always feel sorry for the criminal, not because I’m a liberal— I’m not— but because I’m a human being and I know that there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth at the end. The more crimes you commit, the greater your suffering. And Israel’s committed a lot of crimes. And so I know I’m often called an anti-Semite or an Israel hater. I’m neither one of those things. I’m just a person who believes in justice and decency and hates the murder of innocents. They’ve murdered innocents, they’ll be punished for it.

MARIO NAWFAL: Sorry. Yeah. So what do you make of the Axios call then? So it seemed pretty, at least to me, it seemed pretty obvious there was something happening. It wasn’t all for show. The attack by Iran on Israel. Even when Iran attacked Israel, the US did not intercept Iranian missiles. I think that’s the first time that happens as well. Trump made it clear to Netanyahu the US would not be involved. So I’m— maybe I’m being hopeful, but it seems maybe Trump, to save himself politically, or just because he’s upset, he’s changing that relationship in some way.

Trump’s Frustration With Netanyahu

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, that’s certainly the hope if you’re an American, not because you hate Israel or Bibi or anything like that, but just because this is really destroying America and you want America to win. Those are my feelings. I’m just skeptical. Yeah, of course Trump despises Netanyahu. He feels tricked by Netanyahu. He feels used by Netanyahu. And not just Netanyahu, but there are a lot of people who work on Netanyahu’s behalf, American— putative American citizens who are working for Netanyahu, loyal to Netanyahu and not to Trump or the United States. And I think Trump’s mad at all of them because he’s in this spot, and as I said, he’s blaming them.

But the question is not, is he mad? Does he understand that he got tricked or led into a trap? Yeah, he does understand that. I think the question is, what does he do about it? And really, you could end this tomorrow. So Iran, to its great credit, in my opinion— I’m not pro-Iran, but I certainly agree with this— has tied a ceasefire to a ceasefire in Lebanon, the country from which you come. One of the prettiest countries in the world, a country that’s done nothing to anybody. It’s really been a victim of its own proximity to Israel for the past 75 years, and it’s been destroyed by Israel, or as an effect of Israel’s actions.

And it’s being destroyed again, and they’re bombing— as you well know, they’re bombing not just southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, but they’re bombing Beirut, probably the prettiest city in the world, and they’re destroying it and killing people who did nothing wrong. And Iran is really the only country in the world that’s trying to do something about that. So we’re not having a ceasefire until Israel stops bombing Lebanon. Well, Netanyahu has just absolutely flat out refused, and to the extent that he’s tried to pull back from Lebanon, he’s been attacked. Because newsflash, Netanyahu is not the craziest person in Israel, not even close. He is also subject to political forces within his own country. He’s a moderate, actually, within the spectrum of Israeli politics, just like Putin is in Russia. If you think Putin is the most dangerous anti-Western guy in Russia, you know nothing about Russia.

So anyway, Bibi is under tremendous pressure to keep the bombing campaign going, and the only person who can actually stop it is Trump. And he could call him tomorrow and say, “That’s it, you’re getting no missile defense, you’re not getting another dollar, I will veto any funding for Israel, we’re pulling out all of our military support, no more intelligence for you, you have no more American military backstop if you drop one more bomb or send one more missile into Lebanon.” He could do that. And that’s what it would look like to change the relationship. Not leaking nonsense to some reporter at Axios, some Israeli reporter at Axios. But like actually facts on the ground. We’re changing the nature of the relationship, which is to say no more weapons for you. He could do that in about 4 minutes and he hasn’t. And until he does, color me skeptical.

MARIO NAWFAL: Oh man. So do you think the war will continue, or do you think he may walk away?

The Assassination That Started It All

TUCKER CARLSON: I do think it’ll continue because Iran— I mean, first of all, keep in mind that this war began with the United States and Israel murdering the leader of Shia Islam, okay? Yeah, so I’m a Christian, pretty enthusiastic Christian actually. Not a Muslim at all. I’m not. I reject Islam, I’ll just say. But I don’t think as a Christian that we should be killing other people’s religious leaders, especially when they’re in their 80s and are non-combatants. Sorry, I don’t think we should be assassinating people. And most Americans felt that way about 20 minutes ago. The US government did not openly assassinate anybody. We did assassinate people, but we lied about it because we knew it was shameful. This war began with the public assassination of the leader of a world religion. So when you start off like that, you don’t leave a lot of room for compromise or reasonable settlements.

Which was insane. And by the way, Israel pushed that. Netanyahu pushed that on Trump, convinced Trump and our IC, our 18 intel agencies disagreed and said, “I don’t think that’s going to work.” But Bibi prevailed and convinced Trump to do this. So once you start with that, you can imagine this is not going to be settled in an armistice or however it’s settled, except on pretty tough terms from Iran. And those terms will include control over the strait or shared control with Oman, which is across the water. They will include keeping its missile program, and they will include keeping the current government intact.

So you’re going to have inevitably an Iran with more power and more money despite whatever destruction we effect against their civilian infrastructure, which is a war crime, I’ll remind you. But whatever, no matter how many diesel plants or water reservoirs or power grid installations we blow up, Iran will be more powerful at the end than it was at the beginning of this conflict. So that’s just really hard to accept. And powerful, in real terms, not conceptually powerful, not ideologically powerful, or more coherent, or all the sort of hard-to-measure ways we describe power, but like, there’s more money coming in to the Treasury every year. They have greater respect from their trading partners. They have a closer relationship with China, a closer relationship with Russia, with Pakistan, with South Korea, with all the countries that need these commodities.

And there are fewer sanctions, fewer American sanctions on Iranian oil, or the US dollar has degraded to such a point that it doesn’t matter whether they’re dollar-based sanctions because people are not transacting in dollars. They’re using other currencies to buy and sell oil. So sanctions have no effect. So like all, some or all of those things will be true at the end. And like, can Trump accept that? Can American citizens accept that? That’s really hard to accept. And can the Israelis accept it? And the answer in all cases right now is no. They can’t. So it’s going to take a lot of suffering for us to get there. That’s my view.

