Tucker Carlson: Epstein Files, NATO, Iran & China’s Rise (Transcript)

That’s clearly true based on the emails. Epstein hated Trump and attacked him all the time.

But Trump feels that this is an effort by his partisan opponents, a distraction. Well, to entrap him as he was entrapped during the Russia investigation in his first term. And I get that he’s stung, he’s wary. You know, as far as I know, that’s all there is to it. I’m not vouching for anything, but I know that he thinks that. I know that he thinks, he says it often.

So my argument would be, and has been that that’s bigger than that. We’re actually not at the center of this. I don’t think all of us are subject to this power, whatever it is, and it’s in our interest to expose it. You know, he disagrees. On the other hand, his administration just released more than 3 million documents. So that’s, we just have to say that that’s a win. It’s a win for exposure, for transparency, for knowledge. And knowledge is the predicate of change. You can’t change something unless you know what you’re facing. So I’m really happy with it.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Do you see the narrative that this is somehow related to Russia gaining traction? Because we’ve seen that a lot in the Western press.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, it’s a joke. No, I know. It’s just hilarious. The idea that this is all about Putin is so stupid. That’s been tried so many times. It’s not a defense of Putin to say, just doesn’t have anything to do with Putin.

And actually, most of the people whose names I have read are determined opponents of Putin on the record, and they’re donors to the Ukrainian cause, the sad Ukrainian cause, or whatever. These are people who want to overthrow Putin. So I’ll accept certain lies, but the ones that are 180 degrees from the truth are just too insulting to me. So no, Putin, sorry, your stance.

Israel and American Foreign Policy

HADLEY GAMBLE: Your stance on Israel has been applauded in this part of the world because you were one of the very first persons in mainstream American media to say, hold on a minute, none of this smells right. Why are we essentially allowing a foreign government to dictate our foreign policy?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, yeah.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Was there a moment in your career where you suddenly decided, this doesn’t make sense?

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s just out of balance. That’s my view. I see myself and have always seen myself and take pains to remain…

HADLEY GAMBLE: But was there a moment, like an instance where you saw it?

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay, so I don’t hate Israel, don’t want to destroy Israel. I don’t think the United States will ever fully disengage from Israel, ever. Our government’s too enmeshed with the Israeli government. That’s not going to happen. So what I want is a more balanced relationship where the interests of the United States also come into consideration when we make decisions.

So I felt this way for many, many years. I didn’t feel that I needed to talk about it because there wasn’t enough at stake. When Donald Trump got inaugurated in January a year ago, the first visitor was Bibi Netanyahu. That was the first of seven visits to the White House within a year. I don’t hate Bibi Netanyahu. I know him. Of course, I’m not mad that he visits the White House.

But what I am mad about is American policymakers allowing the agenda that Trump was elected on to be hijacked by a foreign country, any foreign country. It’s too much.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Yeah.

The Iran Question

TUCKER CARLSON: There’s not 10% of Trump voters who voted for Trump because they wanted regime change in Iran. In fact, they voted against that. And I know the world is complicated and things evolve and you have to respond to things as they appear. I get it. I am moderate.

But you can’t look me in the face and say people voted for Trump because they wanted to kill the Ayatollah. They didn’t. They wanted fewer foreign wars. And if you’re going to kill the Ayatollah and affect regime change there, tell me what the risks are. Don’t lie to me about it. One is the disruption of the global energy supply and a global depression. That’s a real risk. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but Iran is right there. It’s right across the water. We could see it if we had strong enough binoculars.

HADLEY GAMBLE: People in this part of the world say, don’t do it. We don’t need you to do this.

TUCKER CARLSON: And it’s not because they’re pro Shiite, they’re Sunni Muslims. This is a long standing conflict here. They’re not on the same side. However, they understand that realistically wanting something to happen and causing it to happen are two different things. And once you cause it, you have to live the consequences. And the main consequence in this region is disruption of energy, which feeds the world and its economic growth and without it…

HADLEY GAMBLE: And the backlash, because we saw that when they…

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that’s a whole separate…

HADLEY GAMBLE: When they had attacked facilities in Saudi Arabia. I mean, there is backlash and it is possible. And people here don’t want that to happen.

Energy Infrastructure Vulnerabilities

TUCKER CARLSON: What if they took that facility out, which is a production and refining facilities? So the three components, obviously there’s production, getting the oil and gas out of the ground. There’s refining it, turning into products that people use from asphalt to jet fuel. And then there’s making it into other products, right, petrochemicals. So those are essential to the global economy.

