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Lex Fridman Podcast

#414 – Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom

Tue, 27 Feb 2024

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Tucker Carlson is a highly-influential political commentator. You can watch and listen to him on the Tucker Carlson Network and the Tucker Carlson Podcast. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - ZipRecruiter: https://ziprecruiter.com/lex - Listening: https://listening.com/lex and use code LEX to get one month free - HiddenLayer: https://hiddenlayer.com/lex - LMNT: https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack - AG1: https://drinkag1.com/lex to get 1 month supply of fish oil Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/tucker-carlson-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Tucker Carlson Network: https://tuckercarlson.com/ Tucker Carlson Podcast: https://tuckercarlson.com/listen/ Tucker's X: https://twitter.com/tuckercarlson Tucker's YouTube: https://youtube.com/@TuckerCarlson Tucker's Instagram: https://instagram.com/tuckercarlson Tucker's Facebook: https://facebook.com/tuckercarlsonTCN/ Vladimir Putin Interview: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (11:58) - Putin (28:13) - Navalny (49:25) - Moscow (1:08:54) - Freedom of speech (1:15:08) - Jon Stewart (1:27:54) - Ending the War in Ukraine (1:37:21) - Nazis (1:45:48) - Putin's health (1:56:52) - Hitler (2:06:17) - Nuclear war (2:24:36) - Trump (2:41:33) - Israel-Palestine (2:47:42) - Xi Jinping (3:01:40) - Advice for young people (3:06:58) - Hope for the future

Audio
Transcription

0.089 - 21.283 Lex Fridman

The following is a conversation with Tucker Carlson, a highly influential and often controversial political commentator. When he was at Fox, Time Magazine called him the most powerful conservative in America. After Fox, he has continued to host big, impactful interviews and shows on X, on the Tucker Carlson podcast, and on TuckerCarlson.com.

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21.844 - 44.596 Lex Fridman

I recommend subscribing, even if you disagree with his views. It is always good to explore a diversity of perspectives. Most recently, he interviewed the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We discussed this, the topic of Russia, Putin, Navalny, and the war in Ukraine at length in this conversation. Please allow me to say a few words about the very fact that I did this interview.

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45.416 - 68.439 Lex Fridman

I have received a lot of criticism, publicly and privately, when I announced that I will be talking with Tucker. For people who think I shouldn't do the conversation with Tucker, or generally think that there are certain people I should never talk to, I'm sorry, but I disagree. I will talk to everyone, as long as they're willing to talk genuinely in long form for two, three, four more hours.

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69.62 - 95.188 Lex Fridman

I will talk to Putin and to Zelensky, to Trump and to Biden, to Tucker and to Jon Stewart, AOC, Obama, and many more people with very different views on the world. I want to understand people and ideas. That's what long-form conversations are supposed to be all about. Now, for people who criticize me for not asking tough questions, I hear you, but again, I disagree.

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95.929 - 112.846 Lex Fridman

I do often ask tough questions, but I try to do it in a way that doesn't shut down the other person, putting them into a defensive state where they give only shallow talking points. Instead, I'm looking always for the expression of genuinely held ideas, and the deep roots of those ideas.

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113.547 - 135.909 Lex Fridman

When done well, this gives us a chance to really hear out the guests and to begin to understand what and how they think. And I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind, to see through the bullshit, to the degree there's bullshit, and to see to the heart of the person. Sometimes I fail at this, but I'll continue working my ass off to improve.

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136.929 - 163.378 Lex Fridman

All that said, I find that this no tough questions criticism often happens when the guest is a person the listener simply hates and wants to see them grilled into embarrassment, called a liar, a greedy egomaniac, a killer, maybe even an evil human being, and so on. If you are such a listener, what you want is drama, not wisdom. In this case, this show is not for you.

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164.038 - 188.787 Lex Fridman

There are many shows you can go to for that, with hosts that are way more charismatic and entertaining than I'll ever be. If you do stick around, please know I will work hard to do this well and to keep improving. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for your support. I love you all. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description.

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189.208 - 210.786 Lex Fridman

It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast. We've got ZipRecruiter for hiring, Listening for, well, listening to academic papers, Hidden Layer for securing your AI models, Element for delicious electrolytes that I'm drinking right now, and AG1 for other kinds of delicious nutrition. Choose wisely, my friends.

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211.506 - 231.114 Lex Fridman

Also, if you want to work with our amazing team or in general, just get in touch with me, please go to lexfriedman.com contact. And now onto the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please do check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too.

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233.012 - 254.961 Lex Fridman

Speaking of hiring, this episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, a site that connects employers and job seekers. So if you're looking to hire, if you're looking to get hired, that's the place to go. I think one of the most important things in life is optimizing, controlling, deciding, figuring out the people you surround yourself with.

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255.941 - 280.553 Lex Fridman

And for those of you, like me, that spend most of their life working and love what they do, but actually, whether you love it or not, if you spend most of your time working, it's really important to choose the place you work correctly. And if you're hiring, it's really important to build the kind of team where everybody really enjoys hanging out with each other.

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281.894 - 304.81 Lex Fridman

I think that's not just for productivity's sake. That's also for the happiness of everybody involved. You know, most of my life I spent working with engineers and scientists, and that's a different kind of breed of people, and I've gotten to know that world, but these days I get to work with creative people, and they're different. They're quite different. I would say it's more complicated.

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305.45 - 326.524 Lex Fridman

I had to learn a lot of difficult lessons the hard way, I would say. But I got to meet a lot of incredible people, a lot of different kinds of incredible. I've gotten to figure out that people can be incredible in all kinds of different ways. That full diversity of incredibleness. It just brings me joy. And you should use the best tools for the job to build that team.

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327.104 - 368.892 Lex Fridman

See why four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Go to ZipRecruiter.com slash Lex to try it for free. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Lex. The smartest way to hire. Thank you. Also for academic papers, that's the way I use it. It skips all the stuff you don't want to read. And that's not a trivial thing to figure out how to do, by the way.

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369.353 - 387.808 Lex Fridman

So they have figured it out. And so you can listen to academic papers. And it pronounces stuff like it's pleasant to listen to. You do have to like really focus your mind, I would say. So I don't like to do it during running, but I like to do it in a bunch of other contexts. Like there's something just more compelling to listening in certain kinds of contexts.

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388.568 - 408.682 Lex Fridman

Sometimes I like printing it out and reading. Sometimes I like listening. Both are really, really good. Anyway, you can also do note-taking. You click the add or whatever it's called, plus note button, and then it automatically grabs the last two or three sentences and then saves them. And you don't need to type anything. It's just really simple. One click.

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410.182 - 432.949 Lex Fridman

And the uploading of the paper or whatever you want to listen to is super simple too. So it's just the whole pipeline is done well. It's easy. I recommend you at least try it. Normally, you would get a two-week free trial, but listeners of this very podcast, you get one month free. So go to listening.com slash Lex. That's listening.com slash Lex.

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434.469 - 458.576 Lex Fridman

This episode is also brought to you by Hidden Layer, a platform that provides security for your artificial intelligence and machine learning models. I'm actually going to have a bunch of conversations in the upcoming weeks and months on artificial intelligence. I think with Gemini, the language model that Google released updated one, 1.5.

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458.616 - 482.682 Lex Fridman

There's been a lot of questions raised about how to do this. Well, how to not allow ideology to seep into the systems you create. There's a lot of really interesting questions. What's the role of open source? What's the role of transparency? All of that. And I'll be sure to talk to Meta, to Google, to XAI, to OpenAI folks, all of it.

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483.102 - 505.046 Lex Fridman

All of those people are incredible in facing this really difficult problem together. in the open, and sometimes they mess it up and they get criticized for it. And it's a beautiful thing. Anyway, AI, as we develop and try to figure out how to do it in a good way, in a way that benefits humanity, is a really, really, really important problem.

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505.486 - 528.965 Lex Fridman

And one of the things you need to do in terms of solving AI safety is how to do it in a way that can't get hacked. And you can get real creative Just like malware for the old school kinds of software, you can get creative on how to hack machine learning models. And that's what Hidden Layer specializes in. Trying to help you, if you're a company, to figure out how to not get your models hacked.

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529.704 - 548.526 Lex Fridman

You can visit hiddenlayer.com slash lex to learn more about how Hidden Layer can accelerate your artificial intelligence adoption in a secure way. By the way, I just like saying AI fully pronounced. It's just fun to say. There you have it. This episode is also brought to you by Element.

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548.886 - 562.203 Lex Fridman

The thing I'm drinking right now, and I have been drinking for a long time, multiple times a day, because it makes me feel good when I'm fasting. For a long time now. For a long time. I don't remember how long, but...