Trump’s Post: Cancelled Strikes on Iran

MARIO NAWFAL: I get mocked a lot for being the optimist. I’m hoping— there’s a post that just came in from Trump now, I’ll read it to you, a few seconds ago. And again, I’m going to be very hopeful after I read this post. I just read it briefly while you’re speaking.

“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening. Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others. The naval blockade will remain in full force and effect until this transaction is finalized. Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly. Donald J. Trump.”

Now, we’ve seen posts like this before. I’m in the belief that I think Trump is the only person that could really stand up to Israel. I’ve been proven wrong time and time again. I’m hoping this is it. What’s your interpretation of this post?

Skepticism and the Road Ahead

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, as noted, that’s the 39th that has made the same claim, and the first 38 have proven false. So, but like you, I am fundamentally an optimist. I wake up in a cheerful mood every single morning, almost without fail. So I want to believe that. I’ve always thought a lot of Trump. I literally campaigned for him. I wasn’t getting paid. I did it because I wanted to. So I want to believe that.

I just can’t overstate, however, that Iran’s fundamental demands, the ones from which they will not move, they’re not negotiable, are going to be really hard to accept because there’s just no way around the fact that they’re going to control one of the most important pieces of real estate on the planet. And I can accept that. I don’t want it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. So I can accept it, but I’m not a politician and I’m not the Israeli.

I mean, the Israelis have really talked themselves into this headspace that’s not rational at all. And I’ve talked just this week to a friend of mine in Israel who is rational. He’s very pro-Israel. He lives in Israel. He was born there. He’s not against Israel or against the Jews. He’s an Israeli Jew. But he’s like, “Man, everyone here thinks we’re going to win. We’re going to control the entire Middle East. No one can stand in our way.” And I get it. Countries want to believe that about themselves, but they’re going to discover that no, actually, not only is Iran still there, it’s more powerful. I don’t know what the reaction to that’s going to be. And by the way, Israel’s dangerous. They kill people, a lot of people, and they assassinate people. They brag about assassinating people. So I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s harder than it looks. I guess I would just say that.

Both Sides Must Accept the Other’s Existence

MARIO NAWFAL: But would Israel, without the impunity that was provided by the US, that umbrella, that security umbrella, Israel may just have to adapt with reality, may have to adapt with living with Hezbollah up north on their borders. Iran, and to be clear, Iran has to also adapt with it as well. These statements coming out of Iran, they’re still saying the same thing. Yeah, Israel shouldn’t exist as a state, we’re going to wipe out the Zionist regime. And I think both countries— I made a post a few days ago— both countries need to understand the other will exist, and that’s a new reality.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I think this will happen. Strongly agree.

MARIO NAWFAL: Yeah.

Israel, Welfare, and the Limits of American Backing

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, part of the problem for Israel, a huge part of the problem, is the fact that it’s been on welfare since the day it was born. And people who are on welfare from the day of birth tend to be kind of rotten people with unrealistic expectations of life. This is true for poor people on welfare. It’s true for rich people on welfare, otherwise known as trust funds. They’re not reality-based people. I happen to know an awful lot of them. And they’re all kind of the same. And so it’s recognizable. Israel’s behavior is recognizable.

They’ve never had to get along with their neighbors because the United States would just swoop in and backstop, would co-sign for whatever crazy thing they wanted to do. “Oh, you want to kill the entire population of a region? Okay, we’re on board with that.” Normal countries don’t have that luxury. And so just like if you don’t like your neighbor — and it’s very common for people not to like their next-door neighbor — you have to figure out ways to deal with it because you can’t just go shoot him. And those ways tend to make you a better person. They make you more flexible. They make you more empathetic. That’s what growing is, is putting yourself in other people’s position and thinking about, well, what does it feel like to be my neighbor? And once you start thinking that way, then that’s the basis for a long-term peace.

Israel’s never had to do that. They consider the Arabs animals. They’re subhuman. They say this all the time. I’m not guessing about this. They say it even in English. They say it. “These people are animals. They’re fundamentally flawed. They’re not fully human. And we can’t live with them anywhere near us.” Well, okay. That’s obviously like Nazi talk, but it’s also unrealistic talk because what are you going to do about 1.9 million people in Gaza? No one wants them. You can’t actually move them anywhere. You can machine gun them all, which they’re not going to do. Or you can just get real about the fact that you have to live next to these people.

And I think Israel, like most countries, would have already gone through that process decades ago if it weren’t for American welfare. They would be better people and more reasonable people if we hadn’t enabled their worst instincts. For generations. So I think it’ll be a really good thing for Israel to be on its own. I hope that happens very, very soon.

I don’t want Israel to be destroyed, but the longer this goes, I would say, the higher the risk that Israel is literally destroyed by its neighbors because it’s the most hated country in the world for good reason. And they don’t care. They ascribe all disagreement to antisemitism, which they think is just totally unreasonable. “Why are people antisemitic? Well, because they are. And it’s this ancient hatred, it’s a mind virus, it’s a brain disease.” Okay, maybe, but people are mad about Gaza. They’re mad about the crimes that you committed in Gaza, which are real crimes, and they can’t accept that. And so the sooner that they’re forced to accept that, apologize for it, atone for it, put some people on trial for doing it, we can move past it. Truth and reconciliation, that’s what we need.