And it’s extremely expensive to build those facilities. And they’re fragile and they’re defended, of course, but are they defended sufficiently to protect them from the vast arsenal of conventional missiles that Iran possesses? I don’t know. If they took that out in any of the three big producers in the GCC, obviously Saudi, UAE, and Qatar right down the road. What happens to the US economy? It tanks. And it could really tank.

And you could see, I mean this is just a real risk. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I hate even to say it, but to be like, oh wow, the Ayatollah is bad.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Okay, I believe you.

TUCKER CARLSON: They’re killing their own people. I’m sure they are.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Isn’t this what’s behind in a way the President’s energy dominance strategy which is essentially to make the United States immune from the actions of the so called OPEC cartel?

NATO and America’s Priorities

TUCKER CARLSON: Sure. And that’s I think a goal that every American ought to support. But the price of energy is set on the international market. We don’t set the price of energy. And this is a globalized economy and we spend a lot of time in the US thinking about the trade offs that we’ve made in order to participate in that economy. Cheap TVs but no jobs or whatever the trade off has been. Others are written about more eloquently than I have.

But the fact is that’s the system that we have. And to turn it back to a different system is a decades long and very painful process which might be worth doing, but you can’t just disrupt it right now because we can’t survive that. We’re going to see a readjustment of standard of living in the United States that people are not ready for at all. We see a lot of poverty and then a lot of political ramifications.

So whatever. The only point is this is a huge deal. If you think it’s worth it, tell me how. Don’t call me an anti-Semite and try and get me censored off Twitter. Have a conversation with me. And unfortunately the advocates for Israel in the United States have been so used to, for so long unrivaled dominance in the information sphere that they cannot have a conversation.

Some can. I actually met my phone last night, who’s a very reasonable good guy who’s willing to talk about it. Yes, those exist and I know them and I appreciate them very much. I disagree, but I respect them. But most of them in my world are like, shut up, Nazi. And my position is I’m too old to be intimidated by you. I refuse to be. I’m not a Nazi. I’m actually quite anti-Nazi. I’m an American who wants to look out for my country’s best interest. That’s it.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you have to consider those interests as you make these decisions and you’re not in the habit of doing that, but sorry.

Regime Change and Domestic Priorities

HADLEY GAMBLE: So regime change in Iran, not in America’s best interest.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t even think it’s in the kind of near realm of America. I don’t even think it’s easy to make that argument. That right now and we have an actual insurrection underway in the United States at the level of state government. It’s not just like they’re angry hillbillies shooting guns into the air. It’s not that kind of insurrection. It’s an actual—our largest states are in revolt against federal law.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: You tell me how a country hangs together if that continues. It doesn’t. That’s called civil war. So I want that to be resolved. It has to be resolved and like soon.

HADLEY GAMBLE: What should the President do? Call off the ICE raid?

TUCKER CARLSON: The President has to make the case that we can’t continue to be a country if the largest states, which would include California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, disregard core federal immigration law. And we can change it if they don’t like it. If you think the immigration law is mean and we have a moral obligation to let in everyone in the world and pay for free health care for them, then just make that case in the legislature, in the Congress. It wouldn’t change the law.

But as long as the law is what it is, you cannot have states, the biggest states, fully out of compliance and then targeting federal law enforcement officers for violence, which they are doing. Not just random antifa or whatever, but the governor, the mayor, the attorney general, openly. Yeah, I don’t care. Even if you are an open borders person, think about it for two seconds. That doesn’t work.

You have to change the law or to scrap the system and we’ll just have 50 independent countries and the ones with the most guns can dominate the rest. And that’s a classic civil war scenario that has beset countries around the world since the beginning of time. And do you want that?

HADLEY GAMBLE: I don’t think we do.

TUCKER CARLSON: So we’ve got to fix that.

HADLEY GAMBLE: How close are we to that?

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, we’ve been moving in that direction for decades because our biggest states have been giving the finger, which is a vulgar gesture common in the United States that means no, to the federal government on drug policy, immigration, big questions. You see the point? It’s not complicated. It’s not partisan. It’s a question of does the country survive as a coherent country.

And I guess I would just say that’s a lot more important than whether the ayatollah is shooting his own people. I don’t want him to shoot his own people. I’m not a Shiite. I’m not a supporter of Iran. Of course not.

HADLEY GAMBLE: But it’s basic.