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562.743 - 586.597 Lex Fridman

i've been eating only once a day i think i sometimes make exceptions for that in the social setting so do snacks of all kinds it really doesn't matter so it's not super super strict but it just makes me happy so eating once a day mostly meat very low carb if you want to do that right the fasting or the low carb stuff you really want to make sure you get your electrolytes right sodium potassium magnesium all that kind of stuff so

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586.977 - 609.572 Lex Fridman

Element really helps with that, especially because it's delicious. Also, it helps you drink a lot of water. So I take one of those Powerade bottles. That has how many? Let me see. 28 fluid ounces. Fill it up with water, put it in the fridge so it's cold, and then put one packet of watermelon salt in there and shake it up, and it's ready to go. It's delicious.

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610.173 - 640.732 Lex Fridman

You can get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinkelement.com. This episode is also brought to you by AG1, our old, old friend AG1. It's an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. I suppose it's becoming a meme how much I and other friends of mine are loving AG1. Andrew Huberman, who I love, also loves AG1. I don't know. It's delicious.

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640.932 - 667.643 Lex Fridman

It makes me feel like there's at least something in my life I'm not messing up. So it's a safe place I return to for grounding. So whatever crazy diet stuff I do, whatever crazy mental, physical stuff I do, I know I can at least get my nutrition right. The vitamins and all that kind of stuff, get that right. It's basically a fancy multivitamin. But it's a super awesome multivitamin.

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667.984 - 695.637 Lex Fridman

And it's a delicious one. I don't know what else to say. You should be consuming a multivitamin, and this is the best by far that you can do. But for me, I don't know, in terms of physical and mental health, it really just makes me happy. Maybe it'll make you happy as well. They'll give you a one-month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drinkag1.com. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

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696.017 - 722.689 Lex Fridman

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Tucker Carlson. What was your first impression when you met Vladimir Putin for the interview?

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723.669 - 749.326 Tucker Carlson

I thought he seemed nervous, and I was very surprised by that, and I thought he seemed like someone who'd overthought it a little bit, who had a plan, and I don't think that's the right way to go into any interview. My strong sense, having done a lot of them for a long time, is that it's better to know what you think, to say as much as you can honestly so you don't get confused by your own lies,

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750.446 - 764.531 Tucker Carlson

And just to be yourself. And I thought that he went into it like an overprepared student. And I kept thinking, why is he nervous? But, you know, I guess because he thought a lot of people were going to see it.

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765.231 - 771.873 Lex Fridman

But he was also probably prepared to give you a full lesson in history, as he did.

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772.113 - 785.219 Tucker Carlson

Well, I was totally shocked by that and very annoyed because I thought he was filibustering. I thought he would, I mean, I asked him, as I usually do, the most obvious, dumbest question ever, which is, you know, why'd you do this?

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786.44 - 806.375 Tucker Carlson

And he had said in a speech that I think is worth reading, I don't speak Russian, so I haven't heard it in the original, but he had said at the moment of the beginning of the war, he had given this address to Russians in which he explained to the fullest extent we have seen so far why he was doing this.

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807.432 - 824.453 Tucker Carlson

And he said in that speech, I fear that NATO, the West, the United States, the Biden administration will preemptively attack us. And I thought, well, that's interesting. I mean, I can't evaluate whether that's a fear rooted in reality or one rooted in paranoia. But I thought, well, that's an answer right there.

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825.461 - 846.413 Tucker Carlson

And so I alluded to that in my question, and rather than answering it, he went off on this long, from my perspective, kind of tiresome, sort of greatest hits of Russian history. And the implication, I thought, was, well, Ukraine is ours, or Eastern Ukraine is ours already. And I thought he was doing that to avoid answering the question.

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846.433 - 867.061 Tucker Carlson

So the last thing you want when you're interviewing someone is to get rolled. And I didn't want to be rolled. So I a couple of times interrupted him politely, I thought, but he wasn't having it. And then I thought, you know what? I'm not here to prove that I'm a great interviewer. It's kind of not about me. I want to know who this guy is.

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867.081 - 885.231 Tucker Carlson

I think a Western audience, a global audience has a right to know more about the guy. And so just let him talk. You know, because it's not, you know, I don't feel like my reputation's on the line. People have already drawn conclusions about me, I suppose, to the extent they have. I'm not interested really in those conclusions anyway. So just let them talk.

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885.571 - 897.999 Tucker Carlson

And so I calmed down and just let them talk. And in retrospect, I thought that was really, really interesting. You know, whether you agree with it or not, or whether you think it's relevant to the war in Ukraine or not, that was his answer. And so it's inherently significant.

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898.459 - 900.261 Lex Fridman

Well, you said he was nervous. Were you nervous?

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900.481 - 907.908 Unknown

Were you afraid? This is Vladimir Putin. I wasn't afraid at all. And I wasn't nervous at all. Did you drink tea beforehand?

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908.969 - 930.324 Tucker Carlson

I did my my normal regimen of nicotine pouches and coffee. No, I'm not a tea drinker. I tried not to eat, you know, all the sweets they put in front of us, which is that that is my weakness is eating crap. But you eat a lot of sugar before, as you know, before an interview and it and it does dull you. So I I successfully resisted that. But I know I wasn't nervous.

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930.344 - 931.905 Tucker Carlson

I wasn't nervous the whole time I was there. Why would I be?

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933.291 - 959.493 Tucker Carlson

know i'm 54 my kids are grown i believe in god you know i'm not i'm almost never nervous but um no i wasn't nervous i was just interested i mean i couldn't i you know i'm interested in soviet history i studied it in college i've read about it my entire life my dad you know worked in the cold war it was a constant topic of conversation and so to be in the kremlin in a room where stalin made decisions either wartime decisions or decisions about murdering his own population i just i just couldn't get over it we're in molotov's old office

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960.629 - 983.375 Tucker Carlson

So for me, I was just blown away by that. I thought I knew a lot about Russia. It turns out I knew a lot about the Soviet period, the 1937 purge trials, the famine in Ukraine. I knew a fair amount about that, but I really knew nothing about contemporary Russia, less than I thought I did, it turned out. But yeah, I was just blown away by where we were.

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983.415 - 1003.223 Tucker Carlson

And that's kind of one of the main drivers at this stage in my life. That's why I do what I do is because I'm interested in stuff. And I want to see as much as I can and try and draw conclusions from it to the extent I can. So I was very much caught up in that. But no, I wasn't nervous. I didn't think he was going to kill me or something. And I'm not particularly afraid of that anyway.

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1003.884 - 1004.544 Unknown

Not afraid of dying.

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1005.458 - 1025.582 Tucker Carlson

Not really, no. I mean, again, it's an age and stage in life thing. I mean, I have four children, so there were times when they were little where I was terrified of dying, because if I died, it would have huge consequences. But no, I mean, at this point, I don't want to die. I'm really enjoying my life, but

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1026.903 - 1041.11 Tucker Carlson

I've been with the same girl for 40 years, and I have four children who I'm extremely close to, well, now five, a daughter-in-law, and I love them all. I'm really close to them. I tell them I love them every day. I've had a really interesting life.

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1041.69 - 1048.234 Lex Fridman

What was the goal? Just linger on that. What was the goal for the interview? How were you thinking about it? What would success be like in your head leading into it?

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1048.274 - 1072.508 Tucker Carlson

To bring more information to the public. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I have really strong feelings about... what's happening not just in Ukraine or Russia, but around the world. I think the world is resetting to the grave disadvantage of the United States. I don't think most Americans are aware of that at all. And so that's my view, and I've stated it many times because it's sincere.

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1073.529 - 1084.713 Tucker Carlson

But my goal was to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions about whether this is a good idea.

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1084.733 - 1105.166 Tucker Carlson

I mean, I just, I guess I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective, which is a tiny group of dumb people in Washington has decided to do this for reasons they won't really explain, and you don't have a role in it at all as an American citizen, as the person who's paying for it, whose children might be drafted to fight it, you know, to shut up and obey.

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1105.186 - 1123.918 Tucker Carlson

I just, I just reject that completely. You know, I'm a, I think, I guess I'm a child of a different era. I'm a child of participatory democracy to some extent where your opinion as a citizen is not irrelevant. And, um, so I, I, I'm just, and I guess the level of lying about it was starting to drive me crazy.

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1123.958 - 1145.826 Tucker Carlson

And I've said, and I will say again, I am not an expert on the regional, really any region other than say Western Maine. I just don't, you know, I'm not Russian. And, um, But it was obvious to me that we were being lied to in ways that were just, it was crazy, the scale of the lies. And I'll just give you one example. The idea that Ukraine would inevitably win this war.