The Obsession With Israel

MARIO NAWFAL: I got asked once — not me specifically, but I think they were referring to you. They’re like, “We don’t know why people are so obsessed with Israel.” And then I thought about it for a couple of days. I’m like, I’m sick of talking about Israel. I want to talk about AI. I want to talk about what’s happening in China, the Russia-Ukraine war. But when you have things like this war in Iran, you have things like Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act — when I see things like this, and I’m not even American, as an Australian, as an ally of the US, when I see things like this, I’m like, man, how hijacked is the system? How flawed is the system itself?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, but how about you just back off, stop taking my money, return to me my sovereignty, and I’ll stop thinking and talking about it? I’ve never had any interest in talking about Israel at all. But you’ve got a very complicated psychology that has built up over generations. I was born in ’69, 2 years after the Six-Day War, and a lot of this was already in place then. So this is longstanding. These are longstanding patterns of behavior that are diseased. They’re super unhealthy. They’re terrible for the United States. They’re terrible for Israel. And it’s going to take a while to unwind all of this, but the unwinding has begun. There’s no question about it.

I mean, if you had said — as someone who has worked in the media his entire life for 35 years, probably most of my friends in the media are Jewish — if you’d called me an anti-Semite 5 years ago, I can’t imagine something worse really than to be called an anti-Semite. It just was awful. Now I’ve been slandered unfairly as an anti-Semite for so long. It’s never been true. It’s never going to be true. I will never be an anti-Semite because I just disagree with it, anti-Semitism. But now I just don’t care because I don’t see it as a real charge. I see it as a way to get critics of the state of Israel to be quiet, and I’m not going to be quiet.

And I think a lot of people have reached that point. So if that no longer works, if you can’t humiliate people into silence while you continue to commit your crimes, if you fail to convince them that criticizing murder is worse than murder — that’s really the case they’re making. It’s worse to criticize the genocide in Gaza than it is to commit the genocide in Gaza. And they’ve convinced a lot of people of this over many years. But if people sort of wake up from the spell, they’re like, “Wait, no — you’re the murderer, not me. You’re using my money to murder children. You’re the criminal.”

So many people have realized that, including me, that you’ve reached the end really of one form of your control. So what’s left? Well, you can use money and violence. That’s kind of all you have left. And neither one of those things works long-term either. So I do think we’re entering a more healthy stage where Israel can behave more like a normal country, and we can treat them more like a normal country, and we can all stop talking about Israel. And I can’t wait till that day comes.

Special Interest Groups and the Threat of Being Silenced

MARIO NAWFAL: Yeah. It’s not only about Israel, it’s all these different special interest groups behind the scenes that pull the presidents in all these different directions. Big Oil, the military-industrial complex. And I saw that tweet by Seb Gorka. I ignored it initially, and then I started seeing the impact of it, where he’s working with some agency to hurt the reputation. They’ve mentioned you, Candace, the Hodge Twins, a bunch of others. I was surprised to see my name there as well. And then I started thinking — do you ever worry that you could be silenced? Not only Israel, I’m talking about all these different groups that want to influence the American system for their own interests. You’re probably the loudest voice against such influences. Does that worry you at all?

TUCKER CARLSON: No. I mean, I see it as inevitable. Of course I’m not—

MARIO NAWFAL: What’s inevitable?

TUCKER CARLSON: My being silenced one way or the other. I’m not saying that in a self-pitying way. I’m hardly a martyr. The happiest life of anyone I know. But I don’t feel bad about it. I just see it as inevitable. I’m not a billionaire. I’m not even, despite my reputation, very rich. I’ve spent almost no time trying to accumulate money, not that interested. And I don’t have a military. I don’t hold office. I’m like some random podcaster in his barn in an impoverished zip code. I don’t have actual power. And I know that some things I say are highly annoying to people with actual power.

So I felt this way at Fox News. In the back of my head, I always knew I would get fired. And for a while I convinced myself, “I’ve got the highest-rated show in the history of cable, there’s no way they can fire me.” But I didn’t really believe it. I knew that they would ultimately fire me. It came a little sooner than I thought, but I always knew it would come. And I think it’ll come one way or the other to me now because it’s just inevitable. It’s going to rain at some point, we know that. And I’m not whining about that at all, and I don’t feel bad about it. I instead feel that it’s just important that while I can, I’m going to say exactly what I think is true, with the ever-present knowledge that I’m often wrong. I could be wrong because I’m not God, and that’s the number one thing I know about myself. But I sincerely believe what I say. I think it’s obvious that I sincerely believe what I say. And I’m going to say it until I can’t, period.

I always try and tell my children this. Young people really live in the future because they’re worried about stuff, and I get it, but they’re constantly thinking about what’s going to happen. And I’m always telling them — I don’t think it’s penetrated — that we have no idea what’s going to happen. Actually, the future is not real because it hasn’t happened yet. And I know from living a while that almost everything you imagine that’s going to happen to you is the opposite of what actually happens. I never thought I would be a journalist, for example. I never thought I would be on camera ever. It never occurred to me. I had a whole different life path planned. Most of us did. So I just don’t worry about the future very much because I know from firsthand experience that I’m bad at figuring out what it’s going to consist of.

All I can control is today, and I’m just going to keep talking. In fact, for the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’ve accepted every single interview request I’ve received. Every single one. I’ve never heard of some of these people. I don’t know these people. I know who you are, but I’ve accepted interview requests from completely random people. Why? Because I feel like I’m going to say everything I think as often as I can until I can’t anymore. That’s what I’ve decided I’m going to do.

Running for Office and the Inevitability of Silence

MARIO NAWFAL: I didn’t expect that answer. My next question is, are you considering running for office? What are your political ambitions? What is your plan? But then when you tell me that you’ve accepted the fact that you will be silenced eventually, or you at least understand that this is a possibility—

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, we’re all going to be silenced eventually by death. But if I could give one piece of advice that no one ever takes to younger people, it’s this: brood about death every day. It’s the basis of cheerfulness and lightness. Everybody pretends that they’re not going to die, and the people who face it directly are liberated from anxiety about it because you know that that’s going to happen. So then the question is not, am I going to die? You’re going to die. The question is, how do you live? And no one ever believes me, no one ever takes this advice, but I say it anyway because I know that it’s true.