TUCKER CARLSON: Are you joking? What other country would even have this debate? Let’s say we’re in the Emirates. There are, what, seven emirates, and one of them decides, we don’t want to be in, we want to revert to the Trucial States or whatever. We don’t want to be a part of this. And if the leader of this country is like, we’re going to ignore that, to fight a war in some faraway country, his people, even in a monarchy, would be like, whoa, no, deal with this first. Any normal person would say that.

Trump and the Midterms

HADLEY GAMBLE: Do you think this costs Trump the midterms?

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, it’s always hard for an incumbent president’s party to perform well in the midterms because there’s a rebalancing every single time. I think, in general, and it’s not just the president, it’s the Congress, too, are suffering from the perception that they’re not responding to the desires of voters and instead responding to the desires of their donors.

And I think donors should have a say. I think all stakeholders, if this republically traded company, which in some ways it is this country, every shareholder gets a say. They’re the owners, and that includes donors. And they give a lot of money. And I get it. I’m very like, I’m a deal guy. Everyone gets a say. But to completely ignore your voters and their expressed concerns, which are expressed in public opinion polling and in the results of elections, is to flirt with disaster. Don’t do that.

HADLEY GAMBLE: What do you say to those who say the president’s thinking long term about his legacy?

TUCKER CARLSON: His legacy is inextricable from the future of the country. So leaders who improve their countries are well remembered, and leaders who don’t are not. It’s literally that simple. Which is why I always defend Putin every single time. I don’t care what. He’s bad. Okay? He’s bad. Has Russia gotten better in the last 27 years? By every single measure? Yes, it has.

So in the end, I don’t live there. I don’t have to, you know, whatever. It’s a lot I don’t have to deal with. But the bottom line is a leader who presides over an improving country is a successful leader, just as a father who presides over an improving family is a successful father. It’s the same principle. And so Trump’s legacy will be the condition of the country.

Russia, Ukraine, and the Path to Peace

HADLEY GAMBLE: I’ve interviewed Vladimir Putin. You’ve interviewed Vladimir Putin. Tell me this. Do you think that the United States under President Trump has a better opportunity to get a deal done between Russia and Ukraine?

TUCKER CARLSON: I know they do.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Are they going to get one? Because I don’t see that we have any new leverage with Putin than even a year ago.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t see how we have any leverage with Putin. They won the war. We went to war with Russia. The United States is fighting Russia through a proxy called NATO and then an extended proxy called Ukraine. Totally destroyed Ukraine in the process. And Biden started this war. He provoked Russia into the war. It’s a fact.

HADLEY GAMBLE: So when you see these talks happening in Abu Dhabi—

TUCKER CARLSON: We don’t have a ton of leverage. Russia’s gone. Putin’s gone out of his way not to antagonize Trump. He likes Trump. He likes the United States. He’s pro-Western. He’s the most pro-Western leader they’re going to have in a while. And they don’t want to fight with Trump. They like Trump.

The key problem, super clear, is that we are somehow paying attention to Zelensky. Zelensky’s not served his country well. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have died. The land of Ukraine is being bought by foreigners. There’s no measure you can point to that shows Zelensky succeeding as a steward of Ukraine or that Ukraine is better off as a result.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Of Ukraine or that Ukraine is better off as a result.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s so much worse off. So the question is, why do we care what Zelensky thinks? And we care what Zelensky thinks because the very same donors who are pushing regime change, war in Iran love Zelensky. Now, why is that? And I don’t know. I’m not Sigmund Freud, but they do.

So Zelensky is overrepresented among the donor class in the United States and in the US Congress. They all love Zelensky and one thing the Russians are terrible at is the information war. There’s no—they’re engineer brains. They’re great at making hypersonic missiles. They’re terrible at making their case. Every time they talk, they sound sinister. They sound like a cartoon. I’ve never seen anybody worse at communication than—

HADLEY GAMBLE: So you think they just need better PR.

TUCKER CARLSON: They need to make their case. By the way, it’s hard to believe they produced Pushkin and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky because I’ve never seen worse communicators in my entire life.

HADLEY GAMBLE: I think Stalin purged them all.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, but what is this? So, and Zelensky is nothing. They have no industrial capacity. They have a relatively small population. They lost the war. And yet he has a stranglehold on Western media and on the narrative. So if I were the Russians, far be it for me to give advice. I just want this to end.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Americans need to understand that Zelensky has not served Ukraine. The Ukrainians are great people. I actually really love Ukrainians for its worth. Doesn’t matter what I think. But I do feel that way. And Zelensky has stolen like $50 billion of our money, Western money. And it’s like, and they’ve also sold NATO weapons to a bunch of extremist groups, including Hamas. So what? Why does that guy get a say in the settlement in a war that he lost? It’s crazy.