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1146.186 - 1162.438 Tucker Carlson

Now, victory was never, as it never is, defined precisely. Nothing's ever defined precisely, which is always a tell that there's deception at the heart of the claim. But Ukraine's on the verge of winning. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm hardly a tactician or a military expert. For the fifth time, I'm not an expert on Russia or Ukraine.

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1163.257 - 1191.2 Tucker Carlson

I just look at Wikipedia, Russia has 100 million more people than Ukraine, 100 million. It has much deeper industrial capacity, war material capacity than all of NATO combined. For example, Russia is turning out artillery shells, which are significant in a ground war, at a ratio of seven to one compared to all NATO countries combined. That's all of Europe.

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1192.648 - 1213.355 Tucker Carlson

Russia is producing seven times the artillery shells as all of Europe combined? What? That's an amazing fact. And it turns out to be a really significant fact. In fact, the significant fact. But if you ask your average person in this country, even a fairly well-informed person of good faith who's just trying to understand what's going on, who's going to win this war? Well, Ukraine's going to win.

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1213.455 - 1223.322 Tucker Carlson

They're on the right side. And they think that because our media, who really just do serve the interests of the US government, period, they are state media in that sense, have told them that for over two years.

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1224.263 - 1246.426 Tucker Carlson

And I was in Hungary last summer talking to the prime minister, Viktor Orban, who's a, you know, whatever you think of him, he's a very smart guy, very smart guy, like smart on a scale that we're not used to in our leaders. And I said to him off camera, so is Ukraine gonna win? And he looked at me like I was deranged, like I was congenitally deficient. Are they gonna win?

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1246.446 - 1256.873 Tucker Carlson

No, of course they can't win. It's tiny compared to Russia. Russia has a wartime economy. Ukraine doesn't really have an economy. Look at the populations. He was like, looked at me like I was stupid.

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1257.814 - 1275.959 Tucker Carlson

And I said to him, you know, I think most Americans believe that because NBC News and CNN and all the news channels, all of them tell them that because it's framed exclusively in moral terms and it's Churchill versus Hitler. And of course, Churchill is going to prevail in the end. And it's just so dishonest that even it doesn't even matter what I want to happen or what I think ought to happen.

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1276.599 - 1285.622 Tucker Carlson

That's a distortion of what is happening. And if I have any job at all, which I sort of don't actually at this point, but if I do have a job, it's to just try to be honest. And that's a lie.

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1285.962 - 1296.852 Lex Fridman

There is a more nuanced discussion about what winning might look like. You're right. A nuanced discussion is not being had, but it is possible for Ukraine to quote unquote win with the help of the United States.

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1297.353 - 1304.378 Tucker Carlson

I guess that conversation needs to begin by defining terms. And the key term is win. What does that mean?

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1304.799 - 1319.688 Lex Fridman

Peace, a ceasefire, who owns which land. Yes. Coming to the table with, as you call the parent, the United States. Yes. Putting leverage on the negotiation to make sure there's a fairness. Amen.

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1320.009 - 1346.697 Tucker Carlson

Well, of course, as a... And I should just restate this. I am not emotionally involved in this. I'm American in every sense. And my only interest is in America. I'm not leaving ever. And so I'm looking at this purely from our perspective. What's good for us? But as a human being, as a Christian, I mean, I hate war. And anybody who doesn't hate war shouldn't have power, in my opinion.

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1346.777 - 1365.949 Tucker Carlson

So I agree with that definition vehemently. A victory is like not killing an entire generation of your population. It's not being completely destroyed to be eaten up by BlackRock or whatever comes next for them. So yeah, we were close to that a year and a half ago.

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1366.469 - 1386.211 Tucker Carlson

And the Biden administration dispatched Boris Johnson, the briefly prime minister of the UK, to stop it and to say to Zelensky, who I feel sorry for, by the way, because he's caught between these forces that are bigger than he is. to say, no, you cannot come to any terms with Russia. And the result of that has not been a Ukrainian victory.

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1386.231 - 1408.93 Tucker Carlson

It's just been more dead Ukrainians and a lot of profit for the West. It's a moral crime in my opinion. And I tried to ask Boris Johnson about it because why wouldn't I after he denounced me as a tool of the Kremlin or something? And he demanded a million dollars to talk to me. And this just happened last week. And by the way, in writing too, I'm not making this up. I'm not making this up.

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1408.95 - 1412.211 Lex Fridman

Just for the record, you demanded a million dollars from me to talk to me today.

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1412.491 - 1415.912 Unknown

I did. And you paid. No, I'm of course kidding.

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1417.113 - 1431.279 Tucker Carlson

And I said to his guy, I said, I just interviewed Putin, who is widely recognized as a bad guy. And he did it for free. He didn't demand a million dollars. He wasn't in this for profit. Like, are you telling me that Boris Johnson is sleazier than Vladimir Putin? And of course, that is the message.

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1432.355 - 1450.652 Tucker Carlson

And so I guess these are really, it's not just about Boris Johnson being a sad, rapacious fraud, which he is, obviously, but it's about the future of the West. And the future of Ukraine, this country that purportedly we care so much about, all these people are dying and like, what is the end game?

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1451.312 - 1467.757 Tucker Carlson

It's also deranged that I didn't imagine and don't imagine that I could like add anything very meaningful to the conversation because I'm not a genius, okay? But I felt like I could at the very least puncture some of the lies and that's an inherent good.

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1468.666 - 1478.948 Lex Fridman

Vladimir Putin, after the interview, said that he wasn't fully satisfied because you weren't aggressive enough. You didn't ask sharp enough questions. First of all, what do you think about him saying that?

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1479.828 - 1480.989 Unknown

I don't even understand it.

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1482.309 - 1504.234 Tucker Carlson

I guess it does seem like the one Putin statement that Western media take at face value. Everything else Putin says is a lie, except his criticism of me, which is true. But, I mean, I have no idea what he meant by that. I can only tell you what... My goal was, as I've suggested, was not to make it about me. I watched, you know, he hasn't done any interviews of any kind for years.

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💬 0

1505.234 - 1527.231 Tucker Carlson

But the last interview he did with an English speaking reporter, Western media reporter, was like many of the other interviews he'd done with Western media reporters. Mike Wallace's son did an interview with him that was of the same variety. And it was all about him. You know, I'm a good person. You're a bad person. And I just feel like that's the most tiresome, fruitless kind of interview.

0
💬 0

1527.471 - 1541.268 Tucker Carlson

It's not about me. I don't think I'm an especially good person. I've definitely never claimed to be. But people can make their own judgments. And again, the only judgments that I care about are my wife and children and God. So I'm just not interested in proving I'm a good person. And I just want to hear from him.

0
💬 0

1542.325 - 1562.684 Tucker Carlson

And I had a lot of, I mean, you should see, I almost never write questions down, but I did in this case because I had months, well, I had three years to think about it as I was trying to book the interview, which I did myself. But they were all, it was all about internal Russian politics and Navalny, and I had a lot of, I thought, really good questions.

0
💬 0

1563.615 - 1582.95 Tucker Carlson

And then at the last second, and you make these decisions, as you know, since you interview people a lot, often you make them on the fly. And I thought, no, I want to talk about the things that haven't been talked about and that I think matter in a world historic sense. And then number one among those, of course, is the war and what it means for the world. And so I stuck to that.

0
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1582.97 - 1599.659 Tucker Carlson

I mean, I could answer that. I did ask about Gershkovich, who I felt sorry for, and I wanted Putin to release him to me, and I was offended that he didn't. I thought his rationale was absurd. Well, we want to trade him for someone. I said, well, doesn't that make him a hostage? You know, which of course it does.

0
💬 0

1600.88 - 1608.463 Tucker Carlson

But other than that, I really wanted to keep it to the things that I think matter most. You know, people can judge whether I did a good job or not, but that was my decision.

0
💬 0

1610.214 - 1617.478 Lex Fridman

In the moment, what was your gut? Did you want to ask some tough questions as follow-ups on certain topics?

0
💬 0

1617.498 - 1637.581 Tucker Carlson

I don't know what it would mean to ask a tough question. Clarifying questions, I suppose they would... I guess. I just wanted him to talk. You know, I just wanted to hear his perspective. Again... I've probably asked more asshole questions than like any living American. You know, I'm, as has been noted correctly, I'm a dick by my nature.

0
💬 0

1637.861 - 1644.664 Tucker Carlson

And so I don't, I just feel at this stage of my life, I didn't need to prove that I could be like, Vladimir Putin answered the question.

0
💬 0

1644.864 - 1645.704 Unknown

Sure, for sure.

0
💬 0

1646.82 - 1664.395 Tucker Carlson

You know, I think if I had been, you know, 34 instead of 54, I definitely would have done that because I would have thought this is really about me and I need to prove myself. No, I just, there's a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale people do not understand. The US dollar is going away.