So yeah, we’re all going to be silenced. I have no plans to run for office — that’s like a nightmare scenario for me. But I do plan to do whatever I can to change the system, which Trump has proven — his main contribution has been to prove that the system kind of can’t be changed.

MARIO NAWFAL: But then why not run? Why not run if you want to change the system? Why can’t you try what you thought Trump would do?

Tucker on Politicians and Running for Office

TUCKER CARLSON: I just can’t get my head around it. I mean, because it’s, I’ve always disliked politicians. I never even voted very often. I mean, it’s, I guess, a public record. You can check. But I mean, I just have been a very spotty voter, not because I don’t believe in voting, though increasingly I do wonder, but because I just feel like it’s too intimate. I don’t want to endorse any politician.

I mean, I voted for Trump this last— not the first time, but the last time I voted for him. And I campaigned with him, like I was all in. Not because I was getting rich from it, I wasn’t, but because I really believed this was our last chance. And anyway, my whole life I’ve just been kind of like contemptuous of politicians. We don’t have them to our home. We don’t talk about politics in my house. I’m not bragging, but like, we talk about things that really matter, I think, in my house at dinner. We have long meals every night, and we do not talk about politics because it’s like disgusting. That’s how I feel about it.

I’ve always felt that way, and I grew up in DC mostly, so I feel that. So the idea of me being a politician, that’s like, ugh. I mean, I guess it’s better than OnlyFans, but not by much. That’s how I— and definitely I’m not going to get paid to go on OnlyFans at 57. Sorry.

MARIO NAWFAL: Would you— I’ll press you again. Would you at least consider it? Is it something you discuss with Buck, maybe?

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I do discuss everything with Uncle Buck, who is a family hero. But no, I mean, it would just be a nightmare. And I have a huge family and a really close family, and I don’t want— you know, I feel like if I ever tried to run for office and somebody showed up in my town and stuck a microphone in the face of one of my relatives. I mean, I could see myself doing something for which I would be gravely punished. I mean, I don’t think I could handle that.

The Slander of Graham Platner

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve been in the media my whole life. I have such a low opinion of the media. I’m looking at what happened. So I’m in Maine, and Graham Platner, who I’ve never met, is running for Senate in Maine. He’s a liberal Democrat. I’m not voting for Graham Platner. However, I’m watching what they’re doing to this guy, and I kind of can’t believe it, attacking him like he’s a Nazi when he’s not a Nazi, claiming he had a Nazi tattoo when he did not have a Nazi tattoo, claiming that he’s got this freaky sex life, which maybe he does, but is it freakier than your average US senator? No, I know that for a fact.

The slander— and it’s not my job to defend Graham Platner, with whom I disagree on a lot of things. But they hate him and they’re trying to destroy him because of his position on Israel. That’s just a fact. And everyone’s lying about it. And these people who have no basis for judging anyone else, I know that, are running around telling you that Graham Platner’s like a child molesting Nazi. It’s so outrageous that it triggers me so much that I’m like, I’m going to send a check to Graham Platner. Well, no, because I don’t send checks to politicians and I don’t agree with Graham Platner on a lot. But that is so disgusting.

What is happening? It’s so dishonest is what I’m saying. It’s so dishonest. Rather than just say, “Graham Platner is not going to be a reliable vote for funding Israel, therefore we’re opposing him,” which is the truth, they’re pretending that they’re worried that he’s a Nazi when they’re not worried that he’s a Nazi.

By the way, they’re attacking him for his PTSD, which he apparently has. How did he get that? He got that because he fought in Israel’s war, the Iraq War, which we went into at the behest of Israel. That’s a fact. I was there. I was physically there. I was in Washington. I knew the president. I covered the war in Iraq, and I refuse to let history that I saw personally be rewritten by people who are liars. We went into that war at the behest of Israel. Graham Platner is a victim of that war, and now they’re attacking him. Advocates for Israel are attacking the guy who fought their war for being damaged by it. I can’t deal with it.

So I watched that happen, and I’m like, this system is so dishonest that I don’t even want to look at it because it poisons my soul. Does that make sense?

MARIO NAWFAL: Yeah, yeah. Look what happened to Massie as well. That was really sad to see. Such a nice guy.

Defending Thomas Massie

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s— I knew him well. I knew his wife well, Rhonda, his first wife. I know his second wife. He is— he’s like probably the only sitting member of Congress I would allow to babysit my children. And I mean, it’s incredible, but he’s like a— he’s such a decent man. He believes in self-reliance, which was an American value. It was also an Australian value. It’s gone now. Along with Anglo culture. It’s gone, but it was a bedrock foundational value in this country, like take care of your own family.

He lives in an off-grid house that he made. He believes in agriculture and decency. His 4 children love him. They’re all 4 married and productive citizens. One served in the military. He is the guy you want your son to grow up to be. And then because he criticizes AIPAC, now they’re saying he’s like a liberal sex fiend. It’s like, I can’t deal with that. It’s too dishonest. I just can’t stand it.

The worst people in the world calling the best people in the world criminals because they’re calling out the crimes of the government. There ought to be a system in place in which telling the truth, being virtuous, if not rewarded, at least not penalized. But at this stage it is penalized. The honest people are penalized. The virtuous people are penalized. The sincere Christians are penalized first.

All the J6 defendants and prisoners, they were like— if you look carefully, most of them are like not only good people, they were like the reason you love America. People like that with their pocket constitutions and they’re paying their taxes despite not having any money. And then, you know, disgusting— people like Bill Ackman— how did Bill Ackman get all this money? He’s dumb. How do you live in a world where people like Bill Ackman get all the rewards and people like the J6 defendants or Thomas Massie are the criminals? It’s too unfair for me. I just can’t stand it. So would I want to be part of something like that? Oh no, no. Does that make sense?