The Future of NATO

HADLEY GAMBLE: Tell me about NATO.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s the point of NATO? I used to ask this question during—this way everyone hates me in Washington, but because I’m not that smart. I just ask the dumb, obvious questions, like, what is this? Shut up, Nazi. NATO should be dissolved immediately. We’ve had American troops in Germany and the UK for 80 years. And then we make fun of the Germans for hating themselves, which they fervently do.

I had dinner with a German last night, and I said, I like Germans. I don’t even love Germans, but I like them a lot better than they like themselves. Why is that? Because we’ve got troops on their soil. Why do we have troops in Great Britain? What is this? No sovereign country has foreign troops on its soil.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: So we’ve stripped the sovereignty from Western Europe. Then we asked ourselves, why do they hate themselves so much and deeply resent us?

HADLEY GAMBLE: Because we’re cucking them every day, that’s why.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because we’re cucking them every day, that’s why. Excuse me, that was vulgar. But it’s true.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Does that just mean that Europe needs to take responsibility for itself?

TUCKER CARLSON: Europe is incapable at this point. It doesn’t have the population or the money to do that. I would, I would just say, by the way, no one’s told me this, I’m not reporting inside information, but I’m totally convinced the Greenland play is designed to destroy NATO.

HADLEY GAMBLE: I’m just going to ask you that. Exactly.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s what I think. That’s my kooky—

HADLEY GAMBLE: I hear various things from the Chinese, from the Russians, who’s behind it.

NATO, Europe, and the Need for Alliance

I think there are a lot of aims there, but there are a lot of ways to get control. We already have control over Greenland, by the way. So why would you seek an open conflict with Denmark to make the point that NATO should be dissolved? That’s my personal view. Trump has not said it to me, but I just watching, I think that what—okay, let’s just go to first principles.

America’s a European country. It was founded by Europeans on European values, with the European model. It’s a legacy of Europe. That’s our civilization, that’s our culture. Everyone pretends that’s not true. It is true. My ancestors got there 40 years ago. They were Europeans. I know lots of things about Europe I don’t like, but that’s our civilization.

The world is cleaving into East and West. It’s that simple. That’s why we’re in Dubai, because it’s on the seam between the two. That’s why we all meet here in the Gulf. East and West, multipolar, two power, two poles. China, us and the constellations around them. We have to have Europe, we have to be allied with Russia or we’ll be eaten, we’ll lose, we’ll be killed. This is what you want is balance in the world, globalized trade, military political alliances, East versus West.

HADLEY GAMBLE: So when the Europeans say, oh, the White House, Washington is bullying us—

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, Washington is bullying them. I don’t think that’s the way to do it at all. There’s no reason to strip the self-respect from your opponent. That’s why you have diplomacy, make it so easy. They like to be paddled like the naughty little girls they are. They like that. I mean this is—there is a lot of kind of sadomasochism because they’ve had US troops on the soil for 80 years. So they’re totally incapable of normal sex lives. It’s all about dominance.

HADLEY GAMBLE: So what is the answer there? Do we just bring the troops home and say deal with it yourselves? Because when you look at the media in the United Kingdom, in Germany and France, they are obsessed with the idea that Russia is coming for them.

TUCKER CARLSON: The manufactured Russia threat, which by the way, they could speak into existence. You can imagine the threat and then talk it into reality.

HADLEY GAMBLE: And the Russians consistently saying, we are not a threat to Western Europe.

The Russia Question and Europe’s Self-Hatred

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, but then at this point some Russians like, actually maybe we will nuke Germany and the UK because you are a threat to us. Well, they’re saying that. I don’t—I pray that they don’t. I’ll just say we need Europe. I love Europe. It’s in a state of advanced degradation and self-hatred. They weren’t invaded by anybody. They opened up the doors and invited the rest of the world in there because they hate themselves. That’s the truth. This is what self-hatred looks like.

Our job is to heal Europe, heal the soul of Europe and restore to it the dignity and self-respect that any great civilization—and theirs is the greatest of all civilizations, ours is derived from it—that a great civilization requires to perpetuate itself, to have children, to mate and reproduce. All of that requires self-respect, a love of the things that your ancestors made.