0
💬 0

1665.276 - 1683.791 Tucker Carlson

That was, of course, inevitable ultimately because everything dies, including currencies. But that death, that process of death has been accelerated exponentially by the behavior of the Biden administration and the US Congress, particularly the sanctions. And people don't understand what the ramifications of that are. The ramifications are poverty in the United States, okay?

0
💬 0

1684.531 - 1692.858 Tucker Carlson

So I just wanted to get to that because I'm coming at this from not a global perspective. I'm coming at it from an American perspective.

0
💬 0

1693.635 - 1704.979 Lex Fridman

So you mentioned Navalny. After you left, Navalny died in prison. What are your thoughts on, just at a high level first, about his death?

0
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1705.599 - 1721.805 Tucker Carlson

It's awful. I mean, imagine dying in prison. You know, I've thought about it a lot. I've known a lot of people in prison, a lot, including some very good friends of mine. So I felt instantly sad about it. From a geopolitical perspective, I don't know any more than that.

0
💬 0

1721.825 - 1740.516 Tucker Carlson

And I laugh at and sort of resent, but mostly find amusing the claims by American politicians who really are the dumbest politicians in the world, actually. you know, this happened and here's what it means. And it's like, actually, as a factual matter, we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened. We have no freaking idea what happened.

0
💬 0

1741.216 - 1761.513 Tucker Carlson

We can say, and I did say, and I will say again, I think, I don't think you should put opposition figures in prison. I really don't. I don't. Period. It happens a lot around the world, happens in this country, as you know, and I'm against all of it. But do we know how we died? Short answer, no, we don't. Now, if I had to guess, I would say,

0
💬 0

1762.901 - 1783.496 Tucker Carlson

Killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding? Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all. You know, I just don't, I don't see it. But maybe, you know, maybe they killed him. I mean, they certainly put him in prison, which I'm against. But here's what I do know is that we don't know.

0
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1784.517 - 1794.156 Tucker Carlson

And so when Chuck Schumer stands up and... Joe Biden reads some card in front of him with lines about Navalny. It's like, I'm allowed to laugh at that because it's absurd. You don't know.

0
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1794.716 - 1808.168 Lex Fridman

There's a lot of interesting ideas about if he was killed, who killed him. Because it could be Putin. It could be somebody in Russia who is not Putin. It could be Ukrainians because it would benefit the war.

0
💬 0

1808.268 - 1811.932 Tucker Carlson

They killed Dugan's daughter in Moscow. So yeah, it's possible.

0
💬 0

1812.452 - 1837.269 Tucker Carlson

and it could be i mean the united states could also be involved i don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes oh wait no we do it a lot and have for 80 years and it's shameful i can say that as an american because it's my money in my name um yeah i'm really offended by that and i never thought that was true and i spent again i'm much older than you and so i spent my my my world view was defined by the cold war

0
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1839.105 - 1858.77 Tucker Carlson

And very much in the house I lived in, in Georgetown, in Washington, DC, that's what we talked about. And the left at the time, I don't know, wacko MIT professor who I never had any respect for, who I know you've interviewed, et cetera. Like the hard left was always saying, well, the United States government is interfering in other elections.

0
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1858.81 - 1882.491 Tucker Carlson

And I just dismissed that completely out of hand as stupid and actually a slander against my country. But it turned out to all be true or substantially true anyway. And that's been a real shock for me in middle age to understand that. But anyway, as to Navalny, look, I don't know. But we should always proceed on the basis of what we do know, which is to say on the basis of truth, knowable truth.

0
💬 0

1883.67 - 1898.597 Tucker Carlson

And if you have an entire policy-making apparatus that is making the biggest decisions on the face of the planet on the basis of things that are bullshit or lies, you're gonna get bad outcomes every time, every time. And that's why we are where we are.

0
💬 0

1899.438 - 1905.481 Lex Fridman

Does it bother you that basically the most famous opposition figure in Russia is sitting in prison?

0
💬 0

1906.361 - 1927.402 Tucker Carlson

Well, of course it does. Of course it bothers me. I mean, it bothered me when I got there. It bothers me now. I was sad when he died. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the measures of, it's one of the basic measures of political freedom. Are you imprisoning people who oppose you? You know, are you imprisoning people who pose a physical risk to you? I mean, there's some subjective...

0
💬 0

1928.905 - 1951.274 Tucker Carlson

decision-making involved in these things. However, big picture, yeah. Do you have opposition leaders in jail? It's not a free, it's not a politically free society, and Russia isn't, obviously. And as I said, a friend of mine from childhood, an American actually, he was a wonderful person, lives in Russia with his Russian, Moscow with his Russian wife, and I had dinner with him.

0
💬 0

1951.774 - 1971.97 Tucker Carlson

He's a very balanced guy, totally non-political person. and speaks Russian and loves his many Russian children and loves the culture, and there's a lot to love. The culture that produced Tolstoy, you know, it's not a gas station with nuclear weapons, sorry. Only a moron would say that. It's a very deep culture. I don't fully understand it, of course, but I admire it. Who wouldn't?

0
💬 0

1972.89 - 1991.45 Tucker Carlson

But I asked him, like, what's it like living here? And he goes, you know, it's great. Moscow is a great city, indisputably. He said, you don't want to get involved in Russian politics. And I said, what? he said, well, you could get hurt. You could wind up like Navalny if you did. Um, but also it's just too complicated. You know, the, the Russian mind is not, is not exactly this.

0
💬 0

1991.49 - 2010.041 Tucker Carlson

It's, it's a Western, it's a European city, but it's not quite European. And, um, the way they think is very, very complex, very complex. It's just, it's too complicated. Just don't get involved. And, I would just say two things. One, uh, I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know.

0
💬 0

2010.562 - 2030.195 Tucker Carlson

But my strong sense is that Navalny's death, whoever did it, probably didn't have a lot to do with the coming election in Russia. My sense from talking to Putin and the people around him is they're not really focused on that. I mean, in fact, I asked one of his top advisors, when's the election? And she looked at me completely confused. She didn't know the date of the election. She's like, March?

0
💬 0

2031.035 - 2051.731 Tucker Carlson

Okay. And I asked a bunch of other people just in Moscow, who's Putin running against? Like, nobody knew. So it's not a real election, right? In the sense that we would recognize at all. Second, I was really struck by so many things in Moscow and really bothered by, deeply bothered by a lot of things that I saw there.

0
💬 0

2053.613 - 2070.143 Tucker Carlson

But one thing I noticed was the total absence of cult of personality propaganda, which I expected to see. and have seen around the world, Jordan, for example, if you've been to Jordan, but go to Jordan in every building, there are pictures of the king and his extended family. And and that's a sign of political insecurity.

0
💬 0

2070.563 - 2089.491 Tucker Carlson

You know, you don't create a cult of personality unless you're personally insecure and also unless you're worried about losing your grip on power. None of that. It's interesting. And I expected to see a lot of it, you know, like statues of Putin. No, no statues of anybody other than like Christian saints. So that was like, I'm not quite sure. I'm just reporting what I saw.

0
💬 0

2090.413 - 2112.509 Tucker Carlson

um so yes it's not a in a political sense it's not a free country it's not a democracy uh in the way that we would understand it or want i don't want to live there okay because i like to say what i think in fact i make my living doing it um but it's not stalinist in a recognizable way and anyone who says it is should go there and tell me how

0
💬 0

2113.73 - 2127.992 Lex Fridman

I mean, this question about the freedom of the press is underlying the very fact of the interview you're having with him. So you might not need to ask the Navalny question, but did you feel like, are there things I shouldn't say?

0
💬 0

2129.161 - 2154.029 Tucker Carlson

I mean, how honest do you want me to be? I mean it when I say I felt not one twinge of concern for the eight days that I was there. Maybe I just didn't, and I feel like I've got a pretty strong gut sense of things. I rely on it, I make all my decisions based on how I feel, my instincts, and I didn't feel it at all. Um, my lawyers before I left, and these are people who work for a big law firm.

0
💬 0

2154.049 - 2171.522 Tucker Carlson

This is not Bob's law firm. This is one of the biggest law firms in the world said, you're going to get arrested if you do this by the U S government on sanctions violations. And I said, well, I, you know, I don't, I don't recognize the legitimacy of that actually, cause I'm American and I've lived here my whole life. And that's so outrageous that I'm happy to face that, uh,

0
💬 0

2172.703 - 2183.938 Tucker Carlson

that risk because I, I so reject the premise. Okay. I'm an American. I should be able to talk to anyone I want to. And I, I plan to exercise that freedom, which I think I was born with. I gave them this long, long lecture.