Behind the Scenes: Confronting the Pressure Campaign

MARIO NAWFAL: Have you spoken to the voices that are pressuring you, the ones you criticize? Do you speak to them behind the scenes? Do they tell you, “Tucker, why are you saying this?” Or, “What can we do for you to be less critical?” Anything at all behind the scenes— there must be something.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve certainly tried. Believe it or not, I really don’t like conflict. I mean, I know it sounds like it can’t be true, but it actually is true. And I really didn’t like being called an anti-Semite when this whole drama first started around the Iran War. I just didn’t want a war with Iran. Didn’t hate Israel. Don’t hate Jews. Never going to hate Jews. Sorry.

And so when this first started, I was trying to figure out like, why is everyone calling me an anti-Semite? And so I’ve been doing this a long time and I know a lot of people, and I realized, oh, this is being run out of the Israeli government, actually, which it is. And now that’s all been documented. Brad Parscale at Salem Media. And this is a very orchestrated campaign, like all public relations efforts, it’s orchestrated, right? And that’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a fact. I lived around this my whole life.

So anyway, I tried to call Netanyahu, who I know, and I tried like 10 times to call him and go see him, not for an interview, let’s just have a conversation. He wouldn’t see me, which was bizarre since I know him and he’s called me before. He wouldn’t see me, so I wind up calling a guy I do know called Danny Danon, who’s a longtime Israeli political figure who’s now the Israeli ambassador to the UN. And I call him and I say, this is crazy. Please stop this hassling my family, trying to get relatives of mine fired from their jobs, which they have done. A lot, which is outrageous, and calling me an anti-Semite. I’m not, as you well know, an anti-Semite. Not that you care, but I’m not. And I just don’t want this war.

MARIO NAWFAL: Why do you stop?

TUCKER CARLSON: And so he goes in public— and I’ve never— I would never say that I had that conversation because it was private. Danny Danon goes out there and says, “Carlson called me and said there was a Jewish conspiracy against him. He’s a crazed anti-Semite.” I mean, they’re just— he’s a liar. Danny Danon’s a liar.

There’s so much lying that at this point all I really care about is telling the truth. I don’t have to agree with it, but if I see someone who is clearly making his best effort to tell the truth, I’m on that person’s side. That’s kind of all I ask. And people who are committed to lying, whether it’s Danny Danon or almost everyone else in public life, I just reject that. I don’t want to be around it. I just don’t like it.

Would Tucker Forgive Trump?

MARIO NAWFAL: If Trump does walk away, if this post is accurate— which Iran just put out a statement saying it’s not true. They said what you said. Iranian media said, quote, “Trump has claimed 38 times recently that a deal is imminent. So until there is an official announcement by Iran, his claim should be simply viewed within the context of his previous lies.” That’s Iran saying this.

But if he does— we both agree there’s a lot of pressure on him to keep the war going. But if he manages to walk away, despite how difficult it is, giving Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, maybe the Gulf countries, maybe unfreezing some of the assets through Qatar, lifting some sanctions, all very difficult things to do— would you consider forgiving him or changing your view of him, speaking to him, calling him?

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course. First of all, my religion commands me to forgive everyone. Period. It’s a central tenet of Christianity. Jesus spoke about it at length many times. So of course I need to be forgiven. So I would always forgive anybody, very much including Trump, whom I like and have always liked. So it’s not personal at all. I’m hardly a Trump hater. I haven’t betrayed Trump. Trump betrayed me and the rest of the country, and I’m miffed. But to the extent he makes it better, I will always be the first person to give him credit and be thrilled to see it.

And to the extent that he shifts the attention of the U.S. government from Israel’s concerns— Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, all these groups that are totally irrelevant to me— and focuses on things that really matter, like the Mexican drug cartels, or homelessness, or the total impossibility of buying a home as a young person in America, or whatever— all the many problems we have here— I will be the first person to say, “You go, Donald Trump, God bless you.” Of course. I mean, of course. I can’t wait to forgive him. I can’t wait to cheer him on, him or anybody else.

I don’t care at this point. I mean, one thing I definitely have learned is that the Republican Party does not speak for me or anyone I know. It does not have the same values that I have. It has values that are repugnant to me. It is just a tool of oligarchy, and bad oligarchy too. Not even— I like some oligarchs. I know a lot of oligarchs, and some of them I really like. They share my values. These oligarchs are repulsive to me, and they’re a tool of those oligarchs.

So I don’t care where the person who fixes this comes from. I don’t care what he did before. I don’t care what kind of tattoos he has. I just want someone who tells the truth and makes a good faith effort to improve my country. That’s it. That’s literally it. If that person calls himself a revolutionary communist, it’s immaterial. All this stuff is fake. The only thing that’s real is honesty and goodwill. Those are real things, and I know them when I see them. If Trump gets them, then I’ll be his greatest cheerleader.

Religion, Power, and the Supernatural

MARIO NAWFAL: There’s something else I want to ask you about that I listened to your interview with Huckabee. I was born a Christian, but I don’t practice it, and I really don’t understand religion’s place in politics. I think politics is about money, about the wellness of your people, pragmatic deals, strategy, 5D chess, whatever you want to call it.

But religion, and then I see you discuss it a lot in your interviews, you personally, especially when it comes to the Middle East and Israel. How big of a role is it playing and what’s happening there? Because I’m still considering it as a fringe part of Israeli foreign policy, even American foreign policy, and I’m not taking it seriously enough. So maybe the question is, how big of a role is it playing in what’s happening?

TUCKER CARLSON: Such a smart question, and it’s not a question that I’ve spent a lot of time considering until recently. So I am a Christian, and I do practice — not very well, I will say — but I grew up in a totally secular world, as it sounds like you did as well. I grew up in the West, and I thought that religion had nothing to do with politics.