So I think that we should do everything we can to save Europe. I actually hate the hostility to Europe that I see in a lot of policymakers in the United States. They hate Europe. And as an American, if you hate Europe, you’re hating the land of your ancestors. In some sense, you’re hating yourself. And I think they should stop it. And there are a lot of people in the United States who hate Europe for deeper reasons. And I stand in opposition to them.

HADLEY GAMBLE: What about immigration in Europe specifically?

Immigration and the Crisis of Self-Respect

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s self-inflicted. And of course there are a lot of international agencies and NGOs and forces promoting immigration into Europe against the will of the people of Europe.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Of course, for people who push back on this, the narrative is they’re far right and they don’t belong in government.

TUCKER CARLSON: No country in the world would tolerate the level of immigration and the failure to assimilate that any Western European country from Malmö, Sweden to Hamburg, Germany—pick a city, Barcelona, Spain—all of those places, the Gulf—

HADLEY GAMBLE: Has been telling them for years, you’re inviting people that we don’t even want in our own countries because they’re dangerous.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, because the Gulf has self-respect. So a country like this, which is a population of a million people, can invite another 9 or 10 million in to work here and function here in freedom and safety. But they’re not giving them citizenship because it’s their country. They’re Gulf Arabs. They have their own culture, their language, their history.

HADLEY GAMBLE: And they don’t apologize for that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why would they? And by the way, they have—and I’ll just say this because I mean it—they have a beautiful culture and they have a lot to be proud of. And they are proud of it. And I’m so grateful. I actually believe in diversity. Unlike all the freaking liberals in the United States who want uniformity, I don’t want that. I think every nation, every civilization has a right to be itself. And I can admire the good things about it and stand in complete confusion of things I don’t understand or whatever.

But the point is that the truth of European and American and Canadian and Australian immigration is the core population was taught to hate itself, decided to hate itself, and now is committing suicide. And you see this not just in immigration rates, but in the fertility rates. And the only way to save it is by reminding the core population, which means the white European population, which is what is dying. Let’s stop lying about it. So whites are dying. Why are they dying? Because they’re committing suicide.

And my point would be, I’m not a white supremacist. I’m in the Gulf and I’m loving it. They’re not white. I love other cultures. I love other peoples. But every culture has something to add. And white European culture has added more than any other, in my opinion. And they need to stop committing suicide. It’s that simple.

And stop blaming Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer, obviously a symptom of the problem. Of course, he’s a completely useless person. But do you think Keir Starmer is making independent decisions about anything? Of course he’s a puppet. Don’t blame Keir Starmer. Get some self-respect. Be proud of what you have. That’s not an act of hatred against anyone.

Stop talking about the Second World War, by the way. Stop talking about the Second World War. That is not the only historical event that has happened through the course of history. There are lessons to be learned from it. But if your entire historical frame is a 14 or 6 year period in human history, you’re missing some things. Okay, so—and in a super distorted, kind of cartoonish way.

No, it’s much bigger than any single war, any single period in history. It’s the future of a civilization. It’s almost too far gone to save. Make the nonviolent, non-hateful, straightforward attempt to save it. And by it, I mean white European civilization is worth saving. It’s dying. That is not a statement of hate. I have no hate. As I say, I don’t think that white Europeans are inherently better than black Africans or Asians in Malaysia. I don’t think that. I don’t want to see the Malaysians go extinct. I don’t want to see the Nigerians go extinct. I just don’t. And nobody should want that.

And anyone who does want that is acting on behalf of evil. And anyone who shuts down the conversation, like, “shut up, Nazi,” I don’t take you seriously, and I’m not afraid of you at all.

Charlie Kirk and the Failure of Authorities

HADLEY GAMBLE: Charlie Kirk. Are we getting the full truth of what happened to him? And will we ever?

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course, I don’t know the answer. I never weigh in on it because I love his widow, Erica. And, you know, I’m just—I’m sad to see, you know, I’m sad to see so much of what’s happened ever since. And I, you know, I love Charlie. And so it’s, you know, it’s emotional for me. And so—but I will just say the responsibility for investigating crime goes to the civil authorities, in this case, the federal and state authorities.

And so the Internet is not in charge of investigating crimes. And when the authorities fail to investigate crimes, the Internet will fill the vacuum. That’s what you’re watching now. So there’s all this hostility. “How dare you speculate?” Well, we’re speculating because there are no answers. And we don’t have any reason to trust that we’re going to get straight answers because there is such a long legacy of lying and deception from American law enforcement.