0
💬 0

2183.958 - 2184.979 Unknown

They were like, we're just lawyers.

0
💬 0

2185.86 - 2202.135 Tucker Carlson

But that was, um, It was, it was, let me put it this way. I don't know how much you dealt with lawyers, but it costs many thousands of dollars to get a conclusion like that. Like they sent a whole bunch of their summer associates or whatever they sent. They put a lot of people on this question, checked a lot of precedent.

0
💬 0

2202.255 - 2221.718 Tucker Carlson

And I think, and they sent me a 10 page memo on it and their sincere conclusion was do not do this. And of course it made me mad, so I was lecturing him on the phone and I had another call with the head lawyer and he said, look, a lot will depend on the questions that you ask Putin. If you're seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested when you come back.

0
💬 0

2222.199 - 2237.148 Tucker Carlson

And I was like, you're describing a fascist country, okay? You're saying that the US government will arrest me if I don't ask the questions they want asked? Is that what you're saying? Well, we just think based on what's happened that that's possible. And so... I'm just telling you what happened.

0
💬 0

2237.168 - 2242.811 Lex Fridman

So you were okay being arrested in Moscow and arrested in- I didn't think for a second.

0
💬 0

2242.831 - 2266.053 Tucker Carlson

I mean, maybe, look, I don't speak Russian. I'd never been there before. Everything about the culture was brand new to me. Ignorance does protect you sort of when you have no freaking idea what's going on. You're not worried about it. This has happened to me many times. There's a principle there that extends throughout life. So it's completely possible that I was in grave peril and didn't know it.

0
💬 0

2266.073 - 2282.922 Tucker Carlson

Because like, how would I know it? You know, I'm like a bumbling English speaker from California. But I didn't feel it at all. But the lawyers did. Yeah, I mean, it scared the crap out of people. You're going to look and you have to pay in cash. They don't take credit cards because of sanctions.

0
💬 0

2282.962 - 2298.036 Tucker Carlson

And you have to go through all these hoops, just procedural hoops to go to Russia, which I was willing to do because I wanted to interview Putin because they told me I couldn't. But then there's another fact. Which is that I was being surveilled by the U.S. government, intensely surveilled by the U.S. government.

0
💬 0

2298.256 - 2316.934 Tucker Carlson

And this came out, they admitted it, the NSA admitted it a couple of years ago that they were up in my Signal account. And then they leaked it to the New York Times. They did that again before I left. And I know that because two New York Times reporters, one of whom I actually like a lot, uh, said, oh, you're going, and called other people, oh, he's going to interview Putin.

0
💬 0

2316.954 - 2337.802 Tucker Carlson

I hadn't told anybody that, like anybody, like my wife, two producers, that's it. So they got that from the government. Then I'm over there, and of course I want to see Snowden, who I admire. And so we have a mutual friend, so I got his text and come on over, and Snowden does not want publicity at all. And so, but I really wanted to have dinner with him.

0
💬 0

2338.282 - 2360.316 Tucker Carlson

So we had dinner in my hotel room at the Four Seasons in Moscow. And I tried to convince him, you know, I'd love to do an interview, shoot it on my iPhone. You know, I'd love to take a picture together and put it on the internet because I just want to show support because I think he's been railroaded. He had no interest in living in Russia, no intention of being in Russia. The whole thing is a lie.

0
💬 0

2360.336 - 2381.579 Tucker Carlson

But anyway, whatever, all this stuff. And he just said, respectfully, I'd rather not anyone know that we met. Great. The only reason I'm telling you this is because, and I didn't tell anybody and I didn't text it to anybody, okay, except him. Semaphore, Semaphore runs this piece saying,

0
💬 0

2382.788 - 2401.529 Tucker Carlson

reporting information they got from the US intel agencies leaking against me using my money and my name in a supposedly free country. They run this piece saying I'd met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something. So again, my interest is in the United States and preserving freedoms here, the ones that I grew up with,

0
💬 0

2402.25 - 2422.013 Tucker Carlson

And if you have a media establishment that acts as an auxiliary of or acts as employees of the national security state, you don't have a free country. And that's where we are. And I'm not guessing because I spent my entire life in that world. 33 years I worked in big news companies. And so I know how it works. I know the people involved in it. I could name them.

0
💬 0

2422.814 - 2443 Tucker Carlson

Ben Smith of Semaphore, among many others. And I find that really objectionable, not just on principle either, in effect, in practice. I don't want to live in that kind of country. And people are like, they externalize all of their anxiety about this, I have noticed. So it's like, Russia's not free. Yeah, I know. You know, neither is Burkina Faso.

0
💬 0

2443.02 - 2461.587 Tucker Carlson

Like most countries aren't free actually, but we are. We're the United States, we're different. And that's my concern. Preserving that is my concern. And so they get so exercised about what's happening in other parts of the world, places they've never been, know nothing about. It's almost a way of ignoring what's happening in their own country right around them.

0
💬 0

2461.847 - 2465.51 Tucker Carlson

I find it so strange and sad and weird.

0
💬 0

2466.03 - 2471.574 Lex Fridman

So the NSA was tracking you? Do you think CIA was? Are people still tracking you?

0
💬 0

2471.954 - 2492.069 Tucker Carlson

look one of the things i did before i went um just because the business i'm in all of us are in and just because we live here you know we all have theories about secure communications channels like signal is secure telegraph isn't or whatsapp is owned by mark zuckerberg you can't trust okay so i thought you know before i go over here i was getting all this

0
💬 0

2493.578 - 2514.124 Tucker Carlson

We're having all these conversations, my producers and I, about this. And I decide, you know, I'm just gonna actually find out what's really going on. So I talked to two people who would know, trust me. And it's all I can say, and I hate to be like, oh, I talked to people who would know, but I can't say who they are, but I mean it. They would know.

0
💬 0

2515.005 - 2534.759 Tucker Carlson

And both of them said exactly the same thing, which is, are you joking? Nothing is secure. Everything is monitored all the time, if state actors are involved. I mean, you can keep the, you know, whatever, the Malaysian mafia from reading your text, probably. You cannot keep the big intel services from reading your text. It's not possible, any of them, or listening to your calls.

0
💬 0

2535.78 - 2557.381 Tucker Carlson

So, and that was the firm conclusion of people who've been involved in it, you know, for a long time, decades, both, in both cases. So I just thought, you know what? I don't care. I don't care. I'm not sending a ton of naked pictures of myself to anybody. Not a ton, just a little bit. 54, dude, probably not too many.

0
💬 0

2558.482 - 2585.179 Tucker Carlson

So the guys travel with three people I work with who I love, who I've been around the world with for many years and I know them really, really well. And they all got separate phones and I'm leaving my other phone back in New York or whatever. And I just decided I don't care actually. And I resent having no privacy. Um, because privacy is a prerequisite for freedom. Um, but I can't change it.

0
💬 0

2585.34 - 2611.279 Tucker Carlson

And so I have the same surveilled cell phone and, you know, I do switch them out because there it is. Uh, because if you have too much spyware on your phone, this is true. It wrecks the battery. And no, I'm serious. It does. And we got... It was, I don't know, five or six years ago, I went to North Korea, and my phone started acting crazy.

0
💬 0

2611.399 - 2626.124 Tucker Carlson

And so I talked to someone on the National Security Council who actually called me about this, somehow knew that your phone is being surveilled by the South Korean government. I was like, I like the South Korean government. Why would they do that? Because they want more information. They thought I was talking to Trump or whatever.

0
💬 0

2627.984 - 2635.047 Tucker Carlson

But I could tell because all of a sudden, the thing would just drain in like 45 minutes. So that is... That's the downside.

0
💬 0

2636.248 - 2639.452 Lex Fridman

So you keep switching phones, getting new phones for the battery life.

0
💬 0

2640.052 - 2649.683 Tucker Carlson

Yeah, I mean, I try not to do it. You know, I'm kind of flinty Yankee type in some ways. So I don't I don't like to spend a thousand dollars with a freaking Apple corporation too often. But yeah, I do.

0
💬 0

2649.923 - 2655.269 Lex Fridman

I mean, you say it lightly, but it's really troublesome that you as a journalist would be tracked.

0
💬 0

2655.523 - 2676.577 Tucker Carlson

Well, they leaked it to Semaphore and they leaked it to the New York Times. Look, I would even put up, well, there's nothing I can do, so I have to put up with everything, okay? But I would probably not be actively angry about being surveilled because I'm just so old and I actually do pay my taxes. I'm not sleeping with the makeup artist or whatever. So I don't care that much.