I mean, religious precepts form the basis of our justice system, and I’m grateful they do. You don’t punish the innocent, you punish only the guilty. You have to prove it. Our justice system is based on Christian ideas, and I’m grateful that it is, but the details of people’s personal theology should play no role in the execution of the functions of government. That was my assumption, and I didn’t think they did. And I thought our leaders were secular. I didn’t know anyone was practicing a religion in a way that was affecting his performance as a leader of a country. I just had no idea.

It’s only in the last couple of years that I realized that that’s all fake, that the most religious people in the world are the heads of state, who I know in a lot of cases they’re all religious. Now, their religions are almost never described in any detail in public. A lot of it is what I would describe as witchcraft, but they’re all highly religious people. They believe they’re getting supernatural power that helps them rule, and that’s just a fact. And I’m not kind of guessing about this at all.

MARIO NAWFAL: What do you mean by this? I didn’t understand this too well. So like, people like Bibi and Trump — from what I understand, they’re pretty secular as well.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, no, untrue. Totally false. Completely false. I mean, depends how you define secular, right? Trump is of course a materialist. Bibi is not an observant Jew. Okay, so right, Trump is not pro-Christian especially at all. He’s very pro-abortion. And there are a lot of things about Trump that don’t seem religious, but these are people who believe fervently with a religious person’s belief in fate and destiny and being filled with supernatural power and words coming to you from outside of you.

And they believe in the ability to cast spells on people, in the ability to make certain motives or things invisible through words. They believe in speaking reality into existence. These are not materialist beliefs. These are not rational beliefs. None of this stuff can be tested in a lab. These are religious beliefs.

And in some cases, it’s explicit. I mean, Delcy Rodriguez, who’s now running Venezuela, is a member of some kind of Indian cult whose leader died a few years ago, and she made a pilgrimage to India. Javier Milei of Argentina, who I know personally, is all up into Chabad and Rabbi Schneerson. I’m not mocking any of this, I’m just saying he’s a very religious man. I didn’t get any of this at all. I just didn’t understand it.

And the other thing I didn’t understand, because I’m so Western, I’m such a product of my time and place, is that the world is very religious. People are very religious and have always been. And we are living in an anomalous age, you and I, in a society that is officially godless, materialist, where what we care about are the things that we can measure — those are the only things we believe in. That’s our official position as Westerners. But that’s never been true for any society since the beginning of recorded history.

Every society has been explicitly religious in the sense that it acknowledges a power beyond mankind and it seeks to benefit from that power. Those gods, or God — we appease the gods by doing certain things, we invoke the wrath of God by doing other things. Every leader has always believed that. Every civilization has always believed that until 1945. Post-war Western societies officially reject that, but the rest of the world still believes that.

And so, for example, the Dome of the Rock, built on the foundation stone in Jerusalem — the headquarters of three great world religions — the fate of the Dome of the Rock is of paramount concern to over a billion people. It’s one of the holiest places in Islam. It’s the oldest Islamic building on the planet. We don’t care because we’re Western and non-Muslim, but over a billion people care deeply. They’ll die for it.

I’ve traveled a lot, and that has really changed my view of everything, but particularly of religion. The world is as religious as it’s ever been. Now, they can get Amazon delivered to their homes, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t think that the big questions of life are determined by God. Or gods. They do think that, as they’ve always thought that. So of course, every war is fundamentally a religious war. Every big thing that happens in human civilization is fundamentally religious — birth, death, and everything in between.

And I just am ashamed that it took me until my 50s to understand that, something that your average goat herder in Morocco knows from birth. But I didn’t. Now I do.

The Complexity of the Middle East

MARIO NAWFAL: It just makes everything a lot more complex. Like, you look at something — yes, like the Middle East. What’s the solution?

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s smart. You’re right, it makes everything more complex. So that is one of the lies that we tell ourselves, is that everything can be reduced to something measurable. Let’s look at the graph. We know the future because current trends continue. What we discount is how fundamentally irrational people are, how impossible it is to predict human behavior using our assumptions, because there is this X factor in the mix, and that X factor is faith and the existence — which is real, by the way — of supernatural factors.

Like, we are acted upon by supernatural bodies at all times, whether we acknowledge it or not. And most people in the West would say, “You’re crazy. You were attacked by a demon.” Yeah, I was. Lots of people are. And you can say, well, that’s crazy — no, it’s actually not crazy. Denying it is crazy. You’re denying the corpus of human experience going back to the beginning of time. There’s no people in history except us who would dismiss that as crazy. Of course it’s real. And in fact, it is real.

I didn’t know any of this. Now I do. And I’m not going to pretend it’s not true because it is true. And everybody else knows it except us, which is hilarious. It’s like discovering that everyone else was in on the secret except you, and you’re like, “Wow, I can’t believe this is real.” And people are like, “Yeah, of course it’s real, Dumbo, you didn’t know that.” Yeah, that’s how I feel, man.

Free Speech, Iran, and the State of the World

MARIO NAWFAL: The world — I try to always be an optimist as well, but the world just seems objectively very messed up. And we haven’t even talked about AI, and that’s a whole other discussion, will take us a couple of hours.

But you look at the Iran War, it really shook me up. I’m not crying, by the way, there’s something on my eye. But the Iran War really shook me up. I did not expect this, to have a war drag in the Gulf like this. Such a silly war.

And then I start seeing things like the free speech issue. I remember one of the reasons I really liked Trump before he became president — when Elon started supporting him and what Elon was doing with X — is free speech, and something that Trump and everyone that supported him supporting free speech. I don’t think people understand how dangerous it is, a world that doesn’t have that, especially with how social media really — if social media wipes out someone’s account, no matter how big they are, they don’t exist anymore. It’s like killing a person. And then seeing what Seb Gorka did a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had Seb Gorka on the show multiple times years ago on X.