You saw it on January 6th. You saw the Oklahoma City bombing. You saw it on 9/11. We still can’t get the answers to what happened on 9/11, 25 years later. Why is that? It’s my country. I had a friend killed, like many people on that day. I watched my country change forever. And they won’t declassify the 9/11 files because why? What is the answer there?

HADLEY GAMBLE: Who do you think they’re protecting?

Declassification and the Right to Know

TUCKER CARLSON: Come on, now. I don’t know. But I would just say we can’t know until it’s just all declassified and people have to face the truth. And I think some of the things we think about 9/11 are true. I think some of the things we think about 9/11 are not true. But we won’t know until everything is declassified. We can’t declassify the Kennedy assassination file 63 years later. So what’s the answer? And look, my only contribution is not deep knowledge. It’s just a sense that I’m not—

HADLEY GAMBLE: You’re not getting the full picture.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m just not afraid at all. And I think it’s totally within bounds as an American citizen to say you’re the criminal, not me. I’m not hiding the 9/11 files. If I had them in my house, I’d put them on the Internet. I wouldn’t even look at them, put them on the Internet, because it’s been 25 years and 3,000 people died. So what’s your excuse for hiding this?

And so, anyway, given all that, I’m under no obligation to assume the authorities will do a thorough or honest job investigating Charlie Kirk’s murder or any other murder. I have a right to ask questions and to get very straightforward answers. And if you tell me, “I can’t tell you,” it’s incumbent on you to explain why you can’t.

The Death of Traditional Media

HADLEY GAMBLE: How would you assess how powerful traditional media is still in America?

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t even know. I mean, is it over? Is it over? I mean, Trump is funny. This morning, somebody sent me a clip of some hairspray guy interviewing Trump in the White House. It was like some clip on social media. And the guy was like—I was like—and I spent 30 years in television, so I knew immediately. This is like a voice coach guy. I went to journalism school. “Oh, well, Mr. President, isn’t it true”—there’s like a sideways shot of the chisel chin. And I was like, you know, it’s like classic douchebag TV performance. And I didn’t recognize the guy. I had no idea who it was. Not tacky. I’m sure he’s a nice person, but—and he works for ABC News. My dad worked for ABC News when—

HADLEY GAMBLE: I was a kid, so I worked—great. Okay, so he started at ABC.

TUCKER CARLSON: It was like a big deal, right? Yes, yes. I had no idea who this guy was, and I had to look it up. I couldn’t thank him. There was no—no one told me his name on the Internet. Took me like five minutes to find out who this guy was, and then I’d never heard of him. I’m not being mean. You know, I’m glad he has a job. You know, I’m for employment, but I’m in the media. Been in the media for 35 years. I didn’t know this guy was—so that tells you it has no effect.

I don’t know who advised the President to do an interview with some ABC News guy. Nobody cares. Doesn’t mean anything. There are random people on Twitter who have way more effect on the public conversation, on people’s perceptions, on government officials than anybody at ABC News or CNN. By the way, I worked at ABC News. I worked at CNN. I worked at NBC News. I worked at Fox.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Me too.

TUCKER CARLSON: I worked at PBS. So I’ve worked all the places, got fired from most of them. But I know how they work. And nobody cares. Nobody cares. Why would you care? I don’t care.

The Question of Trust

HADLEY GAMBLE: Tell me. Trust. What is trust today? If we don’t believe in the institutions of government, if we don’t have trust in the traditional media, in the justice system, what does trust look like?

Trust and Honesty in Communication

Trust derives from honesty. It’s that simple. And you can feel it on someone immediately. And I have a ton of children, and my one contribution to their education was the constant reminder that your dogs know who’s good and who’s bad and so do you. But unlike your dogs, you try to override what your viscera know with your higher mind, and you talk yourself out of what you know.

Now, women, by their nature, are much better at this. Women spend way less time trying to convince themselves they’re wrong than men do. Woman thinks you’re a creep. Her brain’s not like, “I bet he’s not a creep.” A woman, at least my daughters will be like, “He’s a creep, He’s a creep. We just know he’s creep.” A man will be like, “I’m sure I’m getting it wrong.” All of us should be more in touch with our intuition. Our instincts, which do not lie to us, aren’t trying to sell us anything they know.