0
💬 0

2676.877 - 2701.569 Tucker Carlson

The fact that they are leaking against me, that the Intel services in the United States are actively engaged in US politics and media, that's so unacceptable. That makes democracy impossible. There's no defense of that. And yet NBC News, Kandalinian, and the rest will defend it. And it's like, and not just on NBC News, by the way, on the supposedly conservative channels too, they will defend it.

0
💬 0

2701.709 - 2710.591 Tucker Carlson

And there's no defending that. You can't have democracy if the intel services are tampering in elections and information, period.

0
💬 0

2711.488 - 2716.311 Lex Fridman

So you had no fear. Your lawyer said, be careful which questions you asked.

0
💬 0

2716.931 - 2738.009 Tucker Carlson

You said, I don't have- Well, the lawyer said, no, he said very specifically, depending on the questions you ask Putin, you know, you could be arrested or not. And I said, listen to what you're saying. You're saying the U.S. government has, like, control over my questions and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question? Like, how are we better than Putin if that's true?

0
💬 0

2738.269 - 2747.333 Tucker Carlson

And by the way, that's just what the lawyer said, but I can't overstate One of the biggest law firms in the United States, smart lawyers we've used for years. So I was really shocked by it.

0
💬 0

2748.234 - 2750.836 Lex Fridman

You said leaders kill, leaders lie. Yeah.

0
💬 0

2750.976 - 2771.372 Tucker Carlson

I don't believe in leaders very much. Like this whole like, oh, Zelensky's Jesus and Putin's Satan. It's like, no, they're all leaders of countries, okay? Like grow up a little bit, you child. Have you ever met a leader? Like all of the... First of all, anyone who seeks power... is damaged morally, in my opinion. You shouldn't be seeking power.

0
💬 0

2771.392 - 2794.011 Tucker Carlson

You can't seek power or wealth for its own sake and remain a decent person. That's just true. So there aren't any like really virtuous billionaires and there aren't any really virtuous world leaders. You have grades of virtue. Some are better than others, for sure. But I mean, in other words, Zelensky may be better than Putin. I'm open to that possibility.

0
💬 0

2795.312 - 2807.118 Tucker Carlson

But to claim that one is evil and the other is virtuous, it's like you're revealing that you're a child. You don't know anything about how the world actually is or what reality is.

0
💬 0

2808.479 - 2811.461 Lex Fridman

That's quite a realist perspective, but there is a spectrum.

0
💬 0

2811.769 - 2814.291 Tucker Carlson

There's a spectrum. Absolutely. I'm not saying they're all the same. They're not.

0
💬 0

2814.531 - 2824.978 Lex Fridman

And our task is to figure out where on the spectrum they lie. And the leader's task is to confuse us and convince us they're one of the good guys. Of course.

0
💬 0

2825.538 - 2842.965 Tucker Carlson

But I actually reject even that formulation. I don't think it's always about the leaders. I mean, of course, the leaders make the difference. A good leader has a healthy country and a bad leader has a decaying country, which is something to think about. But it's about the ideas and the policies and the practical effect of things.

0
💬 0

2843.165 - 2863.409 Tucker Carlson

So we're very much caught up in the personalities of various leaders, not just our political leaders, but our business leaders, our cultural leaders. Are they good people? Do they have the right thoughts? It's like, no, I ask a much more basic question. What are the fruits of their behavior? And I always make it personal because I think everything is personal. Does his wife respect him?

0
💬 0

2864.312 - 2885.157 Tucker Carlson

Do his children respect him? How are they doing? Is the country he runs thriving or is it falling apart? If your life expectancy is going down, if your suicide rate is going up, if your standard of living is tanking, you're not a good leader. I don't care what you tell me. I don't care what you claim you represent. I don't care about the ideas or the systems that you say you embody.

0
💬 0

2885.717 - 2903.53 Tucker Carlson

It's dogs barking to me. How's your life expectancy? How's your suicide rate? What's drug use like? Are people having children? Are people's children more likely to live in a freer, more prosperous society than you did and their grandparents did? Those are the only measures that matter to me. The rest is a lie.

0
💬 0

2904.311 - 2918.304 Tucker Carlson

But anyway, the point is, we just get so obsessed with the theater around people, or people, and we miss the bigger things that are happening, and we allow ourselves to be

0
💬 0

2919.691 - 2936.886 Tucker Carlson

deceived into thinking that what doesn't matter at all matters that moral victories are all that matters no actually facts on the ground victories matter more than anything i mean you certainly see it in this country black lives matter for example how many black people did that help It hurt a lot of black people, but in the end, we should be able to measure it.

0
💬 0

2937.266 - 2959.711 Tucker Carlson

You know, like how many black people have died by gunfire in the four years since George Floyd died? Well, the number's gone way, way up. And that was a Black Lives Matter operation, defund the police. So I think we can say, as a factual matter, a data-based... matter. Black Lives Matter didn't help black people. And if it did tell me how, well, these are important moral victories. I'm over that.

0
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2960.191 - 2983.401 Tucker Carlson

That's just another lie, you know, a long litany of lies. So I try to see the rest of the world that way. And, but more than anything, I try to see world events through the lens of an American because I am one. And what does this mean for us? And it's not even the war, it's the sanctions. that will forever change the United States, our standard of living, the way our government operates.

0
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2983.761 - 3009.196 Tucker Carlson

That, more than any single thing in my lifetime, screwed the United States. Levying those sanctions in the way that we did was crazy. And that was, for me, the main takeaway from my eight days in Moscow was not Putin. He's a leader, whatever. None of them are that different, actually, in my pretty extensive experience. No, it was Moscow. That blew my mind. I was not prepared for that at all.

0
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3009.937 - 3028.999 Tucker Carlson

And I thought I knew a lot about Moscow. My dad worked there on and off in the 80s and 90s because he was a U.S. government employee and he was always coming back to Moscow. It's a nightmare and all this stuff, no electricity. I got there almost exactly two years after sanctions, totally cut off from Western financial systems, kicked out of SWIFT, can't use US dollars, no banking, no credit cards.

0
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3030.3 - 3051.912 Tucker Carlson

And that city, just factually, I'm not endorsing the system. I'm not endorsing the whole country. I didn't go to Lake Baikal. I didn't go to Turkmenistan. I just went to Moscow, largest city in Europe, 13 million people. I drove all around it. And that city is way nicer outwardly anyway. I don't live there. than any city we have by a lot.

0
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3052.272 - 3078.202 Tucker Carlson

And by nicer, let me be specific, no graffiti, no homeless, no people using drugs in the street, totally tidy, no garbage on the ground, and no forest of steel and concrete soul-destroying buildings, none of the postmodern architecture that oppresses us without even our knowledge, none of that crap. It's a truly beautiful city. And that's not an endorsement of Putin.

0
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3079.122 - 3092.285 Tucker Carlson

And by the way, it didn't make me love Putin. It made me hate my own leaders because I grew up in a country that had cities kind of like that, that were nice cities, that were safe. And we don't have that anymore. And how did that happen? Did Putin do that? I don't think Putin did that actually.

0
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3092.706 - 3097.867 Tucker Carlson

I think the people in charge of that, the mayors, the governors, the president, they did that and they should be held accountable for it.

0
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3098.567 - 3105.969 Lex Fridman

So I think cleanliness and architectural design is not the entirety of the metrics that matter when you measure a city.

0
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3106.581 - 3133.885 Tucker Carlson

They're the main metrics that matter. They're the main metrics that matter. The main metrics that matter are cleanliness, safety, and beauty, in my opinion. And one of the big lies that we are told in our world is that no, something you can't measure that has no actual effect on your life matters most. Bullshit. What matters most, to say it again, beauty, safety, cleanliness.

0
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3134.806 - 3153.295 Tucker Carlson

Lots of other things matter too. A whole bunch of things matter. But if I were to put them in order, it's not some theoretical, well, actually, I don't know if you know that the Duma has no power. Okay, I get that. Freedom of speech matters enormously to me. They have less freedom of speech in Russia than we do in the United States. We are superior to them in that way.

0
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3154.437 - 3176.697 Tucker Carlson

But you can't tell me that living in a city where, you know, your six year old daughter can walk to the bus stop and ride on a clean bus or ride in a beautiful subway car that's on time and not get assaulted. That doesn't matter. No, that matters almost more than anything, actually. And we can have both. And like the normal regime defenders and morons, Jon Stewart or whatever he's calling himself.

0
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3177.478 - 3194.141 Tucker Carlson

They're like, well, that's the price of freedom. Like people shitting on the sidewalk is the price of freedom. It's like, you can't fool me because I've lived here for 54 years. I know that it's not the price of freedom because I lived in a country that was both free and clean and orderly. So that's not a trade-off I think I have to make.