Putting all this together, I don’t have kids. You do. Funny enough, I was speaking to a loved one today about having kids, and that was one of the things that popped up — is that really a world I want my kids to live in? Again, not even considering AI, a world where thought is controlled because of how centralized power is. Everything I believed about democracy, I’m questioning right now. The Iran War really shook me. I’m not sure if that’s something you think about as a family man.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, of course I do. And if you want to change it, have kids. I mean, the only answer is better people, and the only thing you can do to contribute to better people is create your own. And it’s also the most fun thing you can do, and it gives sex a whole different dimension that, honestly, is kind of lacking in pornography world where the rest of us live. It’s kind of the point of life to have children. And it’s not kind of the point, it is the point. And it’s the most profound thing. It’s the one transcendent thing that you can do. But it’s also, in a practical sense, the answer to all of these problems.

Like, you look around, society is a disaster. Clearly Satan is the ruler of the earth, obviously, as it says in the New Testament. That’s real. And so what do you do about it? I don’t know. You need better people. Where do you get them? Make them. So anyway, I would just say that to start.

But yeah, free speech is foundational, and whatever a generation forgets and needs to be reminded of is that speech is never limited on behalf of the powerless and the oppressed. They’re always telling you, “Oh, you can’t say that because it offends some oppressed group.” And that group changes — Black people or gay people or Jewish people, or they’ll pick another group next week. But that’s a lie. It’s never true.

The only reason speech is ever curtailed, free speech ends, is because the people in power don’t want to be criticized. You’re getting in their way because the only people who can shut down free speech are the powerful, and they only do it on their own behalf. So the second you lose free speech, there’s no check on the power of the already powerful, and then it becomes totalitarian really, really fast. That’s why it’s the First Amendment. Of course, these are very obvious concepts, and they’re the basis of our political system and of our society. And it is going away.

And my view is there’s nothing I could do about that other than resist. And how do you resist? By continuing to speak. “Well, they’re going to fire me.” Okay, get fired then. “Oh, they’re going to put me in prison.” Okay, go to prison. “They’re going to kill me.” Okay, get killed. I mean, that’s the only way anything ever changes. It’s not by hurting other people, but by being willing to be hurt. You have to decide, “I’m going to suffer for something that I believe in.” And it’s when you decide that, that things really do get better. But no one ever wants to do that.

It’s always like, “If we just kill the right people” — it’s like, “If we just kill the Ayatollah, everything will be better.” I think it’s not just Trump who reaches that conclusion or Bibi. It’s like all of us fantasize, “Just kill them.” No, the only way to make it better is to be willing to be killed, and everything up to that. So you just have to be willing to suffer for free speech. That’s what it is. That’s why we have free speech, because other people were willing to suffer for it, and we need to continue that. And so I’ve decided I’m going to. I don’t care. “You can’t say that.” Okay, try and stop me.

A Message to Israel and Netanyahu

MARIO NAWFAL: I want to bring you back to Israel. One thing I’ve been trying to do as well is — I felt I’m criticizing Israel too much. It’s hard not to with what’s happening. And every single time I have people from Israel on the show, people supportive of Netanyahu’s strategies, foreign policy, it’s getting harder and harder. So then what’s the solution? What’s your message to Bibi? What’s your message to Israelis? How could things change there?

Universal Principles and the Israel-Gaza Conflict

TUCKER CARLSON: My message is that standards of behavior, principles, are universal. They apply to everyone, to every human being by virtue of being human. And if they don’t, then they’re not principles, they are preferences, and I can ignore them. So standards of behavior apply to every human being. It is immoral when the North Korean government murders innocents. It is immoral when the US government murders innocents, and it’s immoral when Israel murders innocents.

The Israelis, for a bunch of different reasons, some of them theological, and also just because of human nature being what it is, don’t accept that. And you just have to continue to make the case. I’m holding Israel to the same standard I would hold any country, including my own. And no, you can’t murder tens of thousands of children in Gaza because you don’t like what their parents did, or because you want their land, or for any other reason. You just can’t. You’re not to because it’s immoral. And it’s always immoral. It was immoral when the Nazis did it to the Jews. It’s immoral when the Israelis do it to the Palestinians.

It’s just a standard that we’re going to apply to every human being. And that’s why we refer to the rights that you are violating as human rights, not Palestinian rights, not Israeli rights, human rights, because they attach to your soul, to your humanity. You have those rights because you are human, because God created you and endowed you with those rights. And so you just have to keep saying that.

And there’s something about, again, human nature and the nature of narcissism that reserves rights. People tend to reserve rights for themselves and ignore the fact that everyone else possesses those same rights. And you just have to say calmly, no, it’s not an attack on you because you’re Jewish or Israeli or have red hair or any other reason. The standard remains the same always in every country at every time. We look backward through history and we say what they did was wrong. How can we say that? Because the principles don’t change. They’re facts of nature. Even animals observe standards. Even animals have, in a sense, principles. There are things animals don’t do — kill themselves, for example, etc.

So I would just keep making that case. “Oh, you just hate Jews.” No, I don’t. I don’t hate any group. Never will. Because it’s wrong. Because that’s one of those standards I’m not going to violate. Hating people for their blood? Nope. Not doing that. That’s immoral. But what you’re doing in Gaza is totally immoral. And when you stop doing it and apologize for it and hold the people who did it accountable, we’ll be fine. Just like any other crime.

MARIO NAWFAL: What do you say to them when they — but they do make the argument. There’s Hezbollah up north that attacked them on October 8th. Iran talks about wiping out Israel. They do make arguments that I try to put myself in their shoes. Gaza is an impossible one. I can’t challenge that one. I can’t play devil’s advocate when it comes to Gaza. That’s just appalling. But when it comes to Lebanon, when it comes to Iran, there are pragmatic points made there. Maybe they’re not dealing with it the right way, but I try to empathize with their position as well.