And so trust derives from the deep knowledge that someone is trying to tell the truth. Not that he’s always accurate. None of us or I’ve been wrong about, write a book about it, a lot of things. But I try to tell the truth. And if I don’t know something, I try to force myself to say I don’t know when, of course, my desire is always to pretend I know. And that is kind of one of the pitfalls. And I’m watching someone I know be destroyed right now because he was like, “I knew.” It’s like, you have no freaking idea, dude. Just a minute. But he wouldn’t. Because of vanity.

Every man struggles with that, like the illusion that I know. But what’s rewarded in this moment after decades of deception is honesty. And so force yourself to try to be honest. It’s hard, but try. And the harder you try, the more trusted you are. I really believe that.

HADLEY GAMBLE: What does your gut tell you right now about the Gulf Arab countries? Because as you know, there is some dispute between Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, the UAE. What does your gut tell you about this?

The Gulf Cooperation Council and Regional Power

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve been having this conversation. In the winter time, usually travel around or always travel around and see friends, have dinner and stuff and I mean, what do I really think? I mean, there’s of course a dispute going on of some kind. I do not get involved in intra-Arab disputes. I don’t speak Arabic, I don’t understand it. I like everybody. I’ve been in all three of those countries in the last 10 days. I like them all. I would never get involved.

But big picture, as an outsider, as an Anglo, as an American, English speaker, I see things in terms of power balance because I like geography. So you have six countries, six monarchies. The Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi, Kuwait, UAE. And they’re some of the richest countries in the world. They’re all right next to each other. They’re small, small populations. They have massive advantages and they’re in the center of the world. They are on the scene between east and west and they’re all thriving.

If they were ever to get together in harmony, not internal harmony, but external harmony, in other words, they could have their disputes among the six countries. But if they ever had a common foreign policy, if they ever decided to like sign an agreement and pick one guy to represent them to the rest of the world with trade, for example, they would be probably number three in the list of powerful countries in the world. It would be China, US, whatever you think is more powerful. And then probably the GCC in India, you could argue maybe India’s more powerful, maybe number three or four. But that’d be one of the most powerful blocs in the world.

But of course they’re not doing that now. Why are they not doing that? They’re not doing it because they have a long history. Arabs love, sorry to say, sorry to defend all of our Arab friends. They love to fight with each other. They just do. I don’t know why.

HADLEY GAMBLE: I think they prefer to call it individualism.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I love that about them. But the Bedouin spirit, like it’s tribal. Okay, they love to fight with each other. They really do. But I also think, like, let’s be honest, there are also other players maybe in the region who have a real interest in making sure that these six countries never speak with a unified voice. Because that’s a challenge to power in the region. Big time. Big time. Has this occurred to you?

Lebanon and Regional Interests

HADLEY GAMBLE: Tell me this though, speaking of other players in the region. Lebanon.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, Lebanon. God’s chosen People, I just love them.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Tell me, do you have a view on who blew up the Beirut port?

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, you know, suspicion is not proof. And, you know, I mean, the classic way to assess the likelihood of anything is by considering who benefits from it. Of course, doesn’t mean that person did it. That’s not admissible in court and it shouldn’t be. And it’s not. It’s not proof. You know, I think it’s obvious who has an interest in destroying Lebanon. Well, Israel’s destroyed Lebanon. And with the active cooperation of the…

HADLEY GAMBLE: Lebanese and among local occasions and somewhat of invitation from some of them, 100%.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I’m not in the blame Israel for everything game because it’s not real. It’s like, it’s way more complicated than that. Of course. And you could blame the Shiites and the Sunnis and the, certainly in the 70s and 80s, the Christian flange militias, and they’re the ones who pulled the triggers in sovereign Shatila. Now, the Israelis stood on the ridge and watched. Okay, but the Christians did it. I’m Christian. I’ll say. That’s just true.

Okay, but big picture, there are other countries that have an interest. Iran had, of course, for many years a huge interest there. Russia did to some extent. The Gulf countries did. I mean, everyone has an interest in Lebanon. From the American perspective or from the Christian Western perspective, like, don’t destroy Lebanon. It’s the most beautiful. It’s the greatest, greatest people. I would include the Shiites in that. Everyone hates the Shiites. It’s not my fight, but I’d been there. I’ve been to south Beirut. The whole thing is just great in this ancient country. It’s trees built in first and Second Temple. It’s like everything about it is amazing. It’s God’s country, actually.