0
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3195.417 - 3214.77 Tucker Carlson

You can't, that is the beauty of being a little bit older because you're like, no, I remember that actually. It wasn't what you're saying. We didn't have racial segregation in 1985. It was a really nice country that kind of respected itself. I was here. And I think with younger people, you can tell them that and they're like, well, 1985, you were selling slaves in Madison Square Garden.

0
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3214.79 - 3219.894 Tucker Carlson

It's like, no, they weren't. You're going to Madison Square Garden and not stepping over a single fentanyl addict.

0
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3220.569 - 3237.891 Lex Fridman

It is true, there doesn't have to be a trade-off between cleanliness and freedom of speech. But it is also true that in dictatorships, cleanliness and architectural design is easier to achieve and perfect and often is done so, so you can show off, look how great our cities are.

0
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3238.491 - 3254.205 Tucker Carlson

while you're suppressing- Of course, of course. I agree with that vehemently. This is not a defense of the Russian system at all. And if I felt that way, I would not only move there, but I would announce I was moving there. I'm not ashamed of my views. I never have been.

0
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3254.906 - 3265.415 Tucker Carlson

And for all the people who are trying to impute secret motives to my words, I'm like the one person in America you don't need to do that with. If you think I'm a racist, ask me and I'll tell you. Are you a racist? Of course.

0
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3265.955 - 3267.676 Unknown

No, I am a sexist, though.

0
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3268.376 - 3292.902 Tucker Carlson

Anyway, no, but if I was like a defender of Vladimir Putin, I would just say I'm defending Vladimir Putin now. I'm not. I am attacking our leaders and I'm grieving over the low expectations of our people. You don't need to put up with this. You don't need to put up with foreign invaders stealing from you. occupying your kid's school.

0
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3292.922 - 3313.072 Tucker Carlson

Your kids can't get an education because people from foreign countries broke our laws and showed up here and they've taken over the school. That's not a feature of freedom, actually. That's the opposite. That's what enslavement looks like. And so I'm just saying, raise your expectations a little bit. You can have a clean, functional, safe country. Crime is totally optional.

0
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3313.292 - 3332.063 Tucker Carlson

Crime is something our leaders decide to have or not have. It's not something that just appears organically. I wrote a book about crime 30 years ago. I thought a lot about this. You have as much crime as you put up with, period. And it doesn't make you less free to not tolerate murder. In fact, it makes you unfree to have a lot of murders.

0
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3334.192 - 3355.744 Tucker Carlson

And so I just but it makes me sad that people like, well, you know, I guess this is I can't like live in New York City anymore because of inflation and filth and illegal aliens and people shooting each other. But, you know, I'm just I'm glad because this is vibrant and strong and free. It's like that's not freedom, actually, at all.

0
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3356.084 - 3372.102 Lex Fridman

Your point is well taken. You can have both. But do you regret... We had both. That's the point. We had both. I saw it. Do you regret to a degree using the Moscow subway and the grocery store as a mechanism by which to make that point? No.

0
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3372.663 - 3396.035 Tucker Carlson

I mean, I thought... I mean, look... I'm one of the more unselfaware people you will ever interview. So to ask me, you know, how will this be perceived? I literally have no idea and kind of limited interest, but I was so shocked by it. I was so shocked by it.

0
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3396.235 - 3417.046 Tucker Carlson

And there were two, and to the extent I regret anything and am to blame for anything, it would be not, and I've done this a lot, not giving it context, not fully explaining why are we doing this, The grocery store, I was shocked by the prices. And yes, I'm familiar with exchange rates, but very familiar with exchange rates. And I adjusted them for exchange rates.

0
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3417.486 - 3438.499 Tucker Carlson

And this is two years into sanctions, total isolation from the West. So I would expect, in fact, I did expect until I got there that their supply chains would be crushed. How do you get good stuff if you don't have access to Western markets? And I didn't fully get the answer because I was occupied doing other things when I was there, but somehow they have. And that's the point.

0
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3439.28 - 3459.118 Tucker Carlson

And they haven't had the supply chains problems that I predicted. In other words, sanctions haven't made the country noticeably worse. Okay. So again, this is commentary of the United States and our policymakers. Why are we doing this? It's forcing the rest of the world into a block against us called BRICS. They're getting off the US dollar.

0
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3459.258 - 3480.669 Tucker Carlson

That will mean a lot of dollars are going to come back here and destroy our economy and impoverish this country. So the consequences, the stakes are really high. They're huge. And we're not even hurting Russia. It's like, what the hell are we doing? One, on the subway, that subway was built by Joseph Stalin. Right before the Second World War. I'm not endorsing Stalin, obviously.

0
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3481.349 - 3502.123 Tucker Carlson

Stalinism is a thing that I hate, and I don't want to come to my country. I'm making the obvious point that for over 80 years, you've had these frescoes and chandeliers, maybe they've been redone or whatever, but somehow the society has been able to not destroy what its ancestors built, the things that are worth having, and they're a lot. And that, like why don't we have that?

0
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3502.944 - 3524.408 Tucker Carlson

And even on a much more terrestrial plane, like why can't I have a subway station like that? Why can't my children who live in New York City ride the subway? A lot of people I know who live in New York City are afraid to ride the subway, young women especially. That's freedom? No, again, it's slavery. And how can, if Putin can do this, why can't we? Like what?

0
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3524.909 - 3542.435 Tucker Carlson

It's not, in other words, I mean, this is like so obvious. I'm a traitor? Okay, so if I'm calling for American citizens to demand more from their government and higher standards for their own society, and remember that just 30 years ago, we had a much different and much happier and cleaner and healthier society,

0
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3543.295 - 3564.518 Tucker Carlson

where everyone wasn't fat with diabetes at 40 from poisoned food like how is that i'm not a traitor to my country i'm a defender of my country by the way the people calling me a traitor they're all like you know whatever uh they're not i i would not say they're people who put america's interest first but there's many elements like you said you don't like stalinism

0
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3565.882 - 3592.728 Lex Fridman

you're a student of history, central planning is good at building subways in a way that's really nice. The thing that accounts for New York subways, by the way, there's a lot of really positive things about New York subways, not cleanliness, but the efficiency, the accessibility, how wide it spreads. The New York network is incredible. But Moscow, under different metrics,

0
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3594.668 - 3600.477 Lex Fridman

results of a capitalist system? And you actually said that you don't think US is quite a capitalist system, which is an interesting question in itself.

0
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3601.209 - 3618.398 Tucker Carlson

We have more central planning here than they do in Russia. No, that's not true. Of course it is. You think that's true? The climate agenda? Of course. They're telling the US government has in league with a couple of big companies decided to change the way we produce and consume energy. There's no popular outcry for that.

0
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3618.658 - 3632.566 Tucker Carlson

There's never been any mass movement of Americans who's like, I hate my gasoline powered engine. No more diesel. That has been central planning. That is central planning. and you see it up and down our economy, there's no free market in the United States. You get crossways with the government, you're done.

0
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3653.487 - 3677.199 Tucker Carlson

Google's a monopoly by any definition, and Google is just rich enough to continue doing whatever it wants in violation of US law. So there's no monopoly in Russia as big as Google. I'm not, again, defending the Russian system. I'm calling for a return to our old system, which was sensible and moderate and put the needs of Americans at least somewhere in the top 10. Somewhere in the top 10.

0
💬 0

3677.479 - 3695.773 Tucker Carlson

I'm not saying that Standard Oil was interested in the welfare of average Americans, but I am saying that there was... a constituency in our political system, in the Congress, for example, different presidential candidates are like, no, wait a second. What is this doing to people? Is it good for people or not? There's not even a conversation about that. It's like, shut up and submit to AI.

0
💬 0

3696.714 - 3699.436 Tucker Carlson

And no offense. And so I'm just- Offense taken.

0
💬 0

3699.456 - 3703.158 Lex Fridman

I'm just- We will get you.

0
💬 0

3703.379 - 3708.162 Tucker Carlson

Yeah. When it's strong enough. I have no doubt. You'll be the first one to go. Well, as a white man, I just won't even exist anymore, so.

0
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3708.462 - 3709.583 Lex Fridman

So much to say on that one.

0
💬 0

3709.743 - 3713.406 Tucker Carlson

I bet when you Google my picture, 20 years from now, I'll be a black chick.

0
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3716.264 - 3718.025 Lex Fridman

Well, I hope she's attractive.

0
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3718.086 - 3718.726 Tucker Carlson

I hope so, too.

0
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3718.886 - 3739.984 Lex Fridman

It'd probably be an upgrade. So, well, the central planning point is really interesting, but I just don't... I don't know where you're coming from. There's a capitalist system... I mean, the United States is one of the most successful capitalist system in the history of Earth. So just say- What's the most successful?