The Cycle of Trauma and Justifying the Unjustifiable

TUCKER CARLSON: I totally agree. And I do empathize, actually. I do empathize. Israel is surrounded by enemies. There’s no doubt about that. Now, you could argue that it’s got more enemies than it needed to have because of its own behavior, which is true. But the fact doesn’t change that it’s surrounded by enemies that wish it ill and would like to hurt Israel. No doubt. There’s no question. Iran is funding a lot of those enemies. I get why Israel doesn’t like Iran. That’s just a fact.

And we lived this story here in the United States after 9/11. 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11. Now, was it actually 19 Arabs with box cutters who did it? Obviously there’s more to the story than that, but whoever did it and for whatever reason, 3,000 Americans did die, and that was traumatizing, and I get it. And the deaths of those Americans justified all kinds of behavior that’s not justifiable, that’s immoral. The invasion of Iraq, for example, treatment of civilian populations in the Middle East. We did horrible things. We committed crimes because we were so hysterical.

And I justified all of those crimes, by the way. I defended them on television. You can check the tape, assuming it still exists. I was out there. I was like an Israeli talking about Gaza. I was like, “Kill these people, they’re Muslims.” I get it. I’ve been there. I don’t judge. But it’s just wrong, and it’s not good for you to behave that way. You will be punished for it in this life or the next.

And don’t behave that way. I understand you’re upset, but let’s clearly articulate what the rules are. And yes, there are rules of war. And the first rule of war is you don’t kill people who did nothing wrong. You don’t kill the innocent. You don’t murder civilian populations. You don’t take their water and food away. You don’t starve them to death. You don’t spread disease among them. You don’t firebomb their cities. You don’t drop atom bombs on them. We’ve done a lot of this, by the way, in the United States, and it was every bit as wrong as what Israel’s doing in Gaza. Again, it’s about universal principles.

Being afraid, being wronged, having your kids murdered — I understand all of that. I understand why they’re so upset after October 7th, but it does not justify killing other people’s kids. That’s it. But people do it. They feel justified at the time, and that’s why it’s so important for the rest of us to say, “I understand why you’re freaked out. You feel terrified, but you still can’t do this.”

Israel’s Defense Mechanism Against Criticism

And what makes Israel so different from other countries is that there’s a whole kind of secular theology about this around antisemitism, and it allows Israelis to say, “That’s not a legitimate criticism. That’s an ancient brain virus. I don’t have to listen to you. You hate me for reasons that are pre-rational. Nothing you say can penetrate. I don’t have to consider your argument at all. I know that you’re my enemy. You’re a hater. You’re a Nazi.”

And I do think most people kind of want to feel that way about their critics. I want to feel that way about my critics. “Oh, they just hate me for unreasonable motives.” We all want to feel that way. But Israel has constructed a very kind of sophisticated defense mechanism that prevents it, its population, from ever really having to grapple with their own shortcomings. And that’s not good for them.

It’s not any more than — like we used to say when I was a kid — you could destroy a child by spoiling the child. How do you spoil a child? By justifying every crappy thing the kid does. He smears the contents of his diaper on the wall and you’re like, “Oh, that’s art. Little Dylan is an artist.” You look like a buffoon. You look like Mike Huckabee when you make excuses for that. But you also destroy little Dylan, who grows up thinking that everything he does is okay and that any criticism of him is just unreasonable. It’s just dogs barking and you can ignore it. Does that kid have a successful life? No. He has no friends. Everybody hates him. And at some point, he bumps up against reality and he realizes, “Holy smokes, my feces on the wall is not art.” And his whole conception of himself crashes.

This is a very commonly understood phenomenon. You see it in people, but you also see it in countries. And that’s where Israel is right now. And by the way, there are a lot of really decent and very smart people in Israel, obviously, and they will come to these conclusions. They will. They’re not monsters. They’re not animals. I don’t think of the Israelis what they think of the Arabs. I think they’re people just like me and you, but they’re in this state that’s super destructive.

Avrum Berg and the Disappearing Voices of Reason in Israel

MARIO NAWFAL: Yeah, one incredible Israeli we’ve both had on the show — his name is the former Speaker of the Parliament of the Knesset, Avraham Burg. I think he’s been on the show, on your show as well.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s been on my show. Wonderful man. Yeah, I met him in the Middle East actually last winter, and I was like, man, this guy — he’s such a nice guy. When I was a kid and going to Israel, many years ago when I first went to Israel, there were a lot of people like that there. I mean, that was kind of what I thought of as the Israeli character. They were tough and self-reliant. I mean, this was in my mind anyway, but there were a lot of reasonable people who believed in universal standards of behavior, who believed in human rights. And they had a more healthy society.

And just talking to Avrum and other friends of mine in Israel, there’s not much debate left. It’s like anybody who’s like, “Wait a second, what are we doing? Why are we bombing Beirut?” — anyone who says that is immediately denounced as an apostate, a Nazi, an anti-self-hating Jew, or a secret Muslim. It’s like, I’ve lived in this society. I mean, this is what we had during George Floyd. It’s what we had during MeToo. It’s what we had during COVID. It’s what we had after 9/11. It’s the same kind of crazy groupthink where everyone is required to believe something that’s self-evidently absurd, and anyone who doesn’t is banished or punished. And in that hysteria, in that craziness, the mob always does ugly things. It commits crimes.

So again, it’s not just the Israelis who do this or the Jews or whatever. It’s all of us are capable of this. And I recognize it instantly.

Closing Remarks

MARIO NAWFAL: Yeah. Tucker, absolute pleasure. Thank you for making the time. It’s a pleasure to chat to you again. First time on this show and hope to do it again.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Mario. I appreciate it. That was fun.

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