And it has been for 3,000, at least 3,000 years that we know of and of course, longer. So just the Levant in general, Syria, Palestine, State of Israel, all of it. It’s a Mediterranean civilization. It’s the birth of our civil. It’s the birthplace of our civilization for Christians, the birthplace of the Savior. For Muslims, it’s the location of one of the three holy sites in the most holy sites in Islam. And for Jews, it’s the center of the universe. And I get it in all three.

So I always feel like, again, as an outsider lives an ocean away, like, don’t destroy the Levant. Of course, it’s the most destroyed place in the world. Drives me crazy. But I would say specifically of Lebanon. It’s the kind of place you go to Beirut and you just immediately start checking real estate listings. I mean, the first time I went there, they were literally dropping bombs on it. I mean, actually I had to be evacuated out of there. I never felt threatened. I remember sitting and eating shrimp on the roof of the Movenpick downtown, as you know, watching the planes, Israeli planes come in and bombing has blown Shiites down in the southern part of the city and feeling sad, of course, for people dying, but also feeling totally safe because they’re Lebanese.

China and Taiwan

HADLEY GAMBLE: Yeah, it’s Lebanon. No, it’s totally true. The lights are on, they’re off. You’re in there. Tell me, China, are they going to take Taiwan and are we going to…

TUCKER CARLSON: Fight them for it? Of course they’re going to take Taiwan.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Matter of time.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course, no wise outside country of any kind would fight them for it. The United States, by the way, I’m not for taking Taiwan. I guess I don’t have strong feelings on it, but in general I’m against any disruptions to the current order just because I like order. And disruption presents the possibility of chaos. So, you know, I’m always anxious about any big change. However, the United States government acknowledges that Taiwan is part of China.

HADLEY GAMBLE: What is the question that we’re not asking?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I mean, the question that we’re not asking the China is what do they want? And the United States is in, its policymakers are in the bad habit of not asking that question of anybody. What do they want? Because it’s considered immaterial. It doesn’t matter. What do you mean, what do they want? Why do we care what they want? And that’s a habit of mind that develops from unchallenged primacy over decades. Like that is the trap of the unipolar world, which no longer exists. But it did exist.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Hubris.

The End of American Primacy

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly. Hubris. And very constricted aperture. Like you just can’t see stuff. And it’s all directed from Washington. I mean, every empire suffers from this to some extent. The Ottomans certainly did. They all do. But just be wiser than that. And now especially the US wanted to remain unchallenged forever. It got like 30 years. That’s a lot actually, for a globalized economy. There have been huge powers before, but there’s never been a unipolar world with a globalized economy.

HADLEY GAMBLE: We had a good run.

TUCKER CARLSON: Extraordinary. And now it’s over. And so the question is, can there be a power sharing agreement between east and West? Maintaining the difference in the economy is the key. You’ve never had a globalized, like a truly globalized economy, interdependent economy before, and now we have one. And so it’s not as simple as, you get the East, I’ll take the West. It’s like we’re dependent on each other through trade. So that is an unprecedented situation. How will it work? And that is the only question that matters. That’s the only question right there.

And I worry about the flexibility. The mindset of my leaders, who I know very well in my country, which, again, I know well, to navigate that is going to require, you know, new ways of thinking. Doesn’t mean you abandon American interest. It means you preserve them through flexibility. But inflexibility means destruction. We won’t survive that. And it’s the kind of thinking that’s like, well, of course Russia can go. The world’s largest country with the deepest resources, can align with our enemy or a rival, and that’s okay. Who thinks that you have to be on drugs to think that. But the previous administration thought that, so stop thinking like that.

We’re going to have to coexist with China. Their economy is larger than ours, so in some sense, they’re more powerful than we are. We’re still very powerful, but how do we both live together in this world?

HADLEY GAMBLE: Does anyone have a vision yet in your mind? Yeah, other than the Chinese…

TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t know what their vision is, but, yeah, there are Americans who understand that. There aren’t a ton, but there are a few. They’re under relentless attack. I can tell you that. And you wonder why. But, yeah, that’s, it’s, just, it’s just that simple. There’s going to be a difficult period, and there will be a readjustment in living standards in the West. I’m warned that I’m sad. I like how. I mean, I am. I’m from the West. I’m not rooting for China, but it’s not up to me. It’s not up to any of us. And so we have to figure out a way. Otherwise, we’re going to live in an era of unrivaled Chinese dominance. And then the question becomes, how compassionate will they be toward us? And you don’t want, you don’t want that.

HADLEY GAMBLE: Tucker, it’s great to have you in Dubai. Thank you so much for joining us.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ll see you next year.

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