0
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3740.144 - 3757.202 Tucker Carlson

I'm just saying that I think it's changed a lot in the last 15 years and that we need to update our assumptions about what we're seeing. Sure. And that's true up and down. That's true with everything. It's true with your neighbor's children who you haven't seen in three years and they come home from Wesleyan and you're like, oh, you've grown. That is true for the world around us as well.

0
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3757.563 - 3777.051 Tucker Carlson

And most of our assumptions about immigration, about our economy, about our tax system are completely outdated. if you compare them to the current reality. And so I'm just for updating my files. And I have a big advantage over you because I am middle-aged. And so I don't... You've called yourself old so many times throughout the summer. I don't trust my perceptions of things.

0
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3777.071 - 3800.327 Tucker Carlson

So I'm constantly trying to be like, is that true? I should go there. You know, I should see it. And I guess just in the end, I trust... I trust direct perceptions. Like I don't trust the internet actually. Wikipedia is a joke. Wikipedia could not be more dishonest. It's certainly in the political categories are things that I know a lot about.

0
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3800.488 - 3817.668 Tucker Carlson

Occasionally I read an entry written about something that I saw or know the people involved. And I'm like, well, that's a complete liar. You left out the most important fact. And it's like, it's not a reliable guide to reality or history. And that will accelerate with AI where history or perception of the past is completely controlled and distorted.

0
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3818.608 - 3831.376 Tucker Carlson

So I think just getting out there and seeing stuff and seeing that Moscow was not what I thought it would be, which was a smoldering ruin, you know, rats in a garbage dump, it was nicer than New York. What the hell?

0
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3831.556 - 3841.882 Lex Fridman

Direct data is good, but it's challenging. For example, if you talk to a lot of people in Moscow or in Russia and you ask them, is there censorship? They will usually say, yes, there is.

0
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3841.902 - 3866.881 Tucker Carlson

Oh yeah, of course there is. I agree. Yeah. I mean, just to be clear, I'm not... I have no plans to move to Russia. I think I would probably be arrested if I moved to Russia. Ed Snowden, who is the most famous sort of openness, transparency advocate in the world, I would say, along with Assange, doesn't want to live in Russia. He's had problems with the Putin government. He's attacked Putin.

0
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3866.941 - 3889.112 Tucker Carlson

They don't like it. I mean, I get it. I get it. I'm just saying... What are the lessons for us? And the main lesson is we are being lied to like in a way that's bewildering and very upsetting. I was mad about it all eight days I was there because I feel like I'm better informed than most people because it's my job to be informed and I'm skeptical of everything.

0
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3889.592 - 3906.544 Tucker Carlson

And yet I was completely hoodwinked by it. I would just recommend to everyone watching this, like you think, you know, like if you're really interested, if you're one of those people and I'm not one, but it was like waking up every day and you've got a Ukrainian flag on your mailbox or whatever, your Ukrainian lapel pin or absurd theater.

0
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3907.165 - 3924.955 Tucker Carlson

But if you like sincerely care about Ukraine or Russia or whatever, Why don't you just hop on a plane for 800 bucks and go see it? Okay? That doesn't occur to anyone to do that. And I know it's time consuming and kind of expensive, sort of, not really. But you benefit so much. I mean, I could bore you for like eight hours.

0
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3925.919 - 3939.252 Tucker Carlson

And I know you've had this experience where you think you know what something is or you think you know who someone is. And then you have direct experience of that place or person and you realize all your preconceptions were totally wrong. They were controlled by somebody else.

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3940.053 - 3952.285 Tucker Carlson

In fact, I won't betray confidence, but off the air, we're talking about somebody and you said, I couldn't believe the person was not at all like what I thought. Mm-hmm. That's happened to me- In the positive direction. In the positive direction. By the way, for me, it's almost always in that direction.

0
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3952.845 - 3967.197 Tucker Carlson

Most people I meet, and I've had the great privilege of meeting a lot of people over all this time, they're way better than you think, or they're more complicated or whatever. But the point is, a direct experience unmediated by liars

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3968.103 - 3989.832 Lex Fridman

There's no substitute for that. Well, on that point, direct experience in Ukraine. So I visited Ukraine and witnessed a lot of the same things you witnessed in Moscow. So first of all, beautiful architecture. Yes. And this is a country that's really in war. So it's not- Oh, for real? Like for real, where most of the men are either volunteering or fighting in the war.

0
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3989.892 - 4014.391 Lex Fridman

And there's actual tanks in the streets that are going into your major city of Kiev. And still the supply chains- are working just a handful of months after the start of the war. Everything is working. The restaurants are amazing. Most of the people are able to do some kind of job, like the life goes on. Cleanliness, like you mentioned.

0
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4014.632 - 4015.132 Unknown

I love that.

0
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4015.152 - 4036.69 Lex Fridman

Security, like, it's incredible. Like, the crime went to zero. They gave all guns to everybody, the Texas strategy. It does work. Yeah, when you witness it, you realize, okay, there's something to these people. There's something to this country that they're not as corrupt as you might hear. Right. You hear that Russia's corrupt, Ukraine is corrupt. You assume it's just all going to go to shit.

0
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4036.711 - 4049.603 Tucker Carlson

Well, so that's been, and I haven't been to Ukraine, and I've certainly tried, and they put me on some... kill him immediately list. So I can't, I've tried to interview Zelensky. He keeps denouncing me. I just want an interview with him. He won't. Unfortunately, I would love to do it. I hope you do. I do too.

0
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4050.003 - 4059.132 Tucker Carlson

But one of the things that bothers me most, I love to hear that, what you just said about Kiv, but I'm not really surprised. One of the things that I'm most ashamed of

0
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4060.465 - 4077.232 Tucker Carlson

is the bigotry that I felt towards Slavic people, also toward Muslims, I'll just be totally honest, because I lived through decades of propaganda from NBC News and CNN where I worked, you know, about this or that group of people and they're horrible or whatever. And then you wind, and I kind of believed it.

0
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4077.673 - 4094.663 Tucker Carlson

And I see it now, like, we can't even put the word Russia at Wimbledon because it's so offensive. Well, what does the tennis player have to do with it? Did he invade Ukraine? I don't think he did. Stealing all these business guys' yachts and denouncing them as oligarchs, what do they have to do with it? Whatever. Here's my point.

0
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4094.903 - 4116.496 Tucker Carlson

The idea that a whole group of people is just evil because of their blood, I just don't believe that. I think it's immoral to think that. And I can just tell you my own experience after eight days there. I think it's a really interesting culture, Slavic culture, which is shared, by the way, by Russia and Ukraine. Of course, they're first cousins at the most distant.

0
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4116.696 - 4133.706 Tucker Carlson

And I found them really smart and interesting and informed. I didn't understand a lot of what they're saying. I don't understand the way their minds work because I'm American. But it wasn't a thin culture. It's a thick culture. You know, and I admire that. And I wish I could go to Ukraine. I would go tomorrow.

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4134.586 - 4155.832 Lex Fridman

So I think after you did the interview with Putin, you put a clip, I think on TCN, where like your sort of analysis afterwards. Yeah, it wasn't much of an analysis. No, but what stood out to me is you were kind of talking shit about Putin a little bit. Like you were criticizing him. Why wouldn't I? It spoke to the thing that you mentioned, which is you weren't afraid.

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4156.892 - 4171.365 Lex Fridman

Now, the question I want to ask is, it would be pretty badass if you went to the supermarket and made the point you were making, but also criticized Putin, right? Criticized that there is a lack of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the supermarket? Yes.

0
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4171.665 - 4195.479 Tucker Carlson

Oh, you mean if I also said that? Well, yeah. I mean, of course I think that. I'm not... So, I guess... Part of it is that I'm a little, because I have such a low opinion of the commentariat in the United States and the news organizations, which really do just work for the U.S. government, I mean, I really see them as I did Izvestia and Pravda in the 80s.

0
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4195.54 - 4212.272 Tucker Carlson

Like, they're just organs of the government, and I think they're contemptible. And I think the people who work there are contemptible, and I say that as someone who knows them really well personally. I think they're disgusting. That I'm a little bit cut off, kind of, from what people are saying about me, because I'm not interested. So I try not to be defensive. Like, see, I'm not a tool of Putin.

0
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4213.053 - 4237.073 Tucker Carlson

But the idea that I'd be flacking for Putin when, you know, my relatives fought in the Revolutionary War. Like, I'm as American as you could be. It's like crazy to me. Ann Applebaum calls me a traitor to my, okay, right. It's just like so dumb. But no, of course they don't have no country has freedom of speech other than us. Canada doesn't have it. Great Britain definitely doesn't have it.